Interesting post at the Conglomerate blog on the corrosive effects of law school. It shouldn't come as a shock that people are unhappy b/c of "problematic institutional culture."
I know many of the discussions here at CUBlawg are easy to dismiss as excessively sensitive and whiny. I've somewhat dismissed this site recently b/c I find the gossip-centric, nit-picky, barbed comments obnoxious and juvenile. Think what you will about that statement; it's shared by many people I've talked to lately. Regardless, there's some real problems with law school; CU Law isn't alone in struggling with student dissatisfaction. Maybe we're all spoiled brats? Maybe we don't know how to work hard and still enjoy our lives? Maybe we don't revere the law and feel fulfilled by sitting in class and discussing abstract theories of law while getting bombarded with black-letter law exams. I don't know.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
38 comments:
"Sheldon and Krieger pinpoint several features of law schools that contribute to the psychological distress of law students. These features include overvaluing theoretical scholarship, undervaluing teaching, employing unsound teaching and testing methods, and emphasizing abstract theory over practical training."
Bingo.
While those authors seem to focus on the features of the law school as a learning institution, I think the more warping effect is produced by students collectively, and largely unwittingly.
Individually, we students make choices along the way that will either maintain or erode our own mental health. Our 'happiness' is directly tied to our ability/willingness to make appropriate choices amidst an intentionally competitive environment. Not really that different from the bigger world, just much more intense.
We self-select to enter law school (and choose to remain after 1st semester 1L year, when we no longer can plead ignorance on how the remaining 5 semesters will feel). We hear about how law school is transformative (in teaching us how to 'think like lawyers' and all the standardized haircuts and wardrobes many of us adopt as we see out our first law jobs)...but there is no formal mechanism to help students psychologically integrate these life changes. Or as Joe Campbell might phrase it, no true elders to guide us through this harrowing, but necessary, ritual.
We are taught by professors who excelled in even-more competitive environments, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are emotionally well-adjusted adults who are capable both of putting students through the necessary rigors required to absorb arcane doctrine -and- encouraging the type of healthy lifestyle choices we should make while in school and beyond.
I think the danger of law school is spending 3 years in this type of environment and adopting the warping comparison/competitive dynamics as 'normal' and then joining (or returning to) the real world (future relationships/marriages, raising kids, social friendships) without recognizing the difference between the legal skill set we've acquired and the strange social norms we shared while we acquired those skills. I think much of the substance abuse and other social ills within the legal profession may stem from the failure to check those warped social norms at the door as we leave law school. The result may then be compounded, as you have large numbers of bright, talented, but emotionally half-baked lawyers teaching the next generation of graduates what it is like to 'be a real lawyer' (long hours, lots of income, 3rd marriage, kids in rehab, yadda yadda). The challenge is to find exceptions to that stereotype, who've figured out how to be relatively successful as a lawyer and happy as a human.
I just find it too easy to blame the 'institution' part of law school without recognizing our individual responsibility for enduring and adjusting to the adversity of the process, much less our potential contributions to the collective madness...
It is also a product of having so much money and future earning potential tied up in the institution. This fact tends to make us (including myself) jumpy and more apt to whine.
I often find myself wondering if anybody else in law school realizes that law school REALLY sucks. Glad to see that I'm (somewhat) vindicated!
I'm going to defend law school, but not in a long post. I'm just going to say that I enjoy a lot of the material that I learn (although some classes are horrible), I like the people that I go to school with, and I'm happy with the work that I've done. For about one month every semester, life sucks -- the two weeks of finals and the two weeks right before -- but that goes with the territory. So, while I'm apparently in the minority, I'm going to say it anyway -- I LIKE law school, and most of the time actually think it's kind of fun.
MacLawyer sends:
My only principled beef is that CU Law (and the rest of the first tier) continues to employ pedagogically unsound methods for evaluating "expertise." I am talking about the "one test, one grade" paradigm that has been consistently shown by educational researchers to test many things, but quality retention of the subject matter is not one of them.
I offer two objections: first, some of the finest litigators in Denver take great pride in their marginal or downright shameful class rank. Clearly they weren't bad students, just bad test takers. (For those of you poised to take pot shots at any inferred whining, I offer that I set curves in classes I had no business doing well in, and was dreadful in classes in which I had both experience and education -- more anecdotal proof).
Second, I point to the fact that legal service RARELY comes down to a one test, one grade paradigm. Even trial law requires pleadings, motions, research, direct & cross -- that is, many many opportunities to score in many, many forums. How does the Ivy League testing paradigm support that reality?
Ironically, I'm learning in bar review that this trend will continue -- the bar appears to be equal parts genuine inquiry into knowledge (the straightforward essay/practical tests) and purposefully uber-tricky multiple choice. Perhaps CU Law "teaches" the bar despite their efforts to the contrary, if only to prepare us for the one remaining silly, silly hazing ritual.
Put that many type A personalities in one room with a professor who only misunderstands the socratic method, the outcome is not exactly shocking. I for one hated my first year of law school.
For me it's been the intense, competitive fishbowl atmosphere of law school that's brought me down. And it definitely has had negative effects on my personal life. But I don't really mind the academic aspect of it. And I've enjoyed the legal jobs I've had so far.
I hated the first year of law school, and I think there are a lot of things that could have been done differently to make it a better experience. First, starting with the required 1L curriculum gives no grounding in understanding how the subjects work together, the philosophical foundations of our law, no basis to understand the broader picture of what we are studying and why. I went from a job where I felt like I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it to being bewildered about why I was in torts and why what we were learning was important.
Also, the first year gives no opportunity to practice or implement any element of what you are learning. I LOVE my summer job, and am so glad now that I stuck with it through the first year. If I hadn't, I wouldn't know what I was missing. But all the cynicism, the mounting debt, the confusion about what I would actually be able to do as a lawyer made me really doubt my ability to make a difference as a lawyer and I considered leaving law school after the first semester. It would be great to have more practical experience implemented into the curriculum.
Finally, I hated the prohibition against working the first year at CU. I ended up violating it about a month into the first semester, because I found that making some amount of money, even a miniscule amount working a few hours a week, was important to my dwindling self esteem, and also that working helped me remember how to talk to non-lawyers and non-law students and gave me a chance to feel like I knew what I was doing sometimes. Making law school so insular is a big mistake. I constantly hear lawyers talking down to clients and just being rude, and I think if we had more contact with the outside world and more opportunity to practice skills throughout law school we may be a little more grounded and able to talk to people in a civilized and friendly fashion.
All of that said, I think CU has a far better student environment than a lot of law schools, and that students tend to support each other more than at other places, and that is a saving grace of the school. Before exams, my class was often joking with one another and laughing, and that was a welcome stress reliever and helped get me through the first year.
I'm wondering if Law School isn't a little bit like childbirth--horrible at the time, but the extreme discomfort forgotten afterward. I wonder this because my general sense, looking back over the first two years, was that law school is difficult, but not onerous or painful, that it is even fun most of the time. (I've been enjoying myself immensely!) I suspect that it helps not to let school take over your life. I deliberately choose to keep at least one day per week law-school free. It's a real sanity saver.
Ranks are posted!
Bolder Law, you are nit-picky, obnoxious and juvenile.
i don't speak for the majority out there, but i hated law school. i love working.
i hated law school for precisely the reason stated in the first comment: it overvalues theoretical scholarship. any time i worked on a project or conceptualized an exam answer, i became obsessed with developing some new, obscure legal concept, with outthinking some "better mind" out there. that, to me, seemed to be the only way to impress the professors. after all, the books they chose, the articles they wrote, the questions they asked and the law reviews they assigned all seemed focused on that type of analysis.
i love practice (so far, at least) because it does require the culmination of so many different skills. and, to a degree, you know who you have to outsmart and impress: opposing counsel and the judge, respectively. no client or parnter at a firm wants to see your 40-page paper with 1,000 footnotes. writing something obscure will get you fired. you show what you know (and double check your work), and then you go with it.
i had among the best marks in my class in legal writing, but i've been criticized *twice* by clients for writing memos and briefs that "read like law school exams." i love the new challenge because, well, it's nothing like law school.
if you feel like you're dying at wolf, but you love your summer job, hang in there. if you hate both, get out now. working at a firm is NOT less work, and the money will not solve your problem.
and DO go out and meet non-law-schoolers. i got sober about 90 days before law school, and it was tremendously comforting to attend AA meetings with folks who could give a shit about the rule in hannah v. peel. people in there were struggling to avoid declaring bankruptcy or losing their kids. that said, if you don't have a problem that requires 12 steps, go out and do something useful for someone else (that doesn't involve your legal skills). it will help--trust me.
--legally intoxicated
Right on, L.I.--I also hated law school, but loved all my summer work thus far, and can see that the two are only most tenuously related.
Mushroom, this is the Pot. You're black.
Pot, please leave your racist comments off the blog. Thanks.
Ok, guys (gals?). I realize there's an old pot-kettle joke going on, but the general rule needs to apply, no ad-hominem attacks.
Mushroom Stamp seems to encompass everything that is wrong with the social atmosphere in law school; bottomfeeders who hate everyone above them and enjoy their experience.
The nuisances who make everyone else feel like crap because they can't get beyond it.
Maybe a fair assessment of him/her, maybe not--it's hard to understand someone's true motivation, but one thing is clear: he/she likes (or needs) attention, so I think the best approach is to just ignore his/her asinine/sniping comments.
Anon 10:09, I'm sorry I make you feel like crap. I don't know who you are, and despite your accusation, beyond the fact that I don't know who's "above me," I don't hate anyone I go to school with. The point of most of my posts is to illustrate what I feel is wrong with the law school environment: that everyone takes themselves too seriously. I mean, seriously, do you think that I don't understand the pot kettle reference or realize how facially childish it is to call someone what they just called me? Your reaction to what I'm saying just illustrates my point.
As far as Anon 11:40's assessment, I would say that is much more reasonable. With every one comment I make, I get about 10 responses; some of them visceral, many along the same line, but all of them illustrate my point that many need to lighten up. We are in law school, not god school.
Learn, now, to live your life, or find yourself without one before its too late.
I should also add that both of your ad-hominem attacks are nit-picky, obnoxious and juvenile.
This isn't god school?
I've made a horrible mistake!
God school? Isn't that Baylor? or? Do they have a law school?
I love how Stamp thinks he's an authority in giving life lessons.
Here's one for you: you could still love life while being in law school. You make your own environment. By the sounds of it, you're miserable, but as you could see in any hair-growth infomercial, results aren't typical. Love and peace.
"I love how Stamp thinks he's an authority in giving life lessons."
I told you that people like what I have to say. Anon 10:46, I love you too. And this goes for everyone: If you want advice from MS - just ask anytime; and remember: when it doubt, whip it out (and stamp)!
As much as I hate to write this, MS 1:18 has a valid point. I agree that there are some who take themselves and this blog far too seriously. This is, after all, a blog that started off quoting Muellerisms.
I think some of the reactions to MS and other comments criticizing / attacking others vividly illustrate the original post of the corrosive effects of law school.
As a caveat, I would definitely call some of MS's comments outliers, but I think his/her presence is refreshing.
I have to agree with the last comment. Despite the fact that MS is pretty much an ass, he/she is a funny ass. I'm happy that someone is lightening up the blog a little.
no wonder you are all miserable in law school! i only read the blog when i'm nearly bored to death, because it is so whiny and obnoxious. certainly, being whiny and obnoxious is contributing to your miserable experience in law school and would likely contribute to your miserable experience anywhere in life. you know why law students are more miserable than others? because they typically come from backgrounds where everything has been handed to them and they don't have to make real life choices about going to work in an oil field somewhere or becoming an over the road truck driver because those are the only jobs that will pay well enough to support a family, although it means you really will NEVER get to see them and your mortality rate is higher than other occupations! maybe if the overprivileged tools at this school could grow some balls, you wouldn't all be whining about the amazing opportunity that you have CHOSEN for your life's path!
Sob, sob, sob, I have the chance to enter a field with a high earning potential that won't put my life in harms way on a daily basis. True, I may become an alcoholic because I can't deal well with stress and pressure, but at least I won't have to scrounge wages all year so that I can afford to by my children christmas gifts from the dollar store.
give me a friggin' break! let me know when you all find out what REAL hard work is all about...
The dollar store = awesome. I got me a fanny pack there yesterday. It is pink so I can carry all my tissues in it because my over-privileged ass cries all the time. You paint with big brush. Sorry Roger, you tiga now!
Anon 5:45
When I started to read your post I really liked what you were saying. Then I kept reading and I realized how incredibly pretentious your message actually is.
Nothing cracks me up quite like somebody lecturing a bunch of his classmates about the real world, even though he/she is inevitably in the exact same position. Let me guess, you came straight from undergrad (which your parents paid for)?
Do YOU actually know anything about the blue collar side of life? I know a lot of people on the blue collar side of things that are much happier with their jobs than lawyers. I have seen studies demonstrating that lawyers have lower job satisfaction than some of those jobs.
The point is that I think your attitude towards the blue collar side of the working world is really demeaning. A lot of people find something deeply fulfilling about working with their hands. Many of them probably could go to law school, but they were smart enough to stay away.
That said, you are right that I did chose this. While I realize it is not really feasible to take that choice back, and thus I am essentially trapped in a field I chose to enter knowing too little about it, I should have a better attitude and realize how lucky I am just to have that choice in the first place.
You can always take it back. Drop out. Don't take the bar. Start your own business. This is not an irreversable course of action. It is three years of a life that averages 75. People always bitch about what they are doing, no job is perfect. This topic is a retread of a retread of a retread Next topic, please.
Oh man - that retread comment reminds me of this guy I knew in college. This guys name was Ron, but we always called him retread. Here's why:
Let's say one of my friends would sleep with a girl. They'd go out with her for a little while, and then that was it, right? Wrong - Ron would always end up going after that same girl after the end of the relationship. It always happened that way - within days of the end - Ron would alway hook up with the same girl. Seriously, it happened like 5 or 6 times.
But, the best part is he ended up marrying one of those girls. So now, I always want to tell him what I know about his wife (who is total a freak, by the way), but I feel like I can't - I still like my friend. But if he ever really pisses me off - I have some stories that will seriously ruin his marriage (This girl was like a Penthouse Forum story).
I wouldn't do that though, Retread is a stand-up guy, but his wife is a skank.
Anon 12:33, this is Anon 5:45. No, my parents did not pay for my undergrad and yes I know more about the blue collar side of life than most people here. My father did work in an oil field and was an over the road truck driver for most of my childhood. My mother and I would meet him at Village Inn or the Sapp Brothers Truck Stop once every week or two so I could see him. He worked his tail off to put food on the table for me and my family and continues to do so to this day, now a janitor at a prison. Tell me being a lawyer is worse than cleaning up prisoner's shit!
But we are one of the happiest families I know. Why? because we take the hand that life had dealt us and keep on truckin...literally. He never complained about the way his life turned out, although it was miserable being away from each other for long periods of time. We always make ends meet even though we often skipped Christmas and other holidays as kids becuase my parents couldn't afford it. And I certainly wouldn't have it any other way. I appreciate the work ethic that he instilled in me and I enjoyed the time I did get to spend with my father as a child, picking up aluminum cans and taking them to recycle for money so that we could have money for dinner.
So don't sit and tell me you know blue collar people that are happy, because my family are those people and it makes me sick when I hear people in this place, most of whom have had decent lives and DID have school paid for or have parents helping them now, whine about the life they are living when they ultimately CHOSE to be here.
Now, certainly many at CU are self sufficient and I'm not the only one from the blue collar world. But it still annoys me to hear the whining when there really is nothing to whine about. Come whine to me when your kids are upset because the bag of aluminum cans that you had strapped to the top of your car to take to recycling to get some cash for food has blown off and landed under some rich lady's car and she is standing outside yelling at your father like he is some sort of child who has just done something wrong! Cause that's the world I came from and I'll never regret any minute of it.
I think there are more students at CU than you'd think who come from poor and borderline poor families. (Certainly not a majority, but I doubt many of our classmates come from truly wealthy families.) Many people don't talk about their class background with people who are not close friends, and it's not necessarily something you can make assumptions about. So don't get too up on your high horse about your blue collar street cred. Plenty of others have been there.
Anon 6:22, this is anon 5:45.
I'm pretty sure I acknowledged others at CU who are from the blue collar world. I certainly wasn't trying to brag about my blue collar street cred. I was only responding to anon 12:33's criticism that I am probably someone who had their college paid for and talk about the pretentious, whiny law students, even though I am in the EXACT same situation. I don't think my situation is exactly the same as most at CU law, which is why I highlighted my blue collar/lower middle class background. I did come straight from undergrad but continue to pay for my own education the whole way through, and in addition, give my parents money every month to help them get by. At 23, that makes me pretty unique to most at CU law, and maybe gives me a slightly harder time than some. I had to work all through first year, couldn't afford a non paying internship first summer, can't afford summer school credits, etc, because I pay school loans and other obligations that I have. That said, certainly those with families of their own have a different unique burden. We all have our own unique burdens here at CU law and the only thing that I'm criticizing is the amount of whining from people. Burdens are a part of life for most people (even the very rich!) as is whining, to a certain extent. I'm just sick of hearing (from Ethics class and fellow students) about how BAD law students have it. Really, compared with most walks of life, it's not that bad. No matter what you're background, you have a pretty good opportunity as a law student to at least make a decent living, which is more than a lot of people in this country can say, including my parents. I just think that if people looked at the situation like a privilege (which it truly is) or a path they have chosen and now are forced to suck it up and live with until they can afford to do something else, then maybe you wouldn't all be so miserable. Count your lucky stars that you weren't born into a family of migrant farm workers, or a village where most people work in sweat shops, or some other SERIOUS hardship. Law school is not a serious hardship. And if you think it is, then you are more overprivileged than I first imagined.
What's going on here is a whole bunch of whiners whining about other people whining about stuff they typically whine about themselves.
If all the whiners would take a step back they'd realize that their whining is universal and in a way, that's therapeutic... we all feel the same passion (whining) about the same things, so maybe we're more alike than not.
So in the words of Detective John Kimble..........
Who is your daddy, and what does he do?
In the words of one of my favorite posters: "Balls."
Post a Comment