An attempt to answer t.a.l.'s question......

When I’m sweating in Civil Procedure, nodding off in Constitutional Law, or stressing over a four page memo assignment I think about driving to Berkeley, California and working full time in a progressive bookstore during the day, and reading at night in a café. I think about sneaking into the Czech Republic and busing tables in a Prague restaurant learning Czech and reading Kafka at night. I think about applying for the internship at This American Life so I can work on making radio documentaries, collecting little audio snippets of people’s lives and collating them into smart, moving and witty narratives that enlighten and amuse. I think about going back to Java Joe’s Coffee House and making muffins and scones full time, spending the evenings sipping strong coffee in the Parlor Commons and wishing I was somewhere else. I think about becoming a correspondent for NPR in Istanbul, Paris or Buenos Aires.

Before I decided to come to law school I planned on entering a PhD program in Sociology. I was taking a graduate course in ethnography, doing research on the construction of masculinity and its performance in fitness spaces and working on an honors thesis about indigenous movement responses to neo-liberal globalization policies in Latin America. I loved the work I was doing and could have gotten into some very good programs, but the idea of commiting the next 8 to 10 years to studying the same thing and making very little or no money in the process was beginning to look less and less feasible. In my ethnography class I met someone who was pursuing her PhD after getting her JD. She had spent several year organizing labor groups in Argentina, and was teaching a class at the Gallatin School and had hoped to write a dissertation using her experiences and practical insights. I began thinking about spending 3 short years learning about the law, and using it to “affect a real change in people’s lives” and figured I could use what ever experience I garnered to write a kick ass dissertation for a PhD in the future.

So I took the LSAT and applied to schools at the last possible moment. In my last semester I started researching the types of jobs that were available to JDs. On a whim I looked at some message boards and web pages discussing salary levels for first year associates at the major firms. I was completely seduced by the possibility of making 125,000 dollars my first year out of law school. I was willing to trade in any sort of convictions I had against giant firms acting in the interest of corporations as they plundered the planet and the poor for the possibility of nice apartment in Manhattan and a Saab. This is assuming I could do well enough to rank high enough in my class to get these types of jobs.

This did not last very long. I have since put it back into perspective. Why would I want to work 80 hours a week and feel like shit about the work I was doing ? I cringe when I think of law school as a professional training program churning out lawyers ready to serve the highest bidder regardless of the human costs. While I enjoy the material and haven’t had any difficulty keeping up with or understanding any of the work, I am not driven to learn law in order to secure a plum job at the end. I’m content with understanding the material, its connections to the other readings and its application to “the real world.” It is fascinating to see the how law develops and how the influence of ideology, social forces and the weaknesses and strengths of individual justices and legislators shape the legal framework of society and its direct consequences on individuals After law school I’d like to work for a couple of years for an international agency or non-profit till I can pay down debt so I can then pursue a PhD, or get a job with NPR……

We’ll see how I feel after finals…….