September 1st 2006
the best advice you’ve already heard
I have refrained from giving out lots of law school advice this summer because others have been doing a better job of it than I, and I hate being duplicative.
But one piece of advice comes to mind today and, while it’s all over the internets, I think it bears repeating.
DO NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE AN ATTORNEY.
As I slog through the OCI process, talking to numerous lawyers, I realize one key thing: they are all attorneys. Funny, that. If you don’t want to be an attorney, law school is a really stupid path to choose. Yeah, yeah, people will tell you that you can “do anything” with a JD, and perhaps they are right–if the “anything” you are doing happens to involve being an attorney.
Because, yes, you can do any number of things as an attorney–you can draft contracts, negotiate deals, shepherd clients through regulatory mazes, defend them when they get sued, or sue others on their behalf. And within those options are even more options, depending on the industry your clients are in, the fact situations involved, and the type of service you are providing.
But it’s all still being an attorney.
And, OK, maybe it’s also true that eventually you can do anything with a JD–things like become General Counsel of a company (practicing as an attorney), sit on the board of a company (benefiting from being an attorney), or consult with general counsels and board members of big companies (also benefitting from that legal education).
If you ask yourself, “What do I want to be doing in thirty years?” and the answer is “Not dealing with the law,” you should not go to law school. Because while you may not actually be practicing law, as in billing clients for work only attorneys are allowed to do, chances are you will be doing SOMETHING that you would not be able to do without some kind of legal education.
I know for many of you 1Ls, your semester has already started. You may think it’s too late if you now realize you don’t want to be an attorney. It’s not. You can probably still get a chunk of your money back if you drop out now. And you’ll save yourself oodles of money over the next three years while you are at it.
So, yeah, this post is a bit depressing, and you probably think it’s all bogus, because, hey! if you have a law degree you can also be a prosecutor, or a public defender, or that guy from A Civil Action, righting the world’s wrongs. But remember–even those people are attorneys, even if the work they do sounds sexier. If you want to do those things, good–you want to be an attorney! But if you don’t, and you also don’t want to be an attorney for The Man, rethink it all.
*NB: I actually do want to be an attorney. But even I feel, in myself, a boatload of misgivings about the kind of work that’s out there for me. So be careful that you understand what you are getting into when you get into law school, ‘K?
