I have a variety of reasons I don’t think I’d make a good lawyer. What do you think? a) Good lawyer b) bad lawyer c) I like cookies.
Getting a word in edgewise
I have a variety of reasons I don’t think I’d make a good lawyer. What do you think? a) Good lawyer b) bad lawyer c) I like cookies.
Bad lawyer. I think you prefer to argue your own point(s) of view, and would not enjoy arguing things from the perspective that would best fit your clients’ needs all day, every day.
This is the best comment so far (and not just because it is the first, there were nine so far when I saw it).
Good attorneys leave their personal beliefs & battles behind when they arrive at the office. Period.
A lot of smart people go to law school because they have the mistaken notion that as attorneys they’ll be able to change the world for the better. No, that’s not your job. Your job is to represent each of your clients to the best of your ability. And it is the very rare attorney who has complete control over which clients and cases she will accept.
What about lawyers who work specifically for founations for social justice or environmental issues. Lawyers who have specifically chosen work around core sets of issues in which they do believe. Are there still exceptions, or am I completely misunderstanding this sort of work?
Such work is rare, and if found usually does not pay well. Social justice lawyering gets lots of publicity and admiration, and is often portrayed on TV or in movies, but the typical attorney’s job is nothing like that.
It is sort of like taking up basketball because you want to play in the Final Four.
Even if you luck out and get that dream job, you’ll be low person on the totem poll for several years, following the orders of one or more senior attorneys. You still have to leave your own beliefs and battles behind and focus on representing your client(s) as best you can. You don’t advocate for the outcome you want, you advocate for the outcome that is best for your client under the law. In 95% of the cases that best outcome will be a compromise with the other side, because taking a case to court is too expensive and too risky.
I like cookies.
Nobody should want to be a lawyer. Being a lawyer sucks.
b) bad lawyer
you can’t make a decision. you always tell both sides of the argument and never pick one.
but..
BUT I LIKE COOKIES!
I think this is exactly why I’d want scu to be a lawyer.
Also, if you can finish “computer science school” you can probably interpret the law as a (poorly written) program and coherently construct simple proofs of properties of this program.
I don’t know that you’d make a bad lawyer, but I don’t think you’d enjoy the experience of law school and actual practice.
Contrary to popular opinion being a lawyer does not always suck, but it’s not the easiest life when you’re in private practice. My observation has been that many attorneys in private practice are perpetual undergrads – pulling all nighters and the like to pop out that last brief, writing until the very last minute before deadline. Not particularly the way I’d choose to spend my (60-80 hour) working week, but then again, that’s why I’m a Federal attorney who doesn’t litigate.
I think you should become a lawyer, irregardless of whether you have the innate personality characteristics necessary to make a lot of money at being a lawyer.
I’m not sure your personality is typical at all for lawyering, but I would certainly give you my business.
What sort of law are you considering? The vast difference between specialties is under-appreciated, I think.
I like cookies, and lawyers. But I don’t think you’d like law school. Law school’s hard. I’m going to go shopping now.
I’d have to vote a definite (b). I have no doubt that you could be a good lawyer if sufficiently motivated to invest yourself in it. HOWEVER, I can’t in any way imagine how either the process or the results of the everyday practice of law would provide you with the necessary motivation, enjoyment, or satisfaction to do so.
Yeah, that was one of the key considerations in my own “bad lawyer” judgment. =)
I think perhaps you’d make an excellent support lawyer — someone behind the scenes, dealing with the mechanics of law — but not so much the actual practice of it. Could you do it? Absolutely. Would you find it fulfilling? Probably not… even if you got behind your causes of choice, the law is a fickle, fickle thing and you may find the promise of absolutes being replaced by the reality of compromise and vagueness to be… difficult.
Also, cookies plz. Mmmmmm.
I completely agree with, but I wanted to add that I also like cookies. Soft gooey ones, no nuts.
🙂
Maybe I’ll bring some oatmeal raisin ones with me. =)
Mmmm!!
🙂
a + c
Can you spend your life fitting your thoughts into a very complex series of abitrary constraints and rules? Somehow I think of you as someone who does not relish remaining inside the lines at all times.
hmmm . . . can you dissolve your own ideals to defend those of someone else whose ideas and actions may be in stark opposition to yours? I know I can’t.
I’mma gonna go with cookies.
Good choice. I couldn’t dissolve my own ideals on a regular or ongoing basis. =)
I guess it’s possible, but I can’t imagine it being sustainable due to you not enjoying the work schedule and/or details of a case. Miserable scu = bad lawyer.