Breaking into the Business. What to do?

I'm out. I'm looking for them. Haven't found any yet. So is your friend from Cornell on food stamps?

To your other point, I don't think anyone else should be allowed to go to law school, particularly in my state, for at least the next decade or so. I should have a decent practice established by then. Law school isn't always "the answer", but it's a better suggestion of something to look into than the standard fare defeatism you throw out there.

 

If the choice is between heavily subsidized or scholarship laden law school and this business, in the state it's in, I know the choice I'd make. Hence Waylon's point.

 

I'm content with the choices I made -- and they were deliberate choices -- and that's both Getting In and Getting Out.

And who's ranting? I have presented a reality. I'm sorry if it's too frightening to conceive, but it is a reality. We have entertainment lawyers out the ass and we don't have the physicians as we look and strive to expand the pool of patients on a new frontier. That's a problem.

 

Which is one reason I said "medical school." I'm not following the objection?

 

I'm tired of law school as some all-powerful elixir, the noblest of all callings. If Joe Douchebag, working for $9.50 an hour at the Crapper County Daily Bugle, doesn't rise up, cast off his chains, wisen the fuck up and go to law school, why, he must be out of his mind.

The good thing about all this might finally be that, under the circumstances, we start to see some badly-needed natural selection in law.

 

This thread is now like watching two people walking down the street, each on cell phones, where the two half-conversations almost sync up but not quite.

 

But that's not what I was advocating at all. We're on the same page here when it comes to that. There are a lot of people heavily in debt with little or no job prospects because they saw it as the golden ticket - i.e. a way to easy money. It is not. Throughout the thread, I've advocated careful, deliberate, well-informed steps if a professional degree is a route you are interested in. Wouldn't you advocate that, as well?

There are real professional opportunities out there for people in this business who want to actually put the work in on the front end to ferret them out. I know of one person who is going to school for free. I know of a former baseball beat writer who just transferred from a middle of the pack second-tier school to a Top 10 school for his second year by absolutely busting his tail. I personally logged a successful first semester. Not everything is doom and gloom. But the common denominator is none of these people went in with their eyes closed, and none were under any illusion about the work and dedication it would take once they got there.

I think you are projecting onto my posts something that's not there. Of course I'm going to talk up that route - with important qualifications - because it is the one I've chosen, so I'm familiar with it. But if you think I'm saying that anyone can sign up for the LSAT, go buy Princeton Review LSAT Prep at Borders and - voila! - instant millions, nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing.

 

Judge: "Mr. Gambini?"

Vinny: "Yes sir?"

Judge: "That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought out objection."

Vinny: "Thank you, your Honor."

Judge: "Overruled!"

 

I advocate an advanced degree in anything, whether it's patent law, history, floral management or hermeneutics. The sugar highs are not going to be the same as sportswriting, and the times aren't the best. But the feeling of fulfillment is intense. Maybe not so much here (although it does often come up), I see law school as a cure-all at a lot of places. I can remember crushing beers with pre-law students -- who proceeded to board the flunkout train a few months later. You pump up the law if you wish. I have been talking up linguistics. I would rather it something else, some queen of the humanities, but at least it's practical and it's important in the changing world. I have told young people, if you want to make an assload of money, you throw yourself through Arabic and the government will be filling your pockets with gold and asking you to come back for more. If money is what they want, they can be servicing society. The days of stumbling through a public or real ivy and then getting an i-banking job pressed into the palm of your hand are hopefully over.

 

I think LJB went through a bad divorce... or some bad lawyer experience.

 

Yuk, yuk, yuk. No comment, counselor.

 

Just don't get any MBA. We don't need any more widget managers.