Law School Discussion

Quote from: Duncanjp on July 09, 2011, 02:56:19 AM

The ABA student community is a swell group of people to get to know, but honestly, who can deny that there is a surfeit of unemployed, deeply-indebted, ambitious young ABA graduates out there who don't know whether to go uphill or down bearing the chains of their coveted interstate law degree? How many ABA graduates would not be more than happy finding steady work in their home town alongside some blue collar, state-accredited attorney?

A substantial number of attorneys here in California, including judges and district attorneys, received their J.D.s from state law schools. They passed the exam. Becoming a lawyer simply means you've read society's rules and know how to play the game. It's becoming less elitist all the time to be an attorney, and the massive debt that attending an ABA school creates, just so you can become another unemployed lawyer who has hypothecated the next 20 years of his or her life, needs to be weighed. The point is, there is no dishonor in attending a state-accredited law school. Every single person who passes the Bar exam in his or her given state hopes to find meaningful employment in the field. Some do, some don't. Getting the gig is the object, not bragging about the train that got you there. Granted, if you're still in your 20s or 30s and you want to go to law school, you should prepare hard for the LSAT and get your tail into an ABA school. Absolutely. An ABA degree will help an inexperienced greenhorn get a foot in the door. But if you're over 45, with a family and a mortgage, and you've already established a solid reputation in a given field with a career that could be enhanced, perhaps perfected, by getting a law degree and becoming a member of your state Bar, then forget about an ABA education. You don't need it. It's a waste. A state-accredited school will do nicely and you won't squander three times as much in tuition to serve clients who couldn't care less one way or the other where you went to law school. After you reach about 40-45 years old, the object is singular: get the license. Get The License. Period. Then you can wield it in your field of expertise to parry opponents and any who stand in your way.

Ha. I wish I'd said that.

if you do this, please do not whine when you do not get a job

employers know that it's more difficult to get into an ABA school. you say there are tons of unemployed graduates of ABA accredited schools. this should mean something.

That's my point: it does mean something. It means a lot of people are being suckered into blowing enormous sums of money by the lure of a false hope that having an ABA degree will place them fat in the middle of a lucrative position in an office suite atop San Francisco or New York. Or that merely having an ABA degree guarantees them that they'll land a job. No degree guarantees anybody anything: you make of it what you can. But whatever the benefits and greater opportunities of having an ABA degree may be, the returns drop precipitously for older students, especially those with years of experience who have already forged careers in particular fields. For us, a state-accredited school is just fine. My professors are all judges and practicing attorneys. They know what they're talking about and they tend to be enthusiastic communicators. They have also not hidden the fact that statistically, the A-B students are the ones who pass the Bar exam. Students in a state-accredited school with a 2.0 GPA do tend to have problems passing. Regardless, I see absolutely no reason to join the stampede of 20-somethings into massive debt when you are considering law school at 45-50 unless you have money to burn. The prestige of the ABA degree will not pay off. And if you do not intend to relocate to another state, the ABA benefits diminish even further.

If you're 25 or 30, sure, get the best education you can afford. If I were 20 years younger, I would definitely set my sights on an ABA school by spending six months or a year preparing for the LSAT. I went to UC Davis and got great grades as an undergraduate. It's not my philosophy in life to settle for less than that of which I'm capable. But I'm also a realist. If you've established yourself in a worthwhile career that could be enhanced by admission to your State Bar Association, then why on Earth would you want to blow all that money on an ABA education? It would be a total waste. At this stage of the game, it's only about getting the license. Nothing else. I may have squandered some time in my life, but I'm not about to waste my money. The reality is, very few employers are likely to hire an older law school graduate solely on the basis of where he or she attended law school. If you're young with no experience in a field, then all you've got is your degree. Make it the best degree you can. But my resume hinges on the 20 years of experience I've gained in my field. A J.D. will enhance my resume, but it won't form the cornerstone of it, ABA or not. And it would show an incredible lack of vision on my part to take a step backwards in my career now by accepting a position as a public defender or an associate attorney somewhere at half my current salary. Not to mention the disappointment that my wife would rain down on my head for the loss of income.

And regarding whining, frankly, the only whining I ever hear is from the multitudes of deeply indebted ABA graduates out there scamblogging about how they can't find work to pay off their school loans. I've never heard any state-accredited law school graduates griping about their debt and how unfair the world has been to them. Further, I know numerous working attorneys who went to state schools. The J.D. is simply what you make of it. Honestly, a person who wants to go to an ABA law school really needs to consider what he's doing - and why - a lot more carefully than a person entering a state school. Granted, there are law firms that won't even talk to graduates of state-accredited schools. But at my age and station in life, I don't need those law firms. I only want the education and a chance to sit the Bar. When I graduate from my locally reputable, state-accredited law school, I won't owe anybody so much as one thin dime. I'm paying as I go. And I'm in the top 5% after the first year, so I believe I have a reasonable chance of passing the Bar exam on the first try if I can keep on keeping on. We'll see about that later. I know the stats. But the only whining I ever encounter comes from the ranks of disgruntled elitists blaming their ABA schools for their personal failures. Boo hoo. I moonlighted for years to keep my mortgage paid. My patience for whiners is fast evaporating.

As I said, if I were 20 years younger, I would set my sights on an ABA education. I can't dispute the greater prestige of an ABA degree. But if you're an older person who is entrenched in a career already, who merely wants to enhance that career by becoming a licensed attorney, then you don't need an ABA degree. State-accredited law schools serve the purpose fine and they don't put you 30 years in the hole.

Chuck and Thane have both identified exactly what I see in your posts, BlackDuck. I would note that your interest in asking for literary recommendations puts you ahead of some, if not many. I approve — ha ha. Actually, I applaud. If you find reading weighty literature interesting in itself, then reading legal texts will terrorize you not at all. You may even find that you have a leg up on those who restrict their recreational reading to the funny pages — which I love to read. Well: Monty, anyway. Just being a happy reader will put you ahead of the game. I have laughed through the reading of almost everything Mark Twain ever published, although he didn't write expressly for the literati. But I've also consumed Herman Melville's works like popcorn, always with my dictionary within close reach. Moby-D ick (it comes out as Moby-male private part when written as normal on this website) was a staggering experience for me, partly because when I first read it, I had no clue how the story would end. But beyond the plot, I loved the loftiness of Melville's English. It thrilled me to the quick of my soul to circumambulate the watery parts of the world with someone who knew so many words that I had never heard before and who could write a sentence that extended for half a page or more without ever losing its train of thought.

Moby-male private part, I think, is a good boot camp for law students. It shows that other people will misunderstand and censor your references, regardless of how innocent your references may be. At any rate, my approach is to consult my dictionary whenever I encounter a word I cannot confidently and conclusively define. Never blow past a word that you cannot immediately define. Consult your dictionary or go to dictionary.com. Use it. Love it. Live it. In fairly short order, you'll begin to recognize verbs like allot. And "male private part" will begin to appear silly.

This is how part-time students can actually do better than full-time ones . . . and much better, on an hour-for-hour basis.   Work smart, not (just) hard.

Thane.

I don't disagree with a word of your post, Thane. You're absolutely correct on every point. If a student can find ways to be more efficient with his or her study time, working harder for the same results would be myopic and wasteful. I've found ways to make my own study time more productive, and every little bit helps. (Disconnecting this infernal internet is a biggie!) Learning how to play the game quickly is a critical part of the law school experience. I had to figure that out the hard way myself. At the same time, I would simply caution against relying too heavily on the "smarter, not harder" (SNH) theory.  In my experience, students often use the SNH mantra as an excuse to be lazy. These are people who are chronically looking for shortcuts at every turn, who have been to LEEWS seminars and have purchased Flemings — doing everything except the reading. I tend to believe that there is no holy grail out there to learning this material. You have to do the reading.  You should write your own outlines and most importantly, you must do practice exams until you can write them in your sleep. And by all means, you need to get feedback on your practice tests from your professors. Certainly, some people will get there with less effort than others, but it amazes me how much time and energy some students spend in their quest for shortcuts when applying that energy to simply doing the work would give them a better payday.

IrrX is correct. By "first time around," I meant the midterm. By the time I sat my crim final, I had a much more savvy understanding of law school exams. My crim midterm was the first graded law school exam I had ever taken, and while I knew the black letter law as well as anybody, my approach to the exam was utterly naive. I anticipated making points by showing my in-depth understanding of every nuance of homicide, for instance, whether it was relevant to the discussion or not. In so doing, I wasted valuable time and failed to discuss every possible crime the fact patterns disclosed. In my naivete, I thought it was neither possible nor expected by the professor that we should discuss every incidental larceny that appeared. Wrong on both counts. It is possible if you practice and yes, they expect you to see and discuss everything. Okay. Lesson learned. Unlike some of my classmates, I did not take any pre-law classes. I had to learn it the hard way. But that's nothing I haven't done before. Law school reminds me of my parachute jumps in the Marines: I never knew where I was going to land when I jumped. I had to figure it out on the way down.

Officer O'Toole is strolling down the sidewalk one afternoon when he sees a commotion ahead. He arrives to find two lawyers in the gutter, gripping each other in mortal combat with fists flying while a little boy dances around them crying, "Daddy, daddy, daddy!!" O'Toole wades into the fray and siezes the two furious men.

"A'right, sonny," he says, " which of these two is your daddy?"
"I don't know," says the little boy, dabbing his eye. "That's what they're fighting about."