Why in the world would one want to be a lawyer?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>“Federal judges also hate getting assigned patent cases because they are so technical and lengthy.”</p>

<p>This is very true. I’ve read that their findings in Markman hearings (where they make rulings as a matter of law on patent claim construction) are overturned on appeal more than 50% of the time. That must be frustrating for the judges.</p>

<p>In one of the patent cases I managed in-house (for a portion of the eight years or so that the litigation was active), the original judge’s reluctance to really engage with the case really added to the cost of the litigation.</p>

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<p>To those lawyers who have posted on this webpage…</p>

<p>I read that it takes a lot of experience to get into patent litigation, but I just remembered that one of my mentors actually went into litigation immediately after law school and did it for 4 years before realizing he didn’t like it. He worked for the EPA and defended them in court after graduating law school in '93. How is this so? It seems to go against what was said in this forum.</p>

<p>Thank you all for voicing your concerns.</p>

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<p>General litigation and patent litigation are very different areas. Patent litigation is extremely technical and requires a very solid understanding of patent law. “Going into litigation” can also mean doing general discovery work (looking through thousands of files) which is very labor intensive but does not require much skill. Discovery work is increasingly being farmed out.</p>

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<p>Ah, I see. Yes, he was invovled in general discovery work straight out of law school. Seeing as this does not take much skill, the situtation makes much more sense to me now. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Well, I’m back and interested in learning more about litigation - not only with patents but litigation in general. I want to know how successful litigators are born in the U.S., some of the processes involved in becoming one, etc… Assuming one is inherently diligent and focused on living the lawyer life to the fullest and truly is satisfied with litigating, how does one succeed in transitioning from a law school student to a successful litigator? Links to stories will be greatly appreciated. I thought maybe Greybeard would have a good anecdote or two for me, as well.</p>

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<p>Excellence in any domain comes from practice. Many of the most effective litigators started their legal careers working for the government, in the JAG Corp (Judge-Advocates in the military), the public defender’s office, the district attorney’s office, in a city attorney’s office, or in the Justice Department, where they get to try a large number of cases. </p>

<p>My own litigation practice (which like most was neither wildly successful nor devoid of success) was with small firms in a big city that represented individual clients, mostly in civil matters, but occasionally in criminal cases. I filed and settled several hundred cases over the course of a dozen years; if memory serves, I handled twenty or so arbitrations, and twenty or so bench trials (non-jury trials). I tried two cases in front of a jury. On about a dozen occasions, I appeared in court prepared to start jury selection, and had the judge announce that our case had been preempted by another matter. On another couple of occasions, I announced that I was ready to begin trial, whereupon the prosecutor dismissed the charges “in the interest of justice.” </p>

<p>The court calendars are very crowded in big cities. Judges put a lot of pressure on both sides to settle in lieu of trial. When you got on the trial calendar, you’d find that three or more cases were scheduled to begin at the same time in the same courtroom, and that the judge was counting on most of them being resolved without trial.</p>

<p>I won maybe three quarters of my arbitrations and bench trials, and lost both of my jury trials. I can assure you that winning in court feels really good, and that losing feels really bad, whether it’s a trial, or a law and motion matter.</p>

<p>Like most people, I really hated the stress of litigation. I always slept poorly the night before any court appearance, even routine ones. (I always woke numerous times during the night, and had a lot of anxiety dreams, including a recurring one in which I was back in school, but had a strong sense that I was enrolled in courses that I had completely forgotten about, and had done none of the assigned work.) </p>

<p>There’s also a lot of tedium involved in litigation. In civil practice litigation, you spend far more time conducting discovery than you do in court. I had court appearances at various times in at least ten counties, most of which were pretty densely populated. That involved a lot of time driving around, and a lot of time being stuck in traffic.</p>

<p>I’ve generally been much happier since I made the transition to being an in-house transactional lawyer. (By the way, that’s a very difficult transition to make; I only know one other attorney in my line of work who previously had a law practice that remotely resembled the one I had at the outset of my career.) I don’t really think of ligitation as necessarily “living the lawyer life to the fullest.” But there are those who love it. I know a man in his ninth decade of life who is still trying cases.</p>

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<p>When and how were you able to begin trying cases? In-between law school and trying your first case, what all did you go through? See, I don’t fully understand the process. I just feel that a law school student wouldn’t have the know-how/experience to try a case upon graduation (or be relied upon to do so), and assume that there must be some sort of period within which a young lawyer proves himself “worthy,” somehow. But this is all an idea based on little knowledge and on what little common sense I claim to have.</p>

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<p>I went to work after law school for a firm with three partners who had less than ten years experience combined. There was a lot of work as a result of a successful marketing campaign. My employers were probably committing malpractice by giving me as much responsibility as they did out of the gate. This isn’t the way things are generally done.</p>

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<p>As sympathetic as I am to the argument that those people should find something else to do, I continue to struggle with the question of what exactly that ‘something else’ would be. Let’s face it: the vast majority of jobs available to liberal arts graduates - even those with high grades - not only pay poorly but also provide poor promotion prospects. I can think of countless hordes of liberal arts graduates, especially during the recent economy, who are stuck in regular retail or food-service jobs that they, frankly, were qualified for without even graduating from high school, let alone from college. </p>

<p>Now, granted, if your liberal arts degree comes from a name-brand school such as an Ivy or an Ivy-peer, then you can reasonably pursue a lucrative career in strategy consulting or banking. But the vast majority of liberal arts graduates do not come from high-prestige schools. If you’re a English major from Southeast Missouri State, even if you have a 4.0 GPA, you’re not going to get a job at McKinsey. </p>

<p>Nor is it helpful to sternly pronounce that those people should simply have not majored in the liberal arts in the first place, because the fact is that’s all water under the bridge. Like it or not, they did major in the liberal arts and the only relevant question for them is to what should they do now? Doubling-down on law school - whose admissions processes care little about either the practicality or the difficulty of your undergraduate major and instead weigh GPA and LSAT scores most heavily - is one of the few pathways by which such a person can obtain a highly lucrative career. That 4.0 GPA English graduate from SE Missouri State, along with a sufficiently high LSAT score, can get into YLS, HLS, or SLS and from there have a decent shot at a $160k biglaw associate job. That’s a shockingly sweet deal for somebody in their mid-20’s who has never held a real job before in their entire lives, even after subtracting their law school debt payments. I can think of plenty of veteran engineers with decades of experience and whose degrees come from strong engineering schools who nevertheless could never dream of making that kind of money.</p>

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<p>I am always jealous of the ease with which one can attain admittance into the most prestigious law schools in the world, an ease which is out of the grasp of most engineering majors, such as myself. Luckily, according to cellardweller, my getting into a law school ranging from the rank of 10 to the rank of 30 or so will probably be just as lucrative for me if I am willing to truly strive to be the best lawyer I can be. I guess, really, if those engineering majors want to pursue patent law, it all somewhat balances out in the end.</p>

<p>As for your question, sakky, regarding what else they would do, I think you make a strong argument for the appeal and opportunity law school presents to liberal arts majors with a high GPA and little else to look forward to in today’s job market. Plus, from my perspective, I feel like I gain from such people (or will gain) because I am very passionate about striving in law and will rely on people who are not sure what they are doing in law school to make my getting better grades that much easier.</p>

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<p>To whom it may interest,</p>

<p>I found a local litigator who is absolutely bonkers about litigating. He has taken under his wing. This summer will be spent with him in court houses all over Arkansas. If you would like, I could share my experiences with you guys on here, if it would interest you at all!</p>

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<p>I do think the paralegal field has poor employment prospects. Actually, any type of job in the legal industry will be hard to get. There has been a myth going on for years that the paralegal field is growing. In some ways, it is a growing field, but that doesn’t translate into “easy to get a job”. Many thousands of people are vying to become paralegals, legal secretaries, court reporters…you name it.</p>

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<p>“I think that the kids who want to go to law school are watching too much TV, where being a lawyer is glorified.”</p>

<p>Honestly? I think a lot of it comes from those STUPID John Grisham novels that everybody in America is reading. They probably think there is a lot of excitement, adventure and intrigue in a legal career.</p>

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<p>Thanks cellardweller and Greybeard! </p>

<p>Awesome discussion, exactly what I was looking for/needed.</p>

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<p>Interesting discussion. I have read over and over again about the horrendous employment prospects of new law schools grads. Yet the only three people I know that have graduated from law school within the last 3 years ALL had jobs right out of law school. What’s more, none of these individuals attended top law schools. One got a job in NYC, one in North Dakota, and the other in Denver. </p>

<p>So forgive my confusion . . . but I find it hard to figure out why none of the negative hype is matching what I’m seeing right in front of me.</p>

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<p>Thank you to all who partook in this discussion. As an electrical engineer currently working for an aerospace corporation and in my first semester of part time law school, this thread has been thought-provoking and stimulating. </p>

<p>LaBarrister - if you ever see this, I would love to hear of your experience with the litigator this past summer.</p>

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<p>cbug, there are approximately 45,000 new lawyers every year. Every year! Do you really think that the three whom you know who have graduated in the past three years are a representative sample of job prospects? Of course, there are many law grads who find legal positions but there are also thousands and thousands who do not, and are either unemployed or underemployed. Many who are in that position have huge student loans and are in a terrible situation as a result. The stories about employment in the legal community are not fiction. Anyone contemplating law school would do well to take them seriously and make an informed decision.</p>

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<p>jimbojones,</p>

<p>Hey. Sorry. I probably haven’t been on this Web site in many months. </p>

<p>So without reading through what I wrote already (which is surprisingly a lot—I must have had a lot of free time when I wrote all of that) what exactly would you like to know about my experience?</p>

<p>As of yet I have not received any type of legal job with the aid of my new friend Mr. Litigator (which I have found over the months to be a pre-eminent attorney and an even better friend—I say this because he gets inmates off death row and fights against insurance companies, which in my book means he is great. He is also on his way to the highest ranking in Martindale-Hubbell, if that makes any difference to you).</p>

<p>But…anyway he still says to this day (we run ~3 mornings a week) that he would have me in his firm in a heartbeat if he had any room for me. I would just be doing menial tasks, and maybe without pay, but I would be happy with that. But, I think because his firm is a stone’s throw from the court, he doesn’t have much need for an errand boy. Either way, I have nothing from him but great talks and insight into the life of a great lawyer. He doesn’t have kids or a spouse, so he actually probably has a very enviable lifestyle (read Sallyawp’s latest thread for some depressing attorney/parent lifestyles). I hope this helps. Again, it’s been so long. So let me know if you have any questions.</p>

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<p>That doesn’t make any difference to anyone.</p>

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<p>^^Haha, cartera, so true. So true.</p>