Going To Law School

No, I like legal aid. I'm in the public interest program here. The grades are below median (2.98, median being 3.016), which isn't good from a Tier 2 school... if I couldn't even do legal aid, I'd probably drop out.

oh i thought you were implying that was for people who were the worst lawyers with the worst grades. i didn't know cardozo was tier 2 though. my school is "tier 1" but cardozo rejected me. anyway you're worrying too much and by next year you will see what i mean.

No, I'd be happy to work for them if that were even possible with these grades. We only had 2 major courses and the half of another major course (haven't gotten the grade back, but it doesn't bode well), so that's that. Next semester has more credits than this one.

ok you're still wrong but i'm not going to argue w/ you anymore

Can I work for legal aid with these grades? If so, I'll stay and start getting more public interest experience. I'm hearing horror stories about the NYC legal world ... like you need to be top 20% to even be considered by Legal Aid.

call legal aid and ask them LOL

They'll probably laugh in my face

i'd say maybe you might win on personality, but i think we all know that is not the case

I don't get grades for another week.

If you really want to do legal aid, find another way in. I think jdunderground is getting to you.

Yeah. These grades are way below 50%, though, so :{

Reading the sample answers, I approached these exams like an English major, which is 100% the exact opposite of law school thinking. For 4 years I was trained to focus on miniscule details and single one out and "blow it up" so to speak. Now it's totally different with law. Pretty sad how one semester can destroy an entire potential career.

yeah, you should just give up now and throw yourself in the east river

That's how I feel, honestly. Way too much debt riding on this.

Hey, Burt. You're failing the biggest law school test of them all. You're letting whatever the hell else is going on affect your dedication to getting this degree.

Seriously. There are THOUSANDS of jobs that don't even ask what your grades were. If you wanted a big firm job, well that's kind of like banking on a lottery win. A gambling man would not bet on ANYONE getting those jobs.

And, if it makes you feel any better, I did worse than that my first semester, and I still got a job. True, I just got downsized, but the firm is going under, so its no reflection on me!

LETS DRINK!!!!!

haha, good times. I just want to do public interest in any regard, and if you do that, the government LRAP seems pretty fair (10 years of any public service law gig = loans forgiven, or something like that). Oh well.

Note to future law students with an English Literature background: unlearn everything they teach you.

we tried to give you that note, you didn't listen.

My school deliberately waits to give first semester grades for first years until second semester tuition has already been paid and classes have already started.

Everyone tried to tell me, even my mom. Yeah, I'm a stubborn, arrogant asshole. The world, break my pride.

Braggin:

Straight As.

Q: How do I handle this in terms of telling/not-telling other people? Also how do I make sure I keep it up?

i almost never tell other people. it usually comes off as douchey and not necessary. also yes, hard to keep up once you start realizing hey this is a stupid game why am i trying but some people never realize that. good luck being one of them!

My study group wanted to all tell and we agreed before we got grades. Other than that I think I am going to tell no one.

KIU dude nice work

law review!

HEYO!

fuk

just don't tell burt stanton

Congrats Hurting!

Kudos to you and your team, Josh!

when people ask just say "i did pretty well"

Good work! And ^^^^ (Max) is totally right.

Everyone in my group did well (at least B+ average) so it was cool. It would have sucked if just one of us did badly.

Seriously, though, burt: if you are really only freaking out about your grades and not able to figure out what you did wrong (i.e. crawling up your own ass and taking Hurting's advice on anything rather than relaxing and dealing with the question in front of you when it's there), you could live with a semester or two off. AT LEAST.

My first semester 1L was all As, second semester a B- nightmare. Then I realized I was letting my classmates' "oh this is so hard and oh so important and very very SERIOUS" shit get to me, so I cut it out and got through with a very nice A- average (with really good grades reserved for the classes I actually was interested in).

I know good lawyers with good lawyering jobs that make them happy who did not get top grades and go to big name schools. I got good grades at a top school and oh-so-prestigious jobs afterwards and it did not make me happy.

Did you change your username again, C0lin?

Congrats, dude. A+ striaght through means you're doing it right. Now, keep it up - whatever the hell it was.

As for telling other people, do NOT be that guy. I still remember those people, and we all hated them. I was friends with probably 5-7 out of the top 10 students in my class, but those other assfaces? No one liked them. Ugh.

And we all remember. Believe me.

I just realized today: going to law school for me isn't a pursuit for a new career. it isn't self-betterment. It's yet another act of self-destruction. I rule.

Redemption!!!!!! I got a full fucking A in Contracts. An A in Contracts. That's way more important than Civ Pro. I won't kill myself now... sorry, hatas.

second or third highest grade in the class. maybe I'm not such a dumb ass ;_;

and the whole thing is true about doing better in classes you think you're going to fail, and you do shitty in classes where you think you got an A. I left Civ Pro and Torts thinking "I rule" and Contracts thinking "what the hell was that?"

I wonder why that is... does knowing a little less actually help you be more creative with your legal thinking?

A in contracts is aces Burt. Congrats.

Thanks. Hopefully Property and all that stuff goes equally as well ... Civ Pro and Torts just made no sense.

Which classes are you doing this semester?

Contracts, Con Law, Property, Legal Writing again.

I'm liking property the most so far, surprisingly. Reading about fox-hunting and whaling and duck decoy ponds is so much more enjoyable than reading about commerce clause powers or consideration theories.

I'm thinking about going to school to study copyright law, so I can fight for the artistic rights of producers who sample records. Is this a smart thing to do? Is there enough cases to even fight? Who even pays these lawyers considering that indie-label rap guys, home-recording mashup people and John Oswald types generally don't have a lot of money to throw around.

Who even pays these lawyers considering that indie-label rap guys, home-recording mashup people and John Oswald types generally don't have a lot of money to throw around.

Nobody.

So what type of stuff do they do in their non-doing-that time?

There's already too many lawyers and people who graduate from law school but never use their degree. Unless law is really your passion, law school just seems an expensive exercise in hubris and status chasing.

My impression that there is a general rule that going to law school "to fight for the rights of x" means that you have to be willing to compete very hard for low paying jobs. The reason for this is simple -- people who really NEED someone to fight for their rights in order to avoid being screwed by the Man don't generally have money, or else they would just hire a good lawyer on their own and avoid being screwed by the Man.

There's no reason, I suppose, that you couldn't be some other kind of lawyer that also did that work pro bono or at a low cost. You could do any kind of stuff in your "non-doing-that time."

But my general opinion, which is largely received wisdom, is that a mere interest in a social cause is not a good reason to go to law school -- you have to actually like and be interested in the legal aspect itself in order to not want to claw your eyes out from the tedium of law.

whiney, stop right there.

law school will teach you the doctrines, but that's useless. to get experience in IP and fight for whomever's rights, you need to get a job in IP.

to get a job in IP, especially copyright law, you will be competing with the millions of other people who think it's an attractive field. it's hard to get a job in an IP-centric firm without a technical degree. they want you to be able to do the patent stuff as well.

most soft-IP firms that only do copyright/trademark do not hire out of law school.

IP is probably the most fashionable field in law right now... it's fun, easy, and you get to deal with all that 21st century "cool stuff" like the internet, media, software, etc. So basically, unless you absolutely destroy the LSATs and then are willing to work hard to one-up all the aspie douchebags who make up the top of the class of the top 10 schools, you know ... it's probably not a particularly wise move if you sit around and take into consideration these above here factors.

God knows why I'm in law school. At least I'm good at the really boring stuff.

Well thanks for the advice, guys. Just looking for SOMETHING I can be passionate about since rock critic/drummer is about as smart a career option as "typewriter repairman" right now.

if you want to be a lawyer, try not to expect to be passionate about your work.

being a lawyer for me is a job, an honest profession. pays the bills. i leave the passion for drumming and bike racing (no one is paying me to do those things.)