Top Law Schools

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On the one hand, what you've experienced to date is nothing like what you'll be doing as a lawyer. On the other hand, what you're doing in school and over the summer is as easy and interesting as it gets for a while.

Your attitude here doesn't indicate you'll have the patience for law - even the exciting stuff is preceded and followed by mounds of mindless paperwork, doc review, diligence, etc.

If you are incurring no debt, then there isn't much harm in finishing law school. If you can hack it for even just two years in Biglaw, you can put away some decent money and begin the lateraling out process - either to a more interesting firm, in-house, consulting, or just into some other area entirely.

Is there some area, academic interest, etc. that really excites you? It's cliché, I know, but figure out what the hell you really wanna do professionally and plan backwards accordingly.

If you're at Columbia or Harvard or a similar school the road into consulting or finance is well trod, if not entirely smooth. Talk to recruiters and find alumns or incoming 3Ls going that route (there are quite a number of them). Then I think you have a few options.

One is to apply to your school (or a partner school's) MBA program this fall. It will add on one year to your degree but give you the chance to try a finance/strategy internship in addition to an SA in biglaw. Sounds like your family or scholarship is paying for your degree (since you say your SA money would not be spent on loans/rent), so the added year of cost won't be prohibitive. Sometimes being in grad school helps ease out the WE requirement, sometimes not.

The other option is to do straight corporate (you don't sound like a lit guy TBH), take a lot of classes in deals and at the adjoining b-school or grad school as a 2L, and try your hand at case interviews in fall 3L. A lot of big corporate firms also offer stints at clients, such as Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan or Credit Suisse, during your summer. It's not easy but I have two class mates who did those 6 week summer programs and then received offers to join the bank after graduation (and not on a compliance team).

Your final option is of course to quit and drop out and look for something else. I don't advise this. Quitting now would burn bridges early on in your career. Dropping out would send the wrong message to employers - not "i dont like law," but "im fickle/lazy/cant back it/impetuous." So at least wait until the fall and see what non-law options are available to you.

What kind of work experience do you have pre-LS? I'm not saying that you should be a lawyer by any means, but one week into a job doesn't really seem like enough time to assess it properly.

0L here. I'm really sorry about your predicament. Obviously I don't have anything useful to tell you.

Would you mind if I ask what led you to go to law school? Did you know what the work would be like? Did you have any WE in law beforehand?

Important to know where your interests lie, what you majored in during undergraduate school & what type, if any, previous work experience you have.
If you are at Duke, it should be relatively easy to pick up another graduate degree while earning law school credits in an area of interest.

Also, do you have fluency or proficiency in any foreign languages ? If so, this can open up a lot of career options.

zacharus85 wrote:On the one hand, what you've experienced to date is nothing like what you'll be doing as a lawyer.

Getting research assignments dumped on you that you couldn't give a shit about happens all the time as a litigation associate.

zacharus85 wrote:If you are incurring no debt, then there isn't much harm in finishing law school. If you can hack it for even just two years in Biglaw, you can put away some decent money and begin the lateraling out process - either to a more interesting firm, in-house, consulting, or just into some other area entirely.

Having done this myself, I definitely would not recommend it. If someone hates law so much that his or her reaction to receiving a researching assignment is to think "Fuck you, do it yourself," that person is not going to last years in biglaw. Nor will that person be excited about leaving biglaw for a "more interesting firm" (whatever that means) or in-house (Hooray! more law practice!). Furthermore, employers are inherently skeptical of people with law degrees applying to non-legal positions.

jbagelboy wrote:Your final option is of course to quit and drop out and look for something else. I don't advise this. Quitting now would burn bridges early on in your career. Dropping out would send the wrong message to employers - not "i dont like law," but "im fickle/lazy/cant back it/impetuous." So at least wait until the fall and see what non-law options are available to you.

This is just plain fucking dumb. "Well he didn't dedicate his life to something he hates, so he must be lazy!"

Not going into debt and going to a top school are the only things that make this complicated for me. Shit, if you were taking on any debt I'd tell you to bail, but what are the risks here? Opportunity costs, but what opportunities exist for you outside of lawl school, op?

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Desert Fox wrote:

bjsesq wrote:Not going into debt and going to a top school are the only things that make this complicated for me. Shit, if you were taking on any debt I'd tell you to bail, but what are the risks here? Opportunity costs, but what opportunities exist for you outside of lawl school, op?

The risk is wasting another two years for a degree he'll never use. And if he's not going into any debt, someone is paying money for him to go.

Going just to go is a waste of time and effort.

Meh, if he takes on no debt and has no real opportunities staring him in the face at the moment, he could use the downtime to establish connections in an area that doesn't make him want to kill himself and he could maybe whore out his preftigious degree for. It's not like dude has a ton of risk here.

bjsesq wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

bjsesq wrote:Not going into debt and going to a top school are the only things that make this complicated for me. Shit, if you were taking on any debt I'd tell you to bail, but what are the risks here? Opportunity costs, but what opportunities exist for you outside of lawl school, op?

The risk is wasting another two years for a degree he'll never use. And if he's not going into any debt, someone is paying money for him to go.

Going just to go is a waste of time and effort.

Meh, if he takes on no debt and has no real opportunities staring him in the face at the moment, he could use the downtime to establish connections in an area that doesn't make him want to kill himself and he could maybe whore out his preftigious degree for. It's not like dude has a ton of risk here.

I'd stick out the free degree as well. Practicing law in the private sector and government are not at all remotely the same job. Compliance jobs also are a bit different.

try transactional. if I had to do litigation I'd probably feel the same way as you. if you don't like that at all then maybe this profession isn't for you. basically what jbagelboy said.

Besides, re: sticking it out, I think law school 2L/3L would actually be pretty fun if I were incurring no debt and didnt really care beyond getting some non-law job. You don't really have to do all that much. The debt/cost have definitely been the biggest burden/stressor for me

OTOH if you're stuck in new england, fuck that from a QOL perspective. I could totally see the appeal of moving to CA and doing something else for a while.

Just stick it out ~10 years, gun for partner, do another 10 or so getting into that sweet equity range, then kill yourself by seeing how much cocaine you can physically shove inside you before your body shuts down.

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Depends upon your prior work experience, languages & past education.

chimp wrote:Do you mind elaborating on how transactional is different from lit in terms of the day-to-day tasks?

you might have to sift through some garbage, but these threads do a decent job of summarizing some of the differences:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=149139
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=147709
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=148258

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Desert Fox wrote:Transactional, as an associate, sounds like 50 billion times more boring and pointless than litigation.

You do get that really cool keyboard with the larger CNTL, C, and V keys, though.

Desert Fox wrote:Transactional, as an associate, sounds like 50 billion times more boring and pointless than litigation.

This.

Hey OP: Give it a few weeks. When you're starting out at a junior level in just about any profession, you're going to have moments of OMG I DON'T GIVE A FUCK.

rpupkin wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:Transactional, as an associate, sounds like 50 billion times more boring and pointless than litigation.

This.

Hey OP: Give it a few weeks. When you're starting out at a junior level in just about any profession, you're going to have moments of OMG I DON'T GIVE A FUCK.

i mean that's obviously subjective and has a lot to do with personality