The Legal Conveyor Belt

-- By TiffanyYoung - 14 Mar 2017

As I near the home stretch of my 1L year, I can’t help but feel that, like Wylie in Lawyerland, I am often in search of ways to make survival in the legal world bearable. Recently, I’ve found it harder and harder to deny the fact that I am burned out from 17 straight years of school. No matter how interested I am in a particular topic, mustering energy to focus in class and complete assignments is extremely difficult and, quite frankly, miserable. I feel like Wylie is experiencing a similar feeling. Years of being in a system that one does not care for can really take a toll.

Unlike Wylie, though, the upper-downer buzz that distracts me from the ennui of my daily grind is achieved by a very delicate balance between time spent with friends and quiet solitude during which I interrogate myself: do I really want to be in law school? At this point, I can’t even tell whether I don’t like law school or I simply don’t like school at all. On one hand, I am really glad to have met my peers and I find the legal discourse extremely interesting. On the other hand, law school (and perhaps even all schooling) often feels like a conveyor belt which I want to escape but cannot. The constant alternating between emotional highs and lows means I don’t get stuck in a rut self-doubt and can keep plodding my way through each day. Some might point out that neither Wylie nor I are obligated to continue on our current paths, but maybe the decision to rebel against the system is not so easy to make.

Internalization

Regardless of how I feel about the law school conveyor belt, however, I find myself still adhering to – and actually wanting to adhere to – the most commonly expressed expectations and standards. I feel that many lawyers and law students have internalized these expectations, perhaps out of anxiety or fear. As Professor Moglen once said in class, law students are risk-averse control freaks. Law school presents a tried and true path to kick start a fledging lawyer’s career, and that sense of security is alluring enough that many law students would abandon non-Big Law plans, at least temporarily. For me, I do not want to pursue a career in Big Law, but I feel compelled to participate because it seems like I am falling behind, since everybody else is already getting ahead in the rat race. Speaking to peers, I have found several others who share the sentiment, yet somehow we still feel a certain sense of guilt for not networking at receptions or attending private sector information sessions. It feels almost wrong to not participate in this race in which we hold no interest.

Also, repeatedly hearing praise for Big Law eventually engrains a belief that the private sector route is indeed superior. Though I have heard time and time again that the 1L summer job is not a major cornerstone of our legal careers, I still feel . Hearing about 1Ls who will be getting their foot in the Big Law door incites a pang of envy in me even though, logically, I know their summer program is no better than any others and the position is probably not more impressive to employers. I tell myself I don’t want to work in Big Law, but somewhere deep down I cannot deny the anxiety caused by not securing a private sector position. This mindset is troublesome since I feel that I cannot allow myself to hop off the conveyor belt and can thus only progress quickly along it.

A Sense of Urgency

I realize I have a possibly irrational sense of urgency to either “get ahead” in the race out of Big Law or find an alternate route that does not necessitate dedicating grueling years to a big law firm. But I don’t want to become Wylie. I don’t want to find myself constantly self-medicating years down the road simply because the money was good or because it was what everyone else was doing or especially because I somehow let others convince me this was what I truly wanted. I look at my peers who have secured summer work with companies I hope to work at someday and I panic. I panic because I feel like I am not taking steps to move along the conveyor belt and if steps aren’t taken soon, I will find myself miserable and old. But that is not true. For now, I hope to find the answer to why I am at law school, and perhaps then I will be able to make peace with choosing a different path and the pace at which I am moving along it.