From Tempe criminal defense lawyer Matt Brown, not long enough in the tooth as yet to see new lawyers from the distance where I sit, there remains a nagging problem:
I often think about a comment my mom made made a year or two ago. She was talking about retirement and mentioned how it would be interesting to see how it feels, as the men and women of her generation identify themselves by their work. The job defines them, apparently. I’ve thought about that statement often. I can’t say if she’s right, but I can say that a negative implication of her statement is definitely true. The men and women of my generation generally do not identify themselves by what they do for a living.
I share Matt’s mother’s perspective, where we are what we do. Not completely, and not to the exclusion of all else, but the first thing out of our mouths when someone asks who we are would invariably be our job.
I frequently see blog posts about job-hunting for law students and new lawyers. Getting a job is obviously a big concern for a lot of people, and there are plenty of others willing to provide advice. Advisors suggest things like hanging around with practicing lawyers and broadening the search to include non-lawyer jobs. They say to embrace social media and to think outside the box. Those are the tools to get a job, the explicit goal of people in my generation. Rarely do people mention being qualified for the desired job as an important part of the equation. The advice all seems geared toward staying just as you are while altering superficial things that make you more appealing to employers.
Superficial is an important description, as it’s used very rarely yet applies with great frequency. Few see their efforts as superficial, putting a shiny gloss on an otherwise empty vessel, because they’ve been told that the exterior sheen is all there is. Yet, it seems impossible to believe that they don’t feel in their hearts that they are empty inside.
My generation wants work, but they don’t want to define themselves by their work. A job is a way to live in a nice house, drive a late model car, and have enough stability to relax on evenings and weekends and during several weeks of vacation each year. A job will provide an office with a window and a big desk under which they can grab a quick nap after taking a long lunch break at a trendy restaurant with their work friends. Jobs are means to an end. They want a job not because it’s the job they want to do or even that they can do exceptionally well, but because it will help them do the non-job-related things that make them happy. They don’t care if their work time is well spent as long as it pays the bills.
This isn’t merely “working for the weekend,” but caring about nothing other than oneself, and using the job as a conduit for the flow of money to fund a real life while giving as little in return as absolutely necessary. And not feeling any remorse about it.
As the complaint of the Slackoisie over the past few years has been the dearth of jobs, or opportunity, available to those saddled with the debt they were told was the purchase price of a life of fine food and fancy cars, one might naturally suspect that they would come to realize that shiny is not enough. The days of merely showing up, seeing what they could get away with, are over.
Some have sought an alternative route, hooking into the next shiny, empty faux reality, where self-deception combined with lying to others seemed like a good way to turn a worthless career into a money-maker, enough to fund the real goal in life. Even the smarter ones, the ones who ought to know better, have reduced themselves to cheerleading anything shiny, no matter how vapid.
The secret here is that the proponents, having no particular care that they are empty and devoid of substance, that they are merely superficial shells that provide no value and contribute no substance, are more than happy to create the appearance of self-worth in order to make a buck. They don’t mind at all that they offer nothing, since the only purpose to all of this is to suck some money from an unsuspecting fool so that they can enjoy the fine life they deserve.
Every time someone who’s done nothing to build a foundation of knowledge and skill in a given area of law complains about how employers in that area want someone with three to five years of experience, I worry about the future.
It may be worse than Matt suspects, as three to five years experience doing little more than pretending to be a lawyer isn’t experience at all. It’s just wasting time in an office waiting for the chance to get to happy hour. Killing time isn’t experience.
Yet law students and young lawyers continue to complain about the death of their great expectations. They have no jobs, and their career as social media gurus brings internet adoration but barely enough money to fund a mocha frappucino, no less a Ferrari. They are certain they are brilliant, as every adult they met growing up told them so, yet no one seems to appreciate that they are smarter than every person they survey. How could things go so wrong?
Here they are, starving.
And yet, as Matt Brown sees, they aren’t hungry enough to do anything real about it.
*The phrase comes from a column in the South African City Press by Dion Chang, who liberally enjoyed my work, and so I return the favor.
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This is not entirely the fault of the Slackoise. The largest sector of the economy now is the Sit in a Chair and Do Nothing industry.
Everyone remembers the “greed is good” bit of the big monologue in Wall Street, but I think the most telling line comes just a bit before that:
“Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over $200,000 a year. I spent two months analyzing what
these guys did and I still can’t figure it out.”
That was written more than 20 years ago, and I can only imagine the problem has gotten worse.
Law professors don’t really care about training their students to be productive after graduation; they’re supposed to get on the job training for that.
And, on the job (at least in many Big Law shops), unless you’re lucky enough to land a very good mentor, you’re treated as a line worker at a billable hour factory. Attrition rates are too high to waste time training you in your first few years. You’re given projects where getting the right answer and improving your knowledge and skills is less important than billing as many hours as the client is willing to pay.
I agree that simply showing up and seeing what you can get away with isn’t going to fly like it did a few years ago before the recession, but you can’t change the culture of an entire generation over night. They’ve been raised by people who spent their entire careers merely showing up and seeing what they can get away with.
The kids struggling to find work need to accept that the only person who can get them out of the mess is themselves, but the older generations need to accept that they’re the ones who created the mess.
The phenomenon is not new, nor is it unique to the slackoisie. For some, their career is a major part of who they are; but for a large number of people, it’s just a job.
What’s new is that this attitude is arising in careers that properly are a calling. The “it’s just a job” mentality used to be limited to the kind of jobs one gets with a high school diploma — service, labor, government, admin, etc. — or to bill-paying “Joe jobs” one had while going to school or waiting for Mr. Right. There’s nothing wrong with that mentality for these kinds of jobs, really.
But it’s terrible when that mentality spills over into the kinds of jobs that need to be a big part of who you are. The job suffers from not being filled by someone driven to make it succeed. The individual suffers from being unfulfilled and remaining an empty shell.
And in the professions, the people we serve would suffer the most. How can they get the best medical care or counsel when the person giving it just isn’t all that into it? Those for whom the law, or medicine is just a way to make a buck are bad for their professions, and the people they serve.
This is probably right on the money. It presents two very different problems though.
The first is how to push back the tide of ‘law school by default’ kids. I think one important part of that will be to stop demonizing the arts so much. With the internet giving people a huge audience and customer base, and cheaper distribution models popping up (iTunes, print on demand, etc), it’s becoming more realistic to have a career in an artistic enterprise. It’s no longer just the blockbusters that make any money, but now a long tail of people making some smaller amounts. So long as parents are still afraid of their kids becoming ‘starving artists,’ they’re going to continue to pressure them in to law school, where they’re unlikely to be happy or productive. There’s a big cultural realignment that needs to take place, both in regards to how we view law, and also how we view the alternatives that these students are better suited for.
The other problem is what to do with all the people who’ve already gone through law school but shouldn’t have. Agreeing that you’re bad for the profession doesn’t erase your debts and give you a new set of credentials and skills to go pursue another job with.
The older generations are far more responsible than you can begin to understand, but blame isn’t going to solve your problem. And your generation has demonstrated remarkably little interest in doing anything for itself, still waiting for mommy to chew your food for you (fault is mommy’s), rub your belly and tell you how wonderful you are. Oh, and give you some spending money (fault is mommy’s too).
Is there a lack of pro bono work they could perform? I understood family law was very poorly funded. Trading time (which you have) for experience (which you don’t) seems better than idle complaining on the twitterverse.
Plenty of other occupations available for people with law school degrees aside from lawyer. They get no special dispensation for being losers with debt. There is no second class lawyer for the ones who don’t belong. Made a bad choice? Bummer. Find something else to do.
By other occupations available for people with law school degrees, so you mean other jobs for which a JD makes them highly qualified? Or just any other job they can do, such as retail or janitor?
If there are other jobs looking to snatch up inexperienced JDs, I’d really love to hear about them.
How long have you suffered from reading comprehension issues?
It’s a fair question.
There’s plenty of talk on blogs and from career services folk about “jobs you can do with a law degree.” The implication is that the law degree qualifies you to do the job, but often the actual case is that it’s a job you could have gotten with just an undergraduate degree, and your law degree isn’t an asset.
So, by ‘available for people with law school degrees’ do you mean ‘especially looking for people with law school degrees’ or ‘available for anyone?’
No, I mean alterantive career choices. Nothing more. There are occupations (note, not professions, but occupations) for which a law degree can be both helpful in getting the job and being successful in the job, even if not a requirement for the job.
No one guaranteed a person who obtained a law degree, no matter how much debt was accumulated, that they get to make enough money to pay off the debt from practicing law. There’s a debt to pay? Get a job and pay it off. Can’t get a job as a lawyer? Get a job as assistant manager at Dairy Queen. Too good for such a job? You won’t pay off that debt sitting on the couch eating Cheetos, blaming your parents and whining about how life is unfair. Get a job.
What are those other occupations for which a law degree can be helpful in both getting the job and doing it?
I’ve applied to many of the go-to alternative jobs (journalism, procurement, consulting), and many of them have some other qualification your typical JD doesn’t have and which your law degree will not stand in place of.
A great many business/management positions, law enforcement positions, quasi-legal positions benefit from a law degree. That doesn’t mean they don’t have other educational or experience qualifications as well. If you want a specific job, then you’re asking the wrong question in the wrong place.
And there are certain journalists whose background is the law (and didn’t include J-school), but perhaps they just don’t want to hire you and are trying to let you down easy. See Adam Liptak at the New York Times, for example.
Liptak didn’t have a journalism degree, true, but he was an editor for the Yale Daily News, held two jobs at the Times before joining the news staff, and also had four years of practice experience under his belt.
What makes finding alternative careers especially frustrating for many recent graduates is that much of the advice for ‘what you can do with a law degree’ is actually ‘what you can do with a law degree PLUS something else.’
Career services types tend to see someone who left law after 5-10 years of practice to do something else as ‘doing something else with their law degree’ rather than ‘doing something else with their law degree plus 5-10 years of practice experience.’ Then, they tell their unemployed recent grads about alternative careers such as this one, and it’s absolutely no help.
I do agree that ‘blame isn’t going to solve your problem’ (although there is some psychological value to it), but there’s not really many resources out there to help recent graduates. That may not be anyone’s fault, the economy is what it is, and it’s not like career services made it that way. But, telling people who have applied to hundreds of jobs that there’s plenty of jobs that want them isn’t helpful.
[For the record, if there is one (and I suspect there’s not), I have found something else. I’m just about finished with the first draft of a comedy book. I know, it sounds about as ridiculous as calling Cooley the #2 law school, but I regularly have articles featured on a very popular humor website (Alexa rank 1,283), which means I’ve built up an extremely valuable marketing asset as I can advertise the book in future articles.
Just because I’m not yet willing to become a Dilbert or fold shirts at The Gap doesn’t mean I’m not working. But, this is definitely not something I’m doing ‘with my law degree’ any more than it is something I’m doing ‘with the pig and rat stuffed animals on my desk.’]
Why is it that you find it important to note that there’s “not really many resources out there to help recent graduates” Resources? You mean like your brain and your own two hands? Is everything in your world a matter of someone else whose duty it is to make your life better or easier? God, has my generation screwed you kids up.
And since you’ve chosen comedy as your potential future, bear in mind that brevity is the soul of wit.
I never said it was anyone’s duty to make my life better or easier. But, I think it’s probably worth noting how incredibly hard it is to find a job in a recession with absolutely no guidance.
You can’t raise a generation of adult children and then complain that they’re adult children. Well, literally you can complain, but the younger generation doesn’t have to take your complaint seriously. If you want us to turn down our stereo, you have to invite us to your barbecue.
A lot of lawyers, either having retired or decided at some point mid-career that law wasn’t for them (anymore)–have gone into the US Foreign Service.
A JD is not a prerequisite; in fact, no degree of any kind is required. But a legal education with or without experience can well serve to advance a Foreign Service career. It can be in dealing with issues as varied as visa law or intellectual property law. State and other foreign affairs agencies do, of course, have their own legal council offices, open only to JDs who have passed the bar. But they also field jobs that deal with law enforcement, international laws, and assisting in the design of legal education in developing countries.
Promotions come not only from how well you do the job, but with what you bring to the job to enable it to be done better.
Those who work in the formal Legal Counsel’s office earn competitive wages, not FS or GS wage grades, btw.
It’s not that there’s a lack of pro bono work.
Scott’s made this point before; a lot of the unemployed JDs sitting around whining aren’t really interested in being lawyers. They want to live large in the city and thought being a lawyer would give them the money they need for that.
Law is a great business. You get a piece of paper that lets you do anything in the profession. You have the same piece of paper as David Boies, Joseph Jamail, Gerald Hosier, Peter Angelos and other great lawyers.
But there is a big catch. Law schools teach you ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It is entirely up to you how to figure out the game.
Lawyers keep the real secrets close to their vest. Working at a law firm is the best way to start and learn the fundamentals, but remember that your partners/bosses are keeping the real secrets of the game (especially business secrets) from you (and their other potential competitiors).
But when you put in the work to figure this out, it is a great business.
Well yeah, but that’s kinda the issue discussed in a few dozen other posts around here, and it’s better to stick to the specific topic at hand.