Dirty Business

I've noticed this blog has been void of any humor since well, ever, and as I read through the old entries, I can't help but feel like an imitation of myself. While that was kind of the point, it's still lame, and I'll do my best to lower the bar. Or raise it. Let's just forget the bar all together for right now and move onto more hilarious things like the legal market and most law student's debt to income ratio.

It's really no secret that the legal market is oversaturated. The point is driven home on sites like this authored by current law students and recent grads who attended law schools that depend on their region for job placement, as opposed to having a national reach.

Anyone, and I really want to stress that anyone does not exclude no one, who has following or stumbling through this blog will see that the most prestigious schools, in the USNews and a few other realms that are less subjective, I've applied to are Emory, UofI.C.U., Florida and maybe WCL (which pales in lay prestige, faculty quality and publication to other D.C. schools like GULC and GW [I'd go as far to say that WCL isn't even a D.C. school since it's in Spring Valley in an affluent suburb]). The reason for this is my G.P.A. really restricts me otherwise, and my LSAT isn't in the 98th percentile or anything. I honestly don't care much for rankings and prestige, but would be remiss to flat out ignore them, and have been a firm believer that qualified, persistent and malleable (read: willing to relocate) graduates should have little trouble finding employment in the legal field doing something other than doc review or Lexis, barring the types rushing for the 'biglaw' frat.

Since I'll have to be getting used to them soon enough, let's get hypothetical.

We have three recent law school graduates that have made it through the hundreds of nameless, faceless quagmire of recent grads and a handful of practicing attorneys trying to shake off the shackles of billable hours and get the fuck out of their soulless legal boutiques. One graduated from a tier four (the lowest ranking law school), one from a tier three, and the other from a tier one (there used to be a tier 2, but now the top 100 are all tier 1, though 50-100 have arbitrarily continued to be designated at tier 2, I respect Foucault and Saussure too much to compound the crime I'm committing by folding to a slew of meaningless designators).

These three grads are all in the top 25% of their class, and are applying for two positions at a public defenders office, lets say in a large market like San Francisco or LA.

The T4 student was on moot court, worked in a Public Interest Clinic, interned with the PD in law school for two summers.

The T3 student was given a grant to work in an inner city during a summer, did clinical work and externed his third year with a Legal Aid society working on Housing cases.

The T1 student was the president of the student bar association, made law review once, interned with mid to large firms during the summer, and wrack up over 100 pro bono hours working with the student bar association.

My money is that the T4 and T3 get the public defender positions 80% of the time. I would go all or nothing on them, but factors like personality and what not remain which, regardless of how badass of an advocate you may be, could keep you from working in a certain office, and probably for the best.

This situation is just as easily inverted when you're looking at the hiring at a NLG 250 firm. School prestige becomes all or nothing, the nothing amounting up to top of the class at a T3 maybe cutting it with the right connections.

The reason I'd go with the lower ranked students is that offices like the PD and Legal Aid, I would hope anyway, don't care about the perceived prestige of a school. They don't get into the law they practice for props or recognition, they don't keep pushing through the tears and crushing heartbreak of defeat for some faint hope of a 'thank you'.

They do it because people need the help, and what law school you went to doesn't dictate how great of an advocate you'll be for your client. Only the attorney can do that, and in this situation the newbie lawyers have no only displayed a commitment to public interest but survived the academic rigors every law student endures. I think that's a big factor missing in the cynical words I've read of critics of getting a legal education - passion. Why did you really want to become an attorney? For a six figure pay check and a brand new Benz? No one predicted the economy to take the hard turn it dad the past few quarters, but they should have been aware that education and law are industries, and bad investments happen without the right research, which is getting harder and harder to come by without personal communication or a little leg work.

And while I can't sympathize with that mentality, I can feel bad for their dreams inverting on them into six figures of debt and a brand new anti-depressant.

All that being said, my confidence is shaken daily when I think of my future in law. Not in what I'll be doing, I have no doubt that public defense/legal aid is where I need to be, but in the value of my degree.

I wrote about a week ago about how I'm all but certain I'll be in California next fall. If I was a slave to GSP and GDP, California, despite it's busted infrastructure, appears to be the strongest economy in our country. It has a few large markets where PD/NPO/Legal Aid positions could open for the right candidate, a candidate that I have no doubt that I will be.

That still doesn't change the fact that California PD offices are grossly underfunded and therefore understaffed, there is a lot of talk of private lawyers getting sick of mid-level slave positions and opting for PD work for the benefits and (relative) freedom, and more law students than anyone would ever care to shake a stick at looking for ANY gainful employment.

So, here's to hoping. I really think for the time being, I need to shift the focus of this blog to more lighthearted things. As cathartic as it is to let all of these thoughts out, it really doesn't help, and every time I've answered "where ever is the cheapest" to people who ask about where I'll be going to law school a little part of me dies and pictures a "Dollar General College of Law" degree hanging on my wainscoting wall in the future.