1. I’m assuming that the skills we’ve acquired in law school are on their own not enough for us to earn a livelihood. We have to learn to apply these skills so as to perform a service for which we’ll get paid. If so, why not use the firm as a paid residency? Medical students have to pull 36 hour shifts without getting paid; why can’t we get our ‘hands on’ training from the firm and earn 160k in the process?

2. X years down the road, I’d like to open a private practice, set my own hours and practice a field of law that I want to practice. Does working at the firm provide a stable foundation (both financially and professionally) with which to advance those desires? If not, what other options are there?

3. Are future career options (e.g. in-house counsel jobs) more limited if we don’t land the big job at the big firm? Word on the street is that it plays a HUGE role.

4. How do we repay our loans as quickly and painlessly as possible? Does LRAP make any sense? Firm?

5. Is it possible to achieve a work/life balance while working at a big firm?

-- DavidM - 16 Apr 2008

I'm swayed by the idea that my husband has enjoyed his Midwest private practice career over the years. Observing him traverse his career path, but admittedly often from a fair distance, leads me to believe that I can have that, too. Given that we're talking about a non-national law firm market (specifically, Indianapolis) here, how likely am I to be mistaken in making this leap of faith?

-- BarbPitman - 16 Apr 2008

How will one become an influential writer, in the 21st century?

1. If a writer is one talented at creating audiences, will that talent still be lucrative?
   • Will it remain a matter of choosing which publisher-corporation one wants to be an advertisement for (e.g. New York Times, Columbia University, Vogue magazine ... or whichever website gets the best traffic)?
   • Or will the internet destroy publishers? will I have to call writing a "hobby?" If so, what other marketable skill should I learn?
2. What are the social diseases that the Internet will create, that I need to become equipped to protest?
   • loss of identity, information integrity, social control? ... How will these diseases spawn and spread?
   • What professional routes will permit me to be an open (or at least productive) critic of the way in which corporate marketing degrades human dignity and free choice? (paraphrase: How much more ethical are we capable of making CEOs?)
   • Can I make others feel the indignity that I feel, when I'm the victim of successful advertising? (should I?)

-- AndrewGradman - 16 Apr 2008

After Law School 1. The question often raised - whether it is a good idea to work at a firm temporarily after law school to get legal training, presumes that firms offer good training. How accurate is this notion? How does the training one receives at a large firm compare to that in other employment opportunities?

2. What does a recent law school graduate, with the limited skills gained during three years in a classroom setting, actually do on a day to day basis at a large firm?

3. I gather that clerkships offer a substantive and beneficial way to make contacts and get training right after law school. Can we list some other non-firm alternatives?

3(a). If we are interested in a certain area such as international human rights law, will going straight to working with a human rights organization cut us off from getting more thorough legal training?

Law School 1. How can we best take advantage of being in law school - ie what classes/activities - to work on our writing skills?

2. As we have often discussed, the practice of law is quickly changing in terms of becoming more international, outsourcing, etc. How can we best prepare in law school for the changing nature of the practice of law?

-- CarinaWallance - 16 Apr 2008

How do you find a mentor in your professional career who is willing to invest in your education and future?

How do you establish trust with other people, both as collaborators in your project (i.e. a team member, fellow law school student) and as clients of your projects (i.e. somebody who needs a legal problem solved)?

-- JesseCreed - 17 Apr 2008

I think my fears and questions in this area are slightly more prosaic. As a 23 year old who has never previously held down a real job and who is admittedly enamored of the student lifestyle, my biggest question is simply how do I figure out what I want/need out of life from even a purely financial point of view? I guess the answer to this is of course is that I need to look into myself, but I'm certainly worried about trying to balance the things that I would like to do for myself and the burdens that I will willingly assume (a family, etc) down the road. It just seems like a daunting task, and perhaps something of a gamble to try and make a decision about my career path now without knowing better what burdens I plan on assuming later and what "quality of life" I want have after school.

-- AlexLawrence - 17 Apr 2008

Moreover, one of my best friend's father, who is a successful lawyer, once gave me the cautionary advice that a law degree is to a certain extent a "perishable good." What he meant by this was that if you take a non-legal job (something, I for one, have thought a lot about) right out of law school you only have about 2 years to decide if you want to go back into the legal profession. Beyond that you're too far removed from law school and the knowledge isn't fresh in your head so you don't really stand a chance against the newest, youngest, and freshest set of "packaged meat." Is this true? Or maybe is it only true for corporate, big-firm, law?

Along the same lines, if you don't take a legal job right out of school, is it worth it to still take the bar after 3L year since that is when everything will be freshest in our minds? Or, for those going a non-legal route are you planning on gambling and not taking the bar on the hope that you'll be able to cram for it and pass it later if need be?

-- AlexLawrence - 17 Apr 2008