It’s not easy living in the age of social media. Everything we do is documented. Everything we say is easily reproduced and published for mass consumption.
Everyone is a spy, and our peers are prone to ratting us out for our indiscretions.
It’s even worse for college students and law students. Can you imagine being the idiot that you were in your younger years now?
Practicality? Puh-leez. If that was the only consideration, philosophy majors wouldn’t exist.
With the collapse of the entry-level legal job market, and the unfathomable employment statistics that go along with it, one would expect that the pool of potential law students would shrink. Indeed, that has been the case. One foolish blogger has even suggested that this is the perfect “buy low” time to go to law school.
That foolish blogger (who coincidentally holds a liberal arts degree with two liberal arts minors) apparently has company. A survey conducted by Kaplan Test Prep finds a whole lot of pre-law students who are headed to law school knowing that there are no law jobs. A few of the hilariously naive results from the survey include:
Horace Greeley reportedly said, "Go West, young man, go West. There is health in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles." That was 1883.
In 2013, recent law graduates would be wise to heed his advice, although it should be noted that "West," in 1883, was the Midwest. It's also still the place to look, as there is still opportunity in the "flyover" states.
Lauren Willig is just your typical Harvard Law grad who published three best-selling romance novels while she was in law school. No big deal.
After all, writing novels while studying law isn’t as hard as writing novels while working as a summer associate — or as a litigation associate — at one of the top firms in New York.
Oh, wait. She did that, too.
Yesterday, we introduced you to "Sharon Underbridge," a self-described "patent troll." Today, we have five more confessions from Troll Underbridge. (Yes, she chose that name intentionally.)
Let's jump right into it, so you can debate whether patent trolls are evil, or just misunderstood.
Patent trolls have a bad reputation. Run a search for the term, and you'll find headlines about misconduct and the death of innovation.
But is there another side to trolling?
Recently, I was surprised to hear an established intellectual property litigator describe herself as a patent troll, and curious about her side of the debate. She graciously agreed to answer a few questions. To protect her identity -- hey, even trolls need job security -- we'll refer to this attorney by her super-secret pseudonym, Sharon Underbridge.
Being a lawyer sucks, law school was a terrible mistake, and you’re drowning in debt.
It’s a popular refrain. I’ve been leading the chorus for years. Maybe it’s time for an attitude adjustment.
Before you dismiss me as a cockeyed optimist who references musicals while doling out advice, hear me out.
Is there anyone who thinks that women rule the legal world?
It's certainly not the boys club that it was back in the day when Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were graduating from law school and trying to break through the glass ceiling. O'Connor graduated at the top of her class at Stanford Law School and only received legal secretary offers from law firms. Ginsburg had to endure Harvard Law Dean Erwin Griswold asking the women of her class what it felt like to occupy places that could have gone to deserving men. (She later transferred to Columbia, where she graduated at the top of her class.)
Four female Supreme Court Justices later, men still dominate the law, but women rule among part-time practitioners, Reuters reports.
Over the years, there have been a handful of famous former government attorneys. Chief Justice John Roberts worked as an attorney both in the White House and the Department of Justice. Justice Samuel Alito also served in the Justice Department during the Reagan years.
Then, there are government attorneys -- like Torture Memo author John Yoo -- who might have preferred a life in the shadows. When Yoo was revealed to be the author of the Bush Administration "Torture Memo" in 2008, all hell broke loose. (One tortured detainee even tried to sue Yoo personally for allegedly endorsing torture.)
So will history repeat itself with the author of the Obama administration white paper on extra- judicial killings?
Law school is often described as a destination for liberal arts students with no direction. Once they discover that their Philosophy degrees are about as useful as a muzzled guard dog, they choose to go to law school because what else is there? Double-down on a useless degree and hope for a professorship?
Unfortunately, some would now argue that a law degree is nearly as useless as some of those liberal arts degrees. Jobs are scarce. Even if you are lucky enough to find a gig, you might have decided that the law isn’t your long-term destiny. We previously discussed the move to journalism and blogging, but there are other options as well.
What about teaching?
