Are any of you unhappy? Forum

[JCFindley]

I may be in the minority here, but I honestly dont see the point of any journal, unless you want to go into academia. Id rather have a part time job, or use that time for other things ( while being as far away from the law school as possible) than doing doc review, and cite checking and researching and writing on a topic that may or may not interest you. All of that doesnt add up in my book. You need some balance, and you need to find out what works best for you to get that balance.

I totally agree with you. My goals are either criminal law, which relies more on dedication to the cause than if you are on a journal, and moot court and the trial advocacy teams sound like a HOOT to me so I would rather do something I enjoy.

The only firms I will apply for will be aviation law and getting hired will have more to do with my WE than if I did a journal.

Of course, I could be wrong.....

Oh, and since I am forced by reputation to say at least one thing that can be taken as overly douche-bag gunner, maybe I will write a journal piece and be published elsewhere..... (heh)

So...do you really want to be a rock star or an actor? Go do it and don't look back. If you spend your life doing what is expected of you, or doing something just because you want financial stability...a "safety net", you will never be happy. Do some soul-searching. I would tell almost any 20-something to go have fun, explore the world and try to live out your dreams. If it doesn't work out, you can always go back to law school. They aren't going anywhere.

THIS. I think the main reason that I'm not miserable in lawl skool is that first I went out and DID the crazy stuff I'd dreamed about. I had a blast, fulfilled my goals and came to school absolutely certain that this was what I wanted to do. Starting law school over 30 has its drawbacks, but I know that I'm doing this leaving nothing on the table.

Really, you're over 30? You look 26 at most..... Yupp, getting the crazy fun stuff out of the way first is certainly a good thing and life success based strictly on grades is quite freeing if you don't look forward and worry about jobs and that other real world crap your class placement dictates.

I think I would've absolutely loved all of law school if I went back in my position but married/in a long-term relationship. Or didn't go to a school in a community where even the young law students are "olds".

But you DO get to go to some good football games, right?

[FlanAl]

being in a long term relationship I think is really helpful. Some of the single guys seemed to have a great time right when they got to law school (big fish, small pond) but due to the social awkwardness of law school, they don't seem to be having as much fun.

[bk1]

Law students complain too much.

This.

Also: people on the internet complain too much.

[prezidentv8]

Law students complain too much.

This.

Also: people on the internet complain too much.

Hey man, this is where I get my therapy.

[nygrrrl]

Really, you're over 30? You look 26 at most.....

BAhahahaha. (Well played sir, well played.)

[minnbills]

being in a long term relationship I think is really helpful. Some of the single guys seemed to have a great time right when they got to law school (big fish, small pond) but due to the social awkwardness of law school, they don't seem to be having as much fun.

Another t14 benefit.

[Count Chocula]

Long ago turned to booze

[Jimbo_Jones]

As a PT 1L working 50 hrs a week, I would say my mood as changed for the worse.

[Gorki]

As a PT 1L working 50 hrs a week, I would say my mood as changed for the worse.

ffs dude, why?? Is it just busy at work, or has it been like this nonstop since day 1? I hope it gets better for you. I was MOST optimistic about LS Fall of 1L... It has been a slow but steady downward slope to cynicism since.

I guess its prepping you for being a salaried lawyer..

[071816]

I'm unhappy. It may or may not have anything to do with law school.

[somewhatwayward]

I may be in the minority here, but I honestly dont see the point of any journal, unless you want to go into academia. Id rather have a part time job, or use that time for other things ( while being as far away from the law school as possible) than doing doc review, and cite checking and researching and writing on a topic that may or may not interest you. All of that doesnt add up in my book. You need some balance, and you need to find out what works best for you to get that balance.

I totally agree with you. My goals are either criminal law, which relies more on dedication to the cause than if you are on a journal, and moot court and the trial advocacy teams sound like a HOOT to me so I would rather do something I enjoy.

The only firms I will apply for will be aviation law and getting hired will have more to do with my WE than if I did a journal.

Of course, I could be wrong.....

I would bet a million bucks you end up doing the whole firm OCI shebang, whatever it is called at your school. At mine, it is called EIP. If you surveyed people at my school during 1L fall and asked them how many were planning to do EIP, maybe a third would answer yes definitely. A third would be undecided, and a third would be adamant that they are sure they want public interest/gov. Fast forward one year, and 90% of the class is crammed into a hotel in Times Square, dominating the elevator and bewildering tourists (at one point, I apologized to some tourists for taking over the hotel, and they told me they thought it was normal for everyone in NYC to be in a suit), interviewing with 25+ big law firms in four days. It is funny to see the people there who were so adamant about doing PI/gov.....not that I blame them from a financial perspective. I also think ITE it makes sense to go for any job you can, so I would be wary of passing up a shot at full time legal employment by not even participating in OCI for big/mid law jobs. It is probably harder in many instances to land PI/gov than to land big law from a lot of schools.

WRT journal, I personally found it rewarding as a 2L because I really liked working on my note, which is now getting published, but I don't like it as much being on the e-board. Right now I am a TA; on the board of my journal; have a part-time in-house legal intern position; I am in a clinic; and my note is being published, which requires more editing on my end. IT IS TOO MUCH. But there is nothing I can really give up. I mean, I could give up the job, but it is what I want to do after I do big law for a few years. Plus, it is well paid. Anyway, I am blathering on. I guess I say all that to say that in retrospect I wish I had not run for an editor position on the journal. If journal will overload you, then it is not the end of the world to be on one. But don't foreclose the possibility yet.

I am not trying to lecture you. In some ways I wish I was a 1L and could start over with what I know now but in other ways I am so incredibly happy to be almost done!!!!!!!! I also wish in retrospect that I had not overloaded my third year. It sucks that this is my last year of freedom before I enter several years of being chained to the office, and I am really busy.

Anyway, OP, I think you should stick with it. It sounds like you like a lot of things about law, and, as you have probably heard, practice is different than school. I think at this point in our educations, we are all pretty sick of school. Do you have outside hobbies/interests? I definitely second someone else's recommendation to spend as little time at the school as you can. Did you transfer? Lack of social support could be part of the problem. When do you get more counseling sessions under your plan? Good luck!

[JCFindley]

I may be in the minority here, but I honestly dont see the point of any journal, unless you want to go into academia. Id rather have a part time job, or use that time for other things ( while being as far away from the law school as possible) than doing doc review, and cite checking and researching and writing on a topic that may or may not interest you. All of that doesnt add up in my book. You need some balance, and you need to find out what works best for you to get that balance.

I totally agree with you. My goals are either criminal law, which relies more on dedication to the cause than if you are on a journal, and moot court and the trial advocacy teams sound like a HOOT to me so I would rather do something I enjoy.

The only firms I will apply for will be aviation law and getting hired will have more to do with my WE than if I did a journal.

Of course, I could be wrong.....

I would bet a million bucks you end up doing the whole firm OCI shebang, whatever it is called at your school. At mine, it is called EIP. If you surveyed people at my school during 1L fall and asked them how many were planning to do EIP, maybe a third would answer yes definitely. A third would be undecided, and a third would be adamant that they are sure they want public interest/gov. Fast forward one year, and 90% of the class is crammed into a hotel in Times Square, dominating the elevator and bewildering tourists (at one point, I apologized to some tourists for taking over the hotel, and they told me they thought it was normal for everyone in NYC to be in a suit), interviewing with 25+ big law firms in four days. It is funny to see the people there who were so adamant about doing PI/gov.....not that I blame them from a financial perspective. I also think ITE it makes sense to go for any job you can, so I would be wary of passing up a shot at full time legal employment by not even participating in OCI for big/mid law jobs. It is probably harder in many instances to land PI/gov than to land big law from a lot of schools.

And you may well be right. I am too new at all this to even know what I don't know yet..... At this moment, I really do NOT like the thought of big law though.

[sparty99]

Law school is horrible.

[Blessedassurance]

Try to overcompensate with alcohol and undergrads.

This shit is absolutely horrible and not as intellectual as people imagine it to be.

[soccerfreak]

My favorite part is actually being on a law journal.

WUT

[Pretzel_Logic]

LS does blow. And OP, if you're dealing with depression, did it predate LS or has it popped up since you started? Either way, do what you need to do to maintain your mental health. If that's medication, take it, if it's therapy, go to it (and seriously, I'd ditch class to do this sometimes if you need to--your brain is more important than whatever notes you might take that day), and if it's rooted in the fact that you don't want to be in law school and don't actually want to be a lawyer, then get out. Don't look at it as a sunk cost--that's an incredibly stressful way to think about it and you don't need that. LS isn't worth that.

On the other hand, if you really do want to be a lawyer, then my best advice is to create a life outside of school. My outside-law activity is closely tied to school, because I have a serious basketball addiction and happen to go to my favorite team's school (honestly, that's why I'm here). I know it feels like you're too slammed with work to do anything else, but I'd bet you're spending time piddling around and not doing anything real for a significant chunk of time (I played Sporcle for two hours yesterday, I know what that's about). Additionally, give yourself an attitude check on the regular. The more I complain, the worse I feel, and then the worse the people around me feel because I'm whining all the time. I'm a 3L and have six classes and I'm the least stressed I've been in law school because my attitude doesn't suck. 2L fall was unbelievably terrible and my grades reflected it so I knew I had to make changes to the things I can actually control, and it's helped me a lot. And the people around you probably complain a lot too because law students are whiny as hell, so just do your best to not internalize the gloom.

I apologize for the inherent cheesiness of this post, but I've been where you've been. Good luck.

echoing the wut re: LR being Cougar's favorite. Um, good for you man.

[JCougar]

This shit is absolutely horrible and not as intellectual as people imagine it to be.

This, in essence is the practice of law. Take some very, very basic logic, apply it to subject matter of which lawyers have only a very cursory understanding, and give it the verneer of rigorous and elite intellectualism.

Law school is actually very bad at teaching you "how to think." There isn't really method at all. "Thinking like a lawyer" entails copying and pasting what somebody before you said, and either comparing or contrasting the principle to a new situation. This basic exercise could be done by your average undergrad. The case method teaches you to be uncritical about the theories and principles you are copying and pasting, however. Just because some judge before you said something doesn't mean it's a great theory. Law lacks a feedback mechanism to weed out BS theories from legitimate ones. The only requirement for you to put your theory out there and have it disseminated is some empty label of "prestige" you got from being evaluated by a group of people who likely don't know what they are talking about. There's no other hurdle to jump requiring your theory to be validated in some sort of empirical way.

If you want to learn how to think, go into science. If you are wrong, the scientific method lets you know. People can't just pull ideas out of their ass in that field and publish them. You have to experimentally verify your ideas to make sure they actually work, and then you have to get them past a rigorous peer review process to get them published--a process that scrutinizes heavily your methods, theories, and tactics to make sure they aren't just some bullshit you pulled out of your ass.

This applies not just to legal scholarship, but to legal education as well. There's basically zero justification for the law curriculum to be what it is: not from a pedagogical, assessment, or training standpoint. It ignores all research about how to properly teach and evaluate students. It's a highly archaic, outdated process that is totally incapable of introspection and self-criticism.

[JCougar]

My favorite part is actually being on a law journal.

WUT

I know this might sound shocking, because most legal scholarship is utterly BS. But it doesn't have to be, and if you're on a law journal editorial board, you can at least attempt to change that. And you actually have to use critical thinking skills for once--something that is almost completely absent from the rest of the law school curriculum.

[SuperCerealBrah]

Try to overcompensate with alcohol and undergrads.

This shit is absolutely horrible and not as intellectual as people imagine it to be.

I really want to know, what in the world some students really expected law school to be like? I mean you are studying law. And what exactly qualifies as "intellectual"?

[Blessedassurance]

I really want to know, what in the world some students really expected law school to be like? I mean you are studying law. And what exactly qualifies as "intellectual"?

People (some, not all) generally expect it to be some great journey into discovering the hidden mysteries of this world. I can assure you, it is not. It is more like an apprenticeship. Note that I'm talking about the study of law, not practice (of which I know nothing about).

To combat the boredom that comes with this process, schools (at least HYS) started piling bullshit into the curriculum. Law and _______ (insert useless undergrad thingy whose uselessness ensured that its students had no choice but to enroll in LS).

Don't get me wrong, there are some intellectual aspects but those are irrelevant in the end. Your contracts class might spend hours and hours discussing Posner's views on efficient breaches only to tell you in the end about the very simple formula of determining expectancy damages. It's very tedious and absolutely pointless.

All the above would be tolerable if it wasn't for the confluence of the importance of grades and the sort of people Law School generally attracts.

Hell, here's the real kicker. You can bust your ass for the grades only to find out hiring doesn't even correlate to that shit all that much (at places like hys, at least).

[bk1]

because most legal scholarship is utterly BS. But it doesn't have to be, and if you're on a law journal editorial board, you can at least attempt to change that.

You can, but then your journal wouldn't have anything to publish.

[ilovesf]

because most legal scholarship is utterly BS. But it doesn't have to be, and if you're on a law journal editorial board, you can at least attempt to change that.

You can, but then your journal wouldn't have anything to publish.

[3ThrowAway99]

1L is good beause you learn basic doctrinal things. 2L and 3L are a waste of money because the things you need to know you will learn when you start practicing.
.

+1. At the very least, 3 years is too long--really unnecessary IMO.

[3ThrowAway99]

Pretty sure I can't stand anything about law.

Whoooooops!

+1

[JCougar]

because most legal scholarship is utterly BS. But it doesn't have to be, and if you're on a law journal editorial board, you can at least attempt to change that.

You can, but then your journal wouldn't have anything to publish.

LOL. I think there is some good stuff out there. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. It hurts wading through all the pure garbage and plagiarism that gets submitted, though.