First Semester Law School Grades
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I appreciate where you're coming from - but it's not law that is the antithesis of freedom, but debt (that is unable to be leveraged). I can list a few ways that you could find yourself overextended in IM and be even more fucked. So, similarly, you need to manage the risk.
Thanks for the well wishes.
I'm not hating on lawyers at all.
Sure, it's great to have the degree to fall back on, and it's great knowledge, but for most people the cost of the degree far outweighs the benefits. You can buy the exact texts they use in any law school and study them yourself. But really, they don't even teach you law in law school. They teach you how to think like a lawyer (a philosophy degree will do the same thing).
The OP is fortunate in that he has success online AND has a scholarship. He's set.
Sure, it's great to have the degree to fall back on, and it's great knowledge, but for most people the cost of the degree far outweighs the benefits. You can buy the exact texts they use in any law school and study them yourself. But really, they don't even teach you law in law school. They teach you how to think like a lawyer (a philosophy degree will do the same thing).
The OP is fortunate in that he has success online AND has a scholarship. He's set.
I lol'd. Old habits die fast I guess? haha.
To hear that OP is not taking on debt is huge - really the main issue. If you get out clean moneywise, you're in such a better position.
I am one of those horror stories - went to Law School to "keep my options open". Worst decision ever - it's just not what I want to do. And that is one expensive piece of paper I got.
But nevertheless, hopefully you worked in the field beforehand and really got an idea that it's truly what you want, separate from the money. If you got that going, and not too much debt with those types of grades youre golden. Well done on the grades. My thing is just be sure about it.
Yeah, who the fuck said you need to go to a top 14 school to make it anywhere in that field?
Jesus I'm always shoveling out some cash to my lawyers for something. When it comes down to it graduating from a top school may get you into a firm. But if you aren't worth your salt you won't get anywhere, chances are you'll be kicked to the curb.
I've bought the plugin, and even though I don't know the OP he seems like a legit dude. Just because you may start a few rungs below the big guys doesn't mean you can't surpass them in no time at all.
Hard work + office politics FTW.
Good job man and keep up the good work!
the other thing a law degree gets you: a ticket to the show. you can't enter w/out it and that's a fact. want to argue a case w/ a philosophy degree, you need to be the plaintiff or the defendant (if you didn't continue on to get the law degree). buy the texts, but only if you want the knowledge or you want to represent yourself. so you can get your good will hunting on, but if you want that time invested to pay off, need to chart a different course.
Never said that you couldn't. Just harder. Being in IM, we all know how far hard work gets you.
Yeah, of course, and I'd love to have my law degree for exactly this reason. Personally, for me, though, it wasn't worth three years of lost wages and the hell that law school is for most people . I'll glady pay an attorney if and when I need one.
I'm finishing up probate - full-blown and lawyerless - and now have a decent estate law education because I needed one. The mandatory pro se lawyer appointed by the court charged $300 an hour: $1,500 for 5 hours (or so he claimed). Not a bad fleecing for a few hours of clerical work that I could have done myself. Once he submitted his report to the judge I got rid of him and doing the rest of the filings myself, lest he lawyer me straight to the poorhouse.
Point being that you don't need a law degree to function as an attorney if you have a full set of brain cells and some cojones. Legalese is written in a way to discourage laymen from functioning as their own legal representatives, but there's no actual law stopping the truly determined.
Does my affection for lawyers come through?
I'm awed by the successful product you coded while pursuing the degree. WF is full of the most enterprising people I have ever known.
Put it this way...Law School is a safe bet...you'll probably be working the next 30-40 years of your life, you can't be nothing at all, I mean you could, but realistically speaking you gotta be doing something...even if you're sitting on piles of cash
What's 3 years? It basically insures to a large degree a level a stability incomparable to anything.
And here's some food for thought. Business is cyclical constantly changing, you got to adapt to survive. There's natural business forces, then there's government slaps like we just experienced from the mortgage collapse to now being free trials/continuities.
Now the Internet Business(es) is in an even more rapidly ocurring cyclical pattern. So you have many more pitfalls in potentially getting wiped out and starting from scratch, debt, or bankrupt...
Now does a 3 year investment into law school (or for the matter of fact business school) and 150k make sense for the security you can have for the rest of your life?
---That question is different for everyone, but it does sound stable!
What's 3 years? It basically insures to a large degree a level a stability incomparable to anything.
And here's some food for thought. Business is cyclical constantly changing, you got to adapt to survive. There's natural business forces, then there's government slaps like we just experienced from the mortgage collapse to now being free trials/continuities.
Now the Internet Business(es) is in an even more rapidly ocurring cyclical pattern. So you have many more pitfalls in potentially getting wiped out and starting from scratch, debt, or bankrupt...
Now does a 3 year investment into law school (or for the matter of fact business school) and 150k make sense for the security you can have for the rest of your life?
---That question is different for everyone, but it does sound stable!
The best advice I got after 1L year: "A" students become judges, "B" students become big-firm associates, "C" students become rich.
My man, go do a little research and see how many folk who graduated from a T2 school outside of the top 5% of their class are represented in Vault 100 firms, are working inhouse, or have their own successful practices. One of the reasons why most folks are at second rate schools in the first place is that they are not terribly hard workers, not very intelligent, or both. Your chances of making it big after you graduate from Hofstra Law are not exactly great. Your chances of working long hours doing doc review on contract are fairly decent though.
Another part of the equation that I think many people fail to really understand is that there is a derth of legal talent out there that is already unemployed and US schools are cranking out tens of thousands of graduates a year...only a few of which will ever actually pass the bar and be licensed to practice in an area worth living in. IE - We already have a larger supply than we need and we are continuing to produce far more of the "good" than we have need for. Not a great situation to be in for most graduates entering the market. This situation will likely continue to worsen as India produces hundreds of thousands of graduates from their law schools who can perform research and draft motions for US firms at a fraction of the cost of what it currently costs to pay a 1st or 2nd year associate to do the same job. A senior associate then reviews the work which was done by some Indian that night while he slept and after reviewing the document and checking the citations, spelling, etc., he submits the same document at a fraction of the cost to the firm and can still bill the client at an exorbitant rate.
Lastly, and this kind of loops back to the prestigue/T14 issue, few professions in this world are as hungup on pedigree as the folks in the legal field. Where you went to school, who you know, and where you have worked is insanely important - there is no way around this. To get a cool job as inhouse councel you need to have cut your teeth in the "real world" for a while usually. And to get that job which actually means something on your resulme (as in not just doing document review/discovery on contract) you need to have solid grades from a reputable school or fucking spectacular grades from a decent school. While it is true that nothing is a substitute for hard work, you can't get through a good law school with respectable grades without either being brilliant or working your ass off.
If you were starting a company and wanted to hire someone would you choose the guy who graduated from CUNY with solid grades, or the guy who decided that after spending 4 years at Cravath he was sick of the rat-race and the golden handcuffs? I know who I would hire...
dunno about that, I've seen a lot of C student lawyers become small-time ambulance chasers
