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JohnsonDSecondEssay 1 - 24 Apr 2016 - Main.JohnsonD
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How Fear Creates Law Firm Associates
-- By JohnsonD - 24 Apr 2016
A bad trade
As law students, we often hear stories from our classmates about how they plan on spending two or three years at a law firm and then moving on to what they really want to do. While for an exceedingly small number of young lawyers this plan might work out, for most, however, going to a big law firm is a bad tradeoff of precious time and life energy for money. Fear and anxiety of the legal industry and American economy in general impels young lawyers to make this trade. The fear of not being able to pay back debt and possible unemployment makes it easy to rationalize the choice.
Fear and anxiety in law school
This fear and anxiety is not imagined. Law students who came of age during the recession understand the tenuous position of the legal market and the US economy in general. The restructuring of many sectors of the economy makes it difficult for people without experience to get a start in any field. Rapid technological change portends a massive reorganization of human society on a large scale. Students choose to get on board the law firm train because it seems like the option with the best chance of ensuring what many in society see as success. Those who have taken a closer look at the long term prospects of law firms from a structural standpoint recognize the unworkability of the business model yet hope that the destruction comes after they have already extracted their share of the profits.
It’s all part of the plan
Top law schools perpetuate an unintuitive and unsustainable system by which students graduate law school without having learned much, if any, real lawyering skills, and are then lured into firms with the promise of learning the skills that should have been taught before they graduated. The system is highly efficient at turning idealistic students into corporate drones. Once at a firm, young lawyers are assigned work they find unfulfilling and antithetical to their beliefs. The law school gets to keep its employment numbers high, and the firms get a new batch of associates.
DO NOT TAKE THIS DEAL.
Remember why you’re here
The majority of law students came to law school because we saw an injustice in society that we wanted to correct. Once here, many of us lost sight of our initial reasons for attending and instead adopted a more practical posture. Before we give into our fear, we should at least make an attempt at doing the kind of work we initially set out to do, the kind of work that adds positive value to the world. There are still important battles that need to be fought and issues that need to be addressed. The social, economic, and political rights of people are being infringed upon in ways that lawyers are uniquely qualified to address. To use the profession solely to enrich oneself before addressing those issues is irresponsible.
Use your powers
I say this as someone who has been in the position where I had to do alienating, soul destroying work in order to survive. I still know many people whose life circumstances make it all but impossible for them to break away from the system. As students at Columbia Law School, we possess the privilege, ability, and opportunity to bypass this system and instead work directly on advancing the cause of justice in society. Before meekly acquiescing to the system as it is, we should at the very least make an attempt at doing the type of work that enriches ourselves and others. I believe that law school is a good place to learn how to do that, if we utilize our resources and skill sets correctly.
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| Revision 1 | r1 - 24 Apr 2016 - 12:28:18 - JohnsonD |
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