Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 121
- 2
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
So I'm a software engineer at a no-name startup for nearly 5 years. And recently I suddenly have an interest in learning law. Has anyone gotten on this path or have opinions about this? I suppose in my fantasy future, I would be doing appellate law and someday argue Supreme Court cases, but everything I read up shows that law is a high-stress, singular life. What are pros and cons here? What are things that should encourage me and what are things that should discourage me? If someone wants to pour a basin of water over my head on this whole romantic notion please feel free.
Not always, but by far the best path to that point is to graduate from Harvard, Stanford, or Yale, maybe Chicago, to clerk for a Circuit justice (and then, if possible, a SCOTUS justice), and go to work at a large law firm. The first step is to take the LSAT. If you can score 175+ (less if you are an underrepresented minority) then at least that step is not impossible. But if appellate law is the only thing that really interests you, then you should probably just not go to law school--unless, perhaps, you are extremely well connected. Even if you go to Harvard, the odds of ever actually arguing interesting questions in front of the Supreme Court are quite low. Even arguing in front of state supreme courts is pretty unusual.
If you're sufficiently interested in law to accept a career well short of your fantasy future, then you might as well take the LSAT and see how it goes. STEM majors actually tend to do very well as it is for the most part an obfuscated psychometric, despite the recent removal of the logic games portion. If you do poorly, then you can turn your attention elsewhere. If you do well, then you can decide whether to take the next steps of figuring out plausible schools to apply to. But bear in mind that law careers have a "bimodal distribution" between highly compensated "BigLaw" attorneys and the rank-and-file of family and criminal and liability lawyers who are (often at best) comfortably middle class. You could easily end up spending 3 years and $100,000+ to take a pay cut and spend the rest of your life refereeing messy divorces.
I am a lawyer, but I only practice on rare occasion. I left behind full time law practice to become an academic philosopher. I find it much more fulfilling than law practice, and I get to argue about whatever issues I want with people who are actually a lot smarter than the median SCOTUS Justice. The pay is terrible and it's unlikely I will ever make a meaningful difference on actual public policy, but that would probably be true even if I were a powerful appellate attorney.
I still remember one of my TAs in law school (a step below HYS) almost taking a swing at me at a cocktail party when he solemnly told the group his life goal was to argue in front of SCOTUS, and I gave him the piss-take that given he was Kenyan, his easiest route wasn't through a big-law litigation firm, but to move to some former Confederate state capital and join the AGs office, where he would be a novelty both for the quality of his law degree and intellect and for the color of his skin. Become Mike Huckabee's token black friend and they'll put you up for promotion right away, and those states are always getting into some cockamamie case around wanting to execute a black man that they would love to have a Black Attorney to argue for them.
He said he wanted to do it with integrity, I said that there are only a little over 100 lawyers who argue in front of the SCOTUS any given year, and there are about 1,000 students graduating from HYS every year. There's not a lot of room at the top.
@lollol
Don't become a lawyer to argue about the constitution, unless you are either very rich and connected or want to be a PD and argue about very particular types of constitutional law. Or I suppose if you're a true outlier genius, where getting a 180 LSAT is trivial for you without practice, and you figure to be top of class at HYS given your resume.
It's not the worst thing in the world to do with your time, law school is actually quite pleasant in my opinion, but the industry is about to go through major shifts related to (a new variety of) LLM in the workplace. So it may not be the source of major job security in the immediate future, regardless of how things ultimately turn out.
More options
Context Copy link
You need to go to HYS to clerk or be a judge, but if you want to argue a case in the circuit court you just need a plaintiff and a case. That's harder than it sounds, because it takes a lot of money to pay the fees to have a trial, and most civil rights organizations already have their own preferred lawyers.
Still for arguing a case at scotus you'll probably need to network to be in the place to argue appellate cases, and be in the right place and the right time to go to scotus.
More options
Context Copy link
From what I've read up, it's HYS or nothing. I have a natural aversion to prestige games but I suppose for the prestige chasers that's just loser talk.
I suppose this is what I am missing from my normal job, I don't have fulfillment. I feel that I do a good job and the people around me says I am and the company show sufficient financial appreciation, but at the end of the day it's just pushing text from left to right to get people to buy more stuff. At various points in the last few months I've did various searches on "how can a 30 year old do [research/law school/etc]?" And every time it seems like confusing and non-clear ROI. Nor does it seem like my job then would be more fulfilling, at least on the SWE path there are some pretty clear next steps I can do (big tech/unicorns/interesting startups/open source/anarcho-hackers/etc.). And yes, currently I have to wait for the company-sponsored green card process to complete before it seems like my next chapter in life can begin.
In the interest of completeness, it's worth nothing that there are other paths up the mountain. For example, one common bit of advice is that if there is a state you know you want to practice law in (and you actually want to practice law, not just be an academic or something) then you should try to get into the best law school in that state. If you can parlay that into a position as e.g. the state's Attorney General then you actually have a better chance of winding up in front of the Supreme Court than if you go BigLaw, and you will have direct impact on public policy even when you're not arguing it in front of the nine aristocrats who actually rule the country.
But yes, the legal profession is incredibly
infectedobsessed with prestige, which it routinely and wholeheartedly substitutes for genuine merit. In any number of venues there is just no amount of demonstrated intelligence or accomplishment that will make up for choosing a lower-ranked law school, and no amount of idiocy that won't be excused if you've got the right pedigree. Exhibit A is of course the educational demographics of the Supreme Court itself. But I have seen a backwater state legislature reject a state supreme court nominee for the crime of not having gotten a 4.0 GPA at their top in-state law school, while cheerfully approving nominees who went to Yale, which doesn't assign grades. It's a real problem.Are you married? Do you have children?
It might off-topic but fulfillment is elusive prey. "Success" in the workaday world entails climbing to the top of a heap and then defending your position there. But by definition most of us cannot be at the top of any heap of humanity. Modernity treats business and government as the only heaps worth climbing. We obsess over promotion and pay raises and political victories. A single layoff or a single health issue can knock us back a whole decade.
The simplest way to parlay that "financial appreciation" into fulfillment is to take on the long term project of community-building. The paradigmatic approach is to start making tiny humans, whose parent you will always be, no matter what the role specifically entails. Not everyone will have the opportunity to be President, or Governor, or Justice, or CEO--indeed, the vast majority of us never will be. But everyone can be a good parent. The title of "Mom" or "Dad" is available to all, if not biologically than through adoption, and the only promotions available are to "Grandma" or "Grandpa." This is why certain political thinkers are so anti-family--because if you are focused on success within your actual sphere of influence, you are much more difficult to recruit as a single-minded soldier advancing the policy visions of others. Family (along with church and other, similarly genuine communities) competes directly with business and politics for your time and attention and loyalty, but offers you fulfillment on your own terms, rather than the terms of whoever happens to be at the top of the heap.
Sorry to hear that. It's never fun to be waiting on bureaucracy. Good luck!
cool, sounds to me like i should just LSAT and see how it goes, maybe my score will be low enough that it'll just tell me that law is not for me.
Yes, and will. My wife and I will have children for sure, just not right now. For example, at the moment it's not clear if we have children prior to getting the green card they would be considered an American citizen. I am actually currently reading the book Dad Brain and I am quite excited about the prospect of being a dad. But I also want to be an amazing dad with great personal accomplishments as well. I suppose arrogance comes with being a SWE but I do think I'll be a great dad that will gain a lot of joy and pride from raising the little ones, and I also want joy and pride from my own accomplishments as well. No matter whether a bum or a contender, I'll be a great dad, but I don't want to be that guy in his 50s saying "I coulda been a contender".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link