Great Expectations

Per a comment left by a law student/commenter Danielle at First Tier Toilet:

As a general point, it would be very helpful to 0Ls if the scam bLAWgers
could outline their decision to pursue law school in the first place...something that details expectations and the sources of those expectations. It would make
it easier to relate, given that we haven't matriculated. People with different
expectations/source of expectations may be more likely to have a different
experience.

Though I'm certainly not the level of fame in the scam blog community, I'm happy to respond.

Age entering law school: 21

Full time, permanent jobs held prior to law school: 0 (I went straight through college to law school)

Decision to apply to law school made: At age 21, 7 months shy of graduation from my engineering program.

Primary motivation for going to law school: Suggestion from then-girlfriend.

Number of law schools applied to: 5 (one top 25, one top 50, one second tier, two third tier)

Number of law schools accepted at: 5

Exposure to law prior to applying: One volunteer program coordinated by a lawyer, defended once in my youth in a situation that really shouldn't have required a lawyer. No legal coursework, political science, or even LSAT prep courses. One philosophy course taken as a sophomore.

Number of practicing lawyers among family, friends, and friends of family at the time I applied: 1 (my friend's father, who thought engineers were too stupid to breathe, especially in comparison to lawyers)

Number of non-practicing JDs among family, friends, and friends of family: 3 (though, at the time, I didn't know any had been to law school. None include the JD or Esq. on their business cards)

Recruiting pitch by law school I ultimately attended: I met with two attorneys from medium sized law firms who practiced patent law. They discussed salary expectations (between 90k and 120k starting, depending on geography), life-work balance (comparing it to the unpredictabilty of working for general practitioners), the importance of law school rankings on employment as a patent attorney, the importance of law school classes (very minimal), and projected employment percentage in the field (better than 97%). One encouraged me to apply to clerk at his firm during the school year and attend law school part time, stretching my matriculation to four years instead of three. The law school itself offered me a full tuition scholarship contingent on GPA. The admissions officers and deans who spoke to me also told me that if I chose not to pursue a career in law, my law degree would make me more attractive to a variety of employers, and that it would likely raise my starting salary by 5K to 10K.

Summary of my law school experience: Of the 80+ credits I had to take to get my degree, 40 were in required courses that have no practical impact on patent law. This included the entire first year, which bored and annoyed me by turns. I considered dropping out at the end of first year, but stayed in school because I had a GPA allowing me to continue attending law school for free* and secured a paid legal position first year. I did not write on for a journal, moot court, or join a clinic, opting instead to continue clerking for firms. My school assumed that almost all first years would take summer classes, so second and third years my typical school day was 12 hours long playing catch-up academically. I enjoyed all of my IP classes, and none of the remaining required courses. I hated most of my classes so much that halfway through my final semester, I spoke to the dean of my law school about dropping out and not finishing. He assured me that practicing for a firm would be more enjoyable than being in law school, and that I should stick out the final two months and take the bar exam. I held leadership positions in three student organizations, did well enough in OCI and at the Loyola Patent Law Interview Program, interviewing with about 22 firms total. I ultimately accepted a position for a firm I did not summer with.

Career: In 2008, I joined the firm after taking the bar exam (learning three months later that I had passed). My salary was above the range suggested in the law school's pitch to me (but almost everyone I studied with in law school makes less than $50,000/annum). Billing requirements are between 1800 and 2000 hours, depending on the year. Most of my coworkers arrive after 8 am and leave before 7 pm.

I've never felt especially welcome at the firm, and rarely felt like my colleagues gave a damn what happened to me after 7 pm on any given day. I focused on prosecuting patents, meaning I expected never to see court, and rarely was asked to do any of the legal research or memo writing law school trained me for. Following the stock collapse, patent prosecution work slowed and I and several newer associates began to work in litigation more. Litigation work is not my strong suit, my area of interest, or work I enjoy or find satisfying. I also don't get the training in patent prosecution I signed on for, because there is insufficient prosecution work to train new attorneys on. It's clear after two years at this firm that I will not have a straightforward path to partnership or otherwise controlling my career.

Outside of practicing, I have been looking for a different firm or an engineering firm in need of an entry level engineer since September. So far, I haven't been able to "do anything I want" with my law degree, as typical engineers consider me too expensive and unpolished, and law firms are generally uninterested in my level of experience (currently at the 2 year mark). I do have a benefit most lawyers don't have, in that I don't necessarily have to take another bar exam to practice law if I take a position in a different state, because patent law is federal law. Most of my graduating class, at least those working as lawyers, are geographically limited because we're too new to get reciprocity.

What do I want to do now: Practicing law is more interesting than law school, but I'm sure it's not what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'd prefer to move to engineering, if possible.

For law students and lawyers who aren't interested in patent law, after filing a patent application, it typically takes 18 months before that application is made public (meaning I can't use most of my work as writing samples. It typically takes around 18 to 24 months before the Patent and Trademark Office responds to an application, so at the two year mark, I don't even know what mistakes I made my first month.

*Tuition only. I paid (out of my pocket) way too much to live in a college town that I hated.

Pigeonholing

I never wanted to go to law school for my own reasons. It was a decision premised on a relationship that didn't survive my 1L year rather than any particular desire to practice law for the rest of my life. As a means to that end, law school was a terrible decision, and I halfway realized that at the time.

I was concerned then, as now, by the idea of a resume gap. In essence, I wanted to take some time off before beginning my engineering career full time, and I wanted it to be justified on paper. Law school gave me that, although I discovered this solution in a short-sighted fashion. As I've attempted to leave the practice of law and sneak back into the measurably more pleasant field of engineering, I've come to learn that even that one year outside engineering made me less attractive to technology companies.

But wait! What of that oft-reinforced phrase "your J.D. will make it possible for you to do anything?"

Not really. People who have J.D.s do a lot of different things, but the J.D. is more often than not simply a gap filler. Those people could open the same consulting businesses, become the same artists, and run for the same political offices if they had gotten MBAs instead of attending law school. Ambition, vision, and luck place former lawyers in their new positions more than ancillary academic credentials.

Law schools, or at least mine, emphasize students becoming professional lawyers because it's a professional school. Law school is about one subject, and on campus interviewing is designed for one kind of employer. My first year, when I approached my school's career services office and asked them to help me find paid engineering work for my first summer, I was scolded. Partly because the CSO wasn't allowed to provide career guidance to me until November 1st, but mostly because I was supposed to be living like a lawyer. "Take a legal position. Volunteer at the public defender's office and work at a coffee shop at night to pay your bills, if you have to. The legal experience is too important for your future."

I could not convince CSO workers that for my desired position as a patent attorney, more engineering experience would help a lot more with my legal career than my ability to write an answer in to a DUI complaint. Similarly, they couldn't understand that if I couldn't ultimately get a position working in intellectual property law, I would rather transition back into engineering than anything else.

I don't say this to suggest that my law school was especially terrible or unique in its focus, but law schools and administrators could care less about people with non-lawyer aspirations. Unfortunately for me, I spent half a decade of my life learning that I wasn't interested in the future they built for me.

The Story So Far

I should have been an engineer. Or an eye doctor, as my father suggested. Instead, I followed my heart, and ended up in law school, effectively wasting my undergraduate education, three years of my life, and more money than I realized.

When I say followed my heart, of course, I mean I met a girl. She told me I should go to law school, and being painfully in love with her, I took the LSAT. My test score qualified for my first year's tuition, and I believed that constitutional law was a better use of my time than getting my masters degree in engineering (it wasn't).

Every semester, I told myself I'd drop out if I couldn't keep my scholarship, because on most levels, I recognized that law school wasn't worth any money. Of course, they kept not kicking me out, and though my grades were middling, I ultimately finished, took one of my firm offers, and became an attorney.

I have since lived to regret a number of these mistakes. Some of my flaws will be chronicled here.

I don't pretend that I was not partially at fault for my current life situation. At the same time, I can't help but think that without the pressure to figure out a life as soon as college graduation hits, I might not have been seduced so readily by my law school's employment statistics and by the tales of glory lovingly fed to me in books such as "bridging the gap" and "law school confidential."