Kaulapi World

Vivid and slightly strange dreams lately.  In a recent one I’m climbing along side of a mountain, right by the tree line and come across a large angled clearing with several enormous tree stumps. For the moment I realize that they are giant oak trees that had grown in the side of the mountain. The oak trees are so huge that they could easily fit 2 people lying down across the truck width.  Everywhere among the stumps are giant mushrooms growing, in various varieties, some that look like edible types, like shitake, matsutake, and others that I could not recognize.  I remember being amazed at the size of the trees, and the sheer number of cut trees and mushrooms everywhere.

Almost out of no where a middle aged woman in professional attire comes walking briskly down side of the mountain, passing by me with a sense of urgency, and says in passing something about eating a mushroom thinking it was a exotic red lobster mushroom, and now needing to seek medical attention in the village down the mountain.  She was coming from a higher part of the mushroom grove from where I was standing.  Somewhat startled by running into another human being in the wilderness, especially in a business suit and heels, I think to myself that what the woman did by eating a wild mushroom was pretty stupid and downright dangerous and that the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, realizing that while I know a little about the appearance of mushrooms from the grocery store or from biology classes, I’m nothing close to an expert yet on foraging them in the wild yet.

In the dream I remember thinking to myself that if I was intent on picking mushrooms here, I would be much more likely to gather a few mushrooms to take with me, consult a scientific expert before eating them myself, or even better yet, find an experienced mushroom merchant who would be willing to buy them from me.  I’m not sure exactly how this dream ended, but I think it after enjoying the scenery I made my way back down the mountain along the path that I came.

As in taking a break from the law, at least for now.  More specifically, I’m taking a break from studying the law for the perspective of a practicing attorney.  Figuring that it’ll be at least a few years before I crack open the bar books again, and in the meantime I’m going to enjoy the break from the pure testing evaluative part of the law and can focus more on the substantive parts of the law that actually have more of an interest to me.  I’ve come to the conclusion that I get and understand enough of legal theory and process to continue my education in a more  informal way which will allow me to focus on the legal areas relevant to my work, life, and personal interests.

One thing I considered in taking this break is the concern that I would forget the old core legal subjects and theories, and as a result may put  myself in a much more difficult position to pass the  bar later.  I thought about this a lot when talking to other fellow poor souls that were studying for the bar that they had forgotten a certain subject from 1L.  However after going through the process once already, I know now that the test is really mostly a test-taking test, with some broad references to basic legal concepts from the first year of law school.  Further, something that I’ve noticed through the years that might put me in a different position than others is that I really retain quite a bit of what I learn.  I can recall random lessons as far back to college, HS, and beyond, even as far back as grade school.  I can see a similar pattern in law school, the extent to which I learned and retained it from the first time is directly related to their relative strength of teaching.  So the bar will be there when I’m ready to take it again, and if I need to take another prep course to strategize how to take it again, I will do so also.

It really feels like I’ve put my life on hold for 4-5 long years grasping for the brass ring, and now it doesn’t make sense to do much longer just for a credential that in this economy has an unknown, and likely depreciating value over time.  Until society catches up with how over-saturated the legal job market is, most non-legal employers will consider a JD an over-qualification, more specifically, a job applicant with a law degree would be a flight risk, and therefore a very bad prospect for employment.  In a weird way, I’m actually better off not being licensed if I decide to continue working in a non-legal job might be the best proof of all that I wouldn’t be a flight risk, I would simply point out that I am “not currently licensed to practice law” in this state.  It seems baffling, but it has really come to it, I never thought that having a credential could actually hurt your job prospects in a down economy.  At least if I’m ever in a situation where I absolutely have to consider omitting the JD from my resume, at least I won’t have a 3 year gap in employment to have to explain.

Making this decision feels like a weight has lifted off of my shoulders, even the brief time spent looking at my bar exam books again just to see what I still retained over the recent months was extremely unpleasant.  How long this break will be really will depend on whether the legal job market improves or stabilizes to the point where an average law student like myself with extensive non-legal or quasi-legal professional work experience can get a job as an attorney in the capacity that at least recognizes the alternate perspective and training.  I think it’ll be at least for a few years when I decide that the job market has improved to the point in which I have a true economic and personal incentive to get my license.

Of course this doesn’t mean that I’ll refrain from making comments during Law and Order, the Good wife, or CSI-whatever.  That’s still fun.

And expecting a different result. I’m inferring that “over and over again” means at least more than twice.

I overheard a conversation today in the halls at work, something about so and so business (restaurant, coffeehouse, bar, etc) that was being run by “recovering attorneys”. The thought that a legal field might be so traumatizing that recently graduated (within 5 years) attorneys would walk away from a legal practice for something else was an eye-opener, to say the least.  I’ve always heard of those stories of the DOJ lawyer that started baking cakes, or the other that went and became a cop, but honestly I had always thought they were the exception to the rule.

As more and more of such and such lawyers with ever more impressive academic and legal credentials experience a hard enough time that they decide to walk away from the legal profession entirely and not look back, the more troubling sign of the times it is for the rest of us recent grads, current law students and the prospective 0L students cannot afford to ignore.

It makes me think that the old assurance that “a JD is so versatile that you can do anything with it, even outside of the law” needs some serious revisions or caveat to point out that sometimes the alternate career that some JDs take on is more out of necessity rather than choice.  While sometimes it because of burn out, more often it’s from being forced out, or in today’s economy, maybe never even having a chance in the first place.  It seems that the way things are set up, everything banks on getting that first legal job, because without it you can’t get legal experience necessary to move up on the legal food chain.

It really seems like the way things are without some kind of inside track, which often means personal or family connections, your stuck on the outside looking in.  This might not be as bad if it didn’t require more than $100K in tuition and 3-4 years of pretty demanding and grueling academic study that gives you no practical professional skills.  At this rate it trying to practice law might be just as risky business investment as opening a Hawaiian plate lunch stand in downtown DC with no business knowledge or skills to start off with.

Been thinking about something else lately, call it the 2 million dollar question maybe, which is could it be possible that my legal career is now over before it ever started due to the fact that I was simply too average of a law student on paper?

The fact of the matter is that law is an extremely elitist and ultra-conservative field in which your achievements are constantly being rated and compared to others, be it what class rank you were, what ranked school you went to, where you interned over the summer, etc. You see this in the pass/fail nature of the bar, and the subjectivity of law school grading. This would not be a problem if these things started decreasing in importance as time went by, but I’m worried that the remnants of the elitist nitpicking carries on a while after law school. According to the measures that everyone is so obsessed with, I was a decent law student, but nothing exception on paper. I have no published papers, no law review, no moot court experience, achievements that seem like a minimum for a lot of attorney jobs out there right now, and I was ranked in the middle of my class. I had no interest in the big law firms while in school, not that I would’ve been very competitive for on-campus interviews anyway, and for my summer internship I instead opted to work in the school’s legal aid clinic.  All of these things apparently broadcast mediocrity to the employer-elite out there in the legal field.

From a more practical standpoint, I have a lot to offer by way of actual work experience with at the state government and judiciary, more practical legal clinical experience working with actual clients, and more than 5 years of federal work experience at my current job gained concurrently to working on the JD at night.  While I sort out this post-JD limbo, I’m continuing to gain more work experience, and am currently a developing subject matter expertise in a quasi-legal field.   Despite all of this, it seems though that none of this matters, law is such an exclusive field that it disregards any and all experience outside of the law school universe, no matter how relevant it might be to the position.  Also based on sheer market competition grounds, with the flood of licensed JDs out there scrambling for any job, legal or non-legal, I’m more likely to just be another name and resume in a the reject pile.

Whats more is that every year that I go not landing that first legal job, there will be another wave of 45,000 recently graduated JDs out there to compete with. Another thing that I’ve realized about law is that it really favors those students that go straight out of undergrad. Even at the young age of 30, I may be too old for an entry level law position. I noticed that a lot of the recruiting models are better designed for the younger, single types, your mind is much more malleable and you don’t ask as many questions if all you know is undergrad, even more so if you’ve never worked a full time job before. The crazy hours of the law firms would only seem normal if you never worked anywhere else before. A lot of law is being reprogrammed to think like a conservative, risk-adverse, slightly paranoid lawyer, which I’ve come to accept the sometimes counter-intuitive way that legal rulings come down, and more importantly to not ask questions that would suggest that there is a better way of solving societal problems, something that I found myself asking a lot.

This is a sample of informational resources for anyone thinking about law school in the near future should take time to read. While it is never my goal to talk anyone out of going to law school per se, I do believe I have a duty to pass on as much information and experience that I have as a recently graduated JD who did it at night while working full time job during the day. I came across bits and pieces of this information while I was in school, but honestly I was so stressed out and tunnel visioned to really appreciate it for what it was. Since I graduated in 2009 I’ve had more of an opportunity to research more into this area, and can vouch for much of this information to be accurate from a mixture of my own personal experience and conversations with recent law school graduates, and practicing attorneys.

With the sheer volume of information out there and varied opinions about the current status of the legal profession, I think the following blog is a good place to start, a well written, relatively balanced take from a current practicing attorney with 20+ years practicing experience:

Legal Dollar Blog – for prospective law students Part I:
http://thelegaldollar.blogspot.com/2010/01/beginning-prospective-law-students-part.html

Part II here:
http://thelegaldollar.blogspot.com/2010/01/beginning-prospective-law-students-part_15.html

He also has a very good, balanced 4-part post on starting salaries for attorneys
http://thelegaldollar.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-much-will-you-make-as-lawyer-part-1.html

Good Blog/msg boards that have a lot of new content about the current state of the legal market, updated daily:
Above the law – http://abovethelaw.com/
Law Shucks – http://lawshucks.com/
JD Underground – http://www.qfora.com/jdu/

Mainstream newspaper coverage on the recent downturn over the last few years.
LA Times – No more room at the bench
Wall Street Journal Law Blog – Christmas carol by Loyola 2L
Minnesota post – Law school bubble about to burst
Law.com – What to say when friends ask about law school

Informative blogs run by recently graduated and licensed JDs that are struggling to find that first legal job.
Esquire Never – http://esqnever.blogspot.com/
JD Underdog – http://jdunderdog.blogspot.com/
Third Tier Reality – http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/

I’ve come to the realization the possibility that at least for me the mystic of the JD is gone. I used to think that I was busting my ass for 4 years of night school to learn a specific professional skill that could put me apart from the general population and worthy of a title as an attorney and advocate. I figured that this is what the purpose of the rigors of law school were intended for, and the bar exam would be a crucial test of legal competency. Instead I have realized that a lot of the method that law is taught is counter-productive, and a total waste of time and effort. I can honestly say now that I’m convinced a relatively bright, motivated undergraduate could be a competent attorney with a few years of additional study and 2 years of clinical training.

This is all pretty depressing coming from someone that had some legal experience before law school, and at least in the beginning was adamant about practicing law. I was not your typical liberal arts college graduate with no idea what to do with my life and decided to go to law school by default. I actually put in the time and effort to take law related courses as an undergrad, and spent time working and interning in legal related fields. As a graduate student I took several seminars at the law school and continued to pursue legal related topics in public policy. On the debt issue, I entered by JD program with $0 debt, decided to use my master’s degree to work full time while attending law school and night, and committed to a lifestyle that would minimize my law school debt to my annual salary. Coming out of law school I still have a significant, but manageable amount of student loans, enough that I could consider taking a public interest attorney position, I’m no where near the median debt level for recent law grads, and neither am I even close to the 6-figures of debt that you hear about in the news lately.

I’m kind of sitting here scratching my head and wondering what happened? I didn’t expect everything to turn out perfectly, but I at least expected to have some modest options to practice, gain some meaningful experience towards a career that was based largely in part due to the training I received in law school. Instead I’m wondering if I am actually more handicapped professionally from working in a legal field now after going to law school. This makes no sense at all, but I’m beginning to wonder if this shitty reality is true.

Because I’m an analytical dork, I’ll break down a rough cost-benefit analysis as well. As for cost factors, it’ll cost at least $800 to take it again, $250 for the refiling fee, about $100 for the laptop registration, and $450 for the hotel because it’s just far away enough that it would make it difficult to catch a train or pretty long drive in the morning. Plus the nature of the test being over 2 days doesn’t make it feasible to fight traffic in the morning. However if I did rent a car and drive, I could feasibly lower the costs to about $600, so the low estimate is there. When I do pass this puppy, I’ll have to fork over several hundred, or maybe $400 a year in annual dues to a be a member of the bar, and will likely have to fork over tuition for continuing legal educational classes all for the privilege of keeping my license current that I will most likely not use for at least a few more years. On the benefit side however, there is $0 benefit in that I do not have a legal job lined up right now, and none even in sight.

Even if I were to take it again, get licensed, and go and jump into the job market, my expected attorney salary based on my class rank and work experience would probably force me to take about a 50% pay cut from my current job, and would most likely put me in a much more shaky position as far as job security and benefits. After that, I don’t know what kind of advancement opportunities would be there for me, at least before the economy tanked, you could expect to work public interest for a few years and maybe go into practice by yourself, or maybe make a lateral jump to a firm or an agency. Now none of that seems certain. On the other hand if I stay in my current position, I would have the much higher salary, much more opportunities for advancement, to gain an expertise in a subject matter area, and to get some of these student loans paid over time.

All of the benefits at this point in time are non-monetary. first and foremost is the satisfaction of moving on from this point, a sort of legal purgatory between being a JD and a licensed JD. Also given the fact that I missed it by such a slim margins the first time, I’m confident that I could’ve passed had I lucked out on a more lenient grader on one essay out of 12, a luckier draw of questions, or guessing the right answer on 5 more multiple choice tests. There is also that foolish pride in me to say that I completed law school, in my mind taking and passing the bar was the very last thing to do in getting a law degree, although now I’m not as convinced that is the case anymore. I also have the prospect of my son coming into the world, maybe on my stubborn principle, I refuse to let studying for the bar take any more time away from him, especially not the 2-3 months of intensive preparation that the bar exam requires, especially in his young developmental years.

So what I am faced with is a choice that appears to be very expensive in both monetary ($800 up front, and $400+ every year after) and non-monetary (2-3 months of life, stress, not being with Hana and Jr. and overall unpleasantness) to achieve purely non-monetary benefits such as the relief of not having to take it again for a few years, foolish pride in saying that I’m licensed, and considering this economy, the theoretical benefit that the JD and license will help me some dream job out there.

That is the million dollar question on my mind since got my results early November. Been going through some serious soul searching, somber assessments of the job market prospects, and some baseline cost benefit analysis.

In my mind right now I plan take the bar again, although the question is when exactly, and in what jurisdiction?  If I narrow my job search to federal attorney positions, then any jurisdiction will do.  If moving back home is in the cards, then it would make the most sense to just focus on Hawaii sometime in the future.  From a pure test-taking strategy standpoint, I should retake the test in the same jurisdiction again since I’ve already been through at least one round.

There are at least three areas where I would be motivated to take it again sooner than later.  First is in order to use the degree to get a better paying or more fulfilling job, which was what was motivating me the back in July.  The second was more of a fall back position, that even if I couldn’t get a legal job right away, it would be an investment my future legal career, my reasoning is that I can’t even apply for anything until I’m licensed, so it would be better to get it down earlier than later. There is also the fact that my paperwork and character and fitness investigation are already in, I had to ask a number of personal and professional references to vouch for me, and I’d hat to see that all go to waste now.

As for the first motivation, that’s pretty much shot this time around.  Maybe ignorance is bliss, I had no idea how bad the legal job market was back in July, and how it has maybe gotten even worse since then.  I’ve been hearing stories about friends applying for paralegal positions only to find out that they are competing with a ton of licensed JDs, some with several years of litigation experience.  I also have heard of attorneys getting laid off after a year or less than a year, on top of that after being deferred.  What was once a fall back position for a lot of recent grads, government employment has now become almost impossible to get in.  One attorney I spoke recently said that federal jobs, especially federal attorney positions are becoming harder to get than those famous big law firm jobs that a lot of law students kill themselves for 3 years over.  With the way the economy is going my thoughts are that at the very least, it’ll have to get worse before it gets better.

Broke out my old books again and started going through them to see how much of the material I remembered, and how much of it had I forgotten from last summer.   It didn’t take very long to for me to get frustrated at realizing that that every time I come across a topic, I felt like I knew it from the front to the back, so much to the point that I couldn’t bring myself to get through a whole substantive topic.  I’m beginning to wonder if mentally it’s much too early to take this test again, in a real ass-backward logic sort of way, it seems like I’ll be better able to devote the necessary time and dedication to preparing for it is to forget large chunks of the material and learn it all over again.

Then there are the warning signs that I may be setting  myself up for failure should I decide to jump in one more time.  Most obvious is the amount of time commitment I have to dedicate towards studying.  I also decided early on that all of my annual leave from here on out will be for when the  baby comes, so I would not be taking any time off should I decide to take the test again.  I could not see how taking another course would be helpful, and in no way could I justify dropping another couple grand on another law related class, not now after dropping major money for 4 years of law school.

Most importantly, I’ve been pretty distracted with the baby preparations, buying new furniture, reading up on baby books, reorganizing the finances to handle the additional expenses, it is all very exciting and so much more positive activities than the dry study of contract formation and UCC 2-207.

Of course in the back of my head what is really eating at me is the prospects of taking and failing again, which is something that I don’t want to put myself through again, even after going through the process once already and knowing what the test is and isn’t.  After having time to open my eyes a bit and really see things for what they are, I can’t see how it’s worth it.