Law school advice

I took the LSAT but before I could attend Pepperdine I spent some time with Jay Lavely, whose firm, Lavely & Singer, is a Hollywood juggernaut. His career had all the trappings one could hope for when one attends law school -- right down to the entire top floor of a legendary Century City office building. And he is exactly why I decided not to follow through with law. He worked the 6.5 day weeks, logging 70+ hours a week, and he was at the top of his profession. I looked at what he had accomplished and what he sacrificed to get there, and I said, "no, thanks."

 

My summer was awesome. Wasn't the 80s wine and dine, but pretty close. Ate out a lot, lots is events, not too much work. I actually took a year off after law school, so between when I accepted my offer and when I started I got multiple raises, as my firm kept trying to stay with the biggest boys when they kept raising the first year salary and made 50% more than I had originally agreed to.

A good piece of advice I got back then from a mid level associate: don't think of it as a good paying job with bad hours but as two regular jobs.

 

Took Princeton Review to prepare for the LSAT back in the 90s. Finished with a respectable (at the time) 163 IIRC. But that's also what I got on the first diagnostic, even though I went to all the classes and did all the work. Maybe it was the nerves of the real thing. No idea. It was enough for me to be able to pick between a few schools near the bottom of the top 20. But I didn't have the same kind of summer associate experience as others -- I was in my hometown in a small-city branch office of a Biglaw firm and with only 18 lawyers and 2 summer associates there, it felt like an intense three-month job interview. The days were actually pretty long, the work was boring as shit and the social events weren't particularly fun for me (I was single and 24 and everyone else -- including the other summer associate in my office -- was married with kids), and the whole experience created a lot of social and career anxiety, though the salary was nice and I learned quickly that this type of work and work environment was decidedly not for me. In the end I didn't go back there, stayed in the large city where I went to law school and ended up never practicing law full time -- I quickly got a good-paying, satisfying job in legal journalism (I still contribute weekly for them on a freelance basis at a pretty nice invoice rate) and later went into teaching, for which I'm also using my law degree. But if I had to do it all over again knowing my interests and talents, I probably wouldn't go to law school. If I did I certainly would not go right out of college knowing nothing about the real world or what lawyers actually do. Having some real-life experience is very helpful as a law student (gives you a better "big picture" context for what you're learning and gives you a better sense of what you'd actually want to do with the degree). I'm in a tremendous situation -- it's worked out great for me -- but I'd never advise anyone to go to law school planning to follow a similar path. I feel like I'm the beneficiary of a great deal of luck and timing. And in the current job market, I wouldn't go at all unless it was either a T-10 (maybe T-5) school. Unless someone else was paying or I had a job waiting with a successful family-owned firm.

 

It's funny how consistent y'all are re: how important your law school's ranking is. I find it interesting because there's this guy at church I encounter from time to time who's always expounding on this, that or the other thing about the legal profession. Now I should emphasize that he considers himself a WLA (World's Leading Authority) on many, many matters, and he's not shy about telling you just what the score is on any number of matters. But when someone mentions the legal profession ... well, stand back, because TRUTH is heading your way.

Turns out he went to a school ranked around No. 120 ...

 

It's important as far as getting that first job.

There are a lot of partners at my shop, though, who are incredible lawyers, filthy rich, uber-smart, and proudly educated at State Law.

 

I did the typical summer at a huge NYC firm. I did about 10 hours of client legal work all summer and my biggest contribution to the firm was on the hoops team. I ate and drank like I haven't before or since.

After the summer, I decided not to join the firm because the associates in the departments which most interested me seemed to get no practical experience. On a whim, I applied for jobs in a couple of different cities and ended up working for a branch office of a big firm in Miami. I got awesome experience and when I was ready to move back up to NYC 5 years later, I had taken more depositions, tried more cases and first chaired more arbitrations than most of the partners.