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AmandaHungerford-FirstPaper 5 - 12 Feb 2008 - Main.AmandaHungerford
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | -- By AmandaHungerford - 11 Feb 2008 | |
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> | Here is my very rough outline. A caveat: I don't really know anything about firm life, and I haven't been to any firm receptions, so a lot of this is conjecture. Please let me know if I am wrong!/you have any suggestions. Thanks. | | | | |
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< | Section I | >
> | Introduction
Arnold quote about how people become acculturated into an organization. Brief discussion on how this is not about how law school acculturates us to the Law, but instead how it acculturates us to Law Firm Culture. | | | | |
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< | Subsection A | | | | |
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> | The Application Process | | | | |
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< | Subsub 1 | | | | |
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> | Thinking in Numbers
The fact that law schools are ranked, and that decisions about which law school to attend are in large part based on those rankings, introduce us to a way of thinking will become more and more dominant in both law school and law firms. When others assign a number to everything, you don't have to do the thinking - someone else has already done it for you. | | | | |
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> | Numbers as Identity to Selves
Numbers will also come to reflect how we think of ourselves. First it is identification with the ranking of the school we attend. Then it is our GPA. Finally, it is how much money we make. | | | | |
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> | Numbers as Identity to Others
Law school begins the make us think of us as numbers. The two most important things to a law school is our GPA and our LSAT -- all the rest is fluff. Firms reinforce our identification with numbers. All those factors that used to be important (hobbies, interests, etc) don't matter to firms. They don't want to know whether we play the oboe; they want to know what our GPA is. | | | | |
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> | Decision in Numbers
Law firms, like law schools, are ranked. Again, we can make our decision based on someone else's arbitrary numerical assignment. The fact that we make a life decision (where to work) based on numbers reinforces their value in our own lives: they aren't arbitrary, they are meaningful. And if they are meaningful when describing a firm, they must be meaningful when describing me, too. | | | | |
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> | The Curve | | | | |
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< | Section II | >
> | We Can't All Be Winners
The curve is our first indication that we aren't in college anymore, Toto. We won't just be measured on our own merits, but also on the merits of others. (We got our first taste of this with the application process. The LSAT is designed to be a bell curve. And it's a curve that can't be beaten; no one will care if I get a 175 if by some freak accident everyone else that year gets a 176).
The Sociology of the Curve
In subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways the curve affects our interactions with others. In the back of our minds, helping others seems more risky, since if Classmate X gets an A, my odds of getting an A decrease. The same will be true when we get to a law firm, since only a fraction of people can make partner.
Side Thoughts
Why would law firms want to discourage collaboration in this way? Is any of this how firms "want" us to behave? Or is it just a self-perpetuating cycle, that doesn't help/hurt the firm?
Sacrificing Relationships
Unnecessary Pace
Law school doesn't need to be so time-consuming. Do we really need to read that many cases on personal jurisdiction? But having so little free time in law school gets us used to having little free time when we go to firms. By that time, sacrificing personal relationships for The Law will be standard.
I'll Do It Tomorrow
The sacrifice is always framed as a temporary one: it'll just be like this until IL is over; then, it'll just be like this until law school is over; then, it will just be like this until I make partner. By framing it thus we lose sight of how big a sacrifice we are actually making.
Forced Bonding
The pace forces us to spend time with our law students, inside and outside of the classroom. Because of the large workload, even when we're not in class, we're often thinking about law school. Because most of our experiences involve law school, the people we relate best to are other law students. We hang out more and more with law students, and then really only relate to other law students. We forget there are other lifestyles out there, and that it doesn't have to be this crazy.
Culture of Spending
Cycle of Spending
We go through the drudgery of every week looking forward to the debauchery of the weekend. We put up with boredom and tedium, and then reward ourselves by spending lots of money and getting drunk (thus forcefully forgetting how much our lives suck).
The Law School Helps
Bar Review encourages this cycle absolutely
Working for the Weekend
This practice is just short-term delayed gratification. And is it even that gratifying? It must be; everyone else is doing it. Besides, it's better than thinking about Con Law. This gets us ready for our post-CLS life, where we will do boring, intensive work every week, and then spend lots of money and get drunk every weekend to avoid thinking about it.
Firm Receptions
Firm receptions also prepare us for this cycle. They're boring, but we go to them anyway because:
- There's free stuff (food, booze, toys)
- Everyone else is doing it | | | | |
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Help me, Classmates! |
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