Letters to the Editor
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Been There, Done That
Here's some advice from a lawyer that's been practicing 13 years and didn't graduate from high school *or* go to college (I had 3 classes in summer school at night and 5 days later was in law school).
From what I read, you have a very high IQ and relatively little academic discipline. This caused you to do poorly in a Catholic High School, but excel at a liberal arts college.
You got into an exclusive and expensive private school where the lack of discipline hindered you, but are now doing moderately well at a public school.
You've noticed that real jobs are hard and soul grinding and the legal profession seems like a decent way to make a living.
You feel damned if you do (imposter if successful) and damned if you don't (a failure).
Okay. Here's the advice. Don't worry. You'll do fine as an attorney. The big corporate attorneys that make gazillion dollars are miserable. It's an awful life. You don't want it. Especially without discipline (but not even with it).
Read the legal blogs out there. See what is good and what fits you. You can make good money practicing real estate, business law, bankruptcy, estates.... None of those are fascinating (at least to me), but they still pay pretty well.
You can also be a plaintiff's attorney and fight for the little guy. If you grew up in a blue collar environment, do workers comp and personal injury. You will always be representing real people against large corporations.
That's what I do. And I enjoy it. I don't think an insurance company *needs* my talents. People do. It always amuses me when clients are surprised that they are jerked around by inusrance companies. Of course I see their dirty tactics on a daily basis .
Find out what you want to do. Find out what makes your heart sing and then do it. Don't worry about the lack of discipline in the past. If that becomes an issue and is holding you back, then learn enough discipline to get where you're going.
I've had moderately the same problem and had zero discipline in high school because I could ace all of the tests without studying. Being smart came easy, having academic/intellectual discipline came hard. But, if it's important you can learn it.
Hang in there, don't get too hard on yourself and you'll do fine as a lawyer. My only concern for you is that you will pass the bar and thne be unhappy as a lawyer. Find out what makes you happy and do that and don't listen to what anyone else says.
I love working for people, the trial work, the excitement and everything about it. It works for me. My wife who is a social worker, is seriously thinking of going to law school to do family law. You couldn't pay me to do that. I can't think of a worse life than doing divorces over and over and over again. You get to see the best people at the worst time of their lives. I couldn't do it. She loves that stuff.
Do what makes you happy. If you don't know what makes you happy, try different things and don't be afraid to abandon things.
Good luck. You deserve to be happy.
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So You Got Tricked Into Law School
I, like many of those posting, am a lawyer. I have been one for about fifteen years. I went straight from undergrad to law school and was, like you, immediately kicked in the gut by the marked difference between the learning experience (and overall pleasantness) of undergraduate liberal arts education and law school.
One of the problems that many (most?) law students face is that going in they view the law as sort of a quasi-humanities discipline (sort of an alternative to post-graduate science or business degrees). But law school is almost scientific (and mathematical) in its approach and in its way of sorting out the top students from the middle or the bottom. It can be unpleasant. It's rigorous. It's competitive. There is little to no reward for independent or idiosyncratic personalities or thought. By the time most students figure this out, they are $25,000 to $50,000 in debt to their law school masters and failure (or even deciding not to continue in the study of law) is not really a practical option.
That said, the law can be (although rarely is) a rewarding profession. I work as a public defender, make a six-figure salary even as a government employee (in California), can look forward to retiring with a pretty generous pension in my mid-fifties if I somehow survive fifteen more years, and work a normal 40-hour workweek. When you pass the bar (and you will eventually because you have the drive and the intelligence), try to find some area of the law that will actually make you feel like you are contributing something to someone, somewhere. That is a lot harder than it sounds. Legal professions drown people. They often kill spirits; bury people under billable hours and repetitive, mundane tasks; and can reduce you to a robotic billing machine where imagination and soul are nothing but liabilities that distract you from your primary objective in life: getting largely meaningless tasks done that you can bill to someone, somewhere.
Don't go down that route with the same ignorance that you may have had (in part) when you decided to go to law school. Carefully consider what each legal path will mean to you as an individual fifteen or twenty years down the road. Don't just go for the money unless you are one of those rare individuals who can actually be made whole or "happy" by the money alone over the long term. Don't expect climbing the corporate or firm ladder to provide you with any long-term satisfaction. If you are in the statistical majority, it simply won't.
In other words, just be careful this time. And good luck.
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LW, do NOT relax!!! Becoming a lawyer is NOT easy.
I say that because your experience has already shown you that to be the truth. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much you study for the bar, it's not enough. If you think you're done, study more. It will be over in three months, which is nothing in the grand scheme of things. So do yourself a favor and save yourself the next 6-12 months that will be consumed if you have to do a re-take.
Trust me, I am speaking with hindsight from a near-identical position. Had someone just told me this to begin with, I would've saved myself a lot of time and heartache.
I usually can see where Cary is coming from, but this time I can tell you that the labels of "impostor" and "outsider" don't matter. What matters is how hard you work, and how badly you want it. And ultimately, those labels have no application to those issues.
Do keep in mind that the bar is your biggest obstacle. It is an objective reality. Don't set yourself up speculating whether or not you'll be able to help people. These things are in your head. No one can really help anyone right out of law school, not even the best students. You learn with experience, as does everyone else.
Now go work your ass off and pass the bar!