Going To Law School

You would be crazy not to do it.

good luck man! lawyers are cool by me

if u stay u can be my lawyer

Yeah? Yeah. University of Toronto has a reputation in Canada as the stronger school, maybe? But that's because it's singular focus on common law means that they offer a much more rigourous standard of legal education for the one system, but it's really only THE school to be at if you want to end up on big Bay Street firms.

Glad that you have my back on this, though. Major life decisions should rarely be made w/o consulting the Internet. Haha. (Seriously, though, perspective from people who have done the law school thing is useful. Thanks!)

Oh actually I didn't know Toronto was considered the stronger school. I thought you were going to the better school for cheaper.

I may not actually know enough about the Canadian legal market to advise. My general feeling is that there are only two factors that should make up the bulk of your law school decision - cost and what it does for your career. Stuff like "funding for human rights internships" shouldn't be a major factor - you can do internships coming from any school, and ultimately there's a good chance you won't wind up working in the particular area you want to. Especially in something like international human rights, where jobs are scarce and competitive.

Well, they're neck and neck in terms of goodness, to be honest. Just different focuses. Toronto pitches itself very much in the mold of top tier American schools, including the pricing schedule. Rigorous common law training, Socratic method, corporate tilt, hyper competitive, etc. etc., direct ties to a lot of big name firms in Canada. (It helps that as a city Toronto is the centre of corporate law in the country.)

McGill is well, one of two schools that have a bijuridical curriculum and the only one that teaches a transsystemic approach - you learn both systems of law simultaneously in a comparative structure. It's innovative and leads to a lot of really creative and interesting ways of looking at law, esp. from an international perspective. So my point is, you might be better trained in a standard sort of legal process at Toronto, but you walk out of McGill with a very unique perspective on the law.

Hope that clarifies. (The advantage to having both systems, in theory is that you're more marketable anywhere internationally because 60% of the world uses droit civil, and any federal gov't work smiles on being able to work in either context.)

"the advantage to having both systems, in theory is that you're more marketable anywhere internationally"

tbh I'm a little skeptical of this -- it's not like my common-law based education me "marketable" in other common-law countries. Although it does sound very interesting to be trained in both and have the comparative perspective.

Otherwise it sounds like McGill is a better bet unless what you really want is to work in a top Canadian firm.

Mmm. Yeah. I think the marketability isn't necessarily the BCL in and of itself, but rather the familiarity with both systems - lets you dance back and forth across the line, esp. in things like internat'l commercial arbitration and so forth.

In theory, at least.

dudes who have gone to law school, some advice! writing my professors about my "aspirations for law school" and I'm not really sure what to write beyond having interests in "international law" and "public interest law"

so my question is, how good of an idea did you all have of the areas of your interest before you applied?

(btw congrats AiM! good thing you haven't changed your display name yet!)

i thought i wanted to do IP stuff and it somewhat drove where i applied, but i wasnt ttly set on it or anything.

i think that unless you already have a really strong legal background somehow, like ur reading cases regularly for enjoyment or something? idk, you really cant grasp what it's gonna be like. anyway im like 5+ yrs out & have worked for the gov't the entire time

i had not a very good idea, just public interest. you can (and should) talk about non-law stuff you've done.

I wasn't sure, beyond knowing I wanted to be a litigator.

Yeah very few people can honestly say they know going in. Even people who have worked as paralegals don't always have a full sense of any particular area of law.

Most people either think they want to be trial lawyers like on TV, want to do "IP" or "international law" because it sounds vaguely sexy and cutting edge, or "public interest" because it pleases their consciences. There are some people, especially in the last category, who are genuinely committed to the idea they come with but most are not. Believe me two years from now you'll be telling us how you "actually think bankruptcy is really interesting" and you will half mean it. Ha. Law school.

You have no idea how the next few years of your life are going to affect you. This is not to say something terribly profound or to be some wizened old hand, but seriously - you may realize that you actually enjoy litigation (*raises hand*) and those other things are just not your cup of tea.

I went in thinking I wanted to do something related to education, but had NO idea how to get into that. During law school, I developed and fostered an interest in estate planning, but found out that its REALLY hard to get an entry level gig in estate planning, so got a litigation job, followed by another one . . . defending public entities, like school districts and community colleges.

So, like I say - you have NO idea.

The only thing I can guarantee you is that, especially your first year, what you get out of it is DIRECTLY proportional with how much you put into it. Do the work, make sure you either understand everything or ask questions until you understand everything, and - MOST IMPORTANTLY - don't be a dick to anyone. Friends are invaluable in law school

i'm still doing public interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMvARy0lBLE

Believe me two years from now you'll be telling us how you "actually think bankruptcy is really interesting" and you will half mean it. Ha. Law school.

haha, true. only substitute "ERISA/Employee Benefits" for "bankruptcy" and that was kinda my l-school story. (i don't do ERISA work, for better or worse.)

Oh man. That video has been making the rounds all week. About to lock myself up for the weekend to start a paper for my Foundations/Philosophy of Law class and a canned memo for Methodology. Still seem to be surviving and enjoying it. Working simultaneously in two systems in most classes is perplexing at times, and the Civil Code of Quebec weighs a fucking tonne (slogan: all the law you'll ever need, and a lot of shit you'll never read) but I'm already surprised by how much I'm digging studying law for its own sake - instrumental uses aside.

Plus, in November I get to start doing legal research for the Montreal Institute for Genocide Studies. Yay?

It would be nice to be around people who don't make or understand specific performance and binding precedent jokes, mind you. They don't warn you that it's a black hole of humour.

actually, it may not seem so at the time or immediately after graduating but law school DOES inculcate a certain useful way of looking at issues and problems. dunno whether that by itself justifies the $100K+ price tag (esp. including the opportunity costs of spending 3 years of your life at whatever l-school you're attending).

It would be nice to be around people who don't make or understand specific performance and binding precedent jokes, mind you.

if you say the constitution is a living, breathing document . . . i may have to kill myself.

"I am incredibly committed!" "I think you should be committed."

lol

Seriously. Fact patterns about whether or not publicly-owned companies that gov'ts own majority interests in count as "government" per Charter claims are fun, but they shouldn't be to sane people, right?

gah. you'd think going to law school, doing post law school training, doing my traineeship and actually qualifying as a lawyer would stand you in good stead but the further out I get from my last legal position the less and less attractive I become especially in this buyer's market. increasingly feels like the last two years have ruined the 7 years of hard work I put in beforehand.

has anyone here taken 'a career break' of however long and successfully re-entered the profession? doesn't help that my technical ability is rotting by the day

what I need is basically someone who is willing to take me on as an NQ but accept that I've probably regressed to the level of a second year trainee. the worst thing is, I know 3 months hard work in a law firm would bring me right back up to speed it's just communicating this to employers without sounding like 'herp derp I've actually forgotten a lot of my training and I'm not commercially aware no more'

can you just bluff it, get in the door and then quietly bring yourself back up to speed

nb I know nothing about how any of this works

gah New York Civil Practice in 3rd year is like the part where you get to the top of the mountain and you can see the valley of shit below.

Volunteered as a fake-witness this weekend for the mock trial that was a Fourth-Year friend's Civil Litigation final. Was actually kind of fun, notwithstanding the fact that I was mostly doing it to avoid studying for Civil Property/Droit des biens or contemplating doctrinal nuances of arguments for and against no-fault product liability regimes in Quebec.

Midterms hit a week from tomorrow. Civil Property / Torts / Constitutional M / W / F, Contracts the following Tuesday. It's about to get very interesting... :S

Thank the lord this is almost over. I was just diagnosed with dyspraxia - I always thought I was just lazy and spacey (or as the fam would say, 'useless'), but makes sense considering the utter hell this experience has been. The only classes I've done well in require creative legal thinking (litigation classes mostly). Too bad finals asking to develop interesting ways to sue people were few and far between; not sure creative problem solving is even valued in the legal field, seems like school trains us to be mindless paper-shuffling drones, which I'm clearly very bad at being.

Anyone have any advice on getting litigation work with crummy grades (3.2 GPA)? Possible hope?

not sure creative problem solving is even valued in the legal field

it is. your GPA is fine. the problem is the difficult market for emerging first-year lawyers. keep your head up; you'll be okay.

Ugh, take-home exams are fucking hell. Now 28.5 hours left to write another 5 pages of my paper and cobble it into something coherent, then a brief episode of freedom tarnished only by having to edit my note.

i feel like a rotting husk of a former man. will law school give me back my humanity?

― burt_stanton

officially survived first semester, although final finals should never be take-homes - the impetus to actually bust yr ass on a 2500 word paper on philosophy of law, hart & fuller and the distinction between law and morality is not something easily conjured.

two weeks of freedom before diving back into the fray.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html

The problem is really the same in any professional field, maybe you'll make your mark as a student but once you get started in the workplace the people upstairs make no note of whatever might be special or different about you. This is a bad practice, it happened to my brother, but it happened to friends of mine in practically every professional field.

I think people single out law for this because attorneys are an easy target for people who can't succeed at anything. Don't let anyone discourage you in any professional field!

had a job
job fell through

sorry : (

sucks :-( do you have a backup plan?

:( That blows.

As of yesterday at 10AM I have officially finished first year (after a 24 hour constitutional take home exam) and am applying (semi-fruitlessly) for research assistant positions with profs. Law jobs aren't things people have, per se, until after second year, because the combined degree is a 3.5/4 year program, but still, the prospect of not doing something vaguely law-y for the summer makes me nervous. Foot in the door early, etc. etc. But all in all first year wasn't that awful. Hoping to end the year with an A- or two and some mixed Bs/B+s but I don't want to jinx it before marks come out in two weeks.

So yeah, looks like I'm graduating in the top 5% and jobless. Pretty frustrated right now. Will get over it. But feel like I wasted the whole year that I could have spent looking for jobs, lost the chance to apply for clerkships, etc. Also no idea how long it will take me to find something else.

In a larger sense I also feel like in my monomaniacal pursuit of grades (a not unreasonable pursuit considering the employment stats from my school) I've kind of lost sight of what I actually want to do or what I even want out of life.

Perhaps I'll have some time to reflect/regain perspective in the next few weeks.

oh dude...

i had a really good friend graduate from a decent but not top 10 school last year & the place she clerked the previous summer ended up not hiring her (they didnt hire anyone). it took her some time but she still found something great, keep your chin up.

haha i guess this also means that burt_stanton wouldve been graduating law school...

I now return from my self-imposed ILXile to issue the single most satisfying "I told you so" of my entire life.

I told you so, dude.

Now revive a bass technique thread and give us your second most satisfying "I told you so."

No, don't really do that.

And I drunkenly award TWU an OTM. OTM.

This, i assume, is like watching my future in slow motion. Managed to snag a part time research position with a prof for the summer, provided he likes my first week of product. Drawing blanks on everything else. Grades finally get released tomorrow.