Law School

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
So during which year do they remove your soul?

1st day the socratic method hits someone in your class with a vengeance. Its not a pretty sight, i'm glad it wasn't me.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel


Awesome, then things will be much easier for you then, at least if you can survive law school, you'll have it made.

What a stupid comment. Going to a top 10 law school doesn't get you jack unless you finish really high in the class, work hard, and of course have no sense of morality and feel good working for corporate whore international litigators.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


What a stupid comment. Going to a top 10 law school doesn't get you jack unless you finish really high in the class, work hard, and of course have no sense of morality and feel good working for corporate whore international litigators.

So where did you go to law school wiggy?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I was sitting in the library in the special walled off glass area where you can't bring drinks or food. Some medical students came in and started talking, and although they tried to keep it quiet, everybody else was gospel silent, so it sounded really loud.

And finally one law student guy clears his throat and points at the QUIET STUDY ROOM sign. For a second, there was a locking of eyes and a battle of wills. Who would triumph? The life-saving wannabe med students? Or the litigious law students who have the rules on their side?

As it turned out, my study partner defused the situation, quite unintentionally, by letting go a great big fart that he thought would be a silent one because he was listening to earphones and thus couldn't judge the volume very well. It actuality it was quite loud.

Everybody looked at him and the med students got up and left pretty fastish.

[Japher]

Farting is a good ice breaker too

[Zkribbler]

The polls I've seen of lawyers indicate that most wouldn't take that same path again.

Happiest are:
Law school professors
Public interest lawyers
Criminal lawyers (prosecutors or defense counsel)

The most miserable are:
Family law lawyers -- fighting nasty battles over other people's money and other people's kids. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Vesayen
...
In short, law school is like a horrific minimum wage job which is 24/7, except instead of making money, you get into enormous debt which you may be unable to pay off if you don't graduate, ruining your entire life.
...

Ahh, you're making me nostalgic.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
And finally one law student guy clears his throat and points at the QUIET STUDY ROOM sign.

What a wimp, I would have jumped up on the table, squeezed a big steaming turd onto one of their books, and run away. No way they'd ever come back.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Farting to clear a room

I should have done that more at Emory's Law Library

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
The polls I've seen of lawyers indicate that most wouldn't take that same path again.

Happiest are:
Law school professors
Public interest lawyers
Criminal lawyers (prosecutors or defense counsel)

The most miserable are:
Family law lawyers -- fighting nasty battles over other people's money and other people's kids. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

That reminds me of my first day of the Family Law class, where the teacher read off a real letter he'd received from a former student describing his first day of face-to-face family practice: "[A vividly worded story about how his female client exited an ex parte hearing, saw her soon-to-be-ex-husband waiting in the hallway with his attorney, ran at him screaming, and started beating him across the face and clawing at his eyes, until her attorney had to pull her off of him because no Bailiff was in sight at the time, get a nosebleed from an elbow in the face in the process, and then watch her get dragged away kicking and screaming like the girl from the Exorcist by several Sheriff's Deputies for assault booking.] Professor, you didn't warn me of this."

[Japher]

Fart and then, without saying a word, get up and walk out of the room really quickly. Avoid all eye contact!

People will either think you're embaressed or just sharted.

[snoopy369]

Criminal lawyers

Med students are funny. My GF (who works in a hospital as a PhD student) says they always travel in packs - everywhere - no matter what they are doing. Seeing a solitary med student is like seeing a solitary ant - you know more are around nearby.

[DanS]

Since 1st year basically determines your summers and therefore what you're going to be paid for a good long while, I wonder why people haven't set up a system to prepare more for it.

[Solomwi]

I just graduated law school last May. Lot of good stuff here. I'll echo what Imran said about first year not being too hellish. My biggest adjustment during first year (aside from getting back into school mode after 5 years in the real world) was going from the engineering mindset, where the heat exchanger in the exam problem has a specific downstream temperature that you need to find, to the legal mindset, where the doctor in the exam question may or may not be liable for sewing your severed finger up inside your chest cavity, based on the applicable standard of care. The concepts you learn aren't difficult, though you and your classmates will think the Rule Against Perpetuities is. After the first semester of first year, you'll probably realize you've been putting in way more work each night than was necessary, and get a handle on when to be prepared and when you can slide, which helps tremendously if you thought that semester was particularly hellish.

On first year grades, if your goal is to work at a big firm (in addition to what asleep mentioned above), they're key. More specifically, first semester grades are key, since you'll be interviewing for that first-year summer position during your second semester, and won't get to come back in May and show the firm that turned you down how much better your grades have gotten.

Overall, law school was a blast for me. I made some great friends and had just as good a time as I did in undergrad, despite being 29 when I started law school (I knew one of my law school classmates from when I was in high school, because we went to the same small high school... but she was in 5th grade when I graduated). I know some people work themselves into constant misery during law school, but it's not necessary. You can do well and have a good time, too. If it's what you want to do, and you think it makes financial sense (hiring market's ****ty right now, but may not be in 3 years), go for it.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Yeah, right now I'm taking gov't internship after gov't internship. First it was with a labor agency last summer, then it was with a trade agency for this fall semester. I'm seeing whether I can get a commerce industry internship for spring. The way I see it, there's going to be a change in budgets for the Presidential agencies come January, and that may be my best way of riding out the economic downturn.

What Solomwi said about the big firm jobs is true. My law school only really promoted those jobs and internships, and made it sound like such a big deal if you didn't get in - you were finished. Not true. There are plenty of midsized and small sized law firms and gov't agencies that want good help, and if you can show you're genuinely interested in their field of expertise, they'll be happy to take you on for internships and jobs.