quartz/content/Essays/law-school.md

title	tags	date	draft
On Law School	essay seedling	2023-09-20	true

I have a lot of thoughts about law school, both as an institution and the type of culture it creates in the workforce. These include my experiences as a student and as an observer. Places and names will be altered to preserve anonymity as well as the school that I'm attending. #Homework/Further Reading.

[!hint] Law school as a process usually looks like this: Take the Misc/lsat \rightarrow apply \rightarrow first semester \rightarrow 1L job offer \rightarrow Second semester \rightarrow 1L summer job \rightarrow 2L job offer \rightarrow second year \rightarrow 2L summer job \rightarrow career offer \rightarrow third year \rightarrow career.

Sometimes, the timing of job offers will be delayed, as it depends on the type of employment that you're pursuing. I talk about this more in the #Job Prospects section.

Applying

I was one of the lucky ones that knew I wanted to be a lawyer right out of the gate.

With law school, a substantial minority of applicants are on their second career ("nontraditional students"), or view law school as a backup plan after job prospects from their recent degree didn't pan out. Teachers and aspiring history professors are plentiful in this degree.

• Sidebar: I will say, teachers being present makes study sessions very helpful, and icebreaker parties significantly more fun!

There are a lot of equitable concerns and shady dealings with law school applications, as well as a lot of conflicting opinions.

In the law school process, it feels like every step is more daunting than the last. Applying in particular is a race to see who runs out of money first, as most applicants will be applying to as many schools as possible. This has a few purposes:

• Ensure acceptance to a school that the applicant would actually go to
• Hope for acceptance to a school that's good enough to lord over the schools you want to go to
• Hope for a huge scholarship at a school that's worse than the schools you want to go to

As you can see, it's a lot more about gaming the system and obtaining leverage than it is being considered for your merits. And law schools play into it: there's an institution called the US News World Report, which rates every US law school by how selective they are. Not how good they are, just how much better they make themselves out to be.

• Disappointing sidebar: I mentioned being considered for your merits. That's currently ALL you can be considered for.

Equity, Rankings, and Deans, oh my!

Your First Year

Detour: Constitutional Law

Job Prospects

"Big Law"

"Public Interest"

Ethical Obligations

Homework/Further Reading

For those considering law school, I'd like to suggest two resources to you.

During my undergraduate studies, I stumbled across an excellent account by Rhett Campbell, a retired energy bankruptcy attorney. At the time I found these (and presumably when they were updated), he was the CEO of a nonprofit called the Terry Foundation. A lot of his opinions hold up, and I've uploaded them here as PDFs at Why Not to Go to Law School and Guide to Making Good Grades in Law School. All credit goes to Campbell for these resources. If you only take two things from these documents, let them be "law school is hell" and "outline early, outline often."

• Sidebar: I do agree with Campbell's view that there's a certain "fire in the belly" that you need to be a lawyer. I think I satisfied this because reading these documents made me excited, not stressed.
• Sidebar x2: The resources he recommended weren't that helpful to me. The real value of his writings is his firsthand experience.

During the application "cycle," I also enjoyed Kathryne Young's book How to be Sort of Happy in Law School, and I think it provides a realistic expectation of what it means to be a law student while also being a person. Some of what I talk about in the #Detour Constitutional Law comes straight from her book.