The Contrived Path to Lawyering

-- By EllisaKim - 23 Feb 2024

How can you commit before you know

The path to the legal profession appears contrived and inorganic when compared. Use the language of romance to describe how jaded 3Ls become first-year associates at law firms with their minted licenses, and the contrivance is thrown into sharp relief.

A vast majority of folks who once described themselves as aspiring lawyers in their law school personal statements, leave school with a big law job. I wager that the authors of these personal statements didn’t know what lawyering meant or felt like but for the fact that they were a paralegal, had a lawyer in the family, loved language (and lawyers fight with words apparently), or perceived some sort of injustice in the world and was purportedly inspired to singlehandedly fix it with a piece of paper that authorizes you to practice law in certain states. But the process from applying to law school to graduating and to entering the legal profession feels like a masquerade—an awkward social dance.

Imagine you had to know for certain that you wanted to marry someone before deciding to date them, that you had to know you wanted to date them seriously before asking for their number. You might’ve formed preconceived notions of what dating or marrying this person would look like based on anecdotes, but you haven’t yet talked to this person. This is practically a stranger. You muster up your courage and walk up to this person, in the hopes of initiating a conversation. They are surrounded by potential suitors and mostly ignore you, but when you finally grab their attention for a fleeting moment, they ask: Are you certain you want to marry me? Do you know what your life with me will look like? You have to know what you’re getting yourself into before asking me out.

This is what law school demands: that you know before taking out a six-figure loan to pay tuition. Are you certain you want to be a lawyer? Do you know what kind of lawyer you want to be? You have no idea how to answer these questions since you’ve never been a lawyer or gone to law school. Another catch is that law school may teach you what the law is but puts much less emphasis on how to lawyer, and the two are apparently very different.

The drama around a candidate’s commitment to law school and the legal profession is due to the inordinate amount of cost to pay upfront to even start on the path of becoming a lawyer. The horror story used to scare off rookies entering or attempting to enter the world of the legal profession is that you go to law school only to realize five years later glaring into the monitor that you never wanted to do this and that you still have student loans to pay off. Get your foot in the door; but if the cost of getting your foot in the door is three years of your life, hefty student loans, plus heightened insecurity from being a straight-B student, is it worth it? Law school admissions demands you know your answer to these questions before applying since the years to come after your foot is in the door are more grueling. But how can you commit to law school and lawyering if you’ve never done either and have to decide based on your far-fetched notions about what they are?

We are complicated animals

Another troubling assumption deeply ingrained in the law school application and hiring process is that most of us have a clear motive for starting on this path and that there was an identifiable moment that gave rise to the reason we applied. Law schools and employers alike ask students to convince them of how dedicated they are and for what reason as if there could ever be a coherent narrative about why people are drawn to things they are. Answers to the “why law” question are often deceptively simple, although applicants and interviewers alike find comfort in the sweet simplicity.

As complicated animals, we are pulled in many directions and drawn to things for reasons that are difficult to recognize, identify, or articulate. The supposed moment of clarity when the light bulb should’ve gone off in my head and when I should’ve realized I wanted to go to law school to become a lawyer never happened to me—the decision was rather a culmination of feelings and thoughts over a long time.

The bread-and-butter argument

For the most part, I don’t have a lofty reason for coming to law school—there wasn’t a great cause to fight for that led me down this path. Perhaps our culture takes the dreamy notion of ambition and career slightly too far. Not to dismiss the importance of enjoying what one does for a living and feeling the sense of contributing to the lives of others, for me, and for many others, the primary function of lawyering is a job that provides financial stability and, freedom (if you’re lucky). If I sound jaded, I am very excited about my internship this upcoming summer which will give me the opportunity to work in a Juvenile Right’s Practice trial office. But let’s be clear: although I screamed in excitement when I got the offer, thinking I would be able to gain litigation experience and work for a cause I deeply care about, protecting children’s rights in court was not the reason I decided to come to law school. The reason is too amorphous, broad, and centered around livelihood that it’s not captured by one exciting summer opportunity.

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