Filed under: 2. Career Advice
So I went to a networking reception a mid-sized firm here, and here is some advice I found helpful from lawyers who have been in the field for a few years…
A 1980 graduate of Law school had this to say…
When you graduate from law school and it comes time to finally start practicing a particular area of law, do what you love. Do what you enjoy. As cheesy as it sounds, try to minimize the impact of the money factor on your decision. Because if you go into a field of the law that you don’t find appealing yet you chose it because it was the highest offer you received, you will regret it later in life.
Another lawyer with the mid-sized law firm Roetzel & Andress who works in corporate finance law had this to say…
Choose your first practice area wisely, because once you’re practicing for 3 or 4 years, it gets really difficult to change it. (Insert sinister lawyerly laughing.) Sure, once you have even a year or two of experience under your belt, it gets easier to move up to bigger and more lucrative firms, but chances are they will higher you for your experience in the field you’ve been practicing. So it’s possible, but very difficult, to be doing some environmental law out of law school and suddenly deciding you want to practice in corporate law. It’s possible, but it’s really, really difficult. Choose your first practice area wisely.
Filed under: 3. 1L
So a few days before class started, I was roaming around the law library, and I randomly ran into an Akron Law alumnus from 1980. He was a pretty successful criminal defense lawyer, and he had this advice to give:
- Don’t take any shortcuts in law school. That refers to cheating, and apparently, many people will cheat in law school. But it goes beyond that. It applies, to a lesser extent, to study groups and study aids and cliffs notes and old casebriefs….and that stuff isn’t gonna help you. Apparently, all that stuff is “crap.” Whereas that stuff, especially cheating, might get you an A or B on your exam, you will be a crappy lawyer. You will only be hurting yourself. Because law school is not as much about learning the law, as it is learning to think like a lawyer. If you don’t sit down, hunker down, do the grunt work, outline, brief, do the reading and read through the cases and invest lots of time to try to figure out the reasoning behind a certain case or decision, well, then you will be like the tons of “mediocre” lawyers out there who don’t make that much money and aren’t really satisfied with their lives.
Interesting perspective.
Filed under: 3. 1L
Wow. Well, this sure is different.
I’ve been out of undergrad for over a year now, but I still remember being able to doze off and daydream in class every once in a while. I frankly don’t ever recall doing all the assigned reading for any course, nor do I recall reading very often before class.
Law school is the complete opposite. If you don’t read before class, you won’t be back for year two. Guaranteed. Not only do you have to read (and the reading is heavy, because usually you’re reading appellate decisions written by really old judges), but you also have to outline. You also have to brief the cases in the reading. THEN you go to class, where you take more notes, and then fit them into your outline. Oh, and you write an exam on it at the end of the semester.
The classroom atmosphere is definitely more intense than anything I’ve ever seen. In undergrad, when the professor calls on you, even if you don’t know the answer or you didn’t do the reading it really isn’t that big of a deal. In law school, you will be embarrassed, and made an example out of in front of all your peers. And the way the questions are asked you have to be on your toes. The professor may be in the middle of a sentence and then abruptly call on you and ask you to finish the sentence. And when you answer the question, they’ll ask you “WHY?” And then when you answer the question, the professor will change the facts of the question, and ask you again. Basically what I’m trying to say is it’s nothing like undergrad! It’s definitely hard work, and I can see why there’s a 20% attrition rate in law school.
Filed under: 2. Career Advice
There’s a great CNN article you might want to read. Here’s something I found interesting:
Many hiring managers and HR departments are using new technology to review job candidates. Applicant tracking systems scan résumés and provide the managers with a ranking based on keywords in the document.
Among the terms employers searched for most often: “problem-solving and decision making skills,” “oral and written communication,” “customer service,” “retention,” “performance” and “productivity improvement,” “leadership,” “technology,” “team-building,” “project management” and “bilingual.”
Original link: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/08/13/cb.lies.on.resumes/index.html?iref=werecommend
