Going To Law School

I'm taking the NJ bar exam, so that's an option. I worked at the AG's office in Jersey one summer and I loved the people I worked for; they were super smart, nice, and a little on the odd side (as opposed to the Brooklyn DA's office where my supervisor was like one of those lesser demons from a D&D manual, and the other intern trash talked me to the supervisor to gain some imaginary edge in her mind, as if doing a good job wasn't enough).

The problem is, I haven't found any area of the law to be interesting at all, and the work itself is painfully boring. I used to write huge manuals about inter-office communications systems and I found that more interesting than Con Law, writing memos, etc., mostly because I was tackling the project from an "aesthetic"/communicative perspective, so to speak. All the things I find interesting in life aren't really present in the legal profession, plus a lot of crap that I find dreary.

But all your advice is good, and I'm going to finish out this out as best as I can. There's no sense not to. Maybe I need a day off.

where in NJ are you, Spectrum? north, central, or south? there are def. some differences in "the way things are done" b/w North Jersey and South Jersey (in law as in everything else). you can make a good living concentrating on NJ law, though the pay isn't generally as high as in either NYC or Philly (at least for BigLaw).

as for what area to concentrate on eventually -- there are definitely areas where someone who isn't super-competitive/hyper-Alpha Male can thrive. i'm thinking of areas like elder law, trusts and probate, some real estate, etc. if you worked for the NJ AG's office, i'm assuming that you like litigation? if you don't like conflict and drama, one area to avoid would be family law (not just in NJ, but anywhere).

also, good luck on the NJ Bar exam. the year i took it, we didn't have any questions on NJ Civil Procedure (prob. better that y'all be tested on that subject, since there are some major differences b/w the NJ Rules and NY's CPLR [i dunno anything about PA civ. pro.]).

I'm from Northern NJ, so that's where my base of operations would be.

I think it's interesting when I said "sensitive" that it was taken with the connotation of being "weak" or "submissive", ie, not the alpha-male type. The way I meant it is that I feel this intense empathy for other people, like it's this instantaneous chain reaction in my mind that people have all these levels of emotion, pride, family, friends, etc., and so it becomes difficult for me to act in a "negative" way towards them. I also get sickened when I see people who put themselves in a better position at the needless expense of others. When I was a kid I used to stand up to bullies in school who I saw doing that because even as a kid it made me intensely angry.

I thought these personality traits would be good in law ... defending people who were wronged, and helping make things right! Unfortunately, that's not how it goes, as far as I've seen. I've represented about half a dozen clients in court so far and it makes me feel like my idealism was misplaced. One client I successfully represented in a difficult unemployment dispute (2 hearings, 6 adverse witnesses, no witnesses on my side) and she was this aggressive serial harasser and bully who not only deserved to be fired, but said to me on the day of our final hearing, "I just spent all my money on Christmas presents, so you better win this for me!". I just wanted to throw her case in the garbage at that point.

I also helped a serial wife-beater get even less probation than my PD office was asking for (with the help of clever on-the-feet tactics). At the DA's office I worked for prosecutors who verged on sociopathic - I watched one prosecutor lie through her teeth during an client interview, and I thought, "did anyone else catch these ridiculously inconsistent statements?" They were also miserably cruel, which annoyed the hell out of me. Maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion, who knows, I just feel things really intensely. Especially stress. I hate that stuff.

Anyway, thanks for reading me vent, I feel it's hard letting this crap out to my friends and friendly since they're dealing with so much themselves ... so uhhh, thanks ILX!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/business/law-school-economics-job-market-weakens-tuition-rises.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business

Matasar seems like such a strange character

USNews seems to ruin everything. I'd really like to see a competitor ranking system challenge them; I recognize that there will be attempts to game any system, but things like $ spent per student are just insane as measures of quality and really damaging. Also if they're going to use employment data they really need to independently verify it and not rely on schools.

it's sorta amazing that some crappy magazine can be responsible for so much shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_auFicUWK4&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL923B0FEA7688AA58

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.

― burt_stanton

hahaha BURRRRRRRRT

fuuuuuck, someone please tell me there are disorganized lawyers out there

one year and a bit into law school and i'm still a last-minute clusterfuck. so far: bad grades hopefully balanced out somewhat by solid extracurriculars. but a major achilles' heel in that i'm not sure if i'll ever be able to fastidiously log time... or keep an organized file... or be on top of BF dates... yeuch. i mean, i'm targeting the salaried crown prosecutor job anyways, but i might start out doing crim defense cuz that seems to be where the jobs have been these last few.

how much of a priority is organization for lawyers?

Dude, of course there are disorganized lawyers out there. You should see the desks of some partners. You should hear how many times I've already said to experienced people "Uh, we're supposed to have a conference call this week -- did anyone set that up?" etc.

Still, thing is it will make your life much easier and make your work better to be organized.

I had the same fears about billing, keeping files, etc. Some of it is a matter of simple systems -- e.g. I always do my timesheet from the prior day right when I come in in the morning. If I really have to be exact about hours for something, I just write a start time when I start working on something and a stop time when I stop for a bit -- it's not that hard.

In re keeping an organized file -- depends where you work, but you may have a paralegal or secretary who does this. Also keeping things organized on a computer is pretty easy.

What I've found most of all is that motivation drives organization. If you want to do well then your drive to be organized will spring out of that. You'll find makeshift ways of keeping track of things, however imperfect, that serve your greater needs.

ideally, you should keep time basically contemporaneously. i do, for stretches, but then regress to doing it all at the end of the day (which inevitably means you don't capture all your time).

keeping files organized is essential, but it's also fairly easy, given the division of labor at most firms. assistants handle it, and we have a parallel online index of materials.

don't worry. robots will replace lawyers soon, anyway.

Yeah I'm plaintiff's side so there's slightly less pressure to get it down to the exact 6-minute-increment. But at the other firm where I worked I would sometimes approximate. I think it's reasonable as long as you do it in an honest way, e.g. make realistic estimates of time you spend surfing the net and take those out, etc.

Just finished by 1st month. Estate law seems really rough, not looking forward to going into depth on that subject...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/opinion/are-law-schools-and-bar-exams-necessary.html

Passed the bar.

Hate to sound douchey but I think a lot of the anxiety over it is just people working themselves into a needless frenzy. Passing is not that hard, and pretty much everyone I know passed.

congratulations!

congrats dude!

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2011/11/law_schools_should_pay_students_to_quit_.html

written by yale law profs

Another possible reform would oblige law schools to lend money directly to students—so that defaults hurt the school’s bottom line rather than taxpayers’. While educational lenders are legally allowed to insist on repayment even after bankruptcy, schools are free to renounce this option. Schools that would bear the loss of unpaid student loans would have better incentives to admit students who will avoid bankruptcy. Any school unwilling to lend to its students this way would be sending a strong negative signal to its applicants. Any school that is truly a good deal should put its own money where its mouth is.

^ this is actually a better idea than the main idea but as w/ many things written from a professor's pov they don't approach the idea that maybe we have an institutional-level problem if it takes $150,000 to teach somebody how to be a lawyer

Ugh. After a first year of mixed B's, B+'s and A-'s, we just got our grades for first semester of 2L.

Somehow I managed to get an A- in Common Law Property, which had been kicking my ass all term, and a C+ in Advanced Common Law Obligations, which seemed amorphous and fairly easy to grasp (but which is - obviously - the one that jobs will care about more when applying).

Need to turn the year around this semester. Funny how ten minutes can make you life feel much less in control than it did before. Hmph.

Sorry. This is pointless whining. But it's 1AM and I'm still doing Criminal Law readings, and holding back our grades until nearly a month into the next semester seems needlessly cruel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/business/for-lsat-sharp-drop-in-popularity-for-second-year.html

good

Good news for people already in law school

Negligbly so, imo. There aren't many scenarios in which you'd be competing for work with someone coming up behind you.

If anything, good news for anyone who winds up in a smaller law school class as a result. Although I don't know if the drop is going to be big enough to have that kind of impact.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/9-graduates-lose-case-against-new-york-law-school/?emc=eta1

They sought $225 million in damages — a number that they said represented the difference between what they contended was inflated tuition and the “true value” of their degree.

lol

i sympathize with the plaintiffs and American law schools are really slippery wr2 how they report graduates' salaries, but really the plaintiffs didn't stand a ghost of a chance.

this will be a pr problem that won't wash away anytime soon, however, and will seem far more important when nyls eventually goes out of business

they didn't stand a chance in part because the problem is too big and entrenched. If every law school suddenly had to openly report realistic employment numbers, it would upend the industry.

Also the judicial system is itself kind of invested in the law school-industrial complex. At very least I think judges are likely to have a special kind bias.

I dunno they have a bias for 'the system works! look at me, for example' and not necessarily 'lol let's ensure that middle class kids continue to graduate w/ 6 figures of debt and no job prospects'

like they're not getting paid under the table by law schools and in fact it's in the best interest of people w/ jds to slow the creation of new jds a la the AMA

That's what I mean though. They're all people for whom the system worked out quite well. They also all graduated at a very different time in legal education and the job market.

I actually don't think the AMA comparison works. A partner in a law firm has an interest in a huge pool of potential associates.

I think that if the current biglaw hiring cuts keep going in the mid-to-long term, it's realistic to think that better financially endowed universities will demand that their law schools reform their financial aid so that it's not modeled on the "into the firms you go! You'll be rich!" nonsense that's around at the moment, and poorer universities may have to dramatically shrink their admissions.

That sounds backwards. Law Schools are cash cows for universities.

Think it through, counselor: they are cash cows under the current "get loans and pay us in full, you'll be ok" model. IF that model is dying, as it would have to be if the current hiring crisis continues...

well, the ABA certainly isn't going to push for it ... in fact, their accredidation standards are arguably one of the factors for law schools' tuition hikes over the years. on this and a zillion other things, the ABA may be the most useless guild/trade association ever.

also hurting OTM wr2 the mindset of old-school lawyers/judges wr2 younger lawyers and their debt loads/job problems.

I actually don't think the AMA comparison works. A partner in a law firm has an interest in a huge pool of potential associates.

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Friday, March 23, 2012 4:20 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk, a small law firm in a small market does not benefit from the market being flooded, and a big law firm in a big market doesn't really have anything invested in how many students there are at nyls.

The firms are going to lose their leverage if they start messing with big universities' credibility, is what I'm saying.

That isn't true, necessarily xpost. Discovery requires a huge supply of relatively cheap JD labor. Big firms, in fact, do rely on armies of NYLS graduates who work for them via contractors. And the more of those you have who are desperate for work, the better quality you get and the less you have to pay.

The firms are going to lose their leverage if they start messing with big universities' credibility, is what I'm saying.

― Three Word Username, Friday, March 23, 2012 5:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh I guess maybe at some point that becomes true. It's hard for me to think of a university right now whose law school's reputation is in danger of being enough degrees worse to drag it down.

graduates-lose-case-against-new-york-law-school

haha explains why they were they ones who didnt get jobs amirite

yeah I guess I wasn't thinking about that, tho I've gotten the sense that the work can eventually be automated xp

There is early talk of something called "computer assisted document review" right now which might eliminate some of the need for some of the most basic document coding jobs. It sounds a little questionable to me unless they've invented AI and not told anyone.

people who don't care about this subject can't tell you what schools have good law schools anyway. there are relatively few schools w/ any sort of national prestige, and only some of them have law schools, and they're all schools that will survive the wildfire regardless.

xps