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The Jekyll and Hyde Components of the Legal Profession | |
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< | The training of future lawyers is made up of the duality of two contrasting forces. The first of which is trying to educate legal scholars who will go into the world with the proper legal morals and sense of justice to best serve their clients and the general population at large; we will refer to this as the Jekyll component of the legal profession. The second component, which we will refer to as the Hyde component, is the draining of these "future lawyers" of as much economic capital as possible prior to graduation driving them to seek mainly capitalistic endeavors. But is it possible for the two components to coincide as well reach their own specific goals? | >
> | The training of future lawyers is made up of one prevailing force but the system in which this force rests comes with an underlying contrasting force. The prevailing force is the law school system trying to educate legal leaders who will go into the world with the proper legal morals and sense of justice to best serve their clients and the general population at large; we will refer to this as the Jekyll component. The underlying contrasting force inspired by the capitalistic law school system, the Hyde component, is the draining of these “future lawyers” of economic capital driving them to seek mainly capitalistic endeavors upon graduation. | | | | |
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> | The underlying consequences of the current system | | | | |
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< | This
introduction notifies the reader that in order to read this
essay as the writer intended we must grant the premise that impoverishing law students is one purpose of legal education. This is not a premise the reader is likely to grant. You are making it hard for yourself to communicate, because anyone who doesn't grant this premise is likely to stop reading. Because the premise is absurd, this is likely to deprive you of all readers.
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> | Law schools pride themselves on the idea that they are instructing Jekylls, client loving and creative individuals, to go into the world swinging the hammer of justice in the name of innocent people or organizations. In reality the system in which law schools train their students have an underlying crippling effect. The necessity to repay six figures worth of loans is feeding these innate Hyde tendencies. Graduating and having Uncle Sam knocking on their door is sending students crawling to big firms with the innocent intentions of working a couple of years and eventually pursuing the true reasons they came to law school. My guess as to why they are so many unhappy people at big firms is because they weren’t meant to be there to begin with. They are not becoming the leaders they were meant to be but rather are now sheep.
I think back to my passionate goals of helping some weak unrepresented group in my personal statement and wonder why being canned meat doesn’t seem quite so bad, at least just for a little bit. I can help my group of choice for the time being with the simple signing of a check; perhaps one can make a reasonable argument that this of course doesn’t initiate true change. I feel more the pressures of paying off the large amounts of accumulated student loans than the pressure to stay the course one would believe I was on by reading my personal statement. Maybe the problem is that law students are being instructed in the ideologies of Jekyll but not instructed as to how to make this ideology economically salient on their own without the aid of some other firm or organization. | | | | |
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> | Why the instruction persists | | | | |
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< | What is the problem? | >
> | Students are not being trained to avoid the restrictive chains of capitalism and utilize it instead. I am told if I want to make money I go to a big firm otherwise I can take a pay cut and go into another legal subfield. Why isn’t there a middle ground and students being trained how to seek out clients who will pay them the monthly nut they require? If law schools stopped illuminating these big firms as the only alternative of getting a payday then those firm checks and grants may stop rolling in. Students are being instructed to be leaders and seek creative endeavors but at the same time are indirectly being incentivized to put these goals on the backburner to first work under someone else in the name of currency. As the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde illustrate, the two cannot coincide without some destructive results. Can we really blame Nancy R. Heinen, previous Apple General Counsel, for backdating stock options for Steve Jobs? Heinen was working in a system that to make money you had to be someone’s employee. We should be denouncing the system that continuous to foster this thought.
I am being educated in a system that incentivizes me to chase currency before my aspirations, though unintentionally. When the Hyde is sufficiently feed within us the Jekyll component becomes compromised. When a six-figure loan meets a young scholar who thought they would use their law degree to save some unrepresented neighborhood or population, unfortunately the loans tends to win without sufficient guidance as to how to make this ambition profitable. Too often you hear a law school graduate talk of how they will go to a big law firm only to practice for a couple of years till their loans are paid off. Too often you hear a senior associate talk of how they planned on practicing for just a couple of years but it was too hard to walk away from the lifestyle they were accustomed to living. Too often you hear a ex lawyer who quit the profession because the big firm life made them unhappy. This idea that one must first pass through a big law firm before pursuing ones goals is crippling the legal system. | | | | |
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< | Law schools pride themselves on thinking that they are instructing Jekylls, passionate and client loving individuals, to go into the world. In reality they are sending Hydes, selfish, money hungry individuals, into society to fix our nation's legal issues. | >
> | Saturation throughout the legal field | | | | |
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> | The Hyde component travels to the public sector side of the legal field as well. Public sector lawyer stereotypically they tend to be happier creatures, but they are now keep locked in an complacent in their current positions; they must remain there for a certain amount of years for their loans to be dissolved. They are not chasing after money to pay any pressing bills but it is easy to see that they are still nonetheless stuck in these positions. The public sector lawyers are no freer than their private counterparts. They too are not comfortable with venturing off and starting something that is new, that is theirs. | | | | |
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< | Neither one is
true. Because law students are a mix of individuals with
different characters and temperaments. Why establish a
definition of the subject which the knowing reader will be
aware from the beginning isn't true?
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> | Conclusion | | | | |
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> | Law schools and their faculty are resistant to the changing of legal education. If law students are to be instructed how to build up themselves rather than relying on others then some tenure professors will have to give up their jobs because they have nothing to offer these students. The current system feeds the innate Hyde component but it is quite possible to keep it at bay with the proper legal instruction. | | | | |
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< | I think back to my personal statement and wonder how it was possible for me to have been so quickly derailed from my passionate goals or helping some weak unrepresented group. Now perhaps being canned meat does not seem quite so bad, at least just for a little bit. I can help my group of choice for the time being with the simple signing of a check. | | | | |
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< | Nonsense. If you earn
an associate's salary at a big firm you will be able to make tiny
charitable contributions that affect nothing. Your "group of
choice" will be lucky to buy a cup of coffee with the charitable
contributions you can afford after paying your taxes, loan payments,
and living expenses out of $160k, even if you get such a job. Do
the math. This is a favorite excuse of law students, but it is bilge.
Have I given up on who I am and what I stand for? Have I lost sight of my personal goal and only seeking economic ones now? I feel more the pressures of paying off the large amounts in student loans I have accumulated than the pressure to stay the course one would believe I was on by reading my personal statement.
But that's because you
have assumed that paying your loans off is an enormous problem,
which it will not be if you build a canny practice. The trick to
having your economic security and your social goals is to stop
treating them as opposed objectives. You need a strategy to attain
both, which you can make during law school if you don't take your
eye off the ball.
Law institutions cannot expect law students to graduate and go rain justice and legal morality on society when their movements are being restricted by the chains of capitalism.
Why not?
Capitalism is a source of injustice, but it is also a source
of wealth if you can tap it. Capitalism's alternatives
would not eliminate injustice; they would change its form.
If you can figure out how to use the wealth concentrated by
capitalism to attack capitalism's injustices, you can "rain"
justice on your society using capitalism's water. I do, so
why can't you?
As a law student I do not feel as if I am being taught to be the best lawyer I can be. I do not even feel as if I have the ability to direct the path of my legal career. Can I really go and start a practice and feel comfortable that I would be able to pay back six figures worth of loans before the creditors come banging on my door
Why not? Almost everyone you know has a six-figure mortgage and most of them pay it. Your practice has a monthly nut, which includes your loan repayment, and it must have a book producing an income sufficient to meet the nut. Do the arithmetic, figure out what your clients must pay you each month in order to make your nut, and confidently expect to be able to find the clients who will pay what you require.
Those are the questions currently on my mind rather than how best can I serve a future client. Law students are being told that they should uphold a sense of legal morality and justice but at the same time are indirectly being taught that all that matters at the end of the day is their ability to amass a large amount of money in a short amount of time. As the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde illustrate, the two cannot coincide with some destructive results. Can we really blame Wendy Howell for backdating stock options for Steve Jobs?
The Apple General Counsel who backdated the options was Nancy R. Heinen. Why shouldn't we be able to blame her? If she knowingly broke the law in order to steal money for a client, what excuse can you offer for her? That the King of the Undead, now dead, was prepared to sacrifice her career and her license in order to prevent his own punishment is a reason to condemn him, one among very many, but not an excuse for her.
Would we all be as admirable as Robinson from Lawyerland?
Perhaps Robinson is admirable, but he is hardly as admirable as all that.
Why it is happening
I am being educated to be a money hungry behemoth.
I doubt that
completely. You're no behemoth, you're a calf, and you
will be for quite some time. Your money-hunger doesn't
come from us; if you have it, you brought it with you.
You're being offered help to become anything you want. But
law school is an imagination test: you must imagine what
you want to be in order to become what you imagine. So
far, you are not succeeding in the imagination test.
Passion will always overcome reason when the passion has sufficiently heated the blood and our inner Hyde comes out.
Who says? I don't think either reason or passion are the relevant springs of human conduct.
When a six-figure loan meets a bright-eyed young scholar who once thought they would use their law degree to save some unrepresented neighborhood or population, unfortunately the loan tend to win out.
But as I have pointed out, there isn't any inherent conflict; you just made that up.
The inherent problems of the second component of the legal profession have become more prevalent in our now weak economy. With the scarcity of jobs in the public sector and government many who even wanted non private sector jobs cannot find them.
This sentence is confusing. What is it supposed to mean?
All too often you hear a soon to be law school graduate tell the tale of how he or she will go to a big law firm only to practice for a couple of years till their loans are paid off.
What has this to do with the "bad economy"? I've been hearing that nonsense from law students, "good" economy and "bad" for a quarter-century.
All too often you hear a senior associate tell the tale of how they planned on practicing for just a couple of years but it was too hard to walk away from the money and the lifestyle they were accustomed to living. All too often you hear a used to be lawyer who quit the profession of law all together because they did not enjoy the life they lived while at a big law firm. The legal profession has become one best titled "Big Law or Bust".
Nonsense. Almost all
the lawyers who exist never had that "Big Law" chance, and it
hasn't busted them. This is just lint you've stuffed your ears
with, to avoid listening to the sound of your own heartbeat.
Problem reaches farther than expected
One could argue, but wait if I do manage to get into the public sector my loans will be paid off after a number of years have elapsed. But even a lawyer who goes into government or the public sector still drags along a heavy ball labeled "capitalism." Stereotypically they tend to be happier creatures, whose inner Hydes are kept at bay by possibility of their loans being graciously lifted of their heads by some higher being.
What? This doesn't make any sense to me.
They are not chasing after money to pay any pressing bills but it is easy to see that they are still nonetheless stuck in these positions. If these individuals were to wake up one day and think that their true calling was working at an investment bank and leave the public sector, they would quickly realize the federal government is unforgiving when it comes to bills owed.
What? I don't understand this point either. The whole graf needs rewriting for clarity, at least.
Conclusion
The desire to want to practice in Big Law is not a characteristic that should be looked down upon by anyone.
Why not? It's an exceedingly poor way to live a lawyer's life, and it's small return on society's investment in the young person who chooses that path.
This paper is merely to attest to the fact that the law school system is directing the majority of its students towards Big Law.
Not the "law school
system." Not even all of this law school. You can't blame others
for your own choices.
It simply is not for everyone. Everyone will not find happiness in that area of law. The current legal system is creating more unhappy lawyers that find themselves practicing in areas they lack interest in.
This is not the conclusion to the preceding argument.
This is a good bad first draft. Now that you've gotten the rhetoric of impossibility off your chest, expressing your fear completely, the next draft, which will look very different, can address the real questions:
- What do I want to achieve in society through my lawyering?
- Who are the clients I will help?
- How much will it cost and who will pay?
Sometimes it is the clients who will pay, sometimes someone else.
Strategy is about matching resources to objectives. What
you want to be taught is how to strategize. People here can teach
you, but only if you are making the effort to learn. The current
draft expresses resistance to learning: it's too hard, capitalism is
at fault, there aren't enough government jobs, greed is good, etc.
These are all excuses, covers for anxiety about the job you've set out
to do. But if you are prepared to tolerate injustice in return for
personal comfort, there are easier ways to sell your soul than by
going to law school.
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-- By BiyeremOkengwu - 25 Feb 2013 |
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