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DavidGoldinSecondPaper 6 - 05 Jun 2010 - Main.DavidGoldin
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| | | Is this the arc you’re attempting to create? If so, I think your focus should be on eliminating some of the hubris (Maine Sardine Workers), and refocusing on logically linking each of these steps. How does wanting to work specifically in the pharmaceutical industry actually address the role of the changed economy? How will your “access” and “dialogue” actually keep you from hurting people? | |
<
< | If not, focus on clarifying what that arc is. There are other potential stories in here – you need to pick the one that is the real story, and move it to the forefront. | >
> | If not, focus on clarifying what that arc is. There are other potential stories in here – you need to pick the one that is the real story, and move it to the forefront. | | | | |
>
> |
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> | Paul, | | | | |
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> | Thank you for the specific comments/feedback. It seems as though the paper didn't achieve it's intended goal, so I'll start by stating it in a few sentences, then will work on figuring out the best way to get across what I need to. | | | | |
>
> | Basically, I thought that this paper assignment was a good opportunity to reflect upon a few of the ways in which I've changed this year. Every year that I've been in school (since 10th grade), I have started the school year by writing down 3 goals which I want to achieve by the end of the school year. My goals for my senior year of college were to raise my GPA, get a full time job and to read four books purely for pleasure over the course of the year. These were pretty basic, unexciting goals and I achieved all three. I still have a copy of the goals (handwritten) in my desk with check marks next to each. | | | | |
>
> | This year, my goals in September were to get a high-paying job for the summer, get good grades and to help my parents out more. Two of them are relatively similar to those from senior year of college (grades, job). By the end of the year, however, the first two were no longer my driving goals. I'd still like to do well in school and could use some money, but these aren't shaping my decisions in the way that past goals of mine did. | | | | |
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< | # * Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = TWikiAdminGroup, DavidGoldin | >
> | This has never happened to me before. I've never experienced such a significant shift in one year. My goal with this paper was to reflect a bit upon some of the factors that caused this shift (changing economy, people I've met, Eben's class) and the ways in which I'm coping with it. I've changed, and these are some of the steps I'm taking to deal with it. This is meant to be a reflective piece - my argument isn't that I've picked the perfect path (because I probably haven't), hence the somewhat non-linear structure. I'm not trying to prove a specific point (i.e. oranges are better than apples) but instead to look at myself and express my findings in written form.
I hope this clarifies things a bit and that the changes I've made to the paper get this across a bit better.
-David
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DavidGoldinSecondPaper 5 - 18 May 2010 - Main.PaulSmith
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| | | The World is Changing | |
<
< | Everything is different now. We've discussed a multitude of issues in this class, but for better or worse, the one that has resonated most strongly with me is that the big law firm model of selling hours is no longer viable and that employment structure of a part of the legal field has changed dramatically. Even if we want to, we can no longer count on pawning our licenses for $160,000 per year. Coming into this semester, my plan was to stick my head in the sand. Before law school, I spent two years working at a big Wall Street law firm that fired a number of people. I knew that things were changing. But this wasn't going to deter me. I was going to go to EIP and snag that one last position at X & Y LLP, where I would serendipitously not be furloughed or laid off and would end up making partner and getting paid $3 million a year. And I would do this all without hurting anyone. Now, I realize that if I want to achieve what I came to law school for, as I discussed in my introduction 3 months ago, I need to give up this fantasy. | >
> | Everything is different now. We've discussed a multitude of issues in this class, but for better or worse, the one that has resonated most strongly with me is that the big law firm model of selling hours is no longer viable and that employment structure of a part of the legal field has changed dramatically. Even if we want to, we can no longer count on pawning our licenses for $160,000 per year. Coming into this semester, my plan was to stick my head in the sand. Before law school, I spent two years working at a big Wall Street law firm that fired a number of people. I knew that things were changing. But this wasn't going to deter me. I was going to go to EIP and snag that one last position at X & Y LLP, where I would serendipitously not be furloughed or laid off and would end up making partner and getting paid $3 million a year. And I would do this all without hurting anyone. Now, I realize that if I want to achieve what I came to law school for, as I discussed in my introduction 3 months ago, I need to give up this fantasy. | | | It is easy for me to pity myself and to bemoan the plight of us lawyers-to-be in the Columbia Law School Class of 2012. But it is important to take a step back and realize that the world isn't just changing for us - it's changing for non-lawyers as well. One of the main industries of coastal Maine was canning. The industry "employed thousands of workers at more than 50 canneries". Now, the last one is about to go out of business. As the sardine canning factories that used to dot the coast of Maine disappear, so do the $18 an hour jobs that came with them. People who have worked at the factories for over 40 years are losing their jobs. Unemployment will soon get even higher, and this already impoverished part of Maine will become even poorer. | |
<
< | %BLUE& | >
> | | | | I have trouble seeing how this is relevant. You seem to be using a very specific example, described in detail, to establish that it’s easier to make a good plan now than it is to change a bad plan later. I’m not sure this point is really necessary, and if it is, I’m pretty sure it could be captured in a sentence rather than a paragraph.
A New Path | | | So, how am I going to go about this? As Eben has pointed out, it isn't something that I can learn in Torts, or by having my resume reviewed by a career counselor in Jerome Green Annex, or even by attending a touchy feely workshop from 12:10 to 1:10 about the changing legal market. My plan is a simple one: first, to pick something that interests me, and then to figure out a way that I can do work in the field that will allow me to be the type of lawyer that I want to be. Perhaps this is a naïve approach. Perhaps I will fail. Perhaps I won't be able to find meaningful legal work in the areas that interest me most. But I have two more years of law school to test the waters, and as I stated earlier, I now have an idea of what not to do, and an idea of what I'd like to learn. | |
<
< | %BLUE& You just slammed the specific opportunities that law school offers, and then turned around and said law school would broadly give you the meaningful opportunity to “test the waters." Elaborate more on what opportunities you’re going to be able to take advantage of now that you wouldn’t have before, or cut one of the two contradicting statements -- otherwise the whole paragraph comes across as disingenuous. | >
> | You just slammed the specific opportunities that law school offers, and then turned around and said law school would broadly give you the meaningful opportunity to “test the waters." Elaborate more on what opportunities you’re going to be able to take advantage of now that you wouldn’t have before, or cut one of the two contradicting statements -- otherwise the whole paragraph comes across as disingenuous. | | | The Immediate Future |
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DavidGoldinSecondPaper 4 - 18 May 2010 - Main.PaulSmith
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| | | The World is Changing | |
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< | Everything is different now. We've discussed a multitude of issues in this class, but for better or worse, the one that has resonated most strongly with me is that the big law firm model of selling hours is no longer viable and that employment structure of a part of the legal field has changed dramatically. Even if we want to, we can no longer count on pawning our licenses for $160,000 per year. Coming into this semester, my plan was to stick my head in the sand. Before law school, I spent two years working at a big Wall Street law firm that fired a number of people. I knew that things were changing. But this wasn't going to deter me. I was going to go to EIP and snag that one last position at X & Y LLP, where I would serendipitously not be furloughed or laid off and would end up making partner and getting paid $3 million a year. And I would do this all without hurting anyone. Now, I realize that if I want to achieve what I came to law school for, as I discussed in my introduction 3 months ago, I need to give up this fantasy. | >
> | Everything is different now. We've discussed a multitude of issues in this class, but for better or worse, the one that has resonated most strongly with me is that the big law firm model of selling hours is no longer viable and that employment structure of a part of the legal field has changed dramatically. Even if we want to, we can no longer count on pawning our licenses for $160,000 per year. Coming into this semester, my plan was to stick my head in the sand. Before law school, I spent two years working at a big Wall Street law firm that fired a number of people. I knew that things were changing. But this wasn't going to deter me. I was going to go to EIP and snag that one last position at X & Y LLP, where I would serendipitously not be furloughed or laid off and would end up making partner and getting paid $3 million a year. And I would do this all without hurting anyone. Now, I realize that if I want to achieve what I came to law school for, as I discussed in my introduction 3 months ago, I need to give up this fantasy. | | | It is easy for me to pity myself and to bemoan the plight of us lawyers-to-be in the Columbia Law School Class of 2012. But it is important to take a step back and realize that the world isn't just changing for us - it's changing for non-lawyers as well. One of the main industries of coastal Maine was canning. The industry "employed thousands of workers at more than 50 canneries". Now, the last one is about to go out of business. As the sardine canning factories that used to dot the coast of Maine disappear, so do the $18 an hour jobs that came with them. People who have worked at the factories for over 40 years are losing their jobs. Unemployment will soon get even higher, and this already impoverished part of Maine will become even poorer. | |
>
> | %BLUE&
I have trouble seeing how this is relevant. You seem to be using a very specific example, described in detail, to establish that it’s easier to make a good plan now than it is to change a bad plan later. I’m not sure this point is really necessary, and if it is, I’m pretty sure it could be captured in a sentence rather than a paragraph.
| | | A New Path
Unlike the sardine packer of 40 years, however, I am just beginning on my career path. Following the road that many Columbia Law students have taken before me may no longer be a viable option, but I now understand this is a good thing. It is far easier to develop a realistic plan now than it would be to start anew after being laid off by a law firm, or a sardine cannery, for that matter. | |
<
< | In addition to accepting that the big law firm model no longer works, I have also come to realize that there are two issues that are particularly important to consider in developing my legal career - the effect that my actions as a lawyer will have on others and how I can separate myself from the masses. In a most basic sense, I don’t want to do more harm than good and I need to develop a niche. I did not need a semester long class to teach me this. These are seemingly simple points, and can be communicated easily. This class has impressed upon me that my real work for the rest of law school is going to be figuring out how to incorporate these into a career plan. | >
> | In addition to accepting that the big law firm model no longer works, I have also come to realize that there are two issues that are particularly important to consider in developing my legal career - the effect that my actions as a lawyer will have on others and how I can separate myself from the masses. In a most basic sense, I don’t want to do more harm than good and I need to develop a niche. I did not need a semester long class to teach me this. These are seemingly simple points, and can be communicated easily. This class has impressed upon me that my real work for the rest of law school is going to be figuring out how to incorporate these into a career plan. | | |
Starting Out
So, how am I going to go about this? As Eben has pointed out, it isn't something that I can learn in Torts, or by having my resume reviewed by a career counselor in Jerome Green Annex, or even by attending a touchy feely workshop from 12:10 to 1:10 about the changing legal market. My plan is a simple one: first, to pick something that interests me, and then to figure out a way that I can do work in the field that will allow me to be the type of lawyer that I want to be. Perhaps this is a naïve approach. Perhaps I will fail. Perhaps I won't be able to find meaningful legal work in the areas that interest me most. But I have two more years of law school to test the waters, and as I stated earlier, I now have an idea of what not to do, and an idea of what I'd like to learn. | |
>
> | %BLUE& You just slammed the specific opportunities that law school offers, and then turned around and said law school would broadly give you the meaningful opportunity to “test the waters." Elaborate more on what opportunities you’re going to be able to take advantage of now that you wouldn’t have before, or cut one of the two contradicting statements -- otherwise the whole paragraph comes across as disingenuous. | | | The Immediate Future | |
<
< | I've already started thinking about this. I know what interests me - prescription drug policy. Prescription drugs have helped shape the world that we live in - penicillin, for example, has turned strep throat from a life threatening disease into a minor ailment, and has extended the life spans of millions. But there are a huge number of problems with the way that these drugs are patented, marketed and priced. We need to figure out a way to fund research and development of the new drugs that will help people in the future without making drugs today so expensive that those who need them the most are unable to afford them. This is what interests me, and this is a field that I believe needs good lawyers. | >
> | I've already started thinking about this. I know what interests me - prescription drug policy. Prescription drugs have helped shape the world that we live in - penicillin, for example, has turned strep throat from a life threatening disease into a minor ailment, and has extended the life spans of millions. But there are a huge number of problems with the way that these drugs are patented, marketed and priced. We need to figure out a way to fund research and development of the new drugs that will help people in the future without making drugs today so expensive that those who need them the most are unable to afford them. This is what interests me, and this is a field that I believe needs good lawyers. | | | | |
<
< | Because of that, I will be working in the legal department of a drug company this summer. I want to gain more experience in the industry and learn about how drug companies operate. Ideally, this will actually happen. It may not. But this is just a first step. Hopefully, I will eventually gain the knowledge necessary to contribute meaningfully to the discourse on the issue and access to those who make the decisions that matter. | >
> | Because of that, I will be working in the legal department of a drug company this summer. I want to gain more experience in the industry and learn about how drug companies operate. Ideally, this will actually happen. It may not. But this is just a first step. Hopefully, I will eventually gain the knowledge necessary to contribute meaningfully to the discourse on the issue and access to those who make the decisions that matter. | | | If anything, this class has forced me to pull my head out of the sand and think meaningfully about the ways I can use my license to fight for change where I believe it is needed most. I am looking forward to using the next two years to try and do this.
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>
> |
Hey David -- I got really verbose, so I summarized the principal problem I saw, and then included a more detailed critique. I’m hoping to come back and rewrite some of the paper itself over the next couple of days – but since the subject matter is so personal, I think it would mainly be tightening up what exists, to give space to answer the unanswered questions below.
SUMMARY
I read this paper as tracking how your goals and plans to reach those goals changed (or didn’t change) over the course of the semester. Very basically, I understood it as:
At T1 you have goal G1 and plan P1. Then, there were two intervening events, E1 and E2. Subsequently, at T2 you had G2 and P2.
You define E1 and E2: this semesters classes and the changed economy.
You define P1 and P2: random job at EIP and specializing in prescription drug policy.
However, you never fully elaborate what your goals are at either point in time. What are G1 and G2? Are they the same or different? What made them change – E1 or E2? Why? All of this is ambiguous. This also makes it unclear what goals P1 and P2 are attempting to reach and which intervening event made them change.
The result is a paper where, in addition to the basic building blocks being unclear, the first and second half don’t seem to be in dialogue with each other.
DETAILS
1. Did your career goals change over the course of the semester?
The final sentence of the first paragraph suggests that your goals have remained static, but your means to reach them have changed: “Now, I realize that if I want to achieve what I came to law school for, as I discussed in my introduction 3 months ago, I need to give up this fantasy.” Off the bat, you really need to include these goals directly in the paper itself. It is confusing as it currently is – the first paragraph suggests your pre-law school goals were making $160,000 to $3,000,000 a year without hurting anyone. However, your intro included intellectual satisfaction and having a “tangible impact on things that matter” to you. This inconsistency makes it unclear what your goals were before this semester – making tracking any evolution pretty difficult.
After suggesting your goals remained the same, the paper proceeds to introduce potentially new goals. You claim that you have “come to realize” that you need to develop a niche and not do more harm than good. These two statements are distinct from the two omitted intro goals, but “developing a niche” seems related to intellectual satisfaction, and not “doing more harm than good” seems related to impacting the “things that matter.” By not establishing that you did have very related goals at the outset of your legal education, you make them seem more novel than they probably are. If they are novel, I’d emphasize how they are distinct from the other two goals from your intro.
Looking into these two categories – the “niche” category and the “do good” category – more questions arise. The “niche” category is discussed more under my next question. The “do good” category seems to be a direct goal in and of itself. However, this goal's evolution is not clear, despite the central role it plays in the paper.
Your intro says that you wanted to “have an impact” on what matters to you. Did you actively want to do good in the world? If so, your goal seems to have shifted from actively doing good to nonfeasance – not doing more harm than good. Or was “what matters to you” limited to your wallet and your intellectual satisfaction? If so, the “realization” you claim in the paper would seem more logical – but that seems like a questionable interpretation.
If your ethical goals did not actually change then all the discussion about the ethical motivations of your employment in the pharmaceutical industry seems questionable. “How I intend to change the pharmaceutical industry” could be the topic of a paper, but if you have always been concerned about doing good, it doesn’t seem to fit in with this papers discussion of “endings” and “beginnings.”
If your goals did in fact change there is a problem with the relevancy of the initial discussion of the changing economy. If you have different goals now than you did before, why should an economic change which precluded you from achieving your old goal also preclude you from achieving your new one? It may, but I don’t think you’d be able to take it as assumed.
The ambiguity surrounding the importance of these ethical concerns undermines the weight they carry in the paper. You start the paper saying you don’t think you’ll be able to get the high-paying job you want through EIP, and you close suggesting you’re dedicating your life to fixing the pharmaceutical industry. As it stands, I’m unconvinced. It seems to me that now you think you can’t get that job through EIP, but you can through specialization. Though your ethical concerns are somewhat convincing in isolation, when read in dialogue with the first part of the paper they seem more like window dressing than an actual driving force.
2. Which are goals, and which are the plans to reach those goals?
It is also difficult to distinguish what are ultimate goals, and what are means to those goals. For example, realizing that you need to find a niche seems to be both a new goal and a means to reach your old goal. This relates to some of the previously discussed confusion -- if “finding a niche” is in fact a new goal, you need to make the economic change relevant to finding new means to reach that particular goal. If “finding a niche” is in fact a new means to reach your old goals in light of the new economy, I think you should communicate it as such, and explore more actively how it will help reach those goals.
Despite the initial emphasis on difficulty finding a job, the final section seems to assume that once you pick a niche, you will be able to find a job. So the only relevant discussion is whether that job satisfies your ethical requirements. I’m not sure you made a strong enough case for the “niche”/specialization strategy being a cure-all for finding a job after the economic change to let you rely on this assumption.
Again, over the semester, did your principal goal stop being getting a high paying job? If so, say so, and some of these problems will go away. If not, then you really need to explore how this career plan is actually any different from the one you discussed as foreclosed in the beginning section. Otherwise, the beginning and end of the paper really don’t seem to be in dialogue with each other.
3. What is the basic thesis?
Trying to reduce this down to an oversimplified summary, the most likely arc I could find was: “I wanted to make money and not hurt people. The economy made it hard to make money randomly through EIP placements. Eben’s class made me realize it’s really easy to hurt people. So now I’m going to specialize in an interesting area, and get a job that way. Then I’m going to mitigate the harm I may do to people in the short term by gaining access to people who make decisions in the long term.”
Is this the arc you’re attempting to create? If so, I think your focus should be on eliminating some of the hubris (Maine Sardine Workers), and refocusing on logically linking each of these steps. How does wanting to work specifically in the pharmaceutical industry actually address the role of the changed economy? How will your “access” and “dialogue” actually keep you from hurting people?
If not, focus on clarifying what that arc is. There are other potential stories in here – you need to pick the one that is the real story, and move it to the forefront.
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DavidGoldinSecondPaper 3 - 17 Apr 2010 - Main.DavidGoldin
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| | | The World is Changing | |
<
< | Everything is different now. We've discussed a multitude of issues in this class, but for better or worse, the one that has resonated most strongly with me is that the big law firm model of selling hours is no longer viable and that employment structure of the legal field has changed dramatically. Even if we want to, we can no longer count on pawning our licenses for $160,000 per year. Coming into this semester, my plan was to stick my head in the sand. Before coming to law school, I spent two years working at a big Wall Street law firm that fired a large number of people and I knew that things were changing. But this wasn't going to deter me. I was going to go to EIP and snag that one last position at X & Y LLP, where I would serendipitously not be furloughed or laid off and would end up making partner and getting paid $3 million a year. And I would do this all without hurting anyone. Now, I realize that if I want to achieve what I came to law school for, which I wrote about in my introduction, I need to give up this fantasy. | >
> | Everything is different now. We've discussed a multitude of issues in this class, but for better or worse, the one that has resonated most strongly with me is that the big law firm model of selling hours is no longer viable and that employment structure of a part of the legal field has changed dramatically. Even if we want to, we can no longer count on pawning our licenses for $160,000 per year. Coming into this semester, my plan was to stick my head in the sand. Before law school, I spent two years working at a big Wall Street law firm that fired a number of people. I knew that things were changing. But this wasn't going to deter me. I was going to go to EIP and snag that one last position at X & Y LLP, where I would serendipitously not be furloughed or laid off and would end up making partner and getting paid $3 million a year. And I would do this all without hurting anyone. Now, I realize that if I want to achieve what I came to law school for, as I discussed in my introduction 3 months ago, I need to give up this fantasy. | | | | |
<
< | It is easy for me to pity myself and to bemoan the plight of us lawyers-to-be in the Columbia Law School class of 2012. But it is important to take a step back and realize that the world isn't just changing for us - it's changing for non-lawyers as well. One of the main industries of coastal Maine was canning. The industry "employed thousands of workers at more than 50 canneries". Now, the last one is about to go out of business. As the sardine canning factories that used to dot the coast of Maine disappear, so do the $18 an hour jobs that came with them. People who have worked at the factories for over 40 years are losing their jobs. Unemployment will soon get even higher, and this impoverished part of Maine will become even poorer. | >
> | It is easy for me to pity myself and to bemoan the plight of us lawyers-to-be in the Columbia Law School Class of 2012. But it is important to take a step back and realize that the world isn't just changing for us - it's changing for non-lawyers as well. One of the main industries of coastal Maine was canning. The industry "employed thousands of workers at more than 50 canneries". Now, the last one is about to go out of business. As the sardine canning factories that used to dot the coast of Maine disappear, so do the $18 an hour jobs that came with them. People who have worked at the factories for over 40 years are losing their jobs. Unemployment will soon get even higher, and this already impoverished part of Maine will become even poorer. | | | A New Path | |
<
< | Unlike the sardine packer of 50 years, however, I am just beginning on my career path. Following the road that many Columbia Law students have taken before me may no longer be a viable option, but I now understand this is a good thing. It is far easier to develop a realistic plan now than it would be to start anew after being laid off by a law firm, or a sardine cannery, for that matter. | >
> | Unlike the sardine packer of 40 years, however, I am just beginning on my career path. Following the road that many Columbia Law students have taken before me may no longer be a viable option, but I now understand this is a good thing. It is far easier to develop a realistic plan now than it would be to start anew after being laid off by a law firm, or a sardine cannery, for that matter. | | | | |
<
< | In addition to accepting that the big law firm model is no longer viable, I have also come to realize that there are two issues that are particularly important to consider in developing my legal career - the effect that my actions will have on others and how I can separate myself from the masses. In a most basic sense, I don't want to do more harm than good and I need to develop a niche. I did not need a semester long class to teach me this. These are seemingly simple points, and can be communicated easily. This class has impressed upon me that my real work for the rest of law school is going to be figuring out how to incorporate these into a viable career plan. | >
> | In addition to accepting that the big law firm model no longer works, I have also come to realize that there are two issues that are particularly important to consider in developing my legal career - the effect that my actions as a lawyer will have on others and how I can separate myself from the masses. In a most basic sense, I don’t want to do more harm than good and I need to develop a niche. I did not need a semester long class to teach me this. These are seemingly simple points, and can be communicated easily. This class has impressed upon me that my real work for the rest of law school is going to be figuring out how to incorporate these into a career plan. | | |
Starting Out | |
<
< | So, how am I going to go about this? As Eben has pointed out, it isn't something that I can learn in Torts, or by having my resume reviewed by a career counselor in Jerome Green Annex, or even by attending a touchy feely workshop from 12:10 to 1:10 about the changing legal market. My plan is a simple one: first, to pick something that interests me, and then figure out a way that I can do work in the field that will allow me to be the type of lawyer that I want to be. Perhaps this is a naïve approach. Perhaps I will fail. Perhaps I won't be able to find meaningful legal work in the areas that interest me most. But I have two more years of law school to test the waters, and as I stated earlier, I now have an idea of what not to do, and an idea of what I'd like to learn. | >
> | So, how am I going to go about this? As Eben has pointed out, it isn't something that I can learn in Torts, or by having my resume reviewed by a career counselor in Jerome Green Annex, or even by attending a touchy feely workshop from 12:10 to 1:10 about the changing legal market. My plan is a simple one: first, to pick something that interests me, and then to figure out a way that I can do work in the field that will allow me to be the type of lawyer that I want to be. Perhaps this is a naïve approach. Perhaps I will fail. Perhaps I won't be able to find meaningful legal work in the areas that interest me most. But I have two more years of law school to test the waters, and as I stated earlier, I now have an idea of what not to do, and an idea of what I'd like to learn. | | | The Immediate Future | |
<
< | I've already started thinking about this. I know what interests me - prescription drug policy. Prescription drugs have helped shape the world that we live in - penicillin, for example, has turned strep throat from a life threatening disease into a minor ailment, and has extended the life spans of millions. But there are a huge number of problems with the way that these drugs are patented, marketed and priced. We need to figure out a way to fund research and development of the new drugs that will help many in the future without making drugs today so expensive that those who need them the most are unable to afford them. This is what interests me, and this is a field that I believe needs good lawyers. | >
> | I've already started thinking about this. I know what interests me - prescription drug policy. Prescription drugs have helped shape the world that we live in - penicillin, for example, has turned strep throat from a life threatening disease into a minor ailment, and has extended the life spans of millions. But there are a huge number of problems with the way that these drugs are patented, marketed and priced. We need to figure out a way to fund research and development of the new drugs that will help people in the future without making drugs today so expensive that those who need them the most are unable to afford them. This is what interests me, and this is a field that I believe needs good lawyers. | | | Because of that, I will be working in the legal department of a drug company this summer. I want to gain more experience in the industry and learn about how drug companies operate. Ideally, this will actually happen. It may not. But this is just a first step. Hopefully, I will eventually gain the knowledge necessary to contribute meaningfully to the discourse on the issue and access to those who make the decisions that matter. | |
<
< | If anything, this class has forced me to pull my head out of the sand and think meaningfully about the ways I can use my license to fight for change where I believe it is needed most. I am looking forward to using the next two years to do this. | >
> | If anything, this class has forced me to pull my head out of the sand and think meaningfully about the ways I can use my license to fight for change where I believe it is needed most. I am looking forward to using the next two years to try and do this. | | |
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DavidGoldinSecondPaper 2 - 16 Apr 2010 - Main.DavidGoldin
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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. | | | | |
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> | An Ending and a Beginning | | | -- By DavidGoldin - 14 Apr 2010 | |
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> | The World is Changing | | | | |
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> | Everything is different now. We've discussed a multitude of issues in this class, but for better or worse, the one that has resonated most strongly with me is that the big law firm model of selling hours is no longer viable and that employment structure of the legal field has changed dramatically. Even if we want to, we can no longer count on pawning our licenses for $160,000 per year. Coming into this semester, my plan was to stick my head in the sand. Before coming to law school, I spent two years working at a big Wall Street law firm that fired a large number of people and I knew that things were changing. But this wasn't going to deter me. I was going to go to EIP and snag that one last position at X & Y LLP, where I would serendipitously not be furloughed or laid off and would end up making partner and getting paid $3 million a year. And I would do this all without hurting anyone. Now, I realize that if I want to achieve what I came to law school for, which I wrote about in my introduction, I need to give up this fantasy. | | | | |
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> | It is easy for me to pity myself and to bemoan the plight of us lawyers-to-be in the Columbia Law School class of 2012. But it is important to take a step back and realize that the world isn't just changing for us - it's changing for non-lawyers as well. One of the main industries of coastal Maine was canning. The industry "employed thousands of workers at more than 50 canneries". Now, the last one is about to go out of business. As the sardine canning factories that used to dot the coast of Maine disappear, so do the $18 an hour jobs that came with them. People who have worked at the factories for over 40 years are losing their jobs. Unemployment will soon get even higher, and this impoverished part of Maine will become even poorer. | | | | |
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> | A New Path | | | | |
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> | Unlike the sardine packer of 50 years, however, I am just beginning on my career path. Following the road that many Columbia Law students have taken before me may no longer be a viable option, but I now understand this is a good thing. It is far easier to develop a realistic plan now than it would be to start anew after being laid off by a law firm, or a sardine cannery, for that matter. | | | | |
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> | In addition to accepting that the big law firm model is no longer viable, I have also come to realize that there are two issues that are particularly important to consider in developing my legal career - the effect that my actions will have on others and how I can separate myself from the masses. In a most basic sense, I don't want to do more harm than good and I need to develop a niche. I did not need a semester long class to teach me this. These are seemingly simple points, and can be communicated easily. This class has impressed upon me that my real work for the rest of law school is going to be figuring out how to incorporate these into a viable career plan. | | | | |
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> | Starting Out | | | | |
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> | So, how am I going to go about this? As Eben has pointed out, it isn't something that I can learn in Torts, or by having my resume reviewed by a career counselor in Jerome Green Annex, or even by attending a touchy feely workshop from 12:10 to 1:10 about the changing legal market. My plan is a simple one: first, to pick something that interests me, and then figure out a way that I can do work in the field that will allow me to be the type of lawyer that I want to be. Perhaps this is a naïve approach. Perhaps I will fail. Perhaps I won't be able to find meaningful legal work in the areas that interest me most. But I have two more years of law school to test the waters, and as I stated earlier, I now have an idea of what not to do, and an idea of what I'd like to learn. | | | | |
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> | The Immediate Future | | | | |
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> | I've already started thinking about this. I know what interests me - prescription drug policy. Prescription drugs have helped shape the world that we live in - penicillin, for example, has turned strep throat from a life threatening disease into a minor ailment, and has extended the life spans of millions. But there are a huge number of problems with the way that these drugs are patented, marketed and priced. We need to figure out a way to fund research and development of the new drugs that will help many in the future without making drugs today so expensive that those who need them the most are unable to afford them. This is what interests me, and this is a field that I believe needs good lawyers. | | | | |
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> | Because of that, I will be working in the legal department of a drug company this summer. I want to gain more experience in the industry and learn about how drug companies operate. Ideally, this will actually happen. It may not. But this is just a first step. Hopefully, I will eventually gain the knowledge necessary to contribute meaningfully to the discourse on the issue and access to those who make the decisions that matter. | | | | |
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> | If anything, this class has forced me to pull my head out of the sand and think meaningfully about the ways I can use my license to fight for change where I believe it is needed most. I am looking forward to using the next two years to do this. | | |
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DavidGoldinSecondPaper 1 - 14 Apr 2010 - Main.DavidGoldin
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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.
Paper Title
-- By DavidGoldin - 14 Apr 2010
Section I
Subsection A
Subsub 1
Subsection B
Subsub 1
Subsub 2
Section II
Subsection A
Subsection B
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" on the next line:
# * Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = TWikiAdminGroup, DavidGoldin
Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of that line. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated list |
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