As I prepare to graduate from law school, I’ve been thinking about my decision to apply. I’m a ‘KJD,’ someone who went from kindergarten to law school without working in between. The cool part about that is you’re a lawyer before you turn 26. The bad part is you’re a lawyer before you turn 26.
I went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst for my undergraduate degree. There, I had many wonderful professors: retired judges, international law scholars and experts in legal philosophy. I loved reading cases for class, discussing questions with no right answer, trying to figure out how these disparate concepts could fit together. I knew law school was for me. But one of my favorite professors would always tell me not to go.
And I’m glad he did. Because too many people go to law school for the wrong reasons.
If you want to be a lawyer because you want to make money, I wouldn’t recommend it. Some lawyers make lots, but there are other jobs where you can make money. And many of them are not as all-consuming as the law.
If you want to be a lawyer because you want people to think you’re smart, I wouldn’t recommend it. You’ll be surrounded by lawyers, who won’t be impressed by you being a lawyer. Many of them will, in fact, be smarter than you. At best, strangers at dinner parties will ask for legal advice. In any event, if you don’t think you’re smart, what someone else thinks won’t change your mind.
If you want to be a lawyer because it would make your parents proud, I wouldn’t recommend it. You should only go to law school to make yourself happy, because otherwise you'll end up miserable.
If you want to be a lawyer because people always told you you’d become one, I’ve got bad news: that just means you were an annoying kid. I can say that, because I was one, and I got told the same thing.
I think my anti-law-school teacher was trying to make sure law school wasn’t just a default choice for me, but something I was willing to actively pursue. In a similar vein, I tell undergrads thinking about law school not to come unless they want to be a lawyer.
This sounds trite, but it demands two things from the listener: First, figure out what a lawyer actually does, for better or for worse. Second, ask yourself if the juice is worth the squeeze. What do lawyers do? They read long boring documents. They write long complicated arguments. They talk to people who are very stressed, and try to solve their problems. They send and receive an incredible amount of emails. As one partner at a law firm told me: “It’s an e-mail job.”
It’s also a very human job. It involves emotions, secrets and drama. A trial attorney performs, in every sense of the word. It can be a job where weeks of preparation leads to hours of peak execution in front of a crowd. It can also be a job where innocent mistakes lead to you hurting your own client in an unfixable way. To put it mildly, the pressure is intense, and many lawyers suffer from anxiety or depression.
I can’t tell you if you want this. But consider a phrase that, though applicable to many paths in life, is very popular in legal academia. “It’s a pie eating competition, and the reward is more pie.” To me, this saying means that if you cannot find some pleasure in the menial, day-to-day tasks that will make up your existence as a working adult, you will be unhappy most of the time. There’s all kinds of pies out there. You just have to choose the one you want to eat over and over again. There is no right or wrong answer. You decide, because you’re the one who’s eating.
I do not mean to dissuade prospective law students. Law school is amazing, if you’re a nerd about the law, and these past three years have been some of the best of my life. I have been immersed in the language and the culture of the law, and it is an extraordinary privilege to get to spend three years in beautiful Ithaca at a picturesque building studying a topic you love. The professors here are world-class. I’ve met some wonderful people. If I was transported back in time three years ago, I would happily do it all over again. I remember walking home from a full day of classes, drunk from a firehouse of information, buzzing with excitement. I remember arguing with my classmates about the law, what it is, what it could be. I remember late evenings spent reading old cases, feeling a deep kinship with past and future law students who would read these same words. I remember individual days where I felt unbounded highs and crushing lows in the span of hours. It was intense, overwhelming and magnificent.
Should you go to law school? Only you can answer that question, of course. But for those who do: please try to appreciate even the stressful moments. There is a peculiar nostalgia I feel about the intensity of that first year, called 1L. There are few experiences I’ve had (in my admittedly short life) which can compare to that period. As much as it was all so scary, it was also incredibly exciting and special. Those moments pass much quicker than you realize. And they are valuable and rare — and a privilege indeed. Whatever you end up doing, I wish you the very best of luck, and I hope you can find pride in doing it well.
Liam Harney is a second-year student at Cornell Law School. His column Objection! discusses contemporary legal and political issues through a critical lens. He spent last summer working at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans and will be spending next summer interning at the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Division in New York City. He can be reached at ldh55@cornell.edu.
