One of my conspecifics is urging his son to go to law school even if he does not plan to practice law. A legal education, says he, will be useful in any field.
I have heard this said many times before, and I have to tell you that it just ain’t so. Law school is only useful if you plan to be a lawyer. It will not help you otherwise. The process will actually make you less intelligent than when you matriculated, unless you pursue a simultaneous degree in a more meaningful field, eg combined JD/MA in International Relations.
Contrary to what some might say, you don’t learn logic in law school. You learn the peculiar illogic of “legal reasoning”, i.e. you learn to characterize any situation in terms of a set of legal issue or frames. This is not transferable to any other field, just as my younger brother learned that there was no civilian call for tank drivers when he left the army. The law you need to know as a non-lawyer to keep lawyers from scamming you can be taught in one or two business law courses.
You often don’t even learn the skills you might need for lawyering itself. If you are lucky, you will learn competitive negotiation, but you will probably not learn any other conflict management or dispute resolution methods or strategies. You won’t learn client relations or management or the business end of practice.
I urge young folks who think they want to be lawyers for idealistic reasons to reconsider. You will never make an iota of difference in the world practicing law. Sure, you might work in the public interest and help some individuals caught up in the system here and there, but you will not have any impact on the system. It will chew you up and spit you out if you try. If you work in the public sector, you will just be abetting tyranny no matter how well intentioned you may be. If you work in the private sector, your purpose in life will be to help make someone you don’t even like even richer.
Being a lawyer is just about making money without getting your hands dirty (except figuratively). It’s just like accountancy or some other clerical or white collar occupation. You might get paid a little more to compensate you for having to go to hell when you die, but nothing you do will ever matter in the scheme of things.
If you are very bright, it would be waste for you to pursue the law. Society would be better served by your becoming an engineer or a scientist or a philosopher or some such thing. If you become a lawyer, you will hate your job and come to hate yourself. You will come to realize that most of what you do is about force and fraud. As an “officer of the court”, you get to tap into the coercive power of the government and wield it against your clients’ adversaries. This is not good for the soul.
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4 comments:
As a 3L graduating in one semester, I refuse to let this post dampen my idealism.
Ask me again in five years.
Tanner,
If you are lucky, you may find yourself involved in something that will keep your soul alive. For me, child advocacy was a soul saver, and I did a boatload of it over the years to counterbalance my evildoing.
For me, lowering my expectations about how much self worth to derive from work has been helpful. I work as lawyer, but my identity is not tied up in my profession. I am lucky that I have a job where I don't really do anyone any harm, and I have come to see my self worth as independent of my job.
it seems to me that as a research scientist, i would not recommend going into science as a profession, under the current conditions. Fortunately, the current conditions are melting away, and i'd have to agree with you on your perspective of law school. i'd say med school is in the same boat.
youth should pursue their interest in depth, and add breadth to it on an as needed basis. we ask young people to choose careers way too early. i didn't learn what was really out there until junior year of college. it is nice to have a job that pays you well, so that you can spend your time on your avocation. Interest breeds curiosity. middle school today doesn't allow for students' interests, it is all about conforming and passing tests.
You nailed it, Dr Lenny.
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