Reality of Law School
written August 28, 2008
Question: What do you get when you compile 50+ know-it-alls who can’t articulate the difference between a tort and the brown part of their ass, give them a volume of six 1,000+ page books explaining our complex legal system and rules, and apply the Socratic Method?
Answer: Your typical 1L class: a chorus of skewed information, irrelevant facts, misquoted pseudo-facts (usually hearsay they acquired from their ever important attorney friend from back home), ultimately immaterial philosophical stipulations, inaccurate interpretations of the law as it applies to facts, and all other aspects of a discombobulated symphony of stupid.
But I don’t blame them; the higher education system of America is a giant, elaborate hoax. Here are the facts:
- You pay $16,000 or more per semester to attend law school
- You get a list of books which cost about $900, maybe more
- You read what's assigned in those books
- Upon arriving at class, you're not given an explanation of what was in those books. Instead, the teachers exploit students’ lack of understanding of said books to the point of humiliation
- At the end of each semester, those teachers test you on the material in said books
In essence, you pay a ton of money for the equivalent of getting handed a booklist. And if that wasn't enough of a con, they add insult to (monetary) injury by humiliating you in the process of your attempt to understand the books. You could save $16,000 by walking into the book store and asking for the booklist, skip the humiliation throughout the semester, read voraciously, and then taken the same test at the end of the semester.
But that’s not all the $16,000 goes towards. Your money was also given in the hopes that this institution would employ highly effective teaching methods unattainable elsewhere. Are the teaching methods effective? Arguably. The Socratic Method has churned out plenty of successful lawyers, judges, and all other beings intelligent. Are the methods unique? Law schools are notorious for using the Socratic Method exclusively (on 1Ls at least), so in that sense, yes. But the answers to these questions do not preclude the fact that their method of teaching the material is analogous to the mother who, in an effort to teach her toddler how to swim, tosses him into the deep end of a pool. In front of his peers. And then laughs.
How does one get conned into this? Mainly due to false ambition caused in large part by the over sensationalization of institutions of higher education,
which would more accurately be labeled as institutions that foster mediocrity.
Not far from that is the pressure of family and friends to have a respectable
or prestigious
job. Read more about the 7th circle of hell that is law school.
Tell your friends:
