For myself, I didn’t find law itself boring, but I sure did find the practice of law at a large firm boring in that a few moments of excitement (or terror) didn’t make up for the overwhelming tedium.

It’s about the structural features of the entire system (law school curriculum, bar exam, firm structure) that create unhappiness. It is not an assertion of unhappiness but rather an attempt to go below the assertion to explain why. You’d probably enjoy it.

–Doug Litowitz, litowitz@gmail.com

Last week, the WSJ Law Blog had a quick write-up on Douglas Litowitz’s recent book The Destruction of Young Lawyers, which seems to be a fabulously original stream of assertions to the effect that there are a lot of unhappy junior associates in big law firms. Shocking! Just shocking!

That is to say, the social structures suggest that, say, 80% of law students should try to enter defense work at large corporate firms, with the remaining 20% scattered among government, public interest, plaintiff’s, and small firm work. I submit that fewer than 50% of all law students would, if given an opportunity to explore the issue, would choose such a lifestyle. But the social structures of law school compel students to either enter that world or feel inferior for not being able to enter it. As such, there’s a substantial number of law students made miserable by a misplaced interest in large corporate firm defense work.

Many students learn this the hard way — hence the >90% attrition rate at large corporate firms. Many stay with it since it’s all they know, while many blame the law entirely for their misery and not their particular field.

Again, I’m not trying to insult corporate defense work or say it is better or worse than any other legal work. I’m suggesting that too many students are shuffled into it unknowingly, since the social structure of law school confers outsized prestige on it and does not provide students an opportunity to explore other options.

Stop admitting students to law school directly out of undergrad. I suspect that much of the problem of humanities / social sciences types going to law school without liking the law is that it affords them the ability to postpone the non-academic life for a few more years. Searching for a job is hard – much more frustrating and taxing than applying for more schooling, even schooling at competitive institutions. But if a post-college job search was a given for everyone not getting a Ph.D. or MD (neither of which tend to attract people who don’t have a real interest in the field), more people would suck it up and start working, and many of them would find, after the initial shock of having to get up before 10 AM and not getting to work on what they think is absolutely the most interesting thing in the world every minute of the day, that they actually like having a job. That it provides them moments of real fascination and a dignity that is hard to come by when you’ve gone straight from your parents’ house to college to law school without every being responsible for your own livelihood. After a couple years, people who really wanted to be lawyers would still go to law school.

Leaving out a wee piece of the puzzle? The bread and butter of the major corporate firms is defense, particularly tort insurance defense. Indeed, look no further than your own firm: “Nearly half of the lawyers in our firm devote their practices to corporate litigation. We have considerable experience in handling a wide variety of complex business litigation matters, in arbitrations, mediations, and trial and appellate courts across the country. Representation of our large corporate clients runs the gamut of commercial litigation matters — from traditional civil and criminal antitrust litigation, to toxic tort and chemical exposure cases, commercial contract disputes, and business tort cases.”

Few aspiring lawyers dream of defending large businesses against the small businesses and individuals they’ve wronged. So two incentives have been established: (1) good money, with a chance at big money and (2) prestige.

I have no doubt there are a lot of benefits you enjoy at such a large firm with a diverse, monied client base. Frankly, the corporate law life sounds horrible to me (see the Attorney Life/Work Balance Calculator for why), and after I graduate I’ll join a ~20 person plaintiff’s firm where billable hours are meaningless and every second you work goes directly into the case’s success and your own take home income.

Is my choice inherently better? Certainly not. Monsanto is entitled to legal representation, big firms are often able to accomplish socially good outcomes smaller firms can’t, and there’s certainly nothing personally wrong with you choosing a large corporate firm.

But think back to law school — is my choice anywhere near as prestigeous as your’s? It’s undeniable that the law school culture is centered around the large corporate legal world, and that it looks down upon those who choose different paths, with the exception of clerking or working in government regulation, since both are seen as methods for working at the top corporate firms.

But here’s the important question: what percent of law students and young lawyers actually want to work at a big firm? Sure, the money is nice, but most people find the work/life balance off, and many are unwilling to smother their personal life for the 1-in-20 chance of making partner. Yet they get pulled into it anyway by the culture of law school, and end up in a job they hate because “it’s the thing to do.” Hence the misery.

The proposed college graduate has a background in the humanities or the social sciences. As far as I know, it is nigh-on impossible for such a person — even a relatively numerate one — to go into engineering. Both graduate schools and industry are glutted with fresh graduates with bachelors’ degrees directly on-point.

Mr. Oman,

Finance and accounting both seem like business-school tracks, no? Should I parse the post as “business interest and some math are needed for business school, which is the major alternative to law school” rather than “business interest is needed for business school and some math is needed for other alternatives to law school”?

Of course, I am a PSCI/PHIL guy with a business background, who could do math, and went to law school anyway because I wanted to learn about the law and I am happily toiling away at a transactional firm, so I might be outside the appropriate sample (and if you think lawyers don’t do math, check out Title 26 USC or some of the more esoteric portions of the securities laws).

Even the lawprofs recognize the problem: too many law student don’t want to be lawyers. Our universities produce a tremendous number of graduates in the humanities and the social sciences who have no marketable skills beyond some smattering of writing…

Also, more directly to the point I think you mean that the law is seen as being without formulas. Mathematics is more purely the distillation of logical reasoning; philosophy with right and wrong answers. I’ve gotten the distinct impression that someone with a mathematical background strong enough for a bachelor’s degree but not the masochism needed for a Ph.D. would be a particularly adept lawyer, or at least legal theorist.