The Law School Experience and Your Psyche

For better or worse law school leaves an indelible imprint on your psyche, your analytical approach to problems, and your public image. You can never be a "non-lawyer" again. Part of becoming a lawyer involves learning the legal culture: the language, the customs, and the professional ethos. Directly or indirectly, much of the legal education process involves assimilating you into the profession.




Legal Skills

Beyond indoctrination into professional values, law school imparts a number of skills. Some of the most obvious skills law students develop include: oral advocacy, legal analysis, legal research and writing, reading critically, spotting issues, analyzing problems, articulating positions, defending statements, identifying and distinguishing relationships, drafting documents, editing, and many others.

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The Socratic method, designed to "teach you to think like a lawyer," involves not one, but an array of skills that you can use in solving problems as a lawyer. At the same time, law school subtly develops other skills that ultimately may be just as important to success in the legal profession: coping with pressure, meeting deadlines, juggling diverse and sometimes conflicting responsibilities, competing civilly, organizing tasks, managing time, and creating innovative arguments.

Law students may gain an understanding of the substantive law in areas of the core curriculum. Many law students are exposed to skills of the legal profession through clinical education programs, simulation courses, and co-curricular activities such as moot court and law review. Students who serve on a law journal develop specialized editorial skills.

Students who work in clinics enhance a number of practice-oriented skills including client interviewing and counseling, negotiation, instrument drafting, and problem solving. These students may also learn related skills involving office management, timekeeping and time management, and other organizational skills. It is possible to develop some of these practice-oriented skills in other law school courses, i.e., simulation classes and even some traditional law school classes.

Unfortunately, not every law school student will be exposed to a full range of these experiences. Although there may be a set of fundamental skills that virtually all law students develop to one degree or another, there are certainly other elective skills that essentially make each law student unique.

A positive aspect of this educational divergence is that law graduates truly can market themselves as unique individuals. There was a time when law school graduates were perceived as essentially fungible. Although this myth is sometimes perpetuated by legal employers, the best strategy is to stand out from the crowd.

Personal Strengths As Skills

Law school imparts a number of personal strengths or skills that do not appear in any law school catalog. In fact, many students do not even recognize them as skills. While it is probably the case that all law students develop these personal strengths to some degree, different students will develop a different mix of skills.

The first skill is persistence or determination. Not surprisingly, skills analysis interviews with law students frequently bring out this personal strength. ( "I was the first person in my family to go to a law school ." "Everything always came easy to me before law school. Suddenly, it was a struggle just to stay in the middle of the class." "I had to work my way through school. I really wanted this.")

Another skill is the ability to depersonalize arguments, ("When you said that my argument was stupid, I know you did not mean to say that I am stupid. You meant to say that you disagreed with me and on that much we agree. As for your specious argument that....")

And, of course, there is the ability to hold your ground under fire. ("Prof: "That's your answer?" You: "Yes." Prof: "Did you actually read this case?" You: "Yes" Prof.: "If I told you that no court in The Law School Experience any American jurisdiction has ever taken your position, what would you say?" You: "I would say that the courts had not really looked at the underlying policy.")

You have learned to deal with pressure. ("I know you said that if I did not make it home over this weekend, the engagement is off. But I have 500 pages of reading due for Monday, a brief due in the clinic, and two job interviews on Friday.")

You learned an ethos of professionalism. Such concepts as due process, constructive notice, confidentiality, conflicting interest, and burden of proof become ingrained in your psyche. Certain ideas such as the notion that you do not have to agree with your client in order to represent her, and that you do not have to believe in your client's innocence in order to require the state to make its case will seem perfectly logical to you. These attitudes are not imparted solely through your professional responsibility course. Rather they are inculcated through the entire educational process from orientation through graduation.

You will master an entire new language called legalese. This specialized vocabulary, with its arcane terms of art and linguistic constructions, will forever set you apart from lay people. Whatever else it may be, law school is clearly more than simply learning a set of black letter rules we call substantive law. Too often, students focus on the substantive side of their education (e.g., "I've taken evidence, environmental law, regulated industries, and a seminar on toxic torts.") rather than the underlying skills that set them apart from classmates and those who do not possess a legal education.

What You Don't Learn In Law School

Ask any practicing lawyer: "Is a new law school graduate ready to practice law?" The answer will invariably be an emphatic "No!"

Most of us readily accept the seeming inconsistency between the notion that when we take the bar examination, we know more law than we have ever known before or will know again, and that we know frightfully little about being a lawyer.

Some people begin to develop skills of a lawyer by working in law offices before and during law school. Others receive an inkling of what to expect through some of the more practical courses in law. Still others may have grown up around legal families where they have learned about the practice of law first hand.

For the most part, however, we have learned how to become matadors by reading books on bull fighting. And suddenly, we are standing in the middle of the ring.

Although the array of skills that you develop during law school is formidable, and probably far more extensive than you might have imagined, there are many career skills that are commonly not developed during the education process. Many law practice skills cannot be learned before you actually begin to practice law. You can develop some of these skills through part-time and summer work while in law school, but true legal proficiency is a product of experience. Additionally, although your law school placement office may help teach career development skills, learning how to make career decisions and look for a job involves an entire set of skills that the formal educational process frequently does not address.

Another set of skills that law school almost always ignores includes personal management: finances, relationships, drugs and alcohol, and coping with stress. Both in law school and in the legal profession we tend to hold forth the shibboleth that if we can get the job done, it does not matter what we did the night before. And yet, there is a high correlation between the inability to manage one's personal problems and the inability to perform in law school. Increasingly, bar associations, courts, and lawyers are recognizing that this principle applies to practice as well, and it is not uncommon to discover that a lawyer whose practice is in a shambles has a personal life of similar quality.

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In the medical model for education, aspiring doctors go through an internship and residency after medical school. In Canada, through a process known as articling, law graduates must submit to the same kind of on-the-job training. These programs teach novitiates much of the knowledge that is not or cannot be taught in a classroom.

In the United States, training is left to legal employers, who often employ a sink or swim philosophy. A law school friend of mine went to work for the district attorney in a major metropolitan area. When he arrived for work the first day, he found a stack of files sitting on his new desk. When he opened the top file, he noted that he was due in court to prosecute a case at 10:00 that morning. At 10:21, he had lost his first case. Many graduates enter law practice only to discover that they are forced to teach themselves how to practice law.

This whole matter is complicated by the fact that there are many ways to practice law. The criminal defense lawyer's practice is not at all like the insurance defense lawyer's. Practice in a small town may be totally unlike working as an associate in a Manhattan mega-firm.

Despite all of this, new lawyers master their craft in the first five to seven years after law school. Because the legal profession has not developed efficient mechanisms for providing this post graduate education, many inexperienced lawyers feel frustrated, incompetent, and confused.

Although studies show that this kind of dissatisfaction tends to diminish over time as the inexperienced lawyer develops competence as a practitioner, many lawyers actually leave the profession during this period. Ironically, and despite new lawyers' fears, the vast majority of malpractice awards are against lawyers who have been out of school more than ten years.

The problem of defining competence has been a difficult one. Bar association committees, law review writers, courts, and observers of the legal profession have grappled with this question.

The American Bar Association Task Force on Professional Competence defined competence this way:

Although it may be difficult to determine what makes a lawyer competent, it should be obvious that the process of obtaining competence extends far beyond law school graduation. Even though the process begins in law school it does not end there.

In a larger sense, however, competence may be viewed as a constantly receding goal, a status which is never quite attained, or, perhaps, as a series of plateaus each higher than the last, with no true summit at which to rest.

If the ABA is willing to view competence as a "constantly receding goal," you should be able to accept that your level of performance may not be perfect upon graduation. As you proceed through this book, and as you pursue your legal career in the years to come, keep in mind these ideas about developing professional competence. Remember that a career is more than a series of jobs; it is a collection of unique, interlocking skills that can be brought into play in a variety of different settings.

Viewed in this light, job hunting involves identifying the situation where your skill set can be applied most effectively. If you can identify your unique pattern of skills you will always have work, and you will find satisfaction in what you do. If you fail to grasp this fundamental principle, you will always be a round peg trying to fit into some square hole, always passing time in some boring job, waiting and hoping for the "right thing" to come along.

The Bar Exam

As if law school finals were not enough, the bar exam stands as one last hurdle you must pass before you are licensed to practice law. Bar examination requirements may be relevant to career decisions in a number of different ways.

If you want to practice law in the traditional sense, you must pass the bar in the jurisdiction where you plan to practice. For some positions, such as practicing corporate law or teaching, you may not need to be licensed in the jurisdiction where you work, but you must be licensed in one or more other jurisdictions. Some positions (e.g., hearing examiners in state government) do not include bar passage as a prerequisite to being hired. Even in such areas, however, many law school graduates believe that bar membership is useful to them, and at a minimum affords the option to go into traditional law practice at some point and time.

For whatever reasons, the vast majority of ail law graduates sit for the bar. In fact, the number of new bar admissions exceeds the number of law school graduates annually. This is because most states allow candidates to sit for the bar more than once, so every year the number of people who graduate from law school and sit for the bar is supplemented by a group of second, third, and fourth time test-takers from prior years. Nationally, most applicants eventually pass at least one bar exam.

Since the requirements for admission are slightly different in every jurisdiction, you must apply for the bar in the jurisdiction(s) where you plan to practice. If you get a job early, you will be locked into taking the bar and meeting the requirements in that jurisdiction. If you pass the bar in a particular state, your job search, at least as far as law practice jobs are concerned, will be limited to that state. Also, the passage rate varies considerably from state to state.

The biggest question, then, is not whether you will pass the bar, but where? Most states offer the bar examination only twice annually, and some (e.g., Delaware, Nevada) only once. Most bar exams are offered at approximately the same time (late July and mid-February).

The scheduling problems mean that you probably cannot sit for more than two examinations during one examination season. Some states coordinate examination dates so that applicants can take the examination in neighboring jurisdictions. Others afford applicants no such luxury.

Furthermore, although all but four jurisdictions now require the multistate bar examination (MBE), there are different rules as to passing scores and acceptance of an MBE score administered in a different jurisdiction. You should investigate carefully the rules and procedures for taking the bar exam in all jurisdictions where you are considering applying for jobs.

Since the United States Supreme Court decision in Supreme Court of New Hampshire V. Piper, 470 U.S. 274, 105 S. Ct. 1271, 84 L. Ed.2d 205 (1985), residency requirements for bar admission have been eliminated for the most part. Jurisdictions that have attempted to restrict non-resident admission, however, may still present a few snares for the unwary.

For instance, you may be required to attend a personal interview with the character and fitness committee a task much easier for the resident than the non-resident. Or you maybe required to obtain letters of recommendation from attorneys licensed to practice in the jurisdiction. At least one state (Delaware) requires applicants to serve in apprenticeship before being licensed.

The ability to move from one jurisdiction to another is also a factor. Some states, through reciprocity arrangements, allow attorneys with experience to be admitted on motion, while other states require experienced attorneys to sit for the full bar examination along with recent law school graduates.

Because of the high degree of career mobility these days, the chances are very good that you will not spend entire career living and working in one jurisdiction, and even if you do, it is likely that you will have handled cases in several states. Looking down the road a bit, is it possible that you and your family may move? If you acquire a high degree of specialization, is it possible that new and more rewarding opportunities have developed in other areas of the country?

While you may never have to face those or similar questions, this is still a good time to think about potential answers. Many students find it is possible to take more than one bar examination and to qualify for entry into the bar of several states. If you can do so, be one of those students. Bar exams are far easier to take now than later, and taking more than one would be a good hedge for your future.

Although you cannot determine the future, it is wise to take preventive measures against factors that could seriously impair your career development.

There is, however, an even more immediate concern; to find out what the exact bar admission requirements are for the state(s) in which you are currently interested. As long as bar admission standards remain under the jurisdiction of the individual states and territories of the United States, it is wise to know exactly what the specific standards are and how they will be interpreted in your own situation in the states where you may wish to practice.

Decisions about where to sit for the bar, and when, are important ones. They should not be taken lightly. You will save yourself a whole lot of grief if you check out these matters before you make major career decisions.

Many legal jobs are contingent upon bar passage. You cannot afford to fail the bar after a successful educational career and job search. Only a few jurisdictions provide a "diploma privilege" (automatic admission for grads of state law schools). In addition, a student's youthful brushes with the law or other problems may present complications with the character and fitness committee in some states.

Many law students do not think about potential problems until it is time for them to graduate and they apply to take the bar. Because information is easily accessible, it makes more sense to deal with the bar exam much earlier in the career planning process than is common.

A Mixture of Clear-Cut Choices and Serendipity

The whole job search can be faintly reminiscent of a medieval allegory in which the protagonist sets out on a quest for some noble ideal and encounters unbelievable trials and temptations along the way. Snares and pitfalls abound; false guides lead him astray; nothing is what it seems to be. The entire journey is like a surrealistic nightmare. But armed with a workable plan, your own modern quest for a job can be quite different.

Put another way, there are many planned and unplanned events that punctuate the lives of all law students. Because no one can control every aspect of their life, it becomes that much more important to act on sound information when the need to make decisions arise.

Many law students express uncertainty about when to undertake various activities in the career choice and the job search processes. Lack of sophistication about nuances in the job market and the hiring cycle of legal employers may deprive some students of opportunities that otherwise would be available to them.

Some students simply avoid dealing with career issues because the stress involved in job hunting makes it easy to procrastinate. Perhaps because of the many demands placed upon their time, many law students have a tendency to deal only with problems that need immediate attention. These students often look for jobs when they absolutely, positively have to do it.

The basic premise here is that if you act on information in a timely manner throughout your law school career, not just when approaching graduation, you will maximize your options. The corollary, of course, is that if you fail to act on information in a timely manner, you will reduce your options. It all sounds pretty simple, right?

The truth is that nothing is ever as simple as it seems (just as nothing is ever as complicated as you were led to believe). There are many variables in this equation. You should understand, however, a few basic principles. Some of these include the law school you attended, the geographic area of the country, the hiring patterns of the specific segments of the job market you are approaching, the timetable and the demands of your spouse or special friend, your outlook on life and long term career objectives, your individual marketability based on special skills and credentials, as well as many other factors. Although it is difficult today to call any law student typical, let's look at two fairly representative law students, Sally Jones and Bob Smith.

Profiles of Two Typical Law Students

Sally just graduated from a solid state-supported law school after completing a full time 3-year J.D. program. She was active in a number of different student organizations, including the editorial board of the school's second "law review". Sally is 27, having spent three years working as an aide to a congressman before coming to law school. She is single and flexible as to where she is willing to live.

During her first year of law school, she attended a placement orientation for first year students conducted by her law school placement director. She spent some time in the placement office after final exams that semester, meeting with the placement director to put together a resume and cover letter and get ideas about law firms that might interview first year students.

She sent out about twenty letters to local law firms, none of which panned out. Several of the firms, however, interviewed her, and she was able to collect valuable information that she would use later. Through a friend, she heard about a judge who needed a clerk for the summer.

It turned out that the judge wanted her to work for free, so she finally decided to take courses through one of the law summer abroad programs advertised on the placement bulletin board. This not only allowed her to get away from the law school itself, but also permitted her to take some credits that would let her lighten her load during the next year.

Sally did not dally overseas but returned to school in time to complete a writing competition for the school's law reviews. She also spent some more time in the placement office, researching employers, meeting with the placement director to clarify some of her objectives, to revise her resume, and to do a practice interview in anticipation of the real thing.

That fall was crazy. Even with the lighter course load, school was just as demanding as the first year. Her commitments to student organizations, especially required hours in the law review office, left her with no time for a personal life. She broke up with her boyfriend of four years; an accountant who announced that she just didn't know how to make a commitment. Sally responded that her commitment at this time of her life was to law school. Having made that decision, many other choices in Sally's life became simpler.

To top it off, Sally's car died; the car had been with her longer than the accountant. In order to finance a new automobile, Sally had to find a part-time job. She went to work for an eight-lawyer general practice firm that said she could work there full time the next summer. This was fortunate, because although she went to a number of on-campus interviews that semester she didn't receive any offers.

The spring went better than the fall, as her work kept her occupied. During the summer, the only time she set foot in the law school was when she had to go for law review, having been elected to the editorial board during the spring.

Towards the end of the summer, Sally updated her resume again, listing experience gained from her job at the firm. Instead of conducting a mass mailing like some of her friends, she sent it to selected firms she had contact with over the past two years, or that had been recommended to her by individual lawyers. The notes she had kept came in handy. She took a week before school started to do some interviewing resulting from her letters.

Despite what seemed to be some definite signs of interest by some of these employers, everyone seemed to hedge about making her an offer. Sally talked to the placement director who suggested that those firms with formal summer clerkship programs were waiting until they made offers to their summer clerks while the smaller firms that did not have such programs were probably uncertain about their hiring needs.

The director asked if Sally might expect a permanent offer from her present employer. Surprisingly, Sally did not know, but she made a note to find out. The director urged Sally to go through fall on campus interviews again, which she did. Her trouble got her on the wait list for three firms, but, alas, no offer.

She did take a semester leave from her clerking job to work for her congressman in a re-election campaign. At the victory party, the congressman told her that if she wanted a job on the Hill after graduation, there was always room for her. When she went back to work at the law firm, she had a long meeting with the managing partner who told her that firm really liked her work, and would like to hire her, but would not know until after the second quarter of the fiscal year (June 30) whether it would be possible to do so.

During her last semester, while she was trying to tie up all the loose ends from law school and apply for the bar exam, Sally continued to follow up on those employers that had expressed some interest in her. She also answered several ads on the placement bulletin board and in the local law journal. No luck.

At graduation Sally's dad asked why she did not have a job. Her mom wondered why she was not married. She wondered to herself if she needed all this grief. But she should not complain, she thought, since she did have one job offer, even if it was the same position that she had before she went to law school.

In the ensuing weeks she did not have time to think about much of anything except for bar review lectures. She was surprised to receive a letter from one of the firms with whom she had interviewed the previous August, indicating that their needs had changed and making her an offer. Then on June 30, right on schedule, she got a call from the senior partner at her old law firm offering her a job. Things were definitely looking up.

While classmates thought Sally was lucky, the fact was that she had been working towards getting a job throughout her law school career, not just at the last minute. She took advantage of her school's placement program and turned minor set-backs (like the car dying) into opportunities (a part-time job that led to full-time employment).

Unlike Sally, Bob was 35 years old and had family obligations. He had always wanted to go to law school, but with a wife and family on the way after college, law school was just not in the cards.

Bob got a job in the executive training program of a local company and moved up the corporate ladder to become a vice president. He worked with the company's general counsel on an almost daily basis, negotiated contracts, and was frequently involved in the legal affairs of the company.

Despite his success, Bob increasingly felt the need for a new challenge. His old interest in law was rekindled through his law-related activities at work. On the home front, everyone seemed to be absorbed in their own worlds. The kids, now teenagers, had their friends and activities at school. His wife had started her own business several years ago and was busy with that.

Bob took the LSAT and, to his surprise, did quite well. This was fortunate since he had never been in contention for a Rhodes scholarship when he was in college. He met with his boss at work and told him about his plans for law school. Bob's boss agreed not to dump any new assignments on him, but made it quite clear that when push came to shove Bob's responsibilities at work took precedence over law school. Bob agreed, inasmuch as his company was footing the bill for law school tuition.

Nothing happened as planned. Bob worked five days a week and went to school four nights a week. Studying took up all of the available time during weekends. Then, as if some pernicious god wanted to test his mettle, the house needed major repairs which took precious hours away from studying. Just when Bob got the house repaired, he learned that his company was being taken over and reorganized. Bob was beginning to wonder if he had made the right choice.

The first year of law school was pretty much of a disaster. The highlight of the year was the miracle that Bob did not flunk out. Even when things settled down at work, Bob found that he was so far behind in school that he had to struggle to catch up. Fortunately, his business experience coping with high pressure crises helped him survive the first year.

The second year was much like the first in terms of workload, but not punctuated with the near disasters of the year before. Bob's grades and mental health improved considerably.

During his third year, he was offered a law-related position at work reviewing contracts directly with outside counsel in cooperation with the general counsel. The GC discussed career options with him and indicated that since Bob was presently a VP, a lateral move to legal was not possible.

Bob weighed his current position with an entry level legal job, and had decided to stay put when he was asked by a partner in the firm that handled most of his company's business if he would like to join the firm as "of counsel" after graduation. He could continue to work with his company, but develop other legal clients as well.

This arrangement suited management, particularly the general counsel. Bob received a generous early retirement settlement which more than offset the differential in salary.

The fourth year at law school was great. To smooth his transition, the company allowed Bob time off to enroll in the law school's clinical program. Bob saw much more of his family, which pleased everyone, and was doing interesting challenging work.

Although Bob never set foot in the placement office or prepared a resume, he was working on making career choices throughout his law school years. Like Sally, he made conscious decisions when he approached a crossroad and tried to maximize his objectives.

Of course, these fictionalized accounts do not reflect the exact experiences of any two law school graduates. They do represent some of the planned and unplanned events that happen to all law students.

The serendipity of opportunity is always interwoven with aspirations and plans for the future. You may not be able to exercise control over many aspects of your life, but where it is possible to make choices you should.

Sally and Bob, for all of the obstacles thrown up by fate, maintained a sense of direction and positioned themselves to make sound choices for themselves. This should be your objective as well.

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