Letters to the Editor

• Some practical advice

  [Read the article: I'm a high-school dropout in law school and I feel like an impostor!]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Cary's advice is good, but I have some practical advice.

  I'm an attorney who graduated from a top law school. What you're experiencing is typical of 90% of law school graduates. You're have the OMG! BAR EXAM! OMG! freak-out pretty much on schedule. A good friend of mine spent the afternoon after his law school graduation in a bar, all alone, drinking himself into oblivion because he was so freaked out. I spent the entire summer after graduation out of my mind in fear and worry. Most of my friends did too.

  The fear is useful. Use the fear as an impetus to study for the bar exam. If you passed law school, you can pass the bar exam. You should meet some of the idiots who have law licenses. Here's what you do: 1)Sign up for the Bar-BRI bar review course. 2) Go to every Bar-BRI class that is scheduled. 3) Do the homework that Bar-Bri assigns to you. 4)Study every day for about 4 hours, besides the time you spend in class. 5) Learn the sample essay outlines that Bar-BRI spoon feeds to you. 6) Listen carefully to the Bar-BRI lecturer when he/she tells you that something will or won't be on the bar exam -- study the stuff that they say will be there and ignore the rest.* It's simple. Do what BAR-Bri tells you to do.

  You can work part-time and study for the bar exam. I worked 20 hours a week. I didn't do much else besides go to BAR-Bri, go to work and study, but I did manage to work. You'll be miserable, but it's only about two months.

  Start looking around for a job. You need to start looking at small and mid-size regional firms. I started at mid-size plaintiff's litgation firm. The pay was decent, the benefits were great, and I learned a ton of law very fast. It was also a creative, diverse environment that was very non-corporate. Look around for government jobs, too. The pay isn't as great, but they're great for benefits and reasonable hours. My law school career services kept the job bulletins of all the law schools in the area. That's a great place to look for middle-of-the-pack jobs. You should also look for law school career services websites in the city you want to work in. They also list a lot of middle-of-the-pack jobs.

  You will find a job. There's always a job for someone with a law degree. You just have to use the fear as an impetus to get started looking. My goal when I was looking for a law job was to send out five resumes a week. I did that every week until I got my job. Five resumes a week isn't so hard is it?

  You can be a great lawyer. Law school performance only matters until you get that first job. Then it's all on you to show what you can do. A very good friend of mine was a middle-of-the-pack student at a middle-of-the-pack lawfirm. He did so well in his first job, though, that he impressed a partner at a large national firm. The guy hired him, mentored him, and now my friend is a partner at this very large national firm. I got my current job the same way. I kicked my current boss's ass in a trial and a few months later he hired me to work for him. It's all about performance after you get that first job.

  BTW, you're not a fake. You're probably very gifted. It's not uncommon for gifted teens to drop out of high school. It's another failing in the way we educate gifted youth.

  Good luck. You'll do fine.

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  *Here's an example. Technically, Illinois can test on tax law on the bar exam, but there hasn't been a tax law question in the last 20 years or so. It's pointless to study for a tax law question. There's ALWAYS a question on Illinois civil procedure, though, so you better pay attention to that if you're taking the Illinois bar exam.

  Permalink Thursday, January 31, 2008 08:17 AM