2013 is a whole new year

I started writing this post in January. Seems I'm not moving very fast. Go figure.

I paid my annual bar dues about two weeks ago. A couple hundred bucks for absolutely nothing in return. 

I also signed up for a mandatory ethics course. Again, a hundred bucks for nothing.

How ironic I need to pay $100 to learn about “ethics” when I’m the one who is getting fucked? I tapped into the five grand my law school gave me for that fake job thing they set up to pay these bills. (This fake job: http://cruxoflaw.blogspot.com/2012/07/strange-bedfellows-indeed.html.)

As I've said before on this web page and will undoubtedly say again many times in the future, an update may be in order. My total law related earnings for 2012 comes it at a grand total of $7,100.00. Run your head around that one a few times. I can honestly say that there was about $7k in income last year that is directly attributable to my having earned a law degree, getting the nod from the C&F folks, and passed the bar exam. Anything else I cobbled together had no bearing on my being an "attorney".

$7k.

To put that in perspective, I am in my early forties and was making between $30k and $50k per year prior to law school. (That swing is attributable to my doing a few different things over the last decade.) Totally awesome. High five later.

As being an "attorney" is turning out to be right up there with ten miles of bad road, I have begun applying for non-JD positions for 2013. A few thus far. I don’t know yet if my JD will prove to be an asset or a liability. But, I’m leaning toward the latter. No interviews yet, but this is a recent development. I will try to share any developments either way on this blog.

I also began cold-calling local attorneys last month. Just flat out telephoning people out of the blue. One call led to a lunch meeting / interview. It lasted two hours. An offer of a part-time position doing research and writing for a small firm followed. I, of course, took it immediately without hesitation.

The job started last week. 

So, I've got three things going on. First, I'm doing contract work for a criminal defense attorney. Basically, I'm doing legal research and writing motions. An occasional memo, and one court appearance. It's up and down. Some weeks I have two or three days to pull something together. Sometimes I have less than that, and I'm up working until two o'clock in the morning after making dinner for the family and getting the kids in bed. No matter how short the notice, I always say yes. Frankly, I'm afraid to say no. And, some weeks that attorney doesn't have a project for me. Like I said, it's up and down.

Second, I'm doing all kinds of odd jobs for another attorney related to a tort case. Some weeks I talk to a private investigator, do a little research, visit the courthouse, track down something or the other on the phone or internet. Whatever is asked, I just do it. This one is also up and down. Mostly down. Barely worth mentioning, actually.

And, finally, the part-time gig I started last week. It's looking to be about a twenty hour per week commitment. It may become more. We'll see. It is in an area of the law I pretty much knew absolutely nothing about until I jumped in last week.

I can honestly say that one thing law school taught me is that I know I can figure out an area of the law in a few short weeks. We did so semester after semester. New subject matter? No problem. So, thanks for that, law school. You're the tops.

That's it. That's what I'm doing these days. I'd like to be busier, but it's better than nothing. I am on track to match last years horrifically dismal $7k in law related earnings pretty quickly. So, I've got that going for me.

An update is in order

I guess I can call myself an attorney now. I don't, very often. But, I can.

Strange phrase, isn't it:

"Attorney."

I haven't referred to myself as an "attorney" but two or three times.

And only when someone asks me, "So, what do you do?"

I say, "I'm an attorney."

And, then we talk about the weather or some shit. It's such a stumbling block. It just derails the conversation.

I have some friends from law school who use "Esq." now, in their communications, signatures, and so forth. It seems clumsy to me. So, I don't do it.

I don't know if I can say it's all that great being an attorney. I'm not surprised by the work, really. I guess I just thought my experience would be a little different than it has been. Law school was something to endure, the bar exam something to simply pass.

For what it's worth, I can knock the following off my list: (1) graduate from an accredited law school, (2) pass the bar exam, (3) get paid to do the type of work only a licensed attorney may do. Done, done, and done.

And what a long, strange trip it's been.

OK, all jokes aside. Here is where I'm at now. I am working, basically part-time, doing contract work for two different attorneys. Both of these men I knew prior to law school. And, I suppose I should also point out, both of these men have been practicing law for years and are throwing me table scraps.

The upside is I am covering my expenses, spending time with my family, and getting paid actual money to do legal work. I have current employment to list on my resume. And I have professional references that are not either law professors or people I worked for before I went to law school.

The downside is I'm pretty much working out of my house or a public library. All I require is a power source and an internet connection. The house is fine with me. It's flexible, the 'fridge is mere steps away, and I can walk around in my pajamas all day if I want to. The library is OK, but I have to actually get dressed and shave in the morning. Well, at least dressed. I'm typing this from a table in the library. I have a file in front of me which contains a police report and a bunch of other docs. I'm doing a motion to suppress, illegal search and seizure basically.

You know what occurred to me this morning that prompted this entry? Law school teaches nothing about the actual practice of law.

I know, preaching to the choir. You've all heard it already.

Strange bedfellows indeed

It may be time to post some content on this blog again. I have not written anything for publication in months. I've been keeping a file (read: pile) of notes. A few scraps or paper, really, here and there.

I am now over year out from graduation. I am not employed as an attorney. Nor, have I been at any time in the last 12 months. At least not in any sense of the word used in common conversation with normal, average, reasonable people. I was "employed" as far as my law school is concerned. And, I was employed as far as the USNWR folks are concerned.

I was a "graduate fellow." No, I don't know what it means either. Other than a rather grim view of what people will do when the opportunity to falsely represent themselves arises. And I mean the law schools, not the graduates.

You see, the magic number is nine months. Yes, what matters is what the graduate is doing nine months after graduation. If the graduate is not "employed" in the common sense of the word, working for pay, full time, in a job which requires a JD, well, such information would be damaging to a law schools ranking. So, the answer is to create, out of thin air, a "job" for this student.

Hence, the Graduate Fellowship Program. Or, GFP (Get Fucking Paid). I was offered a check for five thousand dollars ($5,000) if I agreed to volunteer my services, part time, for the remaining length of the spring semester.

I am not a proud man. I signed the contract and accepted payment.

That check sat on my counter for two months. I simply could not face it. I guess I was more proud than I originally thought.

I eventually deposited it at my bank. In a separate savings account, populated only with those funds. It is dirty money. Dirty. Fucking. Money. I may need it someday. But, for now, I can't stand the thought of co-mingling such gains with the funds that feed my children.

I wish I had the strength of character to decline the school's offer and say, "No. No, you count me as unemployed. Because that is what I am."

Thinning the herd

I know a lot more about the machine which legal education now that I am standing on the far end of process with a J.D. One of the things which really surprised me at the TTTT (fourth tier toliet) I chose to attend was the brutal effects of the grading curve.

My wife went to law school a few years (and a few children) before I did. She went to a lower-ranked state school, but one with a history and a respectable reputation. I, for reasons I can barely now remember nor articulate clearly, went to a for-profit law school. It was in the same state my life was licensed in, but a different city than where we lived. So, a big move for the family, but not as big as it could have been.

I matriculated in 2008 with 174 other students. Three years later, I walked with the 89 who actually completed the program. That means 85 students were lost along the way to failure, drop-out, or transfer. That is a total loss of 48.8%. (I should say now, I am no whiz in math. I may make a mistake or two in my back-of-the-envelope calculations here today.)

My cohort lost some 70 students between 1L and 2L. That number comes from the class rank I was given in May at the end of the first year. There were 174 students on the list. Students who simply disappeared (there were a few) during 1L remained on the list of 174.

There was a 40% reduction in student body at the end of 2L. The total class was now 104.

I find that number alarming. As I understand it, from my wife's experience in school and that of others I have read, a loss of about 10% to what is commonly termed "attrition" can be expected in the first year of law school. Much of that loss is expected during the first semester.

To have forty percent of the folks who began the program vacate their seats is simply unheard of. Well, unheard of until you start reading about the Law School Scam. Some of these folks figured law wasn't for them, some transferred to a different school. But, I believe the majority of them failed out of the program.

Someone asked me once, as I described to them the number of people who failed out of the program, "Why would the school admit people who couldn't handle the work?"

It was a good question. One you would expect of any other graduate program in the country. The short answer is the law schools admit people "who can't handle the work" simply to take the money. Students were never there to "handle the work." They were there as cannon fodder. This mass of under-performers is what pays for the discounted and free tuition offered to the high LSAT / GPA folks. That keeps the all-important USNWR rankings humming along, those lives destroyed through non-dischargeable debt be damned.

The curve forced curve utilized at institutions such as my (proud) alma mater lead to an inevitable deficiency in grade point average. In short, if you give 15% of every class a grade of less than a C, you are going to fail out that same number of people.

There was a loss of an additional 15 students from 2L to 3L. I calculate (poorly) that to be a 14% reduction.

You may ask, who the hell fails out after the 2L? Just over a dozen people, apparently. Here is where it gets really ugly: All those kids have credits for courses they cannot transfer or use toward any other program of study, employment, or career. The debt they incurred for either one third or two thirds of a J.D. cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. It will never go away. And, it will be compounded at around 7% interest. They will be paying off those loans for years. Decades in many cases. I feel bad for those people. Some of them were my friends. One of them I still talk to.

They got screwed.

Break time

I may have to take a few day off from posting on this blog. I've mentioned before that I began this project in the hopes that it would prove a cathartic experience, allowing me to work through some of the anger and bitterness I've stored up over the last three years.

Instead it had pretty much just pissed me off. Each and every time I post. And, since I've been posting daily for three weeks now, I've been pissed off every day for what will soon be a month of my life.

Enough.

I'll take a day or so, regroup, and just chill. I have a lot more stories. Most of them are in the form of a few notes or paragraphs written here and typed out there. I think I will be putting them together and posting them, just to get them off my desk and out of my friggin' life.

It is as if I am writing these message out on a piece of paper, rolling them up, stuffing them in a bottle, and heaving them into the ocean. Currents, take this pain away from me. Sun, warm my soul. I have been down too long.

A family with two lawyers

During the many informal exchanges I had with a faculty member over the course of my law school experience, I was commonly asked the question of what my wife did for a living.

I would answer, “She is an attorney.”

My professors handled the news in different ways. The most common being the neutral response indicative of not really giving a shit. That was OK. I took no offense to such conduct. In fact, I came to expect it. Look, we're just making small talk here. We both know it. How 'bout that weather, how are your kids, couldn't care less, couldn't care less. I too played the same game.

One professor told me his wife was also an attorney. And, as if it had any relevance on a man already well committed to his present educational endeavors, he added, “A family with two lawyers, huh? Just so you know, my wife and I didn’t have a weekend off together for the first two years of our marriage.”

Wow. Thanks, Sparky. That's a real game-changer.

I was already all-in, having pushed my chips to the center of the table, sold my home, packed everything we owned into a truck, moved to new city, and purchased different house. My wife had started a new job as well. What did he expect me to say, gee thanks for pointing that out, I’m going to drop out of school now and figure out something different to do with the rest of my life that leaves the weekends free?

Did I mention I was 38 years old and married for a decade at the time he said this?

I simply demurred and said something about a case we read or some artwork on his office wall. I really don't remember what I said. But, I do recall what I was thinking: "Yeah? Well let me break it to you, chief, some people work. And I've been one of those people. I’ve worked a lot of weekends in my life, including several years while married."

Not much point in going down that road, eh? So, instead, I let the wise old sage share his nuggets of wisdom. Just as I did with all the jokers I met in law school.

A dog is not a child

I started law school with two young children at home. Maybe not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. But, I assure you, no one ever accused me of being smart.

Two different female classmates said to me, “Oh, I know just what it’s like for you going to law school with two kids… because I have a dog.” This happened in first 2L, and again in 3L. Unreal.

I bit my tongue each time and just let it go. Discretion, I suppose. Just keeping your mouth shut from time to time ain’t a bad idea either.

Still, it bothered me. The fact is that neither of these two clowns had any idea what it was like to attend law school with two young children at home. No. Idea. At. All.

How do you respond to a comment like that? What can you do?

Because, really you'd think it obvious. A dog is not a child.

Taking a pass

Another day, another blog post. This is another law school memory near and dear to my heart. I once saw this cute, young, twenty-something, law review, top-tenner get called on in class. She answered, simply, “I’ll think I’ll pass.”

And the professor let her!

Mid-pack, cannon-fodder students like myself, well, let’s just say we did not get the same treatment. We were expected to stand before the class and embarrass ourselves fumbling over our thoughts as we attempted answer the question presented. The Socratic Method, right? Good times.

Oh, that one really sucked. Nothing quite like being reminded that you really just don’t matter in the slightest. Always a positive moment.

Legal education as a closed loop

There is something I have found very strange in legal education. There is this odd recycling of personnel between student and teacher. It seems that the students with the top grades do not last long out in the world practicing law (for any number of reasons). They then return to the academic community they just left to become law professors (instead of actually working as a attorney). These are the very people whom are tasked with educating the next generation of law students, rewarding like behavior in the classroom and creating another crop of people whom will not practice law. A quick review of the curriculum vitae of, say, five random law professors at damn near any school tells the same story: straight from undergrad to law school, less than 24 months at Big Law firm, and then right back to the comforting confines of academia.

In essence, the closed loop is as such: Good at law school game, bad at the law game, right back to the law school game.

One of the most egregious examples was a professor whom recorded a review lecture of evidence I watched a few times. He was leaning forward, smiling at the lectern, saying, “That’s where you really get ‘em on cross. You get that defendant on the stand. Isn’t that fun?”

(I should note, I've worked selling all manner of widgets. I know bullshit when I see it. This guy was talking out of his ass.)

So, I googled him. Yep, he did about two years at some civil firm before becoming a law professor. He never cross-examined a criminal defendant in his life.

So, why lie? I have no idea. I guess it made him feel more credible somehow. Of course, once the ruse is exposed, any credibility is gone.

Now, this is where it gets interesting (at least for me). As Christine Hurt put it, “Studying the law and practicing are two different exercises, which appeal to different personalities and skill sets.” (http://www.theconglomerate.org/2011/09/scamlaw-forum-questions-for-the-day.html.)

I proffer that those that excel in law school are people whom posses a certain personality and skill set, or narrow range of personalities and skill sets. In my law school experience (admittedly little more than anecdotal commentary, but it’s my blog, so there), the top ten kids in my graduating class really seemed to be cut from the same cloth. There was a social awkwardness about them, a stammering manner of speech, and an odd sense of fashion. These people were difficult to interact with socially. I can see how these traits would not lend themselves well to dealing with clients and coworkers.

A second anecdotal comment: As I have undoubtedly mentioned in earlier post on this blog, my wife is an attorney. She graduated from law school back in 2004. I can look to her former classmates and see much the same situation. One of my wife’s good friends graduated third in her class of 90-something. She is a sharp girl, that one. But, man, is she difficult to be around. Now, all these years later, the girl can’t seem to manage working more than three days a week. I don’t want to mention her position, but it is one that requires an extremely bright person who can write extremely well. She has never had a client and never been to court. Not once. She reminds me of several professors I had in law school.

These top law students, whom invariably go on to failure at the actual practice of law (or “choose” not to do it any longer than 24 months), go on to educate the next generation of law students. I believe the educational system itself remains more or less static (it’s the same damn cases and essay exams, year after year), and these former students newly minted as professors then cultivate, recognize, and reward the personalities and skill sets that they themselves possess, rewarding top honors to like students. This new bunch at the head of their graduating class are either are doomed to failure at practice, or they will grow bored with it, or they will choose to leave, or whatever, and then they come back to the safety of academia themselves. And then the cycle begins anew.

This is a very inefficient way to educated students in the practice of law. In fact, I'm not even sure anyone is pretending this is an attempt to teach at all. There is a disconnect between what is taught in law school and what is needed to practice law. And this float between the competency rewarded in law school and the actual knowledge base and skills needed in the field is indicative of this problem.

I'm not entirely sure how one can fix this sorted mess. But, not hiring those who can't cut it in the trenches to train the next round of recruits might be a starting point.

The value of a legal education

What is it that a student learns in law school? How to practice law? How to pass the bar?

Law school does not prepare anyone for the practice of law. This "think like a lawyer" line is a bunch of crap. You can figure that out in one year, if not one semester. The bright bulbs among us could probably figure it out by reading one book over the span of two weeks.

Instead of being prepared for the practice of law, a recent graduate must find an employer whom is willing to put the time in to convey the requisite knowledge. This is basically an apprenticeship, where the mentor invests in the mentee's potential for future success. This investment is what proved to be too expensive for many firms in recent years. Across the eastern seaboard, large portions of the graduating class were not offered employment in 2008. Big firms which could have certainly absorbed the losses instead chose to let the new grad drown in the street. That lost generation of graduates gave rise to the scam blog movement. We have that to be happy about, I suppose.

A bar exam review course is essentially the mandatory seventh semester of law school. I really think the majority of my third year was a waste of my time and money. I won’t get too deep into it here with this post, but my time could have been better spent. And the expenditure of capital was unconscionable.

I’d like to see an effort in law schools to incorporate something similar to a bar exam preparatory course and real, hands on work, during the third year. My wife spent her entire sixth semester clerking. She did not take one class. That was worth her time. She claims to have learned more that one semester than she did her entire second year. I would have been better served spending my last semester doing something similar to the BarBri course I took over the summer. Not only does law school fail to educated students on how to actually practice law, but law school also fails to prepare students for the licensing examination. It is insane.

In the state I am licensed to practice law, the bar passage rate is around 70% most years. It is often in the high 60% range. And it was 80% once in the past decade. I question the value of curving the exam in this manner. There is no reason that three out of ten, or one out of five in the lone good year, should fail the bar exam. If that many people cannot pass the exam, one of two things is true; either the exam is too difficult or law school is too easy.

If a ABA accredited law school takes three years of a students life and six figures of funds, and then awards that student with a degree certifying competency in the material, it follows that she should have little difficulty with the bar exam. I am not suggesting that it should be a cake walk. But, spending six to eight weeks studying material a student should already know is ridiculous. Having 20-30% of those students fail the exam is a joke. The passage rate should be in the 90-95% range, with failure a rarity. These people need to get into the market place and start generating income. Many have debt load that will require service. It is a cost to us all when they cannot begin employment promptly.