After graduating college with a double major in business, I decided to enter law school. I was going to take on the criminal world and be a superhero prosecutor or become some fire breathing, all business law spewing, intellectual property lawyer. Honestly, I didn’t know what kind of law I wanted to practice, but I was excited to start.
As for the universally known heavy law school workload, I entered straight from college so I was already in the academic studying rhythm and it wasn’t painfully difficult. The real problem I had was due to law school being full of people who shouldn’t have been in law school (myself included). It was filled with a vast (not all, nothing is absolute) majority of people who had some misconceived notion of what being a lawyer was all about: LA Law, John Grisham, arguing “you can’t handle the truth”.
I firmly believe the vast majority of law students were convinced by family members to become a lawyer after successfully drunkenly arguing against their equally intoxicated uncle for the last Thanksgiving drumstick. Or they were duped by the alluring Hollywood vision of what being a lawyer was all about: money, power, prestige. Regardless of the driving force, I believe being a lawyer is greatly misrepresented and misinformed in society. Hollywood lawyers argue extravagantly and live a fast-talking life; real lawyers work long hours paying back their mountainous student loans. Just because you argue loud doesn’t make you a good lawyer; forming a sound, well-reasoned argument based on legal precedent does. This all of became painfully obvious within my first year of law school.
While I cringed with every thought of being surrounded by my fellow misguided, often argumentative classmates for the rest of my professional career, I did graduate from law school. However, I don’t practice law, never have. The only remnants of my lawyer fueled aspirations are located on my resume. I’m mostly annoyed when people ask me why I’m not a lawyer or saddened when I’m signing my student loan check, but overall I view law school as a great learning experience. Besides, by my second year I knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer so I decided to build upon my undergraduate business background by earning my MBA while in law school. Wait, that’s pretty sound and well-reasoned…maybe I should have been a lawyer after all?