[Tsundoku]

EmperorMagus, on 16 January 2018 - 08:29 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 16 January 2018 - 05:47 AM, said:

Congratulations. I'm sure the Soulectomy won't hurt a bit. You can probably ease yourself into it by pulling the wings off flies and stealing candy from children.

Oh I assure you, that process is already well underway. It starts with the LSAT exam, which by itself dims every joy and dulls every pleasure in a mortal's life.

My original reaction:

Quote

Can you imagine a world without lawyers? ewwww

Morgoth, on 16 January 2018 - 08:04 AM, said:

Flee while you still can! Congratulations, EM! Law is a great field

That's because Norwegian Maritime Law = Viking Law. Which is just The Law of the Sword, proving the right of your cause over the blood-drenched bodies of your opponents and tearing their still-beating hearts out and eating them. Cool shit.

[Gorefest]

That is the end of your time on the forum then, I guess. Can't have people finding historic posts of you saying that Karsa is a reprehensible being when you may have to defend him in court sometime.

[Morgoth]

I don't know about that. My forum record is hardly a shining beacon of intelligence and insight, but here I am still, lawyering away.

[Gorefest]

Well, I guess it is pretty moot unless Karsa is your client.

[Andorion]

EmperorMagus, on 16 January 2018 - 03:51 AM, said:

Briar King, on 16 January 2018 - 02:16 AM, said:

Grats.

What's your goal? Criminal, tax, divorce, juvenile, other?

At this point I'm more focused on getting the degree than what to do with it

Awesome news EM!

Totally go into criminal law. And then channel your hard earned expertise into building incisive and machiavellian cases in Mafia!

[amphibian]

Criminal law would not be what the Mafia wants. Tax law would be what they want.

Tax lawyers are very rare and valuable. Mostly because you have to be a special person to deal with all that.

I'm glad I went into disability law, which touches on a lot of other fields. But I would tell most people to stay away from law school and the legal profession. It's enough debt that doing nothing for three years and barely scraping by until you definitely figure out what you want to do would be vastly cheaper.

That kind of debt can affect the rest of your life in terms of getting credit, a house, and/or your own happiness.

It's a good thing to get into law school, but I really would not suggest going unless you're absolutely sure you want to actually go. If you're at all thinking "Got nothing better to do" then don't do this.

[Macros]

He means mafia the game amph

[Morgoth]

Besides, tax law is a lot of fun partially because no one else understands what you're doing. I had a new meeting today with the guy I mentioned a week ago, and in full view of everyone I told him straight up that his opinion on the issue is irrelevant because I know of what I talk about and he does not. Being the only tax lawyer present that was entirely true and very very satisfying.

Law is fun EM. It really is, if you enjoy language, reading, and spending a lot of time telling people things they do not want to hear. There's a kind of detective work involved too in how you follow trails of precedence towards a solution, and a lot of creative thinking in figuring out the right problem in the first place. What is the question you should actually ask. Being good at figuring that out is the heart of our profession, independent of which field of law you go for.

At the same time, it's a field that can easily make you rather unpopular (if you're in house at least), and lots of people have no respect for what you do. And jesus but you can become boring at parties

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 16 January 2018 - 02:53 PM

[amphibian]

I know the above viscerally because I was thinking "Got nothing better to do" when I went in and it took me five long years of depressed toil after law school to get a job I love. The only reason I was afloat those years was because I have a family who supported me and gave me a paying job that my very depressed self could do until I put myself back together and worked to get the job I have now.

H.D. on these forums quit law entirely and became a teacher. I have friends who quit law too and they're happier for it. I
have friends who joined the army to become JAGs because they hated their corporate worlds.

I also have friends who are genuinely happy doing what law areas they do and they're successful and well respected. I have friends who toil through and get money, but it's just a job to them. It's a big gamut of people and the debt makes the decision to go to school a very momentous one that affects the next twenty years of life majorly for most people.

I also have a couple acquaintances who were from extremely wealthy families and they don't do anything even after law school, but they have no debt and trust funds to fuel whatever stupid modeling/ singing or modern art career moves they want.

I am not you, EM. My friends are not you. You're going to find your answer, but I do urge you to not go if there's a sliver of doubt or indifference. If you don't have those things, you'll kick butt and that's great.

[Mentalist]

Depending where you study in Canada, law school might not cost an arm and a leg. I managed to work part-time while I was in law school, and the debt from my student loan was relatively modest.

That being said, I fully endorse the "don't do this unless you're sure you want to" advice. The workload can be quite overwhelming.

Law is like 90% problem-solving in my experience. It does require a very "systemic thinking" type of approach, where you must ruthlessly make all facts slot somewhere in the the system with which you are working, but essentially, it's just a different skill set.

And I was being perfectly serious, EM: generally, once you're in, the faculty will do all they can to help you graduate. But then when it comes to articling and finding a job, you're on your own again.

[Gorefest]

You know what it means when you have snow that far south, right? Winter is coming. The Others are near.

Hehe, winter is coming. All over the south. I get it now. George, you naughty rascal.

[EmperorMagus]

Puck, on 16 January 2018 - 09:22 AM, said:

Congrats, EM!

This is gonna sound cheesy, but it always makes me happy to see you get ahead and get what you want

Thanks!

amphibian, on 16 January 2018 - 03:05 PM, said:

I know the above viscerally because I was thinking "Got nothing better to do" when I went in and it took me five long years of depressed toil after law school to get a job I love. The only reason I was afloat those years was because I have a family who supported me and gave me a paying job that my very depressed self could do until I put myself back together and worked to get the job I have now.

H.D. on these forums quit law entirely and became a teacher. I have friends who quit law too and they're happier for it. I
have friends who joined the army to become JAGs because they hated their corporate worlds.

I also have friends who are genuinely happy doing what law areas they do and they're successful and well respected. I have friends who toil through and get money, but it's just a job to them. It's a big gamut of people and the debt makes the decision to go to school a very momentous one that affects the next twenty years of life majorly for most people.

I also have a couple acquaintances who were from extremely wealthy families and they don't do anything even after law school, but they have no debt and trust funds to fuel whatever stupid modeling/ singing or modern art career moves they want.

I am not you, EM. My friends are not you. You're going to find your answer, but I do urge you to not go if there's a sliver of doubt or indifference. If you don't have those things, you'll kick butt and that's great.

Thank you for the advice. It's something I've heard more than once before and thought about a lot.
I honestly can't say I have no doubts about the decision (who could?), but thankfully I live at home and the tuition for all 3 years of UBC law (without factoring scholarships) is about half the tuition of an average 'good' American law school like NYU. So the decision isn't as crippling as it would be in other contexts.

What I do know about myself is that I'm pretty good at reading and digesting long texts and I like writing - and by all accounts law involves a lot of that. Before applying, I actually read a few of the most cited legal opinions on CanLawii to see what they were like and I found them pretty interesting to read (complex and difficult though).

Mentalist, on 16 January 2018 - 03:12 PM, said:

Depending where you study in Canada, law school might not cost an arm and a leg. I managed to work part-time while I was in law school, and the debt from my student loan was relatively modest.

That being said, I fully endorse the "don't do this unless you're sure you want to" advice. The workload can be quite overwhelming.

Law is like 90% problem-solving in my experience. It does require a very "systemic thinking" type of approach, where you must ruthlessly make all facts slot somewhere in the the system with which you are working, but essentially, it's just a different skill set.

And I was being perfectly serious, EM: generally, once you're in, the faculty will do all they can to help you graduate. But then when it comes to articling and finding a job, you're on your own again.

Yeah, BC schools are mostly very reasonable in terms of tuition for Canadian citizens/residents.

I'm more worried about doing well rather than simply graduating.

[worry]

American lawyers are, like, traumatized by their student debts. It's nuts. This one couple I know are paying their prescribed minimum based on income -- and their income is healthy, if not corporate law healthy -- and it's literally not enough to reduce interest. Their debt is actually growing month to month.

[amphibian]

worry, on 16 January 2018 - 10:58 PM, said:

American lawyers are, like, traumatized by their student debts. It's nuts. This one couple I know are paying their prescribed minimum based on income -- and their income is healthy, if not corporate law healthy -- and it's literally not enough to reduce interest. Their debt is actually growing month to month.

It's real bad for many people and one thing that's scaring many is that the ten year public service loan forgiveness program may be going away under DeVos and Trump. That is going to crater many, many people and make non-profit/government service untenable for almost every lawyer. That would kill large swathes of the government and non-profit sectors (kind of the point of removing that program for the GOP).

Legal opinion writing for most lawyers is something like 0.5% of what they do in day to day life. It's also very hard to do at a high level day in and day out. That's why judges have multiple clerks writing most of their opinions.

Like most professions, most lawyers are digging into the client papers, looking up laws and opinions online, and dealing with a gamut of clients good, bad, and neutral. There's also the occasional negotiation session and a ton of "finding the next project/place where the money will come from", even at non-profits or big corporations.

I do love my non-profit job though. It's amazing and, of course, under threat by the Republican attitude towards budgets and funding programs like the Social Security Administration.

Canada absolutely has a better environment for lawyers and I wish you all the best, EM. You can do this and not lose that much sleep either. I recommend finding out whether you respond best to exams or papers and then hunt professors who have the exams or papers you respond best to. That's more important (good grades) than most subject matters of classes taken.

[Morgoth]

You guys should all just get your law degree in Norway. I didn't pay a penny for my masters.

[Macros]

Yeah but every true American knows that any form of socialism is just communism in disguise.

[Andorion]

So the new year has brought some surprises for me career wise.

Someone in my department quit and her replacement declined the job and ran away (no clue why)

This has resulted in me being promoted. While this bring a significant increase in workload, it also bring a quite satisfactory increase in pay.
Also I am working on another project. The pay increase because of this is not very big, but still significant and this is going to look really really really good on my CV. Plus I am meeting important people a lot more now which I assume will have beneficial effects in the long term.

[Brujah]

Snow Day here in the South.

[Malankazooie]

Just shouted off my deck "That crappy Aints and Scam Newton suck and will not be in the Super Bowl! YEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAW!"

My neighbors' dogs on all sides started barking up a storm. LOL!

#HowDoYouLikeThemApples #HaveFunAndSmile

[Brujah]

I think we got about 4 inches. We usually get snow once a year. Everyone scrambles to the grocery store and buys milk and bread like it's the end of times. Ha. Of course, being in true southern style, I have a 4 wheel drive truck.