"I'd like to work in biglaw for a while..." Forum

[rad lulz]

I can't do dick with excel and don't even know what SQL is so it looks like I made the right call on law school

I made an Excel spreadsheet to figure out what the best crops to plant in Farmville were. That is basically like beating Farmville, so I stopped playing Farmville, and I also stopped using Excel.

[A. Nony Mouse]

0Ls, I know this topic is of interest to you, but you're still not allowed to post in the Legal Employment forum. Thanks.

[kalvano]

I hate Excel so so much. Found out one of our top clients requires us to use it.

[IAFG]

Threads such as this lead me to question if Biglaw really is that bad, or if it is the case that lots of people complain about biglaw because they went into law for the wrong reasons to begin with. I think attending a law school and going into biglaw career just to make money is not the most sound decision. There are other ways to make decent money, in lower-risk, lower-cost careers. Now, if you actually like law and you are attending law school for the carefully-thought out reasons, it should be worth the ride.

As long as TLS doesn't collapse in the next couple years, I look forward to people who agree now with this statement coming to pay their penance in this thread in a couple years.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Threads such as this lead me to question if Biglaw really is that bad, or if it is the case that lots of people complain about biglaw because they went into law for the wrong reasons to begin with. I think attending a law school and going into biglaw career just to make money is not the most sound decision. There are other ways to make decent money, in lower-risk, lower-cost careers. Now, if you actually like law and you are attending law school for the carefully-thought out reasons, it should be worth the ride.

As long as TLS doesn't collapse in the next couple years, I look forward to people who agree now with this statement coming to pay their penance in this thread in a couple years.

When someone with the username "Lost_Dreams" is being called out for the unfounded optimism of his posts, you know that things are looking bleak.

[09042014]

Threads such as this lead me to question if Biglaw really is that bad, or if it is the case that lots of people complain about biglaw because they went into law for the wrong reasons to begin with. I think attending a law school and going into biglaw career just to make money is not the most sound decision. There are other ways to make decent money, in lower-risk, lower-cost careers. Now, if you actually like law and you are attending law school for the carefully-thought out reasons, it should be worth the ride.

The people who LOVE THE LAW are the most disillusioned and disgruntled. Your carefully-thought out reasons are pure naivety.

[rayiner]

Threads such as this lead me to question if Biglaw really is that bad, or if it is the case that lots of people complain about biglaw because they went into law for the wrong reasons to begin with. I think attending a law school and going into biglaw career just to make money is not the most sound decision. There are other ways to make decent money, in lower-risk, lower-cost careers. Now, if you actually like law and you are attending law school for the carefully-thought out reasons, it should be worth the ride.

The people who LOVE THE LAW are the most disillusioned and disgruntled. Your carefully-thought out reasons are pure naivety.

TCR. The aspiring legal academics hate big law.

[IAFG]

0Ls, I know this topic is of interest to you, but you're still not allowed to post in the Legal Employment forum. Thanks.

Yeah this thread taunts the 0Ls and mocks the pot-committed. I feel sorta bad.

[LRGhost]

I really don't understand what motivates anyone to say 'Yeah, all those people who we took advice from when applying to law school? Fuck them. They're whiners.'

[IAFG]

People who "love the law" should just do career clerk. But not bankruptcy clerks because they'll just get mad.

[EijiMiyake]

0Ls, I know this topic is of interest to you, but you're still not allowed to post in the Legal Employment forum. Thanks.

Yeah this thread taunts the 0Ls and mocks the pot-committed. I feel sorta bad.

Why? Maybe they'll make better decisions than we did.

[IAFG]

0Ls, I know this topic is of interest to you, but you're still not allowed to post in the Legal Employment forum. Thanks.

Yeah this thread taunts the 0Ls and mocks the pot-committed. I feel sorta bad.

Why? Maybe they'll make better decisions than we did.

Because the 0Ls can't comment and the law students are, well, pot-committed.

[EijiMiyake]

0Ls, I know this topic is of interest to you, but you're still not allowed to post in the Legal Employment forum. Thanks.

Yeah this thread taunts the 0Ls and mocks the pot-committed. I feel sorta bad.

Why? Maybe they'll make better decisions than we did.

Because the 0Ls can't comment and the law students are, well, pot-committed.

I don't know about the latter. Lots of them can still choose 10 years of LRAP-poverty over biglaw, which is what I should have done.

[09042014]

Good luck finding an LRAP covered legal job. That shit is hard.

The big myth is that other law is better than big law. From what I can tell it mostly just sucks all the way down.

[patogordo]

i'm pot-committed but i'm now considering IBR-slavery for life renting surfboards on the beach as an alternative to biglaw so your stories haven't fallen on deaf ears

[keg411]

People who "love the law" should just do career clerk. But not bankruptcy clerks because they'll just get mad.

. Totally agree with this. BigLaw is the furthest thing from the academic circle jerk that was law school (which I personally appreciate).

But seriously, if you get stuck working for an asshole, you're going to hate your life, no matter whether it's BigLaw or MidLaw or ShitLaw. You just have to hope you get lucky and don't draw the "Tyrannical Midlevel" or "Asshole Senior" or "Crazy Partner" straw. The trick is finding the places where those people are few and far between, and that's basically not possible and comes down to luck too. And by luck I mean, imagine Russian Roulette where more than half of the chambers have bullets in them.

[Paul Campos]

I've read through this entire thread with great interest and have a few comments from outside the war zone:

(1) Legal academics are the professional equivalent of chicken hawks. We love to burble on about what a great thing it is to to be a lawyer, even though the average law prof is somebody who was a lawyer

(a) 25 years ago
(b) For 15 minutes
(c) In a job that didn't have much if any resemblance to what their current students will end up doing

Basically it's easy to develop faux nostalgia for almost anything with the passage of enough time. People look back fondly on junior high school, on being in the infantry in some insane war, on personal relationships that were largely perceived as nightmarish at the time people were in them.

(2) Almost anything is much easier to tolerate if it feels temporary in a volitional way, i..e, if you truly feel like you can walk whenever you've had enough. This is why the current cost structure of law school, and the debt it creates, has such bad effects on even the "winners" in the law school game.

(3) It would be good to have some sort of Maoist system in which legal academics were forced to actually practice law for six months every seven years or so. They should have that instead of sabbaticals.

[jbagelboy]

I've read through this entire thread with great interest and have a few comments from outside the war zone:

(1) Legal academics are the professional equivalent of chicken hawks. We love to burble on about what a great thing it is to to be a lawyer, even though the average law prof is somebody who was a lawyer

(a) 25 years ago
(b) For 15 minutes
(c) In a job that didn't have much if any resemblance to what their current students will end up doing

Basically it's easy to develop faux nostalgia for almost anything with the passage of enough time. People look back fondly on junior high school, on being in the infantry in some insane war, on personal relationships that were largely perceived as nightmarish at the time people were in them.

(2) Almost anything is much easier to tolerate if it feels temporary in a volitional way, i..e, if you truly feel like you can walk whenever you've had enough. This is why the current cost structure of law school, and the debt it creates, has such bad effects on even the "winners" in the law school game.

(3) It would be good to have some sort of Maoist system in which legal academics were forced to actually practice law for six months every seven years or so. They should have that instead of sabbaticals.

I believe the Maoist system was more along the lines of corralling all the academics (and the practicing attorneys, since the abolition of private property practically nullified their trade) onto a field, making them build a ditch, then summarily executing and dumping them into it.

[nygrrrl]

Everyone needs at least 7 hours of sleep per night. You might be able to function the next day on significantly less, but it's not good for your long term health.

Hee hee hee. I have two kids, a FT job and do lawl skool at night. Oh. And I'm a runner. 4-6 hours/night is my norm. (Yes, I may drop dead tomorrow - it's always a risk.)
Patogordo, I am so with you. I loathe not being able to sleep for 7-8 hours per night. Dunno what to do about it, but I feel you, mang. Also, keep me posted on the surf board thing. After my requisite "few years in Big Law" I'll be up for that or working ski patrol out west...

[El Pollito]

Everyone needs at least 7 hours of sleep per night. You might be able to function the next day on significantly less, but it's not good for your long term health.

Hee hee hee. I have two kids, a FT job and do lawl skool at night. Oh. And I'm a runner. 4-6 hours/night is my norm. (Yes, I may drop dead tomorrow - it's always a risk.)
Patogordo, I am so with you. I loathe not being able to sleep for 7-8 hours per night. Dunno what to do about it, but I feel you, mang. Also, keep me posted on the surf board thing. After my requisite "few years in Big Law" I'll be up for that or working ski patrol out west...

What is the purpose of your boomer anecdata ITT?

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

I mean, imagine Russian Roulette where more than half of the chambers have bullets in them.

[patogordo]

it's actually worse. at least in russian roulette when you guess wrong you just die.

[DoveBodyWash]

it's actually worse. at least in russian roulette when you guess wrong you just die.

well shit

[nygrrrl]

Everyone needs at least 7 hours of sleep per night. You might be able to function the next day on significantly less, but it's not good for your long term health.

Hee hee hee. I have two kids, a FT job and do lawl skool at night. Oh. And I'm a runner. 4-6 hours/night is my norm. (Yes, I may drop dead tomorrow - it's always a risk.)
Patogordo, I am so with you. I loathe not being able to sleep for 7-8 hours per night. Dunno what to do about it, but I feel you, mang. Also, keep me posted on the surf board thing. After my requisite "few years in Big Law" I'll be up for that or working ski patrol out west...

What is the purpose of your boomer anecdata ITT?

Humorous anecdotal evidence is humorous, dude. Also, it's not really anecdata - what I posted IS true, for me. Whether or not it applies to anyone else is questionable. So it's really more like dicta.

[Mal Reynolds]

Legal jokes. Shudder.