Jeremy Blachman's Weblog: 2012

Posting for a friend

I'm not sure this'll lead to anything but I told her I'd give it a try -- I've got a friend who just moved out to San Francisco, Georgetown Law '06, waiting for February bar results (California), she's looking for legal work, firm or not firm, and asked me if I have any ideas about where she could look.  I suggested reaching out to the firms that recruited on campus originally, because at least she knows they make a habit of hiring, but I'm not sure if there's anything more to tell her -- legal recruiters, placement agencies, I have no idea how someone goes about finding a law job outside of the on-campus recruiting stuff when you're still a student.  (She's also willing to move to LA if that market ends up being easier to break into.)  So I told her I'd post and see if anyone has any ideas.  Hence, this post.  You know where to reach me -- I'll pass along anything anyone e-mails me or leaves in the comments.  Thanks.

Supreme Court bonuses

There's a Slate piece about Supreme Court clerk signing bonuses. I wrote an Anonymous Lawyer post about it.  Not sure I have much to add over here.

Canadian?

I completely missed the ball on advertising his free book giveaway, but if you're looking to go to law school, and you're Canadian, this guy has a pretty useful site and a book called "So You Want To Be A Lawyer, Eh?" that you might want to check out.

Essay Contest from American College of Trial Lawyers

I got an e-mail asking me to publicize this, and it seems worthwhile, so in case anyone's interested:

The American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL), one of the premier professional organizations composed of the best trial lawyers in the U.S. and Canada, announces its sponsorship of an essay contest for law students on the topic of “Judicial Independence and the Separation of Powers Doctrine.”  The contest’s first place and second place winners will receive cash prizes of $10,000 and $5,000, respectively.  The contest is open to all students at law schools in the United States (including those studying for their J.D., L.L.M, or other graduate degrees).  Essays, which should be approximately 5,000 words, are due by March 1, 2007 and can be submitted by e-mail at [email protected]. For more information, visit www.actl.com.

WSJ Online

I've got a piece up on the Wall Street Journal Online about the changes to the Harvard 1L curriculum... nothing serious.  Here's the WSJ Law Blog post about it.  To read the full piece, I believe you need a WSJ password, but shoot me an e-mail and I'll e-mail you a copy.

On Campus

Meet-and-greet/book signing thing at Harvard went fine, it was a very low-key thing, I was just in the corner of the room where there was a regular Law School happy hour, and pretty much the only people who I talked to were people I already knew, and we didn't have any books to actually sell right there (which was a mistake), so I only signed three or four books that people had bought previously.  But it was fine, didn't hurt, gave me some ideas for how to make sure these things get planned next time to really make them useful for the book.

Someone asked me if it was weird to be back on campus, but it really wasn't.  It all looks the same, it could just as easily be two years ago and I could have been going to class.  In a way, it felt like I was just in school a few days ago, even though it's been almost a year and a half.  It's interesting, I sat in on a medical school class about a week ago, and it was at a school without a real campus -- just a building, people go to class, and then they leave -- and it was such a different feeling from what I've experienced at Princeton and then at law school, just in terms of feeling like there's a community there, and being able to feel like what you're doing is somehow relevant and you're not just alone in the world.  I'm not talking at all about the education people are getting -- just about the feeling you get being on a campus, surrounded by other students, as opposed to parking in a garage, going to a classroom, and then leaving and sitting in an apartment all day studying.  It seems like it would be really lonely going to a school like that, for anything -- and even teaching at a school like that.  It's hard, at Harvard for example, to feel like it's possible that the professors would feel anything but relevant, surrounded by students and each other and part of some campus community.  But it's easy to imagine that if all a professor did was drive to class three times a week and talk for an hour, and then go home and do research, it would feel pretty disconnected from anything larger.  I don't know, maybe I'm just thinking about this too much, and the existence of a campus matters less than I imagine, but the different feelings I had, at the medical school and then back at law school, were pretty profound.

Climate Change

I've been doing some mild "research" about the changes to the Harvard 1L curriculum -- Boston Globe article here, and I'll hopefully have some opinion about it soon -- and was looking at Harvard-related message board threads to see what student reaction I could find, and came across this post, about a Harvard Law event from the Dean of Students office.  If this is made up, it's very funny.  If it's real, it's terrifying.  If someone lets me know if this is real, I'll post an update.

[Update: this is real, I've been told.  wow.]

Administrative Updates

General Interest: Volunteer To Be Part of "What To Wear in Winter Climates" Event

Are you a 2L or 3L who came to HLS from a much warmer place? Did you have trouble adapting to the chilly Cambridge climate? While we all know that the New England weather can be hard to get used to, it can be especially difficult for students who have recently relocated from more temperate places. The Dean of Students Office will host a forum to tackle this issue. Please email dos if you are a 2L or 3L who has gone through this, and would be willing to share expert tips, advice, and even props (think the best jacket you ever purchased or your favorite rain proof boots) to help students who may need some assistance adjusting.

Illegal Briefs

A friend of a friend has a store on cafepress that I said I'd link to, called Illegal Briefs.  Sells t-shirts and, uh, other garments, with legal phrases on them.  I can't imagine why anyone would really want a pair of underwear that says "request for withdrawal" on it, but if you do, uh, there's the link.  Wow.

One more old advice post someone wanted me to repost...

(From 5/16/04)

Okay, so you're going to law school in the fall...

...and this is your last summer of freedom. I know I've posted about this stuff before, but since the academic year is over, and there are all sorts of college grads now looking forward to wasting three years of their lives and $120,000 just so they can work 20-hour days in white-collar sweatshops, I figure now is as appropriate time as any to try and formulate some sort of summer-before-law-school advice, all wrapped up in a neat little bow. Ten tips for law students-to-be. Not to be taken completely seriously, because maybe I'm just trying to be funny. Maybe I'm serious. I don't even know anymore.

1. Come up with a neat little 90-second answer to the question, "Why are you in law school?" Whether it's real or invented doesn't matter, it's just that you're going to be asked this question eight hundred times for the next three years, so you may as well figure out something to say. "I want to help people" will get you laughed out of orientation. "I want to help people who are fairly rich become moderately richer" is a little bit better. "I want to help myself" is probably the best one of all.

2. Write yourself a note. I've seen this advice before, but I can't remember where. So I'm stealing it. But my conscience can live with it. Write yourself a note all about the high-minded goals you've got going in. "I'm going to use my law degree to work for Greenpeace and make sure evil politicians don't burn down all the forests and dig for oil in all of the nation's public housing projects." Whatever your dreams are, your idealistic reasons for joining some of America's most successful standardized test takers, write them down, put them in an envelope, seal the envelope, and give it to someone you trust. Then, three years from now, you can look back and cry.

3. Stop imagining that law school is so different from everything else you've ever done before. If you're going to law school, you probably didn't completely screw up college. Law school's a lot more like college than, say, a job is. If you survived college, you'll survive law school. Heck, if you enjoyed college, you'll probably even enjoy law school. Yes, you need to read a bunch of stuff every week. No, this will not be the most grueling three years you've ever experienced, it will not require you cut off contact with your family and friends, it will not require you radically change your lifestyle and force yourself into a miserable existence because you don't think you'll pass Torts otherwise. It's school, you know how to do school, just put in the hours you end up needing to out in, which will probably be fewer than you fear, and you'll be fine. This is not some sort of radically different paradigm.

4. Go on your school's website and look at the extracurricular activities. Find some you're interested in. If you're really interested in them, track down someone involved in them and shoot them an e-mail. They'll be happy to know you. Thinking even broader, find out some stuff in the city you'll be in that you might enjoy doing and see if you can lay the groundwork for getting involved in that too. Even if you do nothing and just keep some ideas in the back of your head come fall, it'll keep you from feeling like there's nothing outside of the classroom, your dorm room, and the library. To stay sane you've got to do stuff you find fun and rewarding and fulfilling and satisfying. Classes may be all of those things. But you'll probably need more. Don't be afraid to find more. This is three years of your life. You don't get any extra credit for being miserable.

5. Write a resume. It will feel like it's much, much, much too soon in the fall when people start frantically looking for summer jobs. If you already have a resume -- and maybe even the start of a cover letter -- it'll just be one less thing to have to deal with. Plus everyone's going to ask you forty times a day if you wrote your resume yet, and this way you can say yes. Anecdotal evidence indicates to me that what you do your summer after 1L year does not impact your 2L job search much if at all. So don't worry if you don't get a law firm job and you're stuck working somewhere you'd rather not be. You'll survive. And, if faced with a choice between two jobs that won't have radically different impacts on your future, choose the one you're going to enjoy more even if it's the one you're more uncomfortable telling your classmates you've accepted. They don't have to live your life, you do.

6. Resolve not to lose touch with everyone you know outside of law school. Whether this means pledging to write e-mails, planning visits in advance, setting up a weekly dinner, starting a weblog... just make sure you have some sort of way to avoid getting so wrapped up in law school that you have nothing else. Even if you like law school. Because at some point law school isn't new anymore, and you're going to feel lonely, and want to reconnect. So why lose touch in the first place. The 3 years goes fast, and then what? Don't lose the life and friends and hobbies and passions you have just because you're going to law school. It's not worth it.

7. Buy big fluffy pillows, a comfortable desk chair, a working alarm clock, a bunch of highlighters, and a t-shirt with the name of your school on it. The first four things are to maximize comfort and productivity. The last is so that when you wander off in a law-induced stupor, someone will know where you belong and lead you back.

8. Ignore anyone who tries to tell you that some sort of week-long law school preparatory class is going to be anything more than a waste of money. That includes ignoring the voices inside your own head that are telling you to go. You won't get a "leg up" and, at worst, you'll be the jackass who keeps raising his hand because he knows the answer and everyone will hate you. If you really want to get a head start, find a 3-page summary on the Internet of all of your classes, and read it. You'll be more prepared than you need to be, but it won't turn you into "one of those people."

9. As soon as you find out what casebooks you're going to be using, go on half.com or Amazon used and buy them there. They're much cheaper. Also, befriend some law students and they'll give you their old study guides. Not worth buying new. Not worth buying at all, really (the study guides I mean -- your casebooks, unfortunately, really are worth buying, and reading, and even occasionally highlighting), but if you can get them for free, why not.

10. Have fun. This is probably not your last summer of freedom, and it may not even be a summer of freedom at all, but it's still important to take advantage. Law school may dull your personality, quash your creativity, and silence your passions. So this may be the last time you're really you, and not some defanged, exhausted, and soul-less version of yourself. So you should do the things you're afraid you won't ever do once you're in law school. Write a novel. Take a pottery class. Make the world's longest paper clip chain. However your spirit moves you. Good luck. And godspeed.

Law School Advice, from 8/30/05

A couple of people asked me to repost the law school advice post I wrote about a year ago (8/30/05), after I finished law school.  Here it is, untouched.  New stuff soon.

A Big Law School Advice Post

I still haven't really gotten used to the fact that I'm not a student anymore.  Even for the two years in between college and law school, I felt more like a student taking a break from school than someone who was finished with school.  Maybe I'm still a student taking a break from school, but I haven't come up with any good ideas yet for more school (acting school could be fun, except I don't want to be an actor... then again I went to law school and don't want to be a lawyer, so maybe that would make perfect sense...). 

I liked being able to say "I'm a law student" better than I like having to say "I just graduated from law school."  And soon I can't even say "I just graduated from law school" and have to come up with something new to say.  I'm really stretching if I'm pretending this is a problem, I know.  But there's something nice about having your identity tied up in your status as a student.  There's no pressure if you say you're a student.  No one expects anything more from you.  No one thinks you're wasting your time, or on the wrong path, or anything like that.

So this is the first fall in a while that I'm not going back to school, and the first time I really feel like the whole "being a student in a degree-bearing program" thing (as opposed to the improv comedy classes I'm taking, or the general idea that we're all always students and always learning things and whatever else people like to say about that) is done for me. 

I got an e-mail from a 1L starting law school this week.  She said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Now that you're done with law school, what's your advice to someone first starting out?  Is it different than the advice you'd have given before you graduated?"  This gives me an excuse to write a really long post giving advice to law students.  So I think I'll do that, and see what happens. For some reason, I feel like it makes some sense to work backwards -- to address things, that if you're first starting out now, that you'll one day soon have to think about, and then explain why you don't need to worry about them yet, or, if you do have to worry about them, what you should do.  So here we go:

1. The Bar Exam, and how it relates to course selection.  Please don't worry about the Bar Exam yet.  You'll take it and you'll probably pass, and the classes you take in school have no bearing on that.  The stuff you learn in Contracts isn't the same as the stuff you'll need to know for the Bar Exam anyway.  You'll learn all the Bar Exam stuff from bar exam study materials.  Don't take classes just because they're on the bar exam.  Don't save your notes, don't start taking practice tests, don't think about it at all for about 2 years and 8 months.  You're really fortunate to be in a place -- no matter where you're in school -- that presumably has a whole bunch of classes that will be utterly useless to your life as a lawyer or your life as whatever it is you end up being, but that just sound interesting.  Take those.  Or even better, take the classes taught by the people you want to learn from.  1L year I remember a guy with a beard coming into our Criminal Law class in the spring and introducing the course selection process to us, and telling us that some people choose classes based on the subject, some people choose based on the professor, some people choose in order to create their own "major" composed of classes centered around a certain area of the law, and those are all legitimate ways to choose.  I disagree.  The best classes I took were the classes with the best professors, no matter what the subject matter was, and a bad professor killed a class, even if it should have been interesting and even if the subject matter sounded neat.  The official course evaluations may be helpful, but they're probably garbage.  But people know.  People at your school know who the good professors are and who the bad ones are.  Find out the good ones.  Take their classes.  Even if they sound boring.  Bankruptcy was the best class I took in law school, and I know it sounds dreadful, but because the professor was awesome, it was an awesome class.  I swear that's the best way to do it.  At least that's the best advice I can give.

2. Finding a job.  I had no idea when I started law school that the job hunt would begin so quickly.  But a month in, and suddenly we were having resume workshops, session on how to act at a law firm, and on how to dress for an interview.  But that's what happens, and really quickly you need to start making decisions that you're probably not equipped to make.  I thought people go to law school and become all sorts of things.  It turns out most people go to law school and either go work for a firm or go clerk for a judge.  And if you're not on one of those two tracks, there's not always a lot of obvious options set forth by the law schools.  Law firms get people to try them out because they make it easy.  They come to campus to interview, they offer a summer that promises to be fun and exciting and tasty and they suck you in.  That's not entirely fair.  A lot of people want to work at law firms, and for good reasons.  But my advice is to think about it, before you start down a path you don't want to be heading down.  Think about what you want to get out of law school.  Think about where you want to end up, what kind of career you want to have, and how law school can help you get there.  Make active decisions about what you want to do instead of just following the herd.  I know that a lot of people decide to go to a law firm for a little while and then leave.  Which can work.  But make sure you're doing it for a reason, that's all.

3. Law Review.  I wasn't on law review, although I did pick up the competition packet.  It was heavy.  I feel like the reasons to do law review depend a lot on what you want to end up doing for a career, and on what school you go to.  It would be dumb for me to say that law review is a bad idea, because in most cases it probably isn't.  It's a lot of hours, but people tell me you learn lots of useful skills, get to work with professors, get to work with smart classmates, and it gives you a great line on your resume.  If I wanted to do law stuff, I'd have tried out for law review, and been bummed if I didn't make it.  Some of my favorite people in law school were on law review.  Some of my favorite people were not.  I'm pretty useless in this paragraph, sorry.

4. Exams.  Take practice exams.  That is, get past exams your professor has given, and take those.  1L year I outlined.  2L and 3L year I sort of outlined but mostly just got outlines from friends.  There's no one magic bullet.  Different things for different exams.  I was in a study group for about three hours.  Other people find they work better than I experienced.  At least try and find a friend who you think is smart and go over exams together.  That can be pretty helpful.  Supplemental study guides are sometimes useful but usually not as much as outlines from people who've taken your class with your professor.  Every professor focuses on different things.  So the more generic the material, the less useful I found it.

5. Go to class.  And don't play solitaire when you're there, because it's distracting to those around you.  Seriously, I really don't understand the people who don't go to class.  Especially if you've picked classes right and have good professors.  Go.  It's what you're paying for.  And you'll be better prepared for the exam.  I honestly wish they wouldn't have had wireless Internet in the classrooms, and banned laptops completely.  I ended up not bringing my laptop to most of my classes 2L and 3L year, and I liked it better that way.  You pay better attention.  Otherwise I'd end up web surfing.  Try it.  It'll help on the exams anyway.

6. Honestly, I think a lot of people -- not everyone, but a lot of people -- who are unhappy at law school are unhappy either because take it more seriously than they need to... I mean, you're good at school, or you wouldn't be in law school.  Trust yourself... or they don't do anything else besides go to class and study.  The reason I enjoyed law school -- most of the reason, at least -- is because I got involved in stuff I wanted to get involved in, like the newspaper and the Parody show and the a cappella group.  So I was able to craft a life that I liked living, meet people who liked doing the kinds of things I liked doing, and really have a full schedule that classes were only a part of.  Every school has lots of things going on.  Take advantage of them.  You'll be happier.  You'll meet more people.  You won't just be stuck in the library.  But one thing I didn't do very well, and wish I had, was take advantage of the city I was in.  Boston is probably a cool city.  I didn't explore it enough.  I did a lot of things on the law school campus, but not that much outside of it.  It's easy to get caught up in the life of a student and never leave.  But if your school is in a city, there's probably all sorts of things to do that have nothing to do with law school.  And if it's not in a fun city, go hiking or something.  I wish I did more outdoor stuff.  Boston's not the greatest place for that, since the winter is 13 months long, but there's still more I could have done.  Even though you're in law school, you can still have a life.  Really.  I promise.

7. Other things I wanted to link to but they don't really fit anywhere above.  :) Journals.  Legal research.  And a law school purity test I thought was fun when I wrote it. I hope some of this is useful.  In any case, good luck.  I miss law school already, really.  You get to hang out with smart people and go to relatively interesting classes and do whatever you want with the rest of your time without having to feel too guilty about it, since you know in the end, no matter what else happens, you get a degree.  What more could you ask for?

Responding to Comment: Do Law Students Suck?

One commenter earlier this week wrote:

I am in law school, and I hate these people. I really can't be any more funny or coherent about it. I just hate them. They make me feel ill. I wish they would go away and stop bothering me. I miss my former job in JOURNALISM for chrissakes.

Does the whole profession suck this badly? Do the people change once they get out of law school and are less stressed? Because boring, unhappy and working my last nerve with their hyperness doesn't BEGIN to cover it.

Anyway, I realize that MY boredom, unhappiness and extremely unhealthy stress level could be contributing to my inability to tolerate these people. But I still think they just kind of suck.

Does this spark any thoughts?

Okay.  I'm sorry your law school sucks.  Or maybe you just need some sleep.  One of the first things I felt in law school -- on the very first day of orientation -- was that the mix of people really was kind of different from undergrad or any other settings I'd been in.  I remember seeking out a section-mate who I'd gotten a good first impression vibe off of, and thought we might end up being friends, and asking if he felt like everyone was kind of overbearing.  There were more extroverts than introverts in law school, sort of.  Maybe just at Harvard, because you'd think from what most lawyers spend all day doing that it would be the opposite.  But it was a weird kind of extrovert.  A disingenuous feeling, a veneer, a phoniness that I really didn't like.  People putting on an act, and coming on really strong in introductory conversation.  The thing is, the people who do that can dominate even if they're in the minority.  I met a few people who are gratingly irritating like that, and I ascribed it to everyone.  I assumed everyone was like that, but they weren't.  And even some of the ones who were, when you got past the facade and they got a little more secure, and it wasn't the first day of school, and they weren't trying so hard -- some of them weren't so bad either.  So my advice to the commenter, and to anyone else -- give it a couple of weeks, try to meet as many people as you can, and I can almost promise you will find some nice, decent, genuine, good people, even in law school.  There's obviously a mix of people anywhere, and some are awesome and some are less awesome, and maybe law school pulls from a part of the continuum where there are more less awesome people than, say, in the Peace Corps.  But I think they're out there, they're just quieter at first and aren't putting their hand in your face and introducing themselves.  Hang in there.

As for the question in there about whether people change once they get out of law school?  I don't know, but I expect if they change it's not for the better.  After all, they're just starting out right now.  Law school is pretty easy on the soul compared to the life of a law firm associate, in at least some percentage of cases.  I expect lawyers out in the real world are not in fact any more interesting, warm, or empathetic as people in law school.  That's not the answer you want, but, really, I think in time you'll find you're not alone and there are other people feeling the same way you are, and you'll make some friends and it'll all be easier.  Even if, worst case, there's an awful disingenuousness that pervades the culture of some of these schools, there are lots of exceptions.  You can always go make friends with the medical students.  (Or start a blog to vent about all of it.)

Female Clerks

The Supreme Court needs more of them, according to the Times.  Seems like the whole article is about how it's a statistical blip though, and not really anything to worry about.

Unrelated: I went to the Yankees game this afternoon (the make-up for yesterday's rainout), got bleacher seats, the weather held out, it was pretty fun.  I've been to a handful of Mets games, but this is the first Yankees game I've been to since last summer sometime.  I guess it's bad to say this, because of the history involved with Yankee Stadium, but I'm glad the Yankees are getting a new one.  Yankee Stadium isn't that awesome.  Kinda dirty, food's not very good.  Easy subway access though.  Takes me less time to get there from Park Slope in Brooklyn than it takes to get to a Mets game, which doesn't make good sense given the geography, but the 4 train is pretty quick through Manhattan and into the Bronx.

Re: Negative Images of Lawyers

After my post below about the Doug Litowitz book, "The Destruction of Young Lawyers," I got an e-mail from a reader.  I think he made a valid point, and I wanted to post his note and my response, because I think he made a fair point, and maybe this is worth opening up to other people's comments.  Short version if you don't want to read all this: I'm probably more negative than I should be when I write about firms, and I forget sometimes that there are lots of people out there who like their jobs and it doesn't mean they're blindly following the herd, uncreative, and evil if they decide to work at a firm, and even if I recognize that there really are good reasons to go to firms, I'm not very good about making it seem that way when I write about them.  Anyway, the e-mail exchange:

Jeremy --

I've been reading Anonymous Lawyer (the blog) for a few months now and occasionally reading your personal blog for less time.  I think AL is pretty genius.  My wife bought me the book a few weeks ago, and I'm looking forward to reading it soon.

 

That said, I am slightly troubled by an aspect of AL and an aspect of your personal writings, both having to do with the fact that you are not practicing law at a firm (and as far as I know, you have not done so, apart from summering somewhere).  I do work at a big firm, and for the most part I really like it.  So with respect to AL, I'm troubled by how savagely you satirize law firm work (and life), despite the fact that, apparently, you don't have the basis of knowledge to satirize it properly -- although, amazingly, you get a lot of things very right, which is attributable probably to the fact that you were quite perceptive as a summer (and unfortunately also to the fact that law firms probably tend to live up (or down) to the worst possible stereotypes).

 

With respect to your personal writings, you sometimes seem more than a little disdainful of those (like me) who are out there working at firms -- as though we've made an uncreative decision, falling into the default option presented to us.  To the extent that's your view, I'm troubled because it disregards the possibility that some of us might actually find the law intellectually engaging and that some of us might really appreciate (if not require) the financial security and rewards the job provides.  Which is to say that on a good day, I love my job, and I think that can be said for lots of lawyers out there (even associates in big law firms).  (But your blogging sometimes implies that anyone who chooses to work at a firm is a sucker and that no one really likes the work.)

 

I'm sure you must get these kinds of comments sometimes, and you appear to be self-reflective to have considered these issues (though it's not something I've read you discussing overtly).  Nonetheless, I felt compelled to share my view.  Thanks.

 

-- XXXX

And my reply:

XXXX,

Thanks for the note.  I actually don't get these kinds of comments as often as I expect I should, but I appreciate it because I think I sometimes do -- because I'm not at a firm -- forget that there really are people out there who do like the work.  I expect a lot of it is selection bias -- the people reading my stuff are probably more likely to be the unhappy ones at the firm than to be the happy ones.  But of course all of these are fair points.

As far as AL goes, you're right that I don't have the basis of knowledge to do this as well as I would if I'd been at a firm for ten years, or even one year.  I can't do anything about my lack of experience except acknowledge it and apologize for it.  When I started AL, it was just to play around with the thoughts in my head after the interview process, before I'd even summered, and then I kept it going because I found I liked writing in the character's voice, and that people were reading.  I didn't expect it would lead to a book deal, and I certainly didn't expect I'd keep it up this long.  To the extent I get the details right, that's great.  To the extent I don't, it's harder and harder the more distance grows between my summer experience and when I'm writing, and to some extent the character has turned into a caricature anyway.  I've been surprised throughout my time writing the blog how much people tell me it resonates.  But, honestly, I expect my better audience are people who've had relatively little experience at firms, or just want a glimpse inside the world, not people who've been there for years and know a lot more than I do.  I'm just trying to write an entertaining character that rings true to as much of an extent as I can do it, and where if the humor is competing against the reality, I'm inclined to let the humor win out.  I am as surprised as anyone that people feel like it resonates as much as they do. 

As far as my personal blog goes, I don't mean to seem disdainful, and I try really hard to make sure that I'm not just buying into my own writing and believing that it's really this bad, for everyone.  I'm not sure if your e-mail is in part a reaction to my post about Doug Litowitz's book last night.  Litowitz is angry.  And I read something like that and to some degree I can't help but get sucked in and feel like something like that validates AL and validates my own choices.  I don't mean to.  Honestly though, most of my friends at big firms don't like it.  Even the ones who thought they would don't, and are wishing they could get out.  I'm certain this is even more selection bias than my blog readers -- my friends at big firms, even the ones I perceive as being as likely to be happy there as anyone else, may not represent a fair sampling.  But I talk to them and they don't find the work all that engaging, and they're frustrated at the lack of ability to plan their days and know whether they're leaving the office at 7 or at midnight, and they feel handcuffed by the salary, and wrestle with the question of whether or not it's worth it.  And don't seem very happy.  I imagine these things resolve themselves after a few years, and as the work gets more interesting, for some people the tide turns and they realize it is worth it, and the job can actually be pretty good.  But even if I don't mean to be, I'm sure I'm influenced by the fact that even the people I talk to who are at firms don't like it, and so, really, it's easy for me to forget there's a whole class of people out there who do.

I probably shouldn't have gone to law school.  I got very lucky that all this stuff happened with the blog and the book deal, but, really, I didn't want to be a lawyer, and I did this because I wanted a safe backup plan, I'm risk averse, and I didn't know what else to do.  Those weren't good reasons.  It is absolutely easy for me to forget that there are people out there truly interested in this stuff, who don't see the law firm as a default option, are not merely there to pay off their loans, and actually enjoy it.  To the extent that my writing reflects that, it's a weakness and I don't always catch it, and I apologize for it.

Not sure if this answer satisfies, or just rationalizes.  Would love to get your thoughts on whether any of this makes sense.

Actually, if you're cool with it, I'd love to quote part of your e-mail and post some of this -- I really do take the feedback seriously, and don't want to come off as disdainful to people at firms, who like it there, and I know that to an extent I probably do, because I do forget that not everyone is living inside my head, and the kinds of things that drove me to law school are totally different from the kinds of things that drive most people to law school, and that lots of people are actually engaged by this stuff and like their jobs.

Best,
Jeremy

And his reply back:

Thanks for your response, which I think makes a lot of sense and isn't purely rationalizing (and even if it were, that would be fine).

 

You are correct that my email was prompted somewhat by your post on the Litowitz book, partly because I reject that his sweeping negative conclusions (at least as I recall your summary of them) necessarily hold true for all big-firm associates (and also because I question the extent to which you know whether he's right).  I'm also sensitive to negative stereotyping about law firm work, because I think the predominance of that sort of viewpoint (whether based in fact or not) is largely what makes it so bad sometimes -- e.g., I never feel so negative about what I do as when I leave a social event with the firm at which a number of my colleagues have been whining about various aspects of the job (along similar lines, I think most of the unpleasantness that often surrounds the issues of billable hours and the politics of advancing within the firm tends to be generated by associates rather than partners).

Just thought that was interesting enough to post in full...

The Bar Exam

Someone e-mailed and asked about how I studied for the Bar Exam.  More detail is in my posts from last June and July over at my old blog, but the quick answer is that I bought someone's old set of Bar/Bri books, read the Conviser Mini Review, did a couple hundred practice multiple choice questions, read through a dozen of the essays and answers, got someone's Bar/Bri class outlines and read through those a couple times, and spent the subway ride over to the exam trying to teach myself the difference between Strict Scrutiny and whatever the other one is, which didn't come up on the exam, and since I really can't remember what the other one is, clearly didn't stick at all.

[Updated to add: I believe I didn't pass by much -- my MBE score was pretty low -- so I probably didn't study enough and was fortunate that I squeaked by.  Oh, and it's rational basis review.  It hit me over the weekend at some point.]

I have a friend who failed the bar (passed it the second time) and saw I said I was going to post about the bar exam, and sent me some thoughts, which are far, far, far more useful than mine. I feel compelled to share:

if you are going to post on the bar, i have a little advice from someone who had the privilege of taking it two times: it's all about the MBE. i basically gave up on new york, more or less, improved my MBE by 24 (raw) points by doing PMBR, and that was all it took. as far as i'm concerned, the NY part is a total wash and you can learn enough just studying for the MBE to fake answers on NY. sure, read over some distinctions, whatever, go to the classes if you're registered in bar/bri… but if i had just done MBE practice questions i'm sure i would've passed the first time. as it was i did like… one practice test and that was it. so 200 questions total. that ain't enough. before the second one i did maybe… 1000. that helped.

also, failing is NOT the end of anyone's life and people shouldn't be so friggin' paranoid. it was an annoyance, don't get me wrong. and it was embarrassing. but nothing happened to me at the firm -- nothing. and there ARE partners at every firm who failed the first time. having failed myself, i learned about all SORTS of people who failed. it's like being let into a secret club or something. there were at least five people from [my school] that i knew of personally who failed new york -- probably more but i didn't know enough people to look everyone up, nor did i care. the passage rate for Feb 2006 was 46% (in NY!! not even CA!). people fail, shit happens. i felt bad because i felt like i let down the firm, considering they had fronted me money and expenses and everything to pass it on the first try, but no one here made me feel bad about it. in fact, when i told the work coordinating partner i had to go on leave for ten days to study before the february exam he had no idea i had failed. and he was like, "oh, man. it must be such a pain in the ass to have to study again. go see some movies or something while you're off work -- or else you'll go crazy." that was it. they even paid for my PMBR (which i ironically skipped last summer because i thought it was superfluous).

I'm not sure how much I'll get to post while I'm down in DC this weekend (leaving for the airport as soon as I post this), but hopefully I'll get to a computer and have something to say.  Otherwise, lots on Monday about BookExpo.  And maybe something about that Milberg firm.

Law School Exams

I don't miss law school exams.

Eugene Volokh has a post about why law schools generally base grades on one end-of-semester exam.  His post links to a few other comment-filled threads all about law school exams, and it's all relatively interesting.  Volokh says that there's one exam because professors have to grade their own exams and don't like grading, but also because in the zero-sum world where the grade distribution is going to be the same regardless of how many exams, in the end students would rather only have to study for one exam than have to study for more than one.

It wasn't the one exam vs. multiple exams that I found unenjoyable about law school exams.  What I found unenjoyable about law school exams was that, for the most part, they didn't play to my strengths.  I think there's probably a case to be made that a lot of testing that goes on in elementary school and high school rewards speed and cleverness over a deeper understanding of what's going on.  I did really well in high school math and science classes where the exams basically required memorizing some stuff, decoding which of the stuff you memorized was applicable to each question on the exam, figuring out how to apply it, and repeating, with some amount of time pressure, for a number of questions.  But I don't think my genuine understanding of the material came close to matching my ability to do well on the exams.

I found that law school exams, for the most part, were striving for something else.  Now, some of them thought they were striving for something else, but if you spit some stuff back and faked the big picture, you could grab a lot of the points and still do okay.  But the long ones -- the eight-hour take-home exams, or the week-long take-home papers -- wanted comprehension and thought, not just memorization and application.  And the lack of time pressure almost made me angry sometimes.  I wanted the eight-hour exam to take eight hours, because I knew that if it took eight hours, some people wouldn't finish, and my surface-level understanding of the material would look better in comparison.

To some degree I'm selling myself short in this post.  I did fine in law school, and I understood the material in most of my classes.  But I expect that lots of my classmates -- at least the ones that were trying -- understood the material better than I did, and the ones who did better on some of the exams probably felt pretty pleased that at least not everything was based on speed and cleverness but that actually real comprehension and thought was valued.

I'm rambling without a real point here -- I don't know whether I think law school exams test the right thing, or certainly whether they're graded well or whether there should be one a semester or twelve.  I just know I don't particularly miss them.