Dec
6
2009
End Game Lights: ON
Author: Fat Plaid ShirtIt’s interesting how your view of studying changes when you have a job. See, here’s the scoop. When you are looking for a job as a 1L, it’s hard to gauge what you should look for. You know that big firm jobs are given to top students. You know that every student on campus is looking for summer work, or any type of legal experience being it pro bono, a clerkship, a third year clinic, or other resume builder that one can muster. However, after first year grades come out, those students not at the top of the class tend to be a little disheartened and begin looking for supplementary work to pay bills and live on for the next year because grades matter, and we know it.
I fell into that trap, as did many, many of my peers. I don’t think it’s bad necessarily, as long as you don’t give up complete hope. Working a non-law related job brings in cash and shows that you can work while going to school. But it also adds to that amazing feeling of unemployability and of being another middle-of-the-road undesired law student, especially prevalent in today’s crappy legal job market. It’s easy for lower ranked students to stop looking altogether for work until after graduation because they want to pass the bar and begin looking seriously then, when they can actually practice. This is a terrible way to approach entry into the legal field, but it comes at a point when you don’t see many options, if any at all.
However, I have a job. I have a point to be here. I have more than a goal, I am already employed, and all my future requires is that I graduate being competent in the law, and pass the bar. It really does change how you approach school. Law school is still crap, and I don’t like it anymore than I did yesterday, but I view it now more like learning how to play well with my new “others.”
