To my friends in Hostile, Mass.
A quick, scattershot reply to my anonymous detractors:
1) As to my experience: it's good, at least in a public service-y kind of way. First summer was at a public defender's office, second working for a respected professor at my law school doing research on the implications of using experts to rebut eyewitness testimony. Last fall I studied in London and worked with a local immigration attorney on asylum cases. I'm also professionally trained as an editor, which should be a minor advantage given the general writing quality in the field just now.
2) As to picking up clients now instead of looking for work while I'm waiting for my bar results: that's called "practicing law without a license," and it's a felony. (Did your law school not have a professional responsibility class, or were you too busy going to all those interviews?) Not the best way to start one's legal career.
3) Although I don't like to think of myself as such, I'm more or less average. I didn't really understand the point of slaving away on law review or pretending to enjoy moot court, so I helped to found (and later ran) the school's first theater group and worked on the newspaper instead. Part of the point of this blawg is to provide an object lesson to show what happens to us non-top-ten-percenters from bottom-of-the-top-100-schools after law school. Although I'm generally optimistic about the future, it is not--as you might be gathering--always pretty.
Anyway, sorry to delete your earlier posts, but I thought they were all from the same miscreant. Further analysis has proven me wrong and now I can't figure out how to restore them. It's all free speech from here on out, though. So.
1) As to my experience: it's good, at least in a public service-y kind of way. First summer was at a public defender's office, second working for a respected professor at my law school doing research on the implications of using experts to rebut eyewitness testimony. Last fall I studied in London and worked with a local immigration attorney on asylum cases. I'm also professionally trained as an editor, which should be a minor advantage given the general writing quality in the field just now.
2) As to picking up clients now instead of looking for work while I'm waiting for my bar results: that's called "practicing law without a license," and it's a felony. (Did your law school not have a professional responsibility class, or were you too busy going to all those interviews?) Not the best way to start one's legal career.
3) Although I don't like to think of myself as such, I'm more or less average. I didn't really understand the point of slaving away on law review or pretending to enjoy moot court, so I helped to found (and later ran) the school's first theater group and worked on the newspaper instead. Part of the point of this blawg is to provide an object lesson to show what happens to us non-top-ten-percenters from bottom-of-the-top-100-schools after law school. Although I'm generally optimistic about the future, it is not--as you might be gathering--always pretty.
Anyway, sorry to delete your earlier posts, but I thought they were all from the same miscreant. Further analysis has proven me wrong and now I can't figure out how to restore them. It's all free speech from here on out, though. So.
posted by Anonymous at 5:03 PM
2 Comments:
The problem with your "woe is me" diatribes is that your foundation is the basic assumption that those who presently have jobs in the legal field do so because they graduated in higher position than you. I would venture to say, and chances are I would be correct, you graduated with a higher ranking than I. Yet, I am gainfully employed while you are not simply because I chose to exercise foresight. Extracurricular activities are for high school and college, not graduate school. It is a waste of time, particularly in light of the employment market which, I am sure by now you realize, is not what it used to be. I graduated in the lower one-third of my law school class because I chose to work more to acquire experience knowing a ranking will only get you so far. Ranking will open the door to employment, it is common sense and experience that will keep you there. In a year, no one will care from where you graduated or from where you obtained your degree. Law school was nothing more than an overpriced intellectual masturbation session that lasted three years. Anyone who believed their degree results in automatic employment probably should not even practice law.
Sorry, dude i didn't catch the fact that you don't have your license yet. But when you do get it, I still think you'll be better off looking for clients rather then looking for a job with a "firm". Either way best of luck.
Post a Comment
<< Home