4 ms·

Why you shouldn't go to law school.

22 points by drm237 19y ago

alaskamiller 19y ago
If you read a blog post to decide whether to stay in or get out, you most likely are not going to the tier 1 schools.
- ibsulon 19y ago
  While similar reasoning ultimately influenced me not to go to law school, tier 1 schools are not overly difficult to get into for someone who has already figured out the game. (A la Paul Graham's infamous essay.) Frankly, the problems of which the post speaks are really all rooted in the same problem: there are too many people graduating from law school already. The competition allows the firms the luxury of such monotonous work. Unfortunately, I wanted something else - I wanted to become an expert at some portion of law and exploit my ability to keep many pieces of a situation in my head. However, the opportunity cost, considering the competition, did not seem to match up with the expected reward.
  - optimal 19y ago
    What field isn't monotonous, though? IT work is boring, repetitive, and relegated to the back office, cut off from life, the outside world--even sunlight--and the only interesting and creative part of business: the start (though how exciting or fulfilling is it really to be hawking another useless widget or service to someone who most likely doesn't need it?).
mynameishere 19y ago
I'm surprised that criminal lawyers are grouped under "suckers". Spend a few years as an assistant DA or public defender, then start up a practice dealing with DUIs and what not. How much boring research could be involved?
geebee 19y ago
This article does a good job explaining why I should stop saying "how is 100K good for a programmer with an MS when an English major right out of law school earns blah blah blah." I actually attended a top 5 law school (for one semester) before getting out and going to grad school in engineering instead. I agree with the statement that "thinking like a lawyer" is a bug, not a feature - it wasn't just that I didn't want to be a lawyer - I felt that getting wired like a lawyer would do actual damage to my brain and my character. I have friends (yes, they genuinely are still friends) who do often exhibit the lawyer tendencies identified in this post, far more often than my engineer and science friends do. Yes, there's pettiness, bluffing, and intellectual dishonesty in all fields. But these are traits that are encouraged by the culture of law, and discouraged by the culture of engineering.
jmzachary 19y ago
Other than the reference to one of Paul's essays, what does this story have to do with startups and hacking?
- hhm 19y ago
  I think the text below the title "The law will make you into the worst kind of person" is pretty interesting by itself.
- henning 19y ago
  It gratifies intellectual curiosity (what's the grass like on the other side of the fence? it sucks). Those liberal arts majors who counted on a JD for a career often wind up hating life and themselves.
  - cowmoo 19y ago
    I go to one of those liberal arts school where English majors count on a JD for a career; and let me tell you, as much as I hate to admit it as a CS/Biol major, they are surprisingly well-adjusted people. But don't get me wrong, my experience both on the debate team, going to tournaments involving all of ivies and NESCAC school's has taught me to stay away from law. One time, I went against one of the eventual national champion of college debate from Cornell; as I went out of time in my closing argument, my dear opponent, the future model of Corporate America counsel, took his rolex off his wrist and shook it at me, and shouted exasperatedly that my time was up. But, I have to say: once, when I was a young clueless college student, I tried both the pre-med and pre-law path. It was the thing to do at my school which charged 40K+ for being a holding pen for New England rich family's kids. And even now, I have friends on campus who question my decision to pursue a career that will be soon "outsourced" and not the tried and proven path of i-banking/medicine/law. In response, I just smile because the irony is that, they are the ones who don't know any thing better than writing abstract essays on obtuse topics, memorizing tedious information on biological structures, and tinkering with Excel spreadsheets (and programming in VBA...oh the horrors!) at their summer i-banking internships. They have no idea how fun it is to fire up your compiler on a late night and to plug away at your own ideas, to work for fun and not for work. That there is a whole world out there,of one's own with interesting areas to explore, outside of the usual everyday social small-talk BS and climbing the corporate ladder.
henning 19y ago
I grew up in a lawyer family and I have only recently begun recovering from it. Lawyers have a tendency to go into "lawyer mode", where they start acting like total dickheads who are impossible to talk to.
SamanthaG 19y ago
I am a lawyer in the UK, English qualified, we're not all bad, honest.
boucher 19y ago
The majority of this article would more aptly be titled "Why you shouldn't go to law school if the only reason you wanted to was for the money", and most of the same arguments would have been perfectly valid 10 years ago when everyone was trying to get a degree in CS because it was the next big thing. That says almost nothing, in my opinion, about law school in its own right. As far as the rest of the article is concerned, it is a collection of generalizations that are unconvincing. The best thing to takeaway, I think, is this: "As I said, there are some people who are happy with the practice of law. But the data are [sic] not in your favor. Make this decision very carefully. Don't just drift into it because you're not sure what else to do with a humanities degree."
sarosh 19y ago
I just found out yesterday that I failed the bar exam. This was, surprisingly, a great post. Thank you drm237.

22 points by drm237 19y ago

alaskamiller 19y ago

If you read a blog post to decide whether to stay in or get out, you most likely are not going to the tier 1 schools.

ibsulon 19y ago
While similar reasoning ultimately influenced me not to go to law school, tier 1 schools are not overly difficult to get into for someone who has already figured out the game. (A la Paul Graham's infamous essay.) Frankly, the problems of which the post speaks are really all rooted in the same problem: there are too many people graduating from law school already. The competition allows the firms the luxury of such monotonous work. Unfortunately, I wanted something else - I wanted to become an expert at some portion of law and exploit my ability to keep many pieces of a situation in my head. However, the opportunity cost, considering the competition, did not seem to match up with the expected reward.
- optimal 19y ago
  What field isn't monotonous, though? IT work is boring, repetitive, and relegated to the back office, cut off from life, the outside world--even sunlight--and the only interesting and creative part of business: the start (though how exciting or fulfilling is it really to be hawking another useless widget or service to someone who most likely doesn't need it?).

mynameishere 19y ago

I'm surprised that criminal lawyers are grouped under "suckers". Spend a few years as an assistant DA or public defender, then start up a practice dealing with DUIs and what not. How much boring research could be involved?

geebee 19y ago

This article does a good job explaining why I should stop saying "how is 100K good for a programmer with an MS when an English major right out of law school earns blah blah blah." I actually attended a top 5 law school (for one semester) before getting out and going to grad school in engineering instead. I agree with the statement that "thinking like a lawyer" is a bug, not a feature - it wasn't just that I didn't want to be a lawyer - I felt that getting wired like a lawyer would do actual damage to my brain and my character. I have friends (yes, they genuinely are still friends) who do often exhibit the lawyer tendencies identified in this post, far more often than my engineer and science friends do. Yes, there's pettiness, bluffing, and intellectual dishonesty in all fields. But these are traits that are encouraged by the culture of law, and discouraged by the culture of engineering.

jmzachary 19y ago

Other than the reference to one of Paul's essays, what does this story have to do with startups and hacking?

hhm 19y ago
I think the text below the title "The law will make you into the worst kind of person" is pretty interesting by itself.
henning 19y ago
It gratifies intellectual curiosity (what's the grass like on the other side of the fence? it sucks). Those liberal arts majors who counted on a JD for a career often wind up hating life and themselves.
- cowmoo 19y ago
  I go to one of those liberal arts school where English majors count on a JD for a career; and let me tell you, as much as I hate to admit it as a CS/Biol major, they are surprisingly well-adjusted people. But don't get me wrong, my experience both on the debate team, going to tournaments involving all of ivies and NESCAC school's has taught me to stay away from law. One time, I went against one of the eventual national champion of college debate from Cornell; as I went out of time in my closing argument, my dear opponent, the future model of Corporate America counsel, took his rolex off his wrist and shook it at me, and shouted exasperatedly that my time was up. But, I have to say: once, when I was a young clueless college student, I tried both the pre-med and pre-law path. It was the thing to do at my school which charged 40K+ for being a holding pen for New England rich family's kids. And even now, I have friends on campus who question my decision to pursue a career that will be soon "outsourced" and not the tried and proven path of i-banking/medicine/law. In response, I just smile because the irony is that, they are the ones who don't know any thing better than writing abstract essays on obtuse topics, memorizing tedious information on biological structures, and tinkering with Excel spreadsheets (and programming in VBA...oh the horrors!) at their summer i-banking internships. They have no idea how fun it is to fire up your compiler on a late night and to plug away at your own ideas, to work for fun and not for work. That there is a whole world out there,of one's own with interesting areas to explore, outside of the usual everyday social small-talk BS and climbing the corporate ladder.

henning 19y ago

I grew up in a lawyer family and I have only recently begun recovering from it. Lawyers have a tendency to go into "lawyer mode", where they start acting like total dickheads who are impossible to talk to.

SamanthaG 19y ago

I am a lawyer in the UK, English qualified, we're not all bad, honest.

boucher 19y ago

The majority of this article would more aptly be titled "Why you shouldn't go to law school if the only reason you wanted to was for the money", and most of the same arguments would have been perfectly valid 10 years ago when everyone was trying to get a degree in CS because it was the next big thing. That says almost nothing, in my opinion, about law school in its own right. As far as the rest of the article is concerned, it is a collection of generalizations that are unconvincing. The best thing to takeaway, I think, is this: "As I said, there are some people who are happy with the practice of law. But the data are [sic] not in your favor. Make this decision very carefully. Don't just drift into it because you're not sure what else to do with a humanities degree."

sarosh 19y ago

I just found out yesterday that I failed the bar exam. This was, surprisingly, a great post. Thank you drm237.