Law School Discussion

No, don't consider the sunk time/money as an investment.  Your life is not poker.  If you're miserable in law, get out.

But you're all over the place.  First you say you hate your job, then it's not that awful?  You want to start your own firm?  I would say to wait out the firm for as short a time as you can, and then start your firm.

Going back for a Ph.D and then trying to get a college teaching job sounds horribly boring for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit (does that describe you?).

You should be getting advice on JDU; plenty of small firm and solo lawyers there.

depends on the type of error and whether civil or criminal.

e.g., no reason to give judgment to a one party merely because the other party got some extra evidence before the jury that they shouldn't have had.  we allow a "do over" without the "bad" evidence.

also, e.g., no reason to give judgment if the appealing party lost a motion to dismiss based on jurisdiction.  the remedy = remand because you're just saying "the court has jurisdiction to hear the rest of the case"; there was no "rest of the case" already, so things have to proceed in the trial court further.

No.

Difficult to give advice because we don't know (1) the name of the T3 school, (2) where you want to work, (3) what you want to do for work.

Clerking for a state appellate judge.  I miss some of the people from law school, but not the endeavor itself.  My work/effort/stress is much more rewarding now.