Tuesday, January 17, 2006

This Just About Perfectly Sums Up the Law School Experience

One of my friends here at school was quite unhappy with their grades and decided to have a talk with the dean of the law school to see what they can do to improve. After discussing this matter one of the conclusions the dean came to was that my friend was “too direct and too much of a straight shooter, which in the practice of law are great qualities, but in law school exams cause quite a mess.” My friend then followed up the dean’s analysis with one of their own “I’m a former teaching professional and this method of teaching is not conducive to learning or any of the goals law schools set out to achieve.” The dean then replied with “yeah, that is true, but there’s nothing we can do to change it.”

So, if you ever wonder how so many heartless ambulance chasing lawyers are able to sleep at night the answer is because they’re just making up for the fact that law school wasted 3 years of their life grading them on exams that deemphasize characteristics and skills that are actually useful in the practice of their chosen profession. Then, after this the best justification law schools have is to just say “we can’t change?” I think I’m going to try this when I get my first job, it’ll go a little something like this

Adam’s Boss: Hey Samons, why were you an hour late to work this morning?


Adam: I’m not really what you’d call a “morning person” boss, there’s really nothing I can do to change this.
Adam's Gorilla: [Grunt, Scream, Grunt].

(Insert awkward silence for roughly 0.9 seconds)


Adam’s Boss: YOU’RE FIRED!!!


Well, at least the dean’s answer is consistent with what we were told at orientation about the methods employed by law schools. There it was said that “You might wonder why law schools teach what they teach the way that they teach it. The answer is because this is the way it has been done for centuries.” Let’s see how this logic will help me once I get out into the work place.

Adam’s Boss: Samons, why do you insist on writing all your case briefs, motions, and summaries in hieroglyphics? Our lawyers and the judges are getting sick of having to translate everything you write.

Adam: I do this because pictorial representations such as hieroglyphs are humanity's oldest form of communication and have been used from the time of cave drawings up to modern day graffiti.

Adam’s Boss: Thanks for the history lesson, you’re fired you ineffective worthless piece of crap.

So what’d we learn today kids?
1. Law schools don’t seem to be a great place to learn what you need to practice law.
2. Continuing to do something ineffectively is justified so long as that’s how you’ve always done it.
3. Employing the logic displayed by law schools can be detrimental to your future career as a lawyer.

3 comments:

Adam Samons said...

Luckily there’s no reason to worry about me being down or dropping out, unlike my friend in the story I already know (and agree with you) that I’m better than that.

Unknown said...

I hope that when you say that you are better than that, that you aren't holding out for a job with Martha Stewart!

Adam Samons said...

Martha is certainly a step up from those two, but yeah, I am looking for a slightly higher step than even Martha.