I wonder what the legal team's basis for "meritless."
Thomas Jefferson Law School. Really?
I think it's meritless because one should "buyer beware" of any such type of school to begin with, even if you were valedictorian.
Someone sent me a link the other day in which some BIGLAW associate described his/her daily job of spending nights, weekends, and holidays tied to a computer and reading boring contracts until your eyes turn to dust. It's interesting reading that when you read about the credentials of the newest Supreme Court candidate Merrick Garland. When reading about this woman's fruitless lawsuit to get her money back in conjunction with all of these other facets, it's really hard to believe that all of this stems from the same root profession. When you think about it, a doctor is a doctor even if they are working at Walgreens, but the disparity of professional outcomes in the legal field is mind boggling in comparison. You have a spectrum of panhandler to McDonald's cook to food prepper in a high-end macrobiotic kitchen that serves glow in the dark food to chef in the White House.....and the humorous thing is that despite the ranking of the school, all of these people sat in the exact same 1L lectures explaining the Uniform Commercial Code.
Somehow, Merrick Garland beat the system. That's not a slight against his skills because he seems admirable, but when you think about the people out there who do not even get an opportunity to practice, who do not pass go and go straight to document review, who end up in a shady ambulance chaser firm and flame out two years later, or who spend their days in a dead-end job poring over business acquisition deals and never seeing their friends and family ever again, one can more fully appreciate that he not only got the opportunity but was able to hold to his guns and be well-respected when the expectation held by many is that you be a shady mother-effer. When I read Garland's credentials, I felt that hope from the initial days of law school orientation.
A professor of mine noted that wealth and success in the US is a combination of opportunity and circumstance. How many of us attorneys applied for the same gigs as Garland? Most of us were rejected for one reason or another. My buddies and I have applied to hundreds of government gigs and we all get the same emails.... His resume is all government jobs. I am guessing he got lucky.
ReplyDeleteLet's be honest too. Ten to fifteen years ago, government law jobs were more available and less selective. I had an offer or two and I declined. Why? Because even as a Solo, I could easily make the salary and was home by 3:00 everyday after a court appearance or two and then go on long bike rides and meet women. In addition, I didn't want to be pigeon holed into one job interpreting and enforcing the same statutes day after day after day. It would have been drudgery and monotonous. Like banging together a car on a hot factory floor. It is only now during this highly oversaturated legal market that these government jobs are now the gold standard. They are the only lawyers with income and some modicum of stability.
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