Conspicuous Consumption and the Law Student

-- By DavidGarfinkel - 16 Apr 2010

Conspicuous Consumption as a Useful Metaphor

Veblen in his book, Theory of the Leisure Class, discusses how conspicuous consumption results partly from the competitive and hierarchal nature of society, and the need of the individual to be able to provide some sort of visual indicators demonstrating his status to others. The concept of conspicuous consumption can serve as a useful metaphor for understanding part of the decision making process of law students that result in so many “pawning off their license.” This is meant to go beyond the mere material aspect of conspicuous consumption, which is obviously prevalent throughout American society and exists within the law school. However, it is less useful to discuss that in the law school context with the relative lack of wealth disparity among students and the limit on the ability of students attain significant material demonstration when burdened by huge debt. What is more interesting is the different shape conspicuous consumption takes upon entering law school and what external processes shape this new form that leads to the eventual decision to pawn our license.

The New Competition and Hierarchy Created by Law School

Upon entering college, students are suddenly displaced from the traditional society they originated from. Along with this displacement, students are taken away from the societal competition and hierarchy that defines the society of their parents. Part of this results from students no longer being part of a society divided between an industrial class and a leisure class, but instead being in a new society made entirely of the leisure class with limited financial capabilities. Humanity is competitive and hierarchical by nature, so these elements will of course seep in and take on some form as the individual strives to establish his place relative to his peers. However, this process takes an accelerate form with the beginning of law school application. Here, the student (most of which will start law school relatively soon after graduating from college) begins to realize that society is even more hierarchal than initially believed, that there are tiers within the leisure class. And the first true commodity the student has as an indicator of his future position is the law school name. Thus, we have a law school application process significantly defined by how schools are ranked against each other, which plays a predominant role in which school most students will choose (in some respects, the individual encounters his first Geffen good).

The new competitive and hierarchical society that the student is only being introduced to is suddenly being reinforced upon starting law school. This is where law school in many ways differentiates itself from many other types of graduate institutions. Law School of course creates elements of competition and hierarchy through its grading curve and doling out of titles, like Stone and Kent.

Law School...or Columbia Law School?

But such elements run deeper than that. Students enter the law school with a concept of hierarchy due to the fact that their acceptance was based significantly on how they did in comparison to everyone else on a single test.

To me, this is dubious and based more on fiction than fact. For one, any concept of a hierarchy based on a test score would require knowing the test scores of their "colleagues." I know, maybe, a handful of test scores, including my own, and I do not think any hierarchy or concept of hierarchy formed based on that knowledge.

And following the beginning of classes, students are asked to apply to a variety of programs and positions with limited seats, such as moot courts, fellowships, and board positions.

Is this unique to law school? I don't go to business school or medical school. I do agree, however, that these endeavors are competitive, and, the focus they achieve is sort of odd. We go to a professional school where we are learning a profession and yet an unhealthy amount of focus goes to moot court competitions and fellowships that will be dubiously helpful to most of us.

So from the first day the school creates an atmosphere that stratifies students on some level, and to ensure some sense of security in position, much like the members of the leisure class Veblen discusses, students who cannot for financial and cultural reasons demonstrate material wealth must look for other commodities to serve as a demonstration of their position in the micro-society of law school. First semester grades end up taking part of this role, and the lengths students go to try get top marks is similar to the investment people put into attaining material objects. In some sense, there is a similar fetishization of grades that one sees in certain material objects. And this process is continually renewed through new arenas, from summer job search to clinic/journal applications (law review serves a dominant role in this).

To paraphrase Eben on one of my past papers, the metaphrand is being stretched here.

Pawning Our License as the beginning of a new conspicuous consumption

The problem the law student faces in her attempt to attain these titles and objects of status is the realization that they do not carry over after law school, let alone after the first year or two of law school.

Stone and Kent do not carry over after law school? Clerkships? (I agree, most extracurricular activities, moot court competitions, etc. will not. But I would not bunch them all together).

So instead EIP becomes the gateway into a competition with a more lasting impact, as students compete to get into top law firms. Again, this decision is significantly colored by the ranking of the individual firm, with sights set on achieving the coveted title of associate at Sullivan or Wachtell, etc.

For some of us, it will be just to pay off the debt. I couldn't give half a shit about Sullivan or Wachtell.

And the law firm in effect represents a new Geffen good, where the individual is willing to sacrifice a higher amount of time, happiness, and personal worth to get into a top firm. And we have the problem of waste, where the amount of money the individual is making per hour is comparatively low to other potential opportunities. But the law firm becomes a status symbol the student can hold onto that distinguishes his place in the social hierarchy with more obvious effect than grades and titles. So by the beginning of the third year, most law students have started to remove themselves from the old social hierarchy of college and law school to defining their place in the leisure class of America that they will become part of upon graduation. And as they become more entrenched in their new position, it becomes harder to regain the pawned license as the individual is forced into new competitions that will define his status and actively takes part in the material aspect of conspicuous consumption that was central to Veblen’s thesis.

Just some initial comments for myself -mz