Regretting Law School Already Forum

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A. Nony Mouse

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Re: Regretting Law School Already

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Thu Oct 26, 2017 9:05 am

Okay, people, this was the original statement (made by an 0L) I was pushing back against:
corporatemandaorbust wrote:I don't get why someone would drop out from a good school. Even if you don't want to be a lawyer, a top school only helps in anything on your resume.
This is simply not true. A JD is great if you're applying for a lawyer job or a JD preferred job. That is not all jobs. That those jobs exist doesn't make the JD a magical versatile degree that helps you in all jobs. Outside that subset of jobs, employers will look askance at a JD and it will probably make getting a job harder, not easier.

mcmand

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Re: Regretting Law School Already

Post by mcmand » Thu Oct 26, 2017 1:59 pm

mrpeanutbutter wrote:Title is pretty self explanatory. 1L and I definitely fit the bill of a student who shouldn't have gone to LS but just went because they thought they had no options. The material is boring, and I just don't think I'll be cut out for the profession. What should I do ? Just cut my losses and drop out ?
Previous posters have said this but I am going to pile on just to make sure you don't make a rash decision.

By the end of 1L, I seriously doubted whether I had made the right decision and was contemplating daily whether I should cut and run. It was a pretty drastic turn considering I had thought about and planned for law school for three years in advance of enrolling.

First day of my 1L summer job a tidal wave of relief and joy washed over me as I realized I really liked doing the work, which was interesting and challenging.

I thought I'd like 2L more, but no, not really. So I just put my head down and powered through it all and kept focusing on future jobs and externships that I would like, and things ultimately worked out.

Some people (people I can't relate to) really love law school itself. Some don't, but some of those folks, including myself, actually really like the work. You may yet find you are in that latter category. You're in a better position than most by being at HYS, so spend time researching and finding a 1L summer job you think you'll like, as well as externships/internships/clinics during the school year that appeal to you. If you don't like 1L summer, re-evaluate then.

Feel free to PM if you need to vent, talk, rant, etc. I needed that weekly during law school.
Last edited by mcmand on Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Desert Fox

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Re: Regretting Law School Already

Post by Desert Fox » Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:54 pm

Drop out now you fool.
Last edited by Desert Fox on Fri Jan 26, 2018 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mr. Peanutbutter

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Re: Regretting Law School Already

Post by Mr. Peanutbutter » Thu Oct 26, 2017 5:38 pm

Who the fuck are you

Nebby

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Re: Regretting Law School Already

Post by Nebby » Thu Oct 26, 2017 6:09 pm

mcmand wrote:
mrpeanutbutter wrote:Title is pretty self explanatory. 1L and I definitely fit the bill of a student who shouldn't have gone to LS but just went because they thought they had no options. The material is boring, and I just don't think I'll be cut out for the profession. What should I do ? Just cut my losses and drop out ?
Previous posters have said this but I am going to pile on just to make sure you don't make a rash decision.

By the end of 1L, I seriously doubted whether I had made the right decision and was contemplating daily whether I should cut and run. It was a pretty drastic turn considering I had thought about and planned for law school for three years in advance of enrolling.

First day of my 1L summer job a tidal wave of relief and joy washed over me as I realized I really liked doing the work, which was interesting and challenging.

I thought I'd like 2L more, but no, not really. So I just put my head down and powered through it all and kept focusing on future jobs and externships that I would like, and things ultimately worked out.

Some people (people I can't relate to) really love law school itself. Some don't, but some of those folks, including myself, actually really like the work. You may yet find you are in that latter category. You're in a better position than most by being at HYS, so spend time researching and finding a 1L summer job you think you'll like, as well as externships/internships/clinics during the school year that appeal to you. If you don't like 1L summer, re-evaluate then.

Feel free to PM if you need to vent, talk, rant, etc. I needed that weekly during law school.
Same

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plurilingue

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Re: Regretting Law School Already

Post by plurilingue » Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:31 pm

I wouldn't drop out but I would definitely investigate other avenues.

(1) For example, admissions standards for J.D./MBA programs are usually relaxed considerably for J.D. candidates at any specific school. (At NYU, admission to Stern from the Law School is more or less guaranteed.) My thought it is that this is done precisely for people in your situation. Everyone I know who applied to the J.D./MBA at HLS/NYU ended up getting admitted, and at least half of those people subsequently dropped out of the J.D. program altogether and graduated with just an MBA. I would really ask around and see if this is possible at your current school (which I would imagine is S/H, and statistically speaking, probably H).

(2) Otherwise, top consultancies, investment banks, and technology companies do hire out of top J.D. programs and even take summer associates on for their 1L summer. Such positions are very competitive, but if you neglect your law school grades a bit – not that I would recommend doing this unless you're 100% sure you don't want to practice law – you can really focus on brushing up for those interviews. There's a lot of networking to be done at any of these three schools, and believe me, employers really want to hire people out of the J.D. program at all of them. I would generally hesitate to say this for C/N, but in your situation, the credential is worth something and shouldn't be thrown away lightly.

(3) If you're really not sure what you want, do consider applying for scholarships that graduate school students are eligible for (e.g., FLAS, Fulbright, etc.) and taking a year out to get some critical distance and perspective. The trick is doing something sufficiently "legitimate" to an employer but also buying yourself some time. This option is much easier from HYS since you can leverage the prestige of your school and resume to find a nice scholarship and avoid having to pay for the year out and incremental education.

(4) Finally, as someone who is now a few years out of law school, I have to say that the people I know who are happiest in law are often not the ones who took the regular route of getting excellent grades ---> top lit/corp shop ---> selective clerkship ---> elite boutique and succeeded at doing so, as so many here aspire to. They're often the people who got medianish grades but decided to specialize very early on in a narrow area of law of great interest to them (e.g., trusts and estates, labor and employment, environmental, bankruptcy, executive compensation/ERISA, etc.) and then took a ton of specialist coursework in that direction. This is easier to do at a larger school with more classes (e.g., CLS/HLS/NYU/GULC) than a smaller one. From my perspective, half the battle in law is just finding the niche area that you really care about and becoming an expert in it. Even if you don't like a lot of your 1L classes, don't fret: Once you hit median, the grades will matter less over the course of your career than that specialist knowledge, especially from HYS. (I have seen many people lateral from mediocre firms to excellent/even elite ones when there was demand for their niche area despite medianish grades from C/N.) And if you really hate law school, avoid at all costs doing general litigation. It's a dead end after a few years. Given the broader range of exit opportunities, transactional should be the default path for people who don't know what they want from their legal career.

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