I've been reading a lot of law-related blogs lately, particularly those authored by law students. A lot of those blogs are right now detailing the annual fall firm-interview season.
One comment I keep seeing is, "I like [insert corporate sweatshop here], but they just don't do anything I'm interested in."
Newsflash, friends: none of the firms do anything you're interested in.
For instance, help people, solve problems, work on behalf of the interests of justice, or, say, do just about anything your parents told you to try and do with your life when you were younger. You know, things that matter.
The job of the law school you attend is to make you believe you will enjoy, say, tax law, or real estate transactions, or wills and trusts, or whatever soul-curdling bullshit your particular meat-factory-of-a-law-school is pushing this year. They figure that by the time you suss out you've been had, you'll be ten years down the road and will have made at least three sizeable donations to their already over-stuffed coffers. At that point, they figure you can just fuck off, anyway.
How do I know? Because I'm a lawyer, and I know a lot of lawyers in practice.
And nobody--do you understand? nobody--likes working for a law firm, unless it's a boutique operation where you can work all day in your socks and where dogs and cats are allowed in the office. Everyone who works for a corporate law firm has something else they'd secretly "rather be doing," which if you chat them up at enough on-the-house lunches you'll undoubtedly discover ("I wanted to be a dancer, but..."; "I wanted to be a writer, but..."; "I could have played basketball in Europe, you know..."). It's pathetic, really, and a terrible waste of human resources.
So, why not save yourself ten years of high blood pressure, failed personal relationships, days spent in mindless toil, ethical compromises, constant physical exhaustion, feelings of worthlessness, the near statistical impossibility of ever making partner, as well as a whole shitload of existential angst, and just DO WHAT YOU LOVE?
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
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Hrm. This worried me a bit, Seth. I think that your experiences are valid critiques, and I'm sorry you think nobody likes working for a law firm, but I've not had the same responses. And to be quite frank, there's evil and good in every work (even public defending). I think a lot of people want or need to experience law firms--even if to entertain them through EIW. We just finished our second year of law school, and we don't know WHAT we want to do. The only way to find out is to take each option seriously. I thank you for your input, as it helps us all to see experienced insight. But I just wanted to say that I know of people who enjoy their work. They are challenged, they have interesting clients, and they spend a good deal of their time on community projects that make them happy.
I can't speak for New York firm life, but there are firms outside of New York.
I guess I was a bit taken aback, and I wanted to say so.
Erm. Seth, my friend. First off I must say that it’s obvious you don’t have a prosecutor’s mentality – your sweeping arguments always ring a bit hollow, much to your credit.
It’s true that there are a lot evil/pointlessly cruel things done by big law firms – and that many of those things are done to their employees. It’s also true that many individuals sadly locate their self worth in their job, and are not lucky enough to have discovered a vocation, a spiritual connection to their profession. I’d suspect many law students are brainwashed into never saying “no” – they attend the highest ranked school they gain admittance to, gamely slog through all the “career building” activities placed before them (journal would be a fine example), seek employment in the highest ranked firm they gain admittance to, and then try to distinguish themselves within that small world. Success, achievement, accomplishment, challenge – all deployed in a skewed manner to no good human end.
However, leaving aside any vague hopes of changing the system from the inside, accumulating valuable experience and/or theoretical knowledge to be used after a short stint in BigLaw, and the remote possibility that some BigLaw might actually produce positive results for society (such as advising a corporation to comply with existing environmental legislation), here’s a simple reason why someone might go down the BigLaw path. Money.
If one wishes to practice law in any field, at any level, one must go to law school. Which costs lots of money, nowadays often upwards of $150,000, given $30+K tuition and cost of living. Assuming arguendo, there are no prior debts (undergrad, grad, personal, bar, car), law school alone produces what I think we can safely categorize as an assload of debt. http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml suggests if you began now, you’d be looking at approximately $1,800 in loan payments per month (that’s $21,600 a year for 10 years).
Part of the reason the tuition is so outrageously high (many law schools are cash cows with mind-numbing endowments – their profits are plowed back into the university at large) is because BigLaw pays wages high enough for the schools to justify their tuitions.
The schools are the only legal gateway into the profession – and they pretty much produce a class of graduates who are heavily in debt and dependent on some legal practitioner/employer to teach them practical legal skills.
In short, I think you’re looking at a systemic problem that can’t be adequately addressed by telling people that they not going to be very happy with much that BigLaw asks them to do. Newsflash – despite my suspicions of brainwashing or herd mentality, a number of law students are intelligent persons capable of somewhat detached analysis – they *know* that BigLaw isn’t a cozy wonderland of pursuing justice and don’t go into it with that expectation. To them, BigLaw might be appealing way to get out of debt quickly, gain skills, and reclaim some measure of control over your legal destiny.
There are a number of proposed solutions for school/firm complex, including a rather interesting call to have state schools provide low cost legal training designed to produce lawyers who will serve their communities – in this scheme private law schools would provide enough lawyers for private firms. There was a proposal at this year’s ABA convention to do away with the third year of law school. Less radical would be broad and vigorous Loan Repayment Assistance Programs – but as of now only a few schools offer these programs, and many LRAP programs are limited in scope (e.g., not encompassing prior educational debt, restricting the types of qualifying employment).
**
Perhaps you’ll feel differently after a few weeks have passed and the government and small/medium firm hiring cycle has begun.
Well put scoplaw. I would add that BigLaw is somewhat of a necessary evil if you spent $150 K on law school, want to live in or near a major city, and choose not to live hand to mouth (or chase ambulences).
Further, if, like me, you wish to have a life at some point soon and move to an in-house position, you need to training and name recognition that BigLaw provides to be able to make in the $150-$250 range working reasonable hours.
Lyco,
I hope you didn't take my comments as an endorsement of public defense work: it's not for everyone, in fact it's hardly for anyone. The emotional strain is simply too great for all but those who strongly believe in the cause. It's not, like, say, tax law, for the faint of heart.
What I would say, however, about your comment that law students just want to "take each option seriously"--yes, I know how that works. The 1L summer is when law students "take...seriously" the public service option. The 2L summer is when students "take...seriously" the BigFirm (I'm not going to call it "BigLaw"; it's undoubtedly, to me, "SmallLaw") option. The 3L fall is when everyone suddenly decides that their law school's loan forgiveness program isn't generous enough, and that whereas the rest of America somehow lives on $40,000 a year--for an entire family, with mortgage payments as sizeable as any law school debt--somehow the brightest lawyers in America can't manage that kind of balance-sheet, or else could, but find financial stability more important than job satisfaction, as if we can't all see the flaw in that logic.
Lyco, my friend, I graduated with 554 other lawyers. As I understand it, less than 20 (not 20 "percent," I mean TWENTY) went into public interest work. In fact, I think it was likely closer to 10. Yet everyone I knew in law school did public interest work during their 1L summer, and everyone I knew just said they were going to "take...[the] options seriously" by going to a firm for 2L year. 90% or more of those folks ended up at firms. Just about 100% are now either miserable or on their third/fourth/fifth job already.
I wish I could tell you that you, or someone close to you, will break the mold at once and finally, will code-break the course of a lawyer's life as the prevailing law school pedagogy has erected it: I wish I could say that you'll end up in public service, or end up with a big firm and be every bit as happy as you would have been in the job you told yourself you really wanted before law school. But I'm just not going to lie to you like that.
S.
Scop,
It's tough to fight The Big Lie with Little Truths, isn't it? Most 2Ls and 3Ls are so invested in careerist orthodoxy that cannoning through the waxy build-up of eighteen months of law school takes a megaphone. Quiet dignity doesn't sell: otherwise no one would be at the firms in the first place.
I think you've hit the nail on the head in describing what law school does to "many individuals." Where I fear you miss the boat is in thinking that public service simply means "changing the system from the inside" (I'm appropriating your quote for the purpose I've more commonly seen it associated with). In fact, that's the smallest part of my job--I'm not sure I do anything much to change the system; I do think, however, that I change lives every single day.
And there's the rub. Public service--despite being, as Duncan Kennedy said in an article you cited on your blog, more "intellectually challenging" and more "fun" than firm-work--is sold to law students as a save-the-world-or-die scenario. No wonder Mario Cuomo came to Harvard one year and horrified prospective public servants by telling us, "Get rich first, then try to make a difference." The problem, of course, is that some "differences" get made on a case-by-case basis, not systemically, and The Cuomo Theory presumes that a law student seeking to engage in public service upon graduation isn't selfish: that he/she is doing what they're doing because of selflessness. Not so. Sure, my colleagues and I want to help others, but we also want a job which is fun, an office environment which is totally laid back, and employment which is alternately terrifying, challenging, thrilling, gut-wrenching, and uplifting. We can't get that in a firm, and we want it, so we don't work for SmallLaw. End of story.
As to money: my debt burden coming out of law school was around $162,000. My debt-to-income ratio was so high that during my exit interview my exit interviewer started laughing and couldn't control herself. No one needs to tell me about the money crunch. The reality is, however, that schools which have incredible loan-forgiveness programs and schools which have NO loan-forgiveness programs send an equal percentage of their graduating class into public service. Why do you think that is? Because it's the same cadre of people in law schools across America who are going into public service: people with particular goals, interests, values, and principles. There's no evidence that the "rest of" the law school set gives any more or less thought to public service when they attend a school which, like Harvard, bends over backwards to help students do public service. So the "money pit" argument, to me, lacks merit.
But there's a bigger problem: intellectual integrity. All I ever hoped for from my classmates (not that I ever asked for it out loud) was that they admit that they knew they'd be unhappy in SmallLaw, but that they needed the money. None would admit it--including 100% of the now-unhappy ones--but said, instead, that they were "interested in" what the SmallLaw firms had to offer. I can't tell you how grating that was; I mean, lying to oneself is one thing, but lying to others smacks of a lack of principles, doesn't it? I don't mind if 100% of law students go into SmallLaw practice...it just irks me to hear roundabout 100% of them claiming they'll be happy, too. That is, that they'll have it all and sacrifice nothing, which is the promise of every Pyramid Scheme worldwide, isn't it?
You have to keep in mind, Scop...this is an emotional topic for me, because I've seen plenty of good lives--and good minds--ruined by SmallLaw and the lies people tell themselves to draw themselves into that lifestyle. Which, incidentally, is almost impossible to leave once you enter. I know that most of the best public defender offices (for example) won't hire anyone who didn't go into public service right after law school. Why? The blunt answer: because they don't trust that these people are actually committed to the sacrifices a life of helping others entails.
It's a sad reality that I wish weren't so: once you're in, you're in.
S.
Matt,
Of the three of you, you've got far and away the hardest rhetorical position to defend. How can you possibly say that having high debt makes a $150,000/year job a "necessary evil"? What world do you occupy? Most Americans carry staggering debt, make less than half of the figure we're talking about right now, and still live happy and productive lives. The mindset you advance is the mindset which tells law students that, no matter how strong their pedigree, they're always one step away from homelessness. But as one of my professors once told an entire lecture hall in a booming voice, LOOK FOLKS, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DECIDE TO DO, NONE OF YOU ARE GOING TO END UP IN A BOX. THE WORST THAT COULD EVER POSSIBLY HAPPEN TO YOU IS THAT YOU WILL BE MIDDLE CLASS. [He meant economically, by the way; culturally and intellectually, the drive to enter public service tends to be more of an "upper-class," rather than "middle-class," phenomenon].
As to your other points: I can be in Boston quicker than some folks who live in the Boroughs can get to Manhattan, let alone New Jersey types who slog into the City every day. And yet housing's fairly cheap where I live. Miracle of miracles! You don't have to mortgage your life to live within 45 minutes of a major city. And as to living hand-to-mouth? I think the 99% of Americans who make less than you would question whether all 283 million of them are living "hand-to-mouth."
Finally, I'll just note the irony of your comment that some people "wish to have a life at some point soon" and work "reasonable hours." Some of us have that kind of life right now.
S.
Seth,
I’ve no wish to “argue” with you on these points – I know you feel passionately about public service and the (let’s be frank) ass-backwards system we’re operating in. I’d say we’re largely in agreement as to what the problems are. I think the conversation is elucidating a number of perspectives on the problem, and for that reason it’s worth having.
Life issues. Not to cross conversational threads, but I’m certainly living my life right now; perhaps that’s another part of the deception practiced by BigLaw (size of firm/client), the lie that your life really will begin sometime soon – soon after you get hired, become a 4th year associate, make partner in 8-10 years, etc.
I also hear what you’re saying about self-deception – I have met a few classmates who simply don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. These people are operating in the dark (systemic design), with little knowledge of what the day-in, day-out firm life is like. They have few roots they’d adhere to and vague plans for the future. (Oddly enough, I don’t get that feeling from most of my section 3 peeps – and from what I’ve determined, we do have a much higher PI employment rate than the other sections. I’ll try to get some hard numbers on that for you if you’re curious.)
I think though, that the future is what many people are fixating on – those loans are scary and the $2-3K PI stipend many of us worked on during the summer meant long hot bus-rides, and scraping by on a number of fronts, and perhaps going further into debt unless subsidized by someone. Dealable, but certainly a “student” lifestyle. At this point the only other carrot that’s being dangled under our noses (by systemic design again) is EIW/OCI. A bunch of (often) well pressed young types arrive to point offer weekly salaries in excess of our entire summer earnings. They promise hard work and a certain amount of fun. Seems like Law School, but with a modicum of respect, much more feedback, clear goals, and lots of money – further, you’ll be taken care of to an extent. There are no mysterious processes, no job hunting, no worrying over how to make ends meet. It’s all very simple. That’s a potent brew for many.
After EIW/OCI we’ll be launching back into the second year of law school – and those with call-backs will focus on them, rather than running alternative job searches, bearing in mind perhaps the canard that public interest law is much more difficult to get “into” than private work. Perhaps there’s some truth to that – PI law often demands “sacrifices” from it’s applicants, which is really just another way of saying it’s screening for economic opportunity to take unpaid internships, etc., which constitute the right “background” for a candidate. Let's be honest - if you were hiring, what would you look for - "demonstrated commitment"? What about yourself did you "sell" to your perspective employer? I suspect that many of my peers might feel that they're already a bit shut out of the PI rat-race.
After EIW has passed, (and perhaps from EIW onward) it becomes a matter of a bird in the hand v. who knows what’s out there.
**
I believe that the future, for most of us, will involve change – firm to firm, public to private, private to government, government to public – you name it. And I suspect there must be a sizeable number of people who opt out of BigLaw at some point – the firms simply aren’t growing at a rate that suggests they ultimately retain everyone they offer a position to.
And what if the ultimate goal is solo practice? Or being that rare legal generalist? Or starting your own firm? What if what you want to do *cannot* happen through regular channels, or the year after law school? The schools don’t teach the skills, the debt prevents or complexifies acquiring start up capital. In this paradigm, which path seems most likely to lead to freedom? (I still find it amusing that it’s largely unquestioned that you must work *for* someone – however for the above reasons, it’s entirely understandable.)
**
Personally, I’m not really expecting a callback – my grades aren’t impressive enough. If I got one though, I’d certainly fly out, and if I wasn’t repelled, I’d certainly consider going through a summer associate program. It would provide good exposure to that firm (if I kept my eyes open) and at least pay well for a summer. Of course, I’m a bit atypical – I’ve worked for the man before, and know it’s a damn lucky person who finds a job they truly love. Usually job enjoyment comes from the atmosphere and environment more than the work at hand, and if there’s a lesson from my first year in Section 3, it’s that you can rebel and toss pointless competitiveness out the window while still doing excellent work. I know you love your work Seth, but what would happen if you were browbeaten daily – if you worked with a bunch of backstabbing assholes? What then? Could the work alone sustain you? Or would you look elsewhere? If you opened a private defense firm, I’d gladly give you 60+ hours, a pint of blood per month, and all the poetry conversations you could stomach. Opportunities like that (for me and my mates) are not really forthcoming though.
Anyway, back to the initial post-grad years. I’m not naive enough to think that I can single handedly change firm culture, or that it’s even *likely* that I’ll find a good fit (humane, skill-teaching, interesting colleagues) but I’d be pleased to listen to a humanized firm and hear what they have to say. I also have no illusions about not participating in bullshit social activities, wasting my time as a flunky, or leaving bad employment situations. Perhaps I’m atypical in that regard. Perhaps I’ll also get lucky – I’ll find some place I enjoy working at – build relationships with the people there, understand the local legal system, its informal culture, kill my debts. I can then use that knowledge to do what I wish in that community (although honestly, what that is at the moment, I couldn’t tell you, beyond that there's no shortage of injustice in the world.)
Where are you going to be in 10 years?
Scop,
I agree that we ought not argue on this--particularly because you're really not my target audience for this exhortation. I think non-traditional students are in an eminently better position to make these crucial life-decisions than, say, twenty-four year-olds (which is what I was when I graduated law school; I won my first criminal trial on my twenty-fifth birthday, whereas, in contrast, many firm lawyers are just getting their first taste of a courtroom at twenty-eight or twenty-nine--and that's in the litigation department!).
I also want to note the interesting distinction between a) your reference to "the lie that your life really will begin sometime soon," and your query, b) "where are you going to be in ten years?" I think the latter mind-set is the one which herds bright lawyers into SmallLaw practice--they presume they have to know where their lives are going. Right now. At twenty-four. The truth is (as you implied) your life starts now. Your life is happening now. You need to decide how long you're willing to be unhappy in pursuit of a life which might never arrive. You need to decide whether you have enough confidence in your talents to be happy now and let your future work itself out through hard work, talent, perseverence, and the most vital form of self-knowledge: knowing what will and will not make you happy in your lifetime. As opposed to speculating about worse-case scenarios which will never come to pass (the whole I'll-end-up-in-a-box theory, which I've opined to my significant other in times of frustration and/or humor, but to which I do not subscribe).
I also think we need to distinguish between two other things you said: a) that some of your classmates suffer from "self-deception," and b) that a few of them are "in the dark." There's a difference between involuntary ignorance about career options (which I think few if any law schools are actually guilty of promoting these days), self-deception (which is a sort of justifiable ignorance, a sort of semi-inadvertant ignorance), and willful ignorance. I think summer interns who actually believe they're seeing what a firm has to offer--and not, as any partner or associate would admit "off the record," being sheltered from what firm life is really like--are engaging in willful self-delusion. Why are people who speak so eloquently in class, who articulate their intellects so brilliantly in study-groups, suddenly thunder-struck with appalling stupidity when they fall for "the summer experience" hook, line, and sinker? Why do they return to school and speak forcefully about how much fun they had, how many free meals, how little actual work? Are they dolts? No, I don't think so. I think it's a form of willful ignorance which would be harmless to those individuals if it was strategic--"I'll just live off the firm for one summer, then do something I really want to do"--but in fact, sadly, that sort of cognitive dissonance represents a strategy of a different kind altogether. A finance-based strategy which, at base, is indistinguishable from simply not standing for anything.
That may sound harsh, but you just don't earn integrity in this world by idling in a job you don't believe in for five years. Earning integrity--earning a life that matters--takes a lot more than just following the herd and doing no more and no less than what's expected of you as a law student.
S.
P.S. As to solo practice, I'll simply say this: it requires connections, typically the sort of small-town connections which public service attorneys--less so firm attorneys--are likely to accrue. I work in a city of almost 100,000 people: more than large enough to start up a lucrative and wide-ranging solo practice. And every day--and I mean that something very close to literally--people ask me when I'm going into private practice on my own. That's not what interests me right now, honestly; but how many "BigLaw" attorneys have the sort of personal client connections to start their own practice in, say, six months? And yet 90% of those going to the firms next year better be thinking along those lines, right? Anyone ever heard of that saddest specimen of all, the twelfth-year associate? [No, you haven't: they fire you or drum you out of the firm well before that point. Or, alternately, they just make you rue the day you weren't sharp enough to make partner and couldn't take the hint that now, therefore, it's time to make that thirty-year "firm journey" from smaller firm to ever smaller firm, just hoping to--as Matt said--"have a life" and work "reasonable hours." Gee, thanks, [insert law school here]!].
Seth,
The key difference between you and those that work in Big Law is that you don't care if you make $40K and live forever in a rental in NH. Contrary to you, I have a loan that costs me $1300 a month and a mortgage that runs $3300 a month. Those costs alone exceed the annual income that I could make in most public interest positions with four years of experience.
Given the state of social security, I would also like to have some savings and be able to provide my children with the same Dartmouth education that my parents provided me.
The best way to do that and ultimately reach my primary aspiration in life -- to coach little league and be active father and husband -- you need to make some sacrifices in your 20's.
Yes, I am fortunate to have the ability to earn what I earn, which I realize is in the top 1% of all Americans, but I worked much harder than most Americans to get to this point.
That's odd, Matt--I'll be making $70,000/year in a low-cost state by the time I'm in my low-30s. And I receive loan-forgiveness you don't receive, not to mention full health benefits and a matching 401K plan. So how do you figure I'll be making $40,000 for the rest of my life? Do you know anything about public interest work, or are you one of those disingenuous law ex-law students--of the sort we're talking about in this thread--who've never looked into it and don't know spit about it but sagely tell prospective students to veer away for financial reasons?
And what the hell does making money have to do with going to Dartmouth, or any top-flight school? Have you heard of private loans? Have you heard of school-based grants? Have you heard of need-blind admissions? Oh, wait, you worked in the admissions office at Dartmouth, so you do know about all these things but, again, are one of those lawyers who sagely tell your younger colleagues that they simply had no hope of giving their kids an education on a public defender's salary. The fact is, one's lifestyle has nothing to do with finding a way to finance college--though it may have much to say about whether your kids will end up in years of therapy because daddy's sacrifices ended up costing him not only his 20s, but his 30s and his 40s and most of his personality as well.
Newsflash: most Americans work harder than you do, doing jobs much less pleasant. You're just luckier, have better genes, and had more stability growing up (which, by the way, has nothing to do with money, either). Indeed, that "rental in NH" doesn't make a home, nor does that "detached in NJ"--it's what's inside it (and I don't mean the furniture, smart guy).
I've got to hand it to you, though: you're the first person I've ever heard of who links coaching Little League with being a corporate lawyer. Most of us just assumed that being the sort of person who believes in community service--in your 20s, too, not just your 40s--is what makes a good Little League coach.
But what I do I know? I just do more of importance in a day than you do in a month. And I live in a rental in New Hampshire.
S.
P.S. Regarding your comment about "the annual income that I could make in most public interest positions with four years of experience." You must realize that no self-respecting public interest organization would hire you, now--you know that, right? So let's not go there.
Just because I don't devote my life to it does not mean I do not believe in or support community service. Indeed, I spend almost 300 hours per year representing non-profit and cultural institutions. In addition, I donate a substantil sum annually to an organization that supports law students working in the public interest sector for the summer.
Second, I take great offense to your comments. Your job is no more important than mine. Let's be frank, the vast majority of time, just like me, you are representing people who broke the law and finding ways to help them avoid the consequences. The only differences are: 1) your clients are low income, low educated New Hampshire residents and mine are Fortune 500 companies; and 2) I make 4 times what you make.
Finally, I have to say your "holier than thou" attitude is quite unappealing. In that way you are just as much of a snob as those corporate law partners that go to the Hamptons every weekend.
And by the way, there is as much inside my home as anyone's, corporate lawyer, poet, truck driver, rabbi or otherwise.
What makes me holier-than-thou is not my current professional position, nor even why I chose my professional position, but rather my bluntness and intellectual integrity in speaking about why I chose the professional position I chose.
Ask a public defender what the primary reason he chose to be a public defender is, and most likely (though certainly not unquestionably) he will tell you: morals.
Ask a corporate attorney what the primary reason he chose to be a corporate attorney is, and most likely (though certainly not unquestionably) he will glance nervously at the public defender and respond: um, morals, I guess--just in a different sense than that other guy meant it.
There is one reason you are a corporate attorney: money. But it's your unwillingness to say that, and to say it that way, which makes you seem defensive and makes me seem, admittedly, holier-than-thou. If you and other corporate attorneys could just speak bluntly about the life-decisions you've made--without hedging, without trying to "have it all" by appearing both noble and filthy-rich--it would make this existential proctological exam a lot easier on both of us.
Instead, look at the justifications we've got from you so far!
According to you, working for so-called "Big Law" is:
a) "a necessary evil if you spent $150,000 on law school [and have outstanding debt]";
b) "a necessary evil...[if you] want to live in or near a major city";
c) "a necessary evil...[if you] choose not to live hand to mouth";
d) something you do because "you wish to have a life at some point soon";
e) something you do "to [get] training and name recognition";
f) something you do to eventually start "working reasonable hours";
g) something you do out of necessity, because "I have a loan that costs me $1300 a month and a mortgage that runs $3300 a month";
h) something you do because "I would also like to have some savings and be able to provide my children with the same...education that my parents provided me";
i) something you do because "my primary aspiration in life [is] to coach little league";
j) something you do because "my primary aspiration in life [is to] be [an] active father and husband";
k) something you do because because "I worked much harder than most Americans";
l) something you do because you can still do community service in your present job, and in fact "I spend almost 300 hours per year representing non-profit and cultural institutions";
m) something you do because you can still feel like a giving person while doing it, because "I donate a substantial sum annually to an organization that supports law students working in the public interest sector for the summer";
What you don't say, what you can't seem to say, either because it isn't true or because, well, as to "c", it's simply too true:
a) "because corporate litigation is what I always dreamed of doing as a child";
b) "because my work changes people's lives for the better";
c) "because I want to be rich."
Is it so hard to ascribe something other than lofty, unimpeachable motives to your life-decisions? Apparently it is. And as I've said before, it is that dishonesty--not even so much what you do for a living--that irks me about you, and about, likewise, those law students who are equally obsessed with material goods and who will, like you, present their "Big Law" career as simply the shortest route to a Little League coaching position.
Good grief.
S.
Oh, I disagree, I fully admit that its about the money.
There is one fault in your whole argument though. Despite the fact that there is too much of it, I happen to enjoy what I do quite immensely.
Sure its not necessarily exactly what I wanted to be when I was 10, but how many people can say that they have achieved that goal.
I can.
Well, you are a lucky man indeed, and as your close friend, I am quite happy for you....
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