<p><a href="http://www.jd2b.com/VanderbiltLawReview.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.jd2b.com/VanderbiltLawReview.pdf</a></p>
<p>ElectronicError posted it on another thread. Thought it was worth highlighting.</p>
<p>To be entirely anal-retentive, there is at least one (glaring) error in the article: the statement that married people live longer. Married men live longer than unmarried men, but married women die sooner than their unmarried counterparts. </p>
<p>That does give me pause about the rest of the article - the authors couldn't get that part right. Grrr.</p>
<p>Aries, although I have seen studies concluding that married women are more depressed than their single counterparts, I'm not sure that they die sooner. <a href="http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/950928/waite.sidebar.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/950928/waite.sidebar.shtml</a>
and (same study) <a href="http://www.smartmarriages.com/debunking.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.smartmarriages.com/debunking.html</a> Or do you have more recent data? </p>
<p>Not to diminish the depression statistics. :(</p>
<p>If I can dig up the stat, I will - but it was pretty clear that married women die sooner than unmarried women.</p>
<p>Aside from picking it apart, what do you think overall?</p>
<p>amazing read, have already emailed the link to several friends. i dont know much about the law practice so i can't judge it on accuracy, but i think his approach his great. discussing the lawyers' parties, cars, obsession with money are fascinating to me.</p>
<p>The way he presents it, even if a student is not obsessed by these things, he or she will get sucked into the system. Hope to hear from some of our resident attorneys. I think I will send it to a couple of lawyer friends in big firms. They probably won't have time to read it! :eek: I did read somewhere else that there is individual variation even among the big firms...</p>
<p>A few thoughts... </p>
<p>I would not be surprised to, in coming years, see this echoed in the practice of medicine. Increasing debt loads and "commercialization" (for lack of a better word) of that field will probably drive many doctors to depression, divorce, and alcoholism.</p>
<p>More on the woman/marriage/law thing: I heard somewhere that professional women are at a higher risk for divorce. I'm not surprised to see this in law - not because of the profession, but because (pardon my cynicism) many men simply cannot handle a successful, professional, intimidating wife.</p>
<p>While lawyers are increasingly dissatisfied with the balance between work and home life, that discontent is not unique to the law. Americans are working longer hours, commuting more, and taking less vacation than they used to.</p>
<p>I like the section on billable hours v. time spent at the office. Having worked in engineering (where we billed hours), I understand how this works... but most law students don't. I'll let y'all know in a few years how it stacks up.</p>
<p>$50,000 in student loan debt is no longer accurate. 35% of students with debt have more than six figures of it. That radically changes the math. Also, it's not just about having enough to pay off the debt - it's about saving enough so that if you lose your job or something, you can continue to make loan payments. Cash in the bank can be a good thing for more reasons than conspicuous consumption.</p>
<p>15 years is also a long time - if I'm doing the math right, in about 10 years, I'll be paying for other people's education - and I don't want student loan debt then. Also, when you double the time period of your loans, you don't cut your payments in half - they are only about 3/4 of what they were before. Spreading out loan payments over a lifetime can cause a person to pay an exorbitant amount of money just in interest. I would find the numbers much more plausible if they were actually presented in a realistic manner. Most students do not want to be 40 years old (or, gulp, 55 if spreading loan payments over 30 years as suggested) and paying off law school loans. That is insanity. As I said, 40 is when you start paying for other people's educations, not when you are still paying off your own.</p>
<p>"Cash in the bank can be a good thing for more reasons than conspicuous consumption.</p>
<p>"15 years is also a long time - if I'm doing the math right, in about 10 years, I'll be paying for other people's education - and I don't want student loan debt then."</p>
<p>Hear, hear! Re medicine, I already hear this from doctors...The thing is, in medicine it seems overall to be less important where you go to school; students scramble to get into the state schools, and so they save money.</p>
<p>yeah theres already texts out there (concerning medicine) which argue pretty much the same thing: commercialization, obsession with money, and other self-conscious anxiety over success. i heard one from a friend calle Complications by Gawande. </p>
<p>as i read over the article i saw some pretty apparent generalizations about lawyers working too long and not having enough time for personal life. that would probably be the number one reason why most employees dislike their work anyway, as aries rightly said. i have to admit, though, the end of the article where the author is discussing his family problems while he was away working was extremely powerful to me. but again this is not intrinsic to law, though im glad to see someone reveal the daily life and problems of big firm lawyers because law students esp. at prestigious schools are largely (almost completely) unaware of big firm culture and its risks.</p>
<p>Would you guys say that most big firm-bound students go straight from undergrad to law school? (I'm asking because that might explain the lack of awareness.)</p>
<p>Yeah, the author notes that most big-firm bound students go straight from undergrad to law, but he also notes that law schools are hindered by resources and training and cannot provide law students the sort of info and viewpoint he provides in the article. Maybe law schools should prepare students so that they are aware of the profession.</p>
<p>Sorry about that - I'd only read half-way through when I posted the question above. Sloppy on my part.</p>
<p>I'm telling you guys, facing down that working world for a couple of years does wonders...</p>
<p>I think the article presents a fairly accurate picture of the legal profession. I think this comment is especially telling:
[quote]
A 1997 survey of partners in the 125 largest American law firms found that one third of those partnerslawyers who, in the eyes of many, have reached the pinnacle of their professionwould choose a different career if they could do it over again.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm telling you guys, facing down that working world for a couple of years does wonders...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hear! Hear! Best thing in the world for insuring that law school stress doesn't wreck your sanity.</p>
<p>I believe that the article is essentially still correct, although since it's from 1999 the dollar figures are out of date.</p>
<p>Professional women may be more likely to get divorced because (a) divorce is expensive, and poor people are more likely to separate without undergoing the expense of a formal dissolution; and (b) professional women require less alimony.</p>
<p>On the article itself: I thought it was very interesting, and agree with most of it. </p>
<p>I found that the work I did for a small firm for two years after law school was astoundingly more varied than what my friends at large firms were doing. I can't say I experienced a lot of mentoring, but I had enough to get me started. I spent a lot of time in the library those days figuring out civil procedure (not the general concepts they teach you in your first year, but the detailed rules you need to know in your jurisdiction if you're going to avoid committing malpractice). I made about half what my class-mates were making; per hour, though, there wasn't much difference at all.</p>
<p>I'm of the opinion that small-firm practice is better training for in-house corporate work than big firm practice (although few general counsels seem to share that opinion, perhaps because they generally come from a large firm background). Running my own small firm gave me a lot of insight into the practical problems of running a business, and have given a practical, real-world sheen to the advice I now give my in-house clients, and helps to keep me from "over-lawyering" their problems.</p>
<p>I'm glad to see that most people are enjoying the article as much as I did.</p>