Part of the reason why I am employed at my company is because I had the dumb luck of being recruited from twitter during my first year of law school. That random break and the great people I’ve met along the way have allowed me to create a career for myself. That is why I try to recommend my qualified friends for open positions as strongly as I can without being obnoxious.
I have worked full-time for my company for close to a year now. Some of my coworkers think that my production levels and eagerness to pick up overtime hours are bizarre, but I disagree. I’m no Ellen Parsons, but law school definitely influenced my corporate life in two ways:
Work ethic: even average UMN law students are used to working long hours and thriving in a highly competitive environment. This translates nicely in the corporate world if you can avoid being pegged as an OCD cutthroat. Ignore my twitching.
Appreciation: part of the reason why I try to push myself at work is because I’m grateful to be employed. That sounds corny until you meet the hoards of my unemployed former-classmates.
I interviewed for a new position within the company today. The interviews made me realize that I am truly out of “school mode” and well into the next phase of my life. My work-life is exciting and rewarding. I just wish more of my equally qualified classmates were in the same position.
I just met a student from my old law school at Dunn Brothers. I managed to calm the 1L about her upcoming final. I also gave her some leads about clinics and jobs.
Those who succeeded in law school were either the manic-workhorses or those with solid mentors (or, more likely, a combination of both.) The quick advice from an older student is invaluable and something I found in the form of blogs.
The conversation made me realize that there is a subset of people who view blog authors as ersatz mentors and role models. I was one of these people and definitely relied on bloggers (like her and her and them) for advice and support.
Even long before law school, I remember being the chubby middle schooler living in Kansas trolling the blogs of cool kids from more exciting places.
Ten years later and people use my blog as an example of how to survive law school. I think that’s pretty amazing and a reason not to disappear.
I find myself in a new place now. Sure, there are plenty of “how to survive high school/college/law school” blogs. The life of an aspiring corporate executive is harder to write about without coming across as obnoxious and calculating.
I suppose the only thing that I can do is just to remain as honest as I was in law school – readership be dammed. Hopefully that doesn’t backfire.
Do you remember when Amber graduated? She said that she was shell-shocked and that she wanted to go home and wallow in her PTSD.
I’m totally there.
Of course I went out and celebrated during graduation weekend, but I procrastinated the grand “end of law school” post because I did not have many positive things to say about the experience. Heck, even thinking of law school annoys me. I’m a grumpy old man and law school needs to get the hell off of my front porch.
I leave law school with a gunnertastic work ethic and sense of professionalism that makes me competitive in the workplace. I also learned what people to surround myself with and – perhaps more importantly – who to avoid.
So now that I am on the verge of 25, the law school chapter of my life is over and I am starting my career while living the yuppie-hipster (yipster?) life in Uptown. This should be amusing…
I might have been on four hours of sleep and chugging coffee, but I finished my coursework for the semester.
Law school is DONE. Hallelu!
I leave the tax law clinic and walk the dogs. The dogs and I into Meth Molly on the walk. She is high again and has trouble with her apartment building door. She grunts and kicks the door before seeing me.
Meth Molly: “You didn’t see that.” Me: “Of course not.” Meth Molly : “I tripped. Stubbed my toe.” Me: “I’m sure.” Meth Molly: “Can I pet your dogs?” Me: “Uh sure.” Meth Molly : “They don’t bite do they? Cus if they do then I’m gonna sue you!” Me: “Heh. Then no. Bad idea. Bye.” Meth Molly: “WHAT? Then why the FUCK do you have them around people? If they gon’ bite?!” Me (walking off): “I didn’t say that they bite. But let’s not take any chances.” Meth Molly : “Fuck you! You have some nerve you know that?”
I keep walking down the street and she follows.
Meth Molly: “LOOK AT ME! I’m sorry. Fuck.” Me: “That’s okay. We’ll be on our way, mam.”
Meth Molly keeps cursing at me. I then receive a phone call from prospective tenants who want to see an open apartment. I meet them at the building and realize that I don’t have my keys.
We walk around to the back of the building and I see that someone tried to break into the building lockbox last night. It was is so badly damaged that it will not open.
I am horrified. I am standing in front of the building, holding two peeing dogs in front of two prospective tenants that think I’m a moron.
I eventually get a neighbor to let me into the building and we walk upstairs to the apartment.
The apartment is vacant but contractors are still doing repairs. The contractors that work for my landlord are notoriously messy, so I had the pleasure of trying to explain why there is a smashed light bulb in the middle of the apartment’s dining room.
I am embarrassed, but slightly too exhausted to care.
My keys were in the laundry room door. Sigh. I need to go to bed.
My first post-law school night consisted of laundry, taco bell, and Celebrity Apprentice. This is the life.
This is an unpleasant time of the school year. There is a lot of crabbiness, busyness and barely-checked desperation from those who do not have summer or post-graduation jobs lined up.
Being a law student is like being a tourist in a country with a collapsing regime – you want to get your ticket and bail before Anderson Cooper arrives for the stoning.
I obviously get to avoid most of the crazy because I spend my days at my cubicle in the burbs. I pop into school in the late evenings and for tax clinic client interviews, but I am not privy to the drama anymore.
Like the tourist, I watch the mess on my computer screen and hear the stories via text and tweets. And I can’t deal with the delusional 0Ls who want to go to the place I just escaped.
And it’s not because the 0Ls take my advice. They don’t. It’s because like most people who are about to do something incredibly stupid, they need to distance themselves from the naysayers. They write me off as cynical and cranky old man, and they come back a year later and tell me that I was right.
I guess that’s just the status of things.
And let’s be clear – law school is a good idea for some people and I do not regret going to law school. I learned a lot and grew up in the past three years.
But law school is not a straight ticket to a high paying career for the vast majority of students. A legal degree does not mean job security, happiness, respect, or guarantee that you will do better than $12 an hour as a contractor in a basement room at an undisclosed location with bats.
You heard me. Bats. Everywhere.
And as with all rants, you have to end it the moment you start warning people of bats. So beware, and goodbye.
My week is full of at least 60-hours of law and tax related work. I work full-time at the office, clerk at the public defender’s office, volunteer at a tax non-profit, and regularly skip over to the law school for the tax law clinic.
I do 60-hours of work in three different counties, but life is so much easier and less stressful than having the regular law school schedule. 1
The difference between work and law school is the existence of boundaries. Ten hour days at the office, rambling bail dockets, and clinic meetings aren’t a big deal because I have a clearly defined role that ends when I leave each place. 2
The worst part of law school is that nagging feeling that there is something undone. You can always prepare more, study more, read a hornbook, etc. but at some point you have to quit studying. The extra information probably won’t help and you’ll never compete with the library-dwelling gremlins anyway.
Putting the books down is a good idea, and healthy, but it still feels like quitting. The feeling of “I could be doing this that and the other” soils every outing, meal, and non-school related activity. It’s a horrible guilt that causes indigestion and mass crabbitude.
But that guilt is gone. I am not allowed to work at the office more than 10-hours per day or 40-hours a week for fear of a FLSA violation and the public defenders dismiss most of the clerks after the end of the docket. My obligation ends when I leave the building. There’s no reading, homework, or looming final.
And even at the tax law clinic, there is only so much work I can do before I have to wait on a client or the IRS. There’s a clear end to my role. And I love it.
Good god, it does get better after law school doesn’t it? This is going to be the best semester ever.
1 This semester I have 6 credits: the tax law clinic and a foreign-language movie class that meets 1 day a week. No law school classes or finals. BUMP! 2 And unlike after-hours work for a job, these extra-hours are unpaid and will probably not further your career.
I had my last formal1 law school class session yesterday evening.
My presence in yesterday’s class underscored how pointless attendance is sometimes. I slogged through rush-hour traffic on slick roads for a 15-minute “wrap up” session that should have been tacked on to last week’s class. Continue reading “Perfect attendance” »
The snow caused shitty driving conditions, but the dog walks were much more entertaining. I also went through another 50lb bag of salt to clear the building’s sidewalks.
My building is always the first one on the block to have clear sidewalks. The rest of the sidewalks are so bad that people just walk in the middle of the street.
A couple passed as I shoveled on Friday and the guy shouted to the woman: “See! He got the salt out, shit’s shoveled, those sidewalks are right! Our landlord needs to get on it!”
Mhm.
The worst sidewalks in the neighborhood belong to the public schools. If this continues throughout the winter then I will file a complaint and/or a juicy premises liability suit when I break my ankle on the ice slicks. You can run and tell that.
The snow and cold provided the backdrop for my last full week of law school. There were the usual classes, gym time, tax clinic meetings, dog walks, a throw down in Death Penalty seminar, work, and a lot of dates with the new guy, Halvers.
Bedingfields: Over-enthusiastic, “Hi! Nice to meet you. I love your eyes! We should totally get married. What’s your name again? ”
E-Ballers: Fills up my facebook and text inbox, but acts completely bored when we hang out. Am I talking to your secretary online?
Fair-Weathers: Completely enraptured in-person but takes a week to respond to a facebook or text message. Might need to borrow the E-Baller’s secretary.
The faux-friend: Your jealous boyfriend…who isn’t your boyfriend. This is the guy who claims he wants friendship but what he really wants is Ken – the boyfriend without the sex.The faux-friend wants to go to movies, the gym, the bar, texts, and calls, but the second you look at another guy, sirens turn on and he rings the alarm. The faux-friend will not date you, but he is perfectly happy to cause unnecessary drama as he glares down his perceived competition at the bar like a hyena in heat. Avoid at all costs.
Poltergeists: The Poltergeist is similar to the fair-weather, only more irritating. This is the guy who disappears after an amazing date and then reincarnates as a ghost rapping at your online-door.The poltergeist will “like” a facebook update, or shoot a text once every few weeks along the lines of “Hey we should hang out!” only to disappear again… these guys are like reoccurring outbreaks of H1N1, and it’s time to be vaccinated.
Halvers belongs to a special 6th category, the rarest of them all – the Chickawow.
Chickawows are the guys with swagger so out of control that it risks turning you into a Bedingfield. The beat from “Whatever You Like” starts playing, you start mimicking Nicole’s The Grudge look, and involuntarily submit to the creepy Bam-Chicka-Wow-wow dance:
Flustered and giggly is not a good look. I feel like a 13 year old girl hot for Bieber. Then again, leaving law school infatuated isn’t the worst way to end 3L year is it?
Professor H noted that we look stressed, and that stressed law students are typical for November.
She then addressed our Thanksgiving schedule:
Professor H: “I really hate scheduling a 3:30 p.m. class on the day before Thanksgiving because first of all, a third of you won’t show up, and then the rest of you will be really surly and crabby with me for making you show up. So class canceled!”
