on going to law school

[kate_nepveu]

My standard response to people who aren't sure if they want to go to law school is, "Don't." In the past, I've gone on to say, "Law school sucks enough that unless you're positive you want to practice law [*], you shouldn't spend three years of your life at it."

This NYT article reminds me that my answer also must include, "and the job market is so bad that it is an amazingly risky gamble."

So, for the record.

[*] Two notes about "practice law":

First, if you're one of the minuscule number of people who can go straight into teaching law, you don't need to be asking me for advice.

Second and far more importantly, as the article says:

This gets to what might be the ultimate ugly truth about law school: plenty of those who borrow, study and glad-hand their way into the gated community of Big Law are miserable soon after they move in.

If you don't know what kind of law you want to practice and what it'll be like, it behooves you to find out.

Comments

[kodi]

I'd also add that some types of law are extremely difficult to get into, especially if you're not going to be putting a first-tier law school on your resume. Tax and IP law, in particular, are generally looking for great grades at a good school and at least one Masters or LLM, or several years of contract work that you drummed up on your own.

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks--I'm more on the generalist end, so I don't have experience with that.