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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11293 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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Do you think this young man ever had the practical chance of having a normal, productive life in an alternate universe?

I mean if he could finish law school he could have a nice career as an accountant or teacher or something.

With ADHD and other mental disabilities?

Even assuming they’re real, which they may not be, there’s plenty of jobs that would be OK for his conditions.

Probably, but not as a lawyer. And once you are so far down that path, you've taken on a lot of financial-temporal-moral debt that creates path dependance.

If he had the ability to finish law school at all, he has the ability to do some job in the economy. But rather than looking for a profession that he could perform well in, he was allowed to drift into a profession despite failing (under even circumstances) every test designed to filter for the talent required to perform well. Now he's likely in significant debt, he's three years older, and if he tries to do anything else it's understood that he failed as a lawyer.

Someone who can't function within time limits is never going to do well in a business built on billable hours. A lower pressure role, or one where having one great idea every week is better than doing 50 hours of competent drudge work might be fine.

As a lawyer, there's plenty of smaller niches lawyers can fall into that don't go bonkers over billables in the same way the big firms do. For example, plaintiff's-side firms doing most of their work on contingency, or in-house regulatory compliance practice work.

People need to be weeded out as fast possible. Relaxing standards push off the ultimate failure until after someone is pot committed.

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