Why You Should Go To Law School Forum

[adamlippes]

...

[prezidentv8]

everyone bitches about job security and omfg i need t14 and biglaw to pay back my loans..
well doctors could get their degree from puerto rico and do six figures. so im sorry that ama does everything better than the aba

Not really sure why this is targeted against me.

Anyways, ex-gf is in med school. 4 years of exams every four weeks, lot's of standardized tests, residency, fellowships, etc. etc. She'll be making bank, I guess, at around 30? She probably won't be able to have kids before then, or even date someone.

Don't envy her one bit. In fact, she once asked me what my summer salary is going to be... and she coughed her food out and genuinely wondered why she didn't go to law school instead.

...and thus we return to "the grass is always greener"-land?

[adamlippes]

Must we continually jerk off the doctors on here??

The grass is always greener in someone else's graduate program.

I doubt many law students share that view about business school...

An old roommate of mine is at Wharton now. She says it's like a cocktail circuit, and no one is stressed out. I know that's not true even of HYS law students.

Freaking out over class standing sucks a lot, and I never come on TLS to complain. I should probably just go to brunch and eat something massively unhealthy. I think it's more inner demons than job security, at least in my case.

That's Wharton... which isn't your regular b-school.

I mean business school in general. I doubt many law students look at business school–in general–with the sense that they have it good.

Also, Wharton students aren't stressed out because they want to go into... business. HYS students have corporate nearly locked up (even ITE, IMO). The main source of their stress is whether they'll get those other really prestigious things (clerkships, academia, etc.)...

[adamlippes]

everyone bitches about job security and omfg i need t14 and biglaw to pay back my loans..
well doctors could get their degree from puerto rico and do six figures. so im sorry that ama does everything better than the aba

Not really sure why this is targeted against me.

Anyways, ex-gf is in med school. 4 years of exams every four weeks, lot's of standardized tests, residency, fellowships, etc. etc. She'll be making bank, I guess, at around 30? She probably won't be able to have kids before then, or even date someone.

Don't envy her one bit. In fact, she once asked me what my summer salary is going to be... and she coughed her food out and genuinely wondered why she didn't go to law school instead.

...and thus we return to "the grass is always greener"-land?

Hmm. Not really. I don't think the grass is greener in med school or biz school... or any other school. I'm not sitting at all in envy of people who attend them.

[prezidentv8]

I was just referring to people in general.

[hayman]

everyone bitches about job security and omfg i need t14 and biglaw to pay back my loans..
well doctors could get their degree from puerto rico and do six figures. so im sorry that ama does everything better than the aba

Not really sure why this is targeted against me.

Anyways, ex-gf is in med school. 4 years of exams every four weeks, lot's of standardized tests, residency, fellowships, etc. etc. She'll be making bank, I guess, at around 30? She probably won't be able to have kids before then, or even date someone.

Don't envy her one bit. In fact, she once asked me what my summer salary is going to be... and she coughed her food out and genuinely wondered why she didn't go to law school instead.

i didn't mean to target you. sorry

[adamlippes]

I was just referring to people in general.

Let me put operasoprano down in peace, please.

[prezidentv8]

I was just referring to people in general.

Let me put operasoprano down in peace, please.

That's just wrong.

[adamlippes]

I was just referring to people in general.

Let me put operasoprano down in peace, please.

That's just wrong.

Yeah, I know, but Saturday morning cartoons don't air today, so I think this is a healthy alternative.

[Borhas]

I should also toss out there that I find it hard to believe that many of the posters on this board couldn't get into some medical school if they felt like it.

organic chemistry is really hard

[MC Southstar]

I generally see Business school as an even riskier investment than law school in that I don't believe that it really teaches you much that you couldn't learn otherwise outside of school. If anything, I think it's the name and the connections you make that are the most important. It's like how many software developers in high profile companies never even got a degree in computer science or anything similar, because it isn't insanely difficult to pick up programming if you are otherwise intelligent and focused enough, it's pretty intuitive to some. However, it really does help a lot to have a meaningful comp sci degree. The big difference is that even in the job market, a comp sci grad can still easily rack up multiple job offers, whereas I'm not sure companies trying to cut down on overhead really need more management people. From what I've seen, a lot of companies like to breed their own over a long period of time anyway. I also have a bad taste for business people because I went to an engineering school with a decent undergrad management department and if you ever met a dumb person on that campus, you knew they were management. or some kind of art.

Law and medical school are intensely academic and require the acquisition of knowledge that no normal person would or would want to put themselves through. I feel like I could have been a doctor but I don't really have a taste for it, and it's probably the most life-consuming career you could ever go into so I'm glad I didn't go down that typical route. I don't think it's as much of a burden if you honestly care about it. Yet, I feel like the case for law and med schools is that some people really just use the fields as a way to get something they want, whether it be a sense of accomplishment, prestige, respect, or money. While I think it's great to be able to do a really hard academic subject without even caring about it much, I've already been doing that for 4 years, and I hope I really get to enjoy something that I'm doing in law. Both my parents are research chemists/pharmacologists (yes, OChem is really hard) and they don't really even care about the work they are doing or the subject in general. I mean, it's cool and all that they can do that to make money, but they are really demoralized by work.

[prezidentv8]

I should also toss out there that I find it hard to believe that many of the posters on this board couldn't get into some medical school if they felt like it.

organic chemistry is really hard

Sorry, I had to.

[OperaSoprano]

That's Wharton... which isn't your regular b-school.

I mean business school in general. I doubt many law students look at business school–in general–with the sense that they have it good.

Also, Wharton students aren't stressed out because they want to go into... business. HYS students have corporate nearly locked up (even ITE, IMO). The main source of their stress is whether they'll get those other really prestigious things (clerkships, academia, etc.)...

Pretty much spot on, though I don't know enough other MBA students to make the comparison. I sometimes envy my lovely friend L---, who is getting her master's in social work at my school. MSW students seem very happy, though they'll never make biglaw money. I'm enjoying my PI internship right now... It's possible that we'll both graduate and work for nonprofits, which would be awesome.

I'm aware that everyone else likes the competition in law school and thinks I'm insane, but if there is anything at all I envy, it's peace of mind. I'll deal with it, though. I'm going out.

[adamlippes]

I'm aware that everyone else likes the competition in law school and thinks I'm insane, but if there is anything at all I envy, it's peace of mind. I'll deal with it, though. I'm going out.

I hate the competition too. But if you don't like competition, you should've buckled up in college/on the LSAT and gone to Yale or Stanford (again, each of which are competitive in their own ways, but students aren't competing for their livelihood, which makes a huge difference).

[prezidentv8]

I'm aware that everyone else likes the competition in law school and thinks I'm insane, but if there is anything at all I envy, it's peace of mind. I'll deal with it, though. I'm going out.

I hate the competition too. But if you don't like competition, you should've buckled up in college/on the LSAT and gone to Yale or Stanford (again, each of which are competitive in their own ways, but students aren't competing for their livelihood, which makes a huge difference).

subtle anti-Harvard trolling?

[adamlippes]

subtle anti-Harvard trolling?

LOL I knew someone would point this out.

I think H is competitive, even without the conventional grade system. That's just my ungrounded intuition, and I'm sure an HLS student will have a fun time rebuking that in seconds.

[prezidentv8]

subtle anti-Harvard trolling?

LOL I knew someone would point this out.

I think H is competitive, even without the conventional grade system. That's just my ungrounded intuition, and I'm sure an HLS student will have a fun time rebuking that in seconds.

This IS TLS, after all.

[MTal]

If you don't like competition, stay out of law period.

[prezidentv8]

[Matthies]

Every practicing attorney I talked to like what they do and strongly encourage me to go to law school...

You're either lying or your sample of practicing attorneys is totally unrepresentative of what most attorneys think about their jobs.

http://www.vallexfund.com/download/Bein ... Member.pdf

I know a lot of lawyers and judges, far more actually then I know that are not lawyers and judges (mainly because I have been actively involved in the bar associations and Inns of court for four years, so that’s pretty much my circle of friends now). They break on the issue of if they like the law or recommend law school almost exactly on the line of how long they have been practicing: those with five years or less seem to dislike it or be indifferent to it, those with 5 years or more (and the majority of my friend are more in the 10 years plus range) all love it.

I think, just from this small sample of my friends, that the ones who stay past the five year mark do it because they really enjoy the law and it meets there expectations. Those that get out before year five find something else they enjoy more. Five years seems to be the cutoff. In my Inn those with 5 years or less experience are called Associate Barristers, and we have the biggest turnover in this group, because of people leaving the profession. Barristers (5+) years are far more stable, the same folks return every year.

Gratned the pople I meet in the bar and the Inns tend to be those more involved in the legal community, so it is possoible that there are a lot of disgruntled lawyers out there I never meet becuase they don't give up thier free time to get involved in law realted orginizations if they hate it so much. The people who do get involved tend to the be the ones that really like it, like to give back, and like to mentor.

[Matthies]

I should also toss out there that I find it hard to believe that many of the posters on this board couldn't get into some medical school if they felt like it.

LOL, not me, I almost failed math for jocks in UG, chemseity and stuff would KILL ME. Plus I get queezy wehn they show baby amainls being born on animal planet, no way I got be a doctor

[MTal]

Haha Prez.

[prezidentv8]

Haha Prez.

I try.

[Borhas]

according to this:

http://www.vallexfund.com/download/Bein ... Member.pdf

BigLaw=ShitLaw

yeah, I can buy that.

also, I found this interesting:

Lawyers often suffer from a nostalgic longing for a past that
never really existed.136 But when it comes to their brutal work
schedules, lawyers have reason to complain, and they have reason to
believe that the problem has grown worse. “Conventional wisdom just
a few decades ago was that lawyers could not reasonably expect to
charge for more than 1200 to 1500 hours per year.”137 Thirty years
ago, most partners billed between 1200 and 1400 hours per year and
most associates between 1400 and 1600 hours.138 As late as the mid-
1980s, even associates in large New York firms were often not expected
to bill more that 1800 hours annually.139 Today, many firms
would consider these ranges acceptable only for partners or associates
who had died midway through the year.

A study conducted by William Ross in 1991 discovered that
almost half of the associates in private practice billed at least 2000
hours during both 1989 and 1990, and a fifth billed at least 2400
hours in 1990.140 Another study conducted by Ross three years later
discovered that 51% of associates and 23% of partners billed at least
2000 hours in 1993.141 Seventy percent of those responding to the
Michigan Law School survey worked an average of fifty or more hours
per week; over a quarter of the respondents worked more than sixty
hours per week.142 The ABA’s 1990 study found that 45% of attorneys
in private practice billed at least 1920 hours per year, and 16% billed
2400 or more hours.143 The same study also found that, although 70%
of attorneys are permitted to take more than two weeks of vacation
every year, only 48% actually do so.144

if lawyers wouldn't work so much, there would be more jobs to go around and they would be happier. Problem solved

[MTal]

“What is good? All that heightens the feeling of billing in a lawyer, the will to bill, billing itself. What is bad? All that is born of clients. What is happiness? The feeling that billables are growing, that billable targets will be overcome.” – Nietzsche