Going To Law School

yo, law school dudes in the know, are the career prospects out of Amurican Univeristy - W*C*L halfway decent? The debt's nuts, but it'd be manageable with a decent paying job and a career that grows with time.

Hello dere. My advice is that if you're going to law school, you might as well go full time and devout yourself to it, at least for your first year when the grades are really fucking important (it's lame, but they really are important). Just put it all on student loans and plan to pay them back slowly for the next 30 years. But anyway.... I'm sure that you will find a great job if you go to AU. Just try really hard to get good grades and you will be fine.

Oh, so my update is.... I'm clerking for a magistrate judge in Brooklyn, still looking for a job for August and finding the job market REALLY tough. Interview last week at an awesome firm, so fingers are crossed. Otherwise, I have a giant pile of rejection letters and not a ton of prospects but I will surely end up somewhere fine. Probably will work for a couple years and then try for another clerkship with a district court judge.

My favorite case is New York State Association for Retarded Children, Inc. v. Carey, which is a 2d Circuit case that says that contemporaneous time records must be kept for attorneys' fees. I think I have cited about a bazillion times and I chuckle ever time. And, this is what has become of my life!

Which school did you go to - BLS?

k which one of u wants to do my entertainment law midterm for me???
it would be good practice! lol

what kinda law you wanna practice, a?

Yeah went to BLS. I really liked it. But definitely found that at a tier two school that jobs for students lower than top 20% were kind of rough. The thing to keep in mind is that everyone comes to law school smart and capable of getting good grades. It's not like college where you just have to show up. To get the most out of it, you really do have to commit yourself. It's not THAT big a deal though. Just be focused, don't get mired in the pressure, etc. etc.

Hi tehresa. Sure I will help you with your midterm! At the moment I'm just hoping to get my foot in the door at a big litigation firm -- kind of typical corporate stuff. I'm actually hoping I might one day end up as an AUSA. We shall see!!

I think you will make a great AUSA.

that would be mad exciting!

thanks for the offer, but those pesky ethics, ya know ;-) i am probably 80% finished with it at this point :) :) but who knows if it's any good!?

aaron, if you have ever entertained the idea of working for NYC, let me know

oh yeah, I got into Cardozo today with scholarship. We could be classmates Hurting 8)

Congrat Burt! Yeah Cardozo is a great option.

Thank you felicity! How are you doing?

Cutty, I think I emailed you (twice) but in case I screwed it up let me know and I'll try again. Nu-ilx is confusing!

And.... Good luck tehresa. Don't want to run afoul of ethics. I'm sure you did great. My Entertainment Law prof was like 120 years old and always droned on and on about how he worked for CBS in the 1950s. It was awesome.

yo, law school dudes in the know, are the career prospects out of Amurican Univeristy - W*C*L halfway decent? The debt's nuts, but it'd be manageable with a decent paying job and a career that grows with time.

The few AmU Law alumni I know are good lawyers and do very well.

aaron, i know we've met in the past--but i've never received an email from you

you can reach me at m4ttcutt✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧

I'm good, Aaron, Esq. I think of you whenever I read one of my Motorbooty magazines.

I really do think you'd make a good AUSA. You have the "look." I will vouch for you in the FBI background check if you need a reference.

Oh and congrats, burt stanton. Cardozo scholarship is a huge coup.

In "Reasons of the Heart", Edward Dahlberg said, "When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels."

I'd like to add "he commits suicide, travels, or goes to law school."

I love indie dudes as much as anyone but just remember life can look pretty good without a ton of debt, too.

People who go to law school only because they think their lives are worthless turn into miserable, bitter, alcholic, Patrick, Batemans. Defer if you feel that way about it.

I still think American is a very good school and it travels well. Cardozo if great in NYC.

Are they that good? I hear horror stories about them... impossible to find work, really low starting salaries, people crippled under piles of debt they can't pay off. I got some Public Service Scholar title from Cardozo, whatever that means.

Law school feels like my last shot at a decent career, and I've always been interested in law crap. I'm a writer by trade, but nobody cares about words anymore, and it's an unstable career prone to exploitation by employers, especially if you went to a Tier 4 UG like I did.

Yes they are that good.

Nobody cares where you went to UG. All they care about are grades and/or whether you follow directions.

All they care about are grades and/or whether you follow directions

And this is the case once you get OUT of law school...in some cases, forever (big firms tend to STAY snobbish) or after 5 - 7 years of practice, you can usually land better jobs.

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

If by "humanity," you mean "overblown sense of righteousness, inability to avoid an argument, and soul-crushing amounts of debt," then yes, you will achieve at least some measure of your humanity in law school

Burt, putting aside your crushing self-pity for a moment (which I don't mean to be overly condescending about since I tend toward it sometimes myself), why do you actually want to go to law school? Do you have any interest in the law? Have you spent time visiting classes, talking to law students and lawyers, doing research on what law school and lawyering are like?

I'm being a little tongue in cheek. I've always been interested in law, but the debt vs. job prospects seems horrible. From the impression you get, 98% of new lawyers are either unemployed or document reviewers.

The job prospects vs. debt from college kind of suck too.

Well I mean, average undergrad debt is 18k, which is like, 120/month in payments. ... average law school debt is closer to the 6 figures, and is more like 1,200/month.

I got some Public Service Scholar title from Cardozo, whatever that means.

What does it mean. It sounds interesting.

The letter said only 20 people per class receive it, and it's some thing you graduate with if you keep up with the program. I'm just worried about law school in general now; there are so many horror stories you read online.

Sounds pretty exclusive. What are the criteria?

I'm not sure. It says it was based on my past experience in public interest; I wrote some essay on it, but I can't imagine a ton of people apply to Cardozo for that field.

burt if you really want to see some disillusionment with law school just take a look at http://www.jdunderground.com

uhrrrrr. I think I might delay law school a year; work or bum around, retake the LSATs, and hope for some sweet sweet T20.

sounds like a fun year

Nah, I might go to Cardozo ... they offered me some nice cash, and a spiffy Scholar title. Hurting and I will be BFFs. 8)

(8

oh indeed

8)

I told Cardozo yes today. See you in the Fall, Stanton.

Congrats!

WOOT!

you two will be able to live-blog together here

also please do not hesistate to let us know when the other of you two has been socratic method-ized and unable to answer your professor's query

Back row bingo anyone?

that sounds dirty

also if one of you makes law review and the other doesn't, well there will be razzing

You keep track of who gets cold called by seating chart and -- in some variants -- who is absent, says something wrong, funny, or "very much in character." Supposedly people get so caught up in it they actually say "bingo" out loud but that may be legend.

Oh the fun you'll have.

I can't stop reading those law school horror story websites like "jdunderground" and "temp attorney hell". It makes me question this whole law school thing, not that writing/editing is that stable of a career.

perhaps the population of those sites is self-selected and therefore unrepresentative

Stanton, I get into those same ruts sometimes, but my advice is to stop reading those sites. In every profession you're going to find people advising you against, telling you won't make enough money, the work sucks, the field is shrinking, it's not stable, blah blah. Nothing is completely safe, and there's no way to guarantee a good income for the rest of your life. If you want a career that's more of a sure bet right now, become a nurse.

sorry for showing you that site. no really i'm not.