divine angst

One of my law school friends is convinced that the process of a law school education is totally worthless. I’m wondering how right he is.

Are law students in school for the diploma and nothing else? Is the casebook method worthless? Why are there so many casebooks? Shouldn’t there be a small cache of seminal cases that every law student reads? Why are we here? Is the theoretical knowledge we are gaining worth it or not? Is the process of “learning to think like a lawyer” garbage?

So far, I’m enjoying law school. Sure, there are moments in class that make me groan, that are, essentially, wasted time. But that was the case in college, too. I don’t think I’ve had an educational experience where I thought every moment was valuable and worth recording. A lot of education is just filtering out the stuff you either already understand or that isn’t relevant to the subject. Isn’t law school the same?

I heard two 3Ls say today that they both hate school. I know at least one of them is heading to a big firm job when he graduates; maybe he’s just ready to get the heck out of school. I don’t know their stories well enough to know why they both hate school right now. I imagine they’re tired of it. It’s understandable. They have job offers, they have a place to be that, for them, is more relevant than sitting in class.

But 1Ls? Should we be bitter already? Should we be so jaded when we’re barely four weeks in? Maybe we should be; maybe I would be better off if I let myself be a little less idealistic and a little more cynical about law school. Still, we’re training for a profession that is steeped in cynicism. Wouldn’t it be better not to be so bitter already?

Maybe I’m a freak. I see the educational shortcomings of Law School, capital L, capital S. I certainly don’t think every moment I spend on reading or in class is going to directly translate into a slightly higher margin of performance on exams. But this is still school, and I like school.

I don’t know what to think about people who seem to be getting what’s going on but who are completely uninvested in the process. I’m not saying that I have to have total faith in something to get the most out of it, but if I feel that I’m “getting” something, I generally think the process must have some intrinsic worth.

This is tough for me, because I can hear what my friend is saying and yet I completely don’t know where he’s coming from. I don’t want to “convert” him, as it were, to believing that law school isn’t a waste of his time. But I also don’t understand how anyone could put up with this process if they didn’t think there was inherent value to it.

I’d like to get some feedback on this. I know there are a lot of 1Ls out there who feel the way I do; I know there are a lot of 2 and 3Ls who maybe used to feel the way I do but don’t anymore. How do you get through the day? What do you tell yourself that keeps you from ditching it all? I know the debt is a big part of it for 2 and 3Ls, but did any of you feel this way when you had first begun, when you could have left it all without much of a financial hit? Why stick around if it you don’t believe in what you’re doing?