Law School Lies

I’ve mentioned previously that I’ve taken several bar exams, and am licensed in several states. So I figured I should post a few short stories regarding the bar exams since that is the omega moment of law school. Some of these stories happened at the same exam, but were worth posting separately.

I was sitting across from someone who cheated on the bar exam, and they got caught. In this particular state, everyone taking the bar exam was required to shlep over to the state capital and boost the local economy for a couple days by staying in hotels while taking the test. I don’t remember which day of the exam it was, but I do know it was one of the essay sections. Anyway, everyone (and we are talking well over 1000 people) are stuffed 2 to a small table in a convention center that shares more in common with an airplane hanger than a building meant for people; that includes the air conditioning. Since this was in July, it meant most people were wearing as little as possible and still sweating. There were some freaks who showed up in full suits to the exam… I just don’t get it. I suppose if you enjoy dehydrating over many hours while trying to do mental gymnastics then more power to you. For those unfamiliar with the rules of the exam, you are allowed to go to the restroom at any time, but given the time constraints, you would do better only going if it was a dire emergency. The tables were arranged so that you were diagonal from the other person at your table, which meant you were staring at the back of the person at the next table. I talked a bit before the start with the guy sitting at my table. While talking I told him that I had already passed a couple other bars and I was only taking this one because of what was effectively an expensive clerical error on my part, so I really didn’t care if I passed or not. (I did, he did too as it turned out). He was somewhat envious and said it almost seemed unfair since I was effectively playing with house money.

The bar exam in all jurisdictions have a multitude of test proctors whose responsibility it is to wander around the room looking for any sign of cheating, or of some computer malfunction or the like. To an outsider, it must have looked like a bookwriting gulag with the taskmasters wandering aimlessly up and down the rows of fumiously typing serfs. The proctors wander and if they get really bored sometimes stop and read what you are writing from a few feet behind you. Anyway, during one of the essay portions, I am banging away on my laptop when a proctor walks over and stops right in front of me. At some point shortly before, the girl sitting at the table in front of me had gotten up to go to the restroom. This didn’t really register at all, but then another proctor walks over and stops in front of me too. And another. A moment later there is a cluster of about 6 of them right in front of me talking in a whisper. By this point, everyone within a 5 table radius has stopped writing and are just watching to see what is going on. They seem to realize this, and make a quick decision. 2 of them grab the girl’s laptop and everything else on the table and they all walk away.

During the break, we plied the closest proctor for more information. It seems that the girl had gone to the restroom only a few minutes into the first essay section after they handed out the questions. This was slightly notable since we all had ample time to visit the restroom before it began, but who knows, it is within the realm of possible that it was innocent. The second essay section started, and she did the same thing. Got the questions and went to the restroom a minute later after reading them. There are proctors sitting outside the restrooms… and they noticed. The proctor followed her in a moment later and (in what almost borders on the creepy) looked through the crack in the stall. The girl had brought notecards that she was flipping through in the bathroom to find what she needed for the questions. A bit of a horrible way to waste $100K since she’ll probably never be allowed to take the exam again. Or minimally would be barred from re-applying for the next 5 years, which almost amounts to the same thing if you think about it, because what are you going to do for the next 5 years?

The interesting part of this was actually how some of this worked into the overall curve of the exam. It turns out after talking to the proctor, that if a person signs up for the exam, but doesn’t show, it is counted as a zero score but is included in the overall curve. So technically the odds are already in every test takers favor since there is always a small handful of people who never show up for some unknown reason, or decide to leave the test after day 1. However, if someone cheats and are thrown out, their score is completely stricken as if they had never even applied to take the exam. Good to know.

In retrospect, there were warning signs that law school was a bad investment. They were sitting right out in the open and would seem to be obvious to anyone from the outside, but as with most students, we operated with blinders on and didn’t see the forest for the trees. By the time most of us were truly aware of the bad state we were in and understood the direness of the situation, we were well into our second year and by that time you’ve already invested 2/3 of the money. Might as well finish. In retrospect it seems like throwing good money after bad.

All through law school there were ‘networking events’ setup by the law school / career service office and sometimes by the student organizations. The supposed end to these events I had assumed were to get you a job, it seems that they were really window dressing to continue to delude people that you would be employed once you left law school.

Towards the end of my second year, I went to one particular networking events. I had been to others, but this one was related to the specialty I was most interested in and I was determined to find an summer position at one of these firms. It was arranged by the Student IP association in conjunction with our career service office. I have a decided interest in IP and had taken every IP class my law school had to offer while I was there, and considering my background I figured I would be just what these employers would be looking for in an intern / summer associate. So I put on a suit, polished the ole resume, printed it out on some spiffy paper and set out to go to the networking event.

Probably a little more than 12 firms were represented which ranged from smaller specialty boutiques to IP departments within a large law firm. They all had tables out with various informational pamphlets on them about their firm. Some were handing out cups and tote bags and key-chains. I made a circuit of the room speaking to every attorney there. Not one was hiring. Not one was looking for an intern. Not one would take a resume, because. they.. weren’t… hiring.

I left confused. It was titularly a networking event wherein interested students were going to meet with select attorneys from one narrow corner of law. It was far enough before the summer that filling internship positions was a distinct possibility. Instead what I saw was a bunch of firms advertizing to law students and talking about how wonderful it was to work in the field that they were definitely not hiring for, and oh, here have a tote bag with our logo on it. I’m not sure what the point of it was. The law school regularly setup Q&A sessions wherein they invited attorneys from the whole spectrum of the legal field to talk about what they did and career options within the legal field. But this was a networking event… not a free-food lunchtime Q&A session.

I’m still not sure what the IP attorneys got out of it. They wasted part of an evening to stand around and feel superior to the law students trying to do something with their profession. Maybe that is what they got out of it. I’m still not sure.

 

Party #3

I have to say, at least this party showed that there are other types of firms out there. Whereas the other holiday parties were at the beginning of December, this one was at the end of January. Not quite sure what holiday they were celebrating, but again… free food is free food. It was also a bit earlier in the day, whereas before it was an evening soiree, this was starting around 5.

I show up at the party and I’m ushered into a small conference room. Apparently I was earlier than most because there are only 2 other people in the room, one of whom seems to be foreign with a limited command of english. Although this effectively destroyed any hope of conversation as we all just stood uncomfortably around, there was a saving grace. The large table in the middle of the room was graced with what I can only described as a 3 foot high pile of art created out of fruit and chocolate. Who cares if no one else shows up, this alone was worth it. Slowly more students trickle in and then the conference room doors are opened, and praise jesus, more food. There were still not really any attorneys around strangely so all of us law students were happily mingling with quite a bit of pretty good free food. At one point the receptionist came out to apologize and said that the attorneys would be around shortly.

A couple attorneys started filtering in. I talked with several trying vainly again to network and get my foot in the door for an internship. I found out for the first time what an Of-Counsel position means in a law firm setting. I was talking with 2 attorneys and one mentioned she was Of-Counsel. This was met with my blank stare, and she asked if I knew what that meant. I answered no, and before she could say anything the other attorney half-jokingly said it means she doesn’t work for her money. This was met with an incredibly sour look from her and shortly the other douchey attorney wandered off. She explained that Of-Counsel are attorneys that are generally offered a partner position and choose not to buy into the partnership and instead continue receiving a salary. The implication by the other attorney was that Of Counsel had no money in the game and even though they were roughly equal in seniority to a partner, they would never be equal in the firm.

At about 5:30 there started to be a steady stream of people leaving the firm through the front door. One attorney walking down the hallway spied the food and instantly started loading up a plate. He then took his food looked around and suddenly realized everyone was wearing a nametag and sorta froze, he literally sidestepped over to me and leaned in conspiratorially and asked what the food and nametags were for. Here was a man after my own heart. I ended up talking with him for quite awhile.

It turned out the firm had circulated an email no one had bothered reading that they wanted people to stop in and talk with the law students. To facilitate this, they placed the party in the main hallway leading to the front door and timed it so that when everyone bolted for the door at 5:30 they would have to wander through. Pretty smart actually. The main thing I took away from this however was that although the other firm’s parties paid lip service to working decent hours, they were still there at 8 at night. Here, it almost looked like a firedrill at 5:30.

Unlike the other party, I have to say, here were normal people. It was honest, and they didn’t try to feed you a line of bullshit. You didn’t need to hear about the hours people worked because you saw it. This party was probably the best impression I had of law firms through all of law school. The short take away is the obvious, some are good… some are not. (although I do still use the umbrella from that first party to this day.. hey, it’s a nice umbrella!)

I’m told that this is not standard fare for all law schools; but for decently respectable ones, you will find that around Christmas time the large firms in the area send out a general invitation to all first year law students to attend a special holiday party effectively thrown in their honor. Out of my class, there were only about a dozen of us there, which struck me as odd more people didn’t show up. Being the connoisseur of free food that I was, I of course made time. If the invitation is extended to you, I highly recommend going. In part, go for the food… free food always tastes the best, plus the firms usually like to put out a big spread. Secondly, you want to go to see the culture, it is a weird mix of every stereotype you ever heard about lawyers. I went to 3 holiday parties… this was them.

Party 1 & 2 – The first two were on the same night, in the same building, separated by 10 floors. So long as you had a name tag from one of those two firms, no one cared if you hopped from party to party. Which was good, because as near as I could tell one of the firms had selectively invited only the top echelon of the class, and I had certainly not been invited to that one. So I arrive at the party, it was in one of the firm’s huge conference rooms with all the furniture removed. In one corner there was a violin and cello duo playing (swanky!), and at the other end was the food. I wandered over to the food to find that it consisted of lots of beer and wine, and very little else. There were some ritz crackers and white cheese too, but it seemed a bit like an afterthought. Add to this that every law student there had to drive down to the firm to go to this party because of its location and you’ll see why this was just not horribly thought through. So I armed myself with a glass of wine and decided to mingle. That’s what everyone kept telling us to do… network.

There were groups of law students and groups of attorneys, and they weren’t mixing. So mostly the conversation was what law school are you from, how is it there? Eventually, one of the partners made some whispered chastisement to the other attorneys and as one, they quickly broke up and went to go talk to the law students. This is where the Stepford wives portion of the night started. The first attorney came over and started talking and when asked something about the firm went into what at first seemed a sincere statement about how much he liked it there, how everyone got to go home at a reasonable time because family life was very important to the firm, how it was a relatively laid back work environment etc etc.  He eventually wandered off to another group of law students and was replaced by a husband and wife pair, who in short order turned the conversation to how much they liked the firm, how they got to leave at a decent hour because family life was very important to the firm… These two were replaced by a third attorney, who started the conversation with how much he liked the firm… well… you can see where this is going. It was noted in one of these conversations by an astute law student (not me thank god) that there certainly were a fair number of attorneys still walking the firm’s hallways  at 8 in the evening considering the firm let people leave at a decent hour for family and all. It was so obvious that a memo of talking points had been passed around it was a joke by the end of the night. When a new law student walked over to your group you introduced yourself and said how much you liked the firm, and how you bet that it provided decent working hours for family life, and was probably a laid back environment.

So the conversation was a bust. But what about the networking? While talking to a small knot of 3 attorneys and a few students, at one point I happened to turn to wave to someone I knew. When I turned back, everyone had disappeared leaving one rather old man. He introduced himself as the senior managing partner at the firm, hoped I was enjoying the party and stayed to talk for probably exactly 30 seconds. He then walked over to the next group of people. If you have ever watched shark week on the discovery channel you will understand how he moved through the crowd. People parted in front of him leaving a constantly empty envelope of personal space near him. Whenever he entered a mixed group of attorneys and law students, every one of the firm’s attorneys disappeared so fast I almost think I heard a BAMF in the vacuum they left. After about 15 minutes making his way from one side of the room to the other, he left and was not seen again.

Other than the brief appearance of the senior partner, there was also the massively drunk partner who decided the open bar was the perfect moment to demonstrate everything those myriad required substance abuse programs in law school tell you are true. The legal profession has a significantly higher than average drinking problem. It started with just him getting very loud while talking, then he started swearing and saying a few other interesting things. The problem was that he was apparently a full partner, and once the senior partner left, no one could reign him in. So the extent of damage control was several attorneys tried to always ensnare him in conversation and steer him away form the law students. From what little he blearily told me, the law firm was not the best place to work. It was this opportune moment a friend of mine said “hey I hear the food upstairs is better, lets go there.” And off we went. As we left the receptionist gave us free umbrellas as a parting gift.

We took the elevator to the second firm, and sadly the food was mostly gone. I picked up another glass and wine and one of the attorneys mingling walked over and started talking to us about how much he liked the firm, and how the hours there were really quite good…..

(continued)

For the uninitiated, headhunters are ‘recruiting firms’ which get a finders fee for successfully placing an applicant with an employer. Sometimes they have a contracts with companies so that there are exclusive listings, most often these firms just trawl the job boards and repost job listings with contact information and names removed and then effectively attempt to extort money from the company by showing them your scrubbed resume with no contact info and offering to make an introduction for a fee. You may notice most actual applications you fill out say “no recruiters” on it somewhere which should give you an idea as to how these companies are viewed by employers.

My advice to you is don’t bother applying to any posting from a search firm. In fact, some tell new attorneys specifically to piss off (BCG is such a class act they point new attorneys to well known scam sites like LawCrossing, Thanks guys!) Another class act I see often is DiCenzo, several attorneys I know have wonderful stories of being sworn at over the phone by them. Most people I know make the mistake of filling out applications for recruiters in the beginning, but you figure out pretty quick that they will absolutely never ever pan out. Ever. Not really the best business plan for longevity of a company since young attorneys of today will remember their experience applying and in the future when the time comes to hire anyone they will tell any recruiter who shows up to go take a flying fuck.

So why aren’t recruiters worth applying to? Pretty simple. The employees in search firm are not legally trained and operate under extremely rigid thinking. So the company looking to hire someone provides pie-in-the-sky requirements of what the ‘perfect’ employee would look like. Rather than using some intelligence when looking over applications, it becomes necessary to have an applicant meet or exceed everything on the list the recruiter is provided. The obvious problem arises when your resume says “extensive experience in chain of title, oil and gas lease, closings.” The recruiter looks over at “real estate experience” on their list… nope… no match. Rejected.

How about an actual example. A real listing I ran across was looking for “recent law school graduates with 3 years experience.” or  this one “This is an entry level position responsible for advising the company concerning simple to moderately complex legal issues related to business activities…. Requires 3+ years experience or equivalent combination of education and competency.” What the hell? This is translated as “I want to hire someone experienced but pay them as if they aren’t.” What this turns into in the hands of a recruiter is a job which will never be filled, at least not by the so called entry level applicant.

This was probably the biggest let down I experienced out of law school. You strive to pass the bar and study like mad. Everything you have been doing for over three years comes down to the moment when you find out you passed. And suddenly, no one wants you around anymore.

It was a strange concept to wrap my head around. One day I had no problem working at an internship / fellowship, and the next I wasn’t allowed to work there. I try to volunteer at legal aid, and I’m told that since I don’t carry my own malpractice insurance, they don’t want me. While before, your offers to work for free are met with grateful acceptance, once you become barred no one will let you darken their doorway.

Part of this is because of labor laws. Interns are allowed to be taken advantage of by employers with impunity so long as there is some ‘educational benefit’ to the intern. Whereas the day you become verifiably employable, they drop you and find the next unemployable intern to replace you.

I am literally unable to give away my expert services. In every CLE you have to sit through in your first year (and beyond) you hear how (depending on your state) you either are required to do pro-bono work, or you are encouraged to do pro-bono work. I have contacted numerous organizations around me and not a single one, including my local legal aid office, wants to use an unattached attorney.

None.

Being an under / un employed attorney, you fall into a default conversation mode when talking to other attorneys. Law schools like to call this ‘networking’. Really it is desperation. Within moments of starting a conversation you start steering it so that you can ask if the other attorney is hiring, knows of someone who is hiring, or maybe has a hot tip on the best street-corners to panhandle on. After you talk to a few people who bought into the flawed concept of going solo, your own financial situation and huge law school debt often doesn’t look nearly so bleak in comparison.

I had a truly sad conversation with one solo at the non-job interview / waiting room attorney party. He was a very nice man, probably late 40s, possibly early 50s wearing a well worn suit. When I talked to him about his experience going solo he answered in a tone which had once been bitterness and had now turned to resignation. I’m paraphrasing liberally, but the first thing he told me was that everyone had lied to him. When he was in law school, they had fed them a story of the nobility of being an attorney and fostered an idea of how you should conduct business. They had brought in a steady stream of solos who offered advice on how to start a your own practice and what you should do to be successful. He left law school and hung out a shingle, following in large part the model he had been taught. And in short order he started working part time in retail to make some money… so that he could continue to work part time as an attorney. The most horrifying thing he told me was that once he started networking as an attorney with other solos and showing up at events, he found out that all those solos who had been telling the law students how to be successful, were broke. At the height of his practice he was able to work full time as an attorney but the money coming in was only slightly more than the money going out. He told me that you could remain afloat by doing solo work, but just barely. He was always on the brink. After working full time as an attorney for several years, he had nothing to show for it. Nothing saved.  The only way this man was able to work as an attorney, was because his wife was floating living expenses while he tried to accomplish a legal career.

If you talk to many young solos you’ll find out they can’t survive solely practicing law. You meet them in document review projects, flitting in and out as they go to court appearances for the few cases they pick up. You work one job that has a guaranteed hourly income, so that you can continue working as a lawyer on the side. Oh, and for those thinking ‘well hey, this might be a feasible model to do for awhile until things get going” … try getting a non-legal (or non doc review) job with a JD. Being an attorney will significantly count against you when applying for any job.

Working solo allows you to survive, but only just barely. Ask the solos who come in what their personal financial situation is, and see what they say.

So, why do I tell the previous story… the first thing to take away from this is that the ABA does site visits to your school and they do actually want to hear your opinion. They take your opinion seriously and act on it. (ABA Site visit schedule) This is also an opportunity for students to make their voice heard to the ABA like no other. Imagine the message the ABA would receive if rather than 6 people, the room was standing room only and the students wanted the ABA to fix the broken system the ABA is perpetuating. Part of the problem is that students are insulated and don’t realize (or believe [Epic Fail Blog]) the system is broken until they are out of law school and witness the desolation firsthand.

As near as I could tell my law school tried to hide the ABA site visit. We had been told that they would be visiting the classes during the week, but the fact that the ABA asked to speak to students in an open venue never was disseminated… the law school did not actually attempt to enlist people to show up and therefore the 6 of us represented the entirety of the school. It was an accident I ran into it, and one of the other people there was a first-year who had only been in law school for a few weeks and had no ability to constructively add to the conversation. Conversely, when the Law School dean had a ‘town hall meeting’ there wasn’t a third year who didn’t show up (and many second years) to tear him a new one about job prospects and the law school’s floundering ranking.

Attorneys are a self-regulating profession. Law Schools are regulated by the ABA, which is still technically falling under the aegis of self-regulation. Unfortunately, the regulation is rather limited and the ABA keeps handing out accreditation to schools which should not exist in the first place. Rather than handing out new accreditation, the ABA should be rescinding them from the obviously failed law schools. If you want to see which schools are in trouble, look for the ones with multiple site visits scheduled in a single year (Yes… we are all looking at you Thomas Cooley “law school” – for those few living in a cave, Cooley is considered to be the absolute worst law school in the nation. Incoming classes of approx. 1000+ students, graduating classes of about 250-300+. They accept everyone. From what I’ve heard from the graduates its a bit like like Lord of the Flies with a law library. Also, the president, sick of being the the lowest ranked 4th tier school in the nation decided to publish his own ranking system putting his school at #2 behind Harvard.) In a recent fun lawsuit… Cooley lost to a student anonymously posting that they sucked online: “America’s “second best” law school sues online critic, and loses on appeal” (decision).

So what should the ABA be doing? The legal profession is slitting its own throat by flooding the market with cheap, poorly trained lawyers. The ABA seems to take the stance that market forces will quell the problem and the flood of lower quality attorneys will be pushed out by those with better qualifications. That isn’t really what is happening though. The glut on the market is driving down the relative value for all attorneys, in addition the competition is reaching ridiculous levels. Entry level jobs (at entry level salaries) are being filled by attorneys with a decade of experience. Most firms won’t even look at you unless you are a lateral from another firm anymore.

A short example of the competition these days… a friend of mine applied for a judicial clerk position at a small state appellate court after passing the bar. They actually received a call back from the judge who apologized and said that they probably would have hired them, except they had gotten swamped with applications and they had graduates from Yale willing to move out there (roughly the middle of nowhere) to take the position. The judge couldn’t get over it… Yale law grads willing to move to take a poorly paying clerkship at a small court.The judge actually said they’d have to be crazy to pass up a Yale clerk.

So market corrections aren’t really working. Not quite in the way the ABA seems to be expecting anyway. It seems instead the top is filtering to the bottom as well. The ABA needs to start pruning the number of law schools. Additionally it needs to set caps on the number of students allowed per incoming class and keep that cap in place through graduation. I am going to add this one in big letters because it is becoming a bigger problem. THE ABA NEEDS TO STOP THE INFLUX OF FOREIGN / LLM STUDENTS WHO ARE BEING OFFERED JD POSITIONS. This is becoming a bigger problem and no one seems to be noticing… specifically Chinese students who previously were receiving LLMs are being offered JD positions instead to allow for more tuition and a bigger law school payday. Most of the LLMs I worked with in law school from China had at best a rudimentary grasp of English such that you could not even speak with them, and now they are getting a JD, with absolutely no possibility of passing the bar in the US; and I have no idea of what prospects or value a US JD has for them back home.

you may ask yourself why would a law school do this? Well the answer is that since foreign students are not eligible for US Federal Financial Aid, they are required to pay full tuition in cash, up front. Apparently the prospect of not having to deal with Fed loans and servicers and no scholarships or poor US students is appealing to some law schools.)

It would also help if the ABA attempted to roll back the clock a bit and re-establish that law is an apprenticeship model. I don’t know how many times in law school I heard that law firms complained that law school did not teach practical skills. It never has, and some of that responsibility was supposed to be taken up by established attorneys in the field. (ahem.. self regulating) Instead we see corporate law firms who effectively refuse to train new attorneys and only want to steal laterals from other firms who do train them. Thus perpetuating the concept that you shouldn’t train new attorneys because they will leave and take their added value with them from your training. How about a bit more damned regulation… maybe training quotas forcing large firms to open more internship positions to actually train more attorneys based upon the total number of attorneys at your firm.

Technically any of these suggestions are possible and able to be implemented tomorrow. Why? BECAUSE WE ARE SELF REGULATING. The ABA can choose to regulate our field and make changes NOW if they wanted. But it is easier not to rock the boat I suppose and continue to watch as our field cannibalisticly eats its own.