Law School: The Final Frontier
No. I thought about it briefly, but don't have the perseverance for it. Considering that i completed all coursework for a Ph.D. and didn't finish, i doubt i'd complete much less survive law school. Wish i had the dedication and self-discipline though.
But I've always been interested, and a few people on the forum mentioned they've either been or are interested in applying, so i thought it would be helpful for there to be a thread on the subject, so that everyone can learn from the other, just to have a better understanding of the process and the experiences.
I went to paralegal school and worked as a paralegal for several months before deciding to apply to law school. My experience, both in school (I graduated ranked first in my class) and at work led me to believe I had the necessary skill set for law school as well as a love of the subject, which was a big part of why I decided to apply and put myself through three years of what I thought would be grinding work. My experience in law school, however, was that it's less about perserverance and dedication than preparation and skill set. When I first considered going to law school, I already knew I was an analytical person with excellent writing skills and an extraordinary memory (not photographic, but very close), and thought they might be helpful in law school. They were. Despite knowing I probably had the skills I needed to get through law school--and the undergrad grades to get in--I left nothing to chance. I took an LSAT prepatory course. I think the prepatory course was kind of like Dumbo's feather in that I felt relaxed and well-prepared going into the exam, and my scores reflected that. I scored in the 97th percentile, which went a long way toward getting me a seat in school though my application was rather last-minute.
Despite my skills and whatever confidence I had developed, the first year was hell. I felt inadequate much of the time and scared shitless the rest of it. I probably over-studied, outlining every class and spending hours reading and dissecting every case assigned. I even rented a hotel room during "reading week," the prepatory time off just before exam week, so that I could study without the distraction of family life (I had two toddlers and a rather demanding husband). By the end of the first year, I had won the American Jurisprudence Award, given for the highest score in any one class, in both Torts and Contracts and I was ranked 3rd in my class of 300. By this time professors who were mentoring me, strongly urged me to transfer to Yale, Harvard or Georgetown and go into teaching after graduation. Would that I had listened to them, but I felt it was asking too much to uproot my family and move them halfway across the country, so I accepted an endowed scholarship and continued on at the excellent private (but second-tiered) school where I was.
The next two years I relaxed somewhat, though I was able to maintain my grades and class rank. I was invited to join the Law Review, I did a lot of writing, and I loved it all. At the end of the second year firms and government agencies interview students to hire as summer interns from which they choose their future employees. It's hard to get even an interview without a class rank in the top ten percent. For people like me there was a lot of wining and dining; for people below that ten percent cut-off, there was a lot of humiliation. It's one of the worst aspects of law school. While I had my pick of firms, I chose a mid-sized firm that claimed to be "family-oriented," meaning they didn't have a minimum billable hours expectation of 70 hours/week.
To make a long story even longer, I went into corporate law and found it as tedious as watching paint dry. Worse, it was a cookie-cutter world and I definitely did
not fit the mold. On the other hand, a good friend of mine who did much less well than I did grade-wise, did much better after graduation. She knew from the get-go that she wanted to go into criminal defense work and so the "meat market" at the end of our second year bothered her not at all. She opened her own firm on a shoestring, learned the ropes (which you
don't learn in law school; you learn theory) by experience and today is a happy, well-respected member of the defense bar.
I don't know if this is what you were looking for, but there it is.