Plumbers apprentice so that they may become well trained and certified master plumbers. I am in law school so that I may gain the qualifications and certification necessary to be a lawyer and attain a job as one. To me, the function of law school is to provide training for a trade: the trade of lawyering. I do not believe that there is anything that makes the law and the trade of lawyering any more venerable than other trades such as plumbing, electrical work, and vehicle repair.

• Do you believe lawyering is not about producing justice? Or do you believe there is nothing more venerable about justice than plumbing?

We have made indoor plumbing, electricity, and vehicular transportation such an integrated part of our lives that the absence of technicians capable of sustaining these functions would have as much of a disruptive effect as the absence of people capable of lawyering.

• The clear implication is that you mean to have clients in the same direct sense that a car mechanic does. Most of the people who go to school here don't have individual human clients. Did you mean to distinguish your intentions in this way?

I have no pretension about what I am doing. I am in law school to become a tradesman and render my services to those who seek it.

• How would you explain your position to a client who expected you to produce justice? Would you deny that justice exists, call it a pretension, or would you urge the client to retain a different lawyer?

-- JonathanGuerra - 29 Jan 2009