tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post616996405737268533..comments2024-03-28T10:56:31.720-06:00Comments on Outside the Law School Scam: So, when all is said and done, who *should* go to law school?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-37618955769855003602013-10-22T20:32:48.955-06:002013-10-22T20:32:48.955-06:00You are truly brilliant. You are truly brilliant. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-82448043953857809822013-06-11T10:42:31.558-06:002013-06-11T10:42:31.558-06:00Anon 7:31: Excellent post. It's funny (in an...Anon 7:31: Excellent post. It's funny (in an unfunny way) that we continue to talk about the "Socratic Method," but even if it was more-or-less useful in the past, it doesn't exist anymore, and hasn't for some time. Professors aren't up to it, and neither are distracted, bored, and confused students. <br /><br />Anon 8:16: Sorry to read that. The false praise--which is harmful to all students--stems as much from ignorance and a willful hope ("willful" as in "insistent despite indications to the contrary") as from negligence. We might assume that professors understand these issues, but . . . they do not. They literally do not think about the bulk of the student body, except as an amorphous and annoying drain on their time. (This isn't to say that they're mean, as most are not; they simply aren't focused on students' *professional* futures, and especially not for those in the bottom xx%. "xx" being anywhere from 50 at Yale to 98 at nearly anywhere else.) We might assume that advisors and others wrapped up in this system understand, but they do not. Instead we have a faithful clinging to the image of the profession as it was (and mythically, at that).<br /><br />Thane.Thane Messingernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-33818310281854777452013-06-11T09:16:32.780-06:002013-06-11T09:16:32.780-06:00@ 7:31
Excellent reply. Right on the money.
I wi...@ 7:31<br />Excellent reply. Right on the money. <br /><br />I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self something along the lines of what you just said. If someone had told me that, I might have listened. Instead, my T14 law professor brother-in-law congratulated me on getting in to a Toilet. He never said anything about job prospects or the false employment data that TTTs spewed out.<br />I wasted three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have to live with that every day. <br /><br />I just hope at least some of the lemmings listen.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-18622787292197665912013-06-11T08:31:59.693-06:002013-06-11T08:31:59.693-06:00Law School isn't a great intellectual experien...Law School isn't a great intellectual experience. First, it’s not truly academic. It doesn't do a good job teaching substantive law of a jurisdiction (most law schools look down on this) and it doesn't much concern itself with the history/context of our laws today. <br /><br />Ahh. But doesn’t it sharpen the intellect? No. The vaunted 'Socratic' method is a misnomer and almost never applied in anything remotely approaching its true form. It’s almost never used in a tutorial setting, but rather in large lecture classes where it's sprung on random recipients in order to cow all into 'being prepared' and introduce them to the concept of being bullied by an experienced authority figure who’s short on time and patience. It's great training for appearing before judges and for serving partners. It's great skin toughening. <br /> <br />That’s because 'Law School' is designed to produce lawyers. Nothing more. In an era when firms and companies hired many lawyers, law school produced many candidates and employers used law school grades and school prestige as measuring yardsticks. But no rational person took seriously the unlikely notion that select law schools produced ‘smarter’ grads because their teaching quality was better. Instead, law school is inevitably (unhealthily) obsessed with ranking because it's is a proxy for quality. Yesterday's lengthy discussion of school rankings is a perfect example. Even scambloggers eagerly buy into the prestige game. The use of 1st-year grades as a yardstick is another prime example.<br /><br />Again, law school was intended to produce regimented armies of pre-ranked young lawyers for rank-obsessed firms ... not create intellectuals. Hence, it's focused on hierarchy ... not intellectual development. <br /><br />In your youth, you don't have a realistic idea of the legal profession, you don't understand its financial realities, and you can’t possibly have anything approaching an understanding of its trajectory. You have a snapshot, not a moving picture and you can't know whether you'll fit in.<br /><br />Even if you're committed to being a lawyer for the right reasons and have never entertained grandiose notions of salary, you still don't fully appreciate all the forces now at work in the practice. You can’t. There’s no way for you to appreciate the ongoing downward trajectory the profession is now in.<br /><br />The Market controls the need for lawyers --not you or your school. Fewer are needed now and this is likely to continue for the decade. The saddest thing of all would be for you to attend law school for all the right reasons and do well, yet end up severely unemployed within a few years of graduation.<br /><br />Yes, it used to be nice and grand. That was then, this is now.<br /><br />Play it safe. Don't go. Find something else to do.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-20000449845725768052013-06-11T06:02:51.487-06:002013-06-11T06:02:51.487-06:00Some guys have bigger paragraphs than others.Some guys have bigger paragraphs than others.Adam Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12458070600725040309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-66089599536848846262013-06-10T23:30:54.635-06:002013-06-10T23:30:54.635-06:00What big paragraphs.What big paragraphs.Albert Rossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-46946484765947836442013-06-10T23:11:57.580-06:002013-06-10T23:11:57.580-06:00V Dark -
Thank you. An excellent, ah, is that an...V Dark -<br /><br />Thank you. An excellent, ah, is that analysis or summary? <br /><br />(I couldn't agree more as to the importance of the distinction, and am officially an old fart as I am constantly struck by the need of students for specific instructions. Anything out of the ordinary, or simply requiring a self-generated analysis--or summary--seems to catch a significant percentage off guard, possibly and likely because of our depressingly fill-in-the-blank and dumbed-down education. Even bright students are not truly challenged in ways that mirror what might have molded Lincoln, Posner, and others.) <br /><br />The points you make are notable for many reasons. Chief among them is the notation that most future law students (myself included, way back when) do not "decide" to go to law school. We fall into it. We decide by not deciding, or by falling out of some other field. To the extent that this relative lack of internal drive makes students even more passive, we see generation after generation simply entering a field that is wrong for them. <br /><br />In the past this wasn't horrible, usually. Even someone who never intended to practice law, or who found that they hated it, could usually find something else. And, as we've discussed many times, the costs were low enough that it wasn't a fatal error.<br /><br />I hate to keep bringing other sources into this, but I must, I must. Professor "X," author of Law School Undercover, goes into detail about these connections (or lack of them), and in particular what makes for a biglaw personality. His work is a must-read for anyone even thinking that biglaw is in their future, even and perhaps especially if they're accepted into a top school. <br /><br />Chances are relatively higher that such a student will have the personality traits that are, coincidentally, rewarded in biglaw; one's alma mater is a useful proxy for determining that. One who has an obsessive attention to detail, heaping quantities of perseverance, and severe focus . . . this person is likely to do well on the LSAT, and, maybe, in biglaw. This bridge is narrowed, however, to a single-file path, so that even those who do have these traits are not assured of such a position (or of much of anything, now). The fatal error, for many, is that law school grades are not reflective of inherent quality. They *are* reflective of how well a student is able to break past the conventional "wisdom" of law school.<br /><br />There's another book, coming from a completely different angle, that supports your discussion. This is The Slacker's Guide to Law School, by Juan Doria. Deliciously titled, and very funny, Doria goes through this psychological terrain better than possibly any other book (including mine). In short, the assumed connections between gunning and performance, which students assume and *know* to be true, are quite false, and false in ways that most will disbelieve even *after* they've fallen. Thus the perilous journey for nearly all, including those who might have been stars in an alternate universe.<br /><br />There are many reasons for the (dismal) state of the Legal-Education Industrial Complex, but perhaps the most important is for students to understand just what an industry it is, and how small and expendable a cog they are. One can look at professors, or advisors, or students, or LSAC officials, or anyone in this world; each operates according to a clear (to them) set of commands, and each world makes perfect sense . . . until we break up or loosen those assumptions.<br /><br />Anyone who goes into biglaw (or any other type of law) thinking they're going to be fighting for the little guy, well . . . no. Just, no. [And many of the "little guys" who do get representation . . . don't deserve it. The true little guys and gals don't get much of anything.]<br /><br />Broken? You bet. Fixable? Of course. Likely? We'll leave that to your analysis.<br /><br />Thane.<br />Thane Messingernoreply@blogger.com