Planning: Day 7

Song of the Day: Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad” by Shostakovich

When I need to focus, it's best to be by myself. This is difficult to do in an office full of people, so I put in my headphones and turn up some music loudly so that I can effectively ignore everyone (sorry, coworkers) and my favorite piece of the past two years has been the Leningrad symphony by Shostakovich. Since I need to do a lot of research on careers in law and law schools and what that even means, I figured I’d take today’s post to research and share the best of my thoughts as I work, and then I realized that I have a lot of learning yet to do, so this is part 1 of the things I learned when I googled “So you want to be a lawyer”.

-Let’s start out here: http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/careers/opia/public-interest-law/issue-areas/issue-areas.html (Never mind the fact that I was hours into the internet before I even found the term “public interest”.)

This list, this is why I’d want to go to law school. To work on developing policy that would improve the lives of people who are never going to go to law school and are never going to know how to advocate for themselves or that they even deserve a better life. 

-This is where I actually started: http://thegirlsguidetolawschool.com/should-you-go-to-law-school/

-Six “Should You Go To Law School” articles in and I’m starting to wonder about who their intended audience is. I’m a good student. I’m prepared to work my ass off and I know it’s going to cost more money than I can imagine. Most grad schools do. Do lazy people even apply to law school? Apparently, lazy people think about it and I’m 98% sure these articles are written to keep them from even thinking about trying.

-They keep on saying that I need to be admitted to a top 50 law school. I wonder which ones those are. *Finds list* *Immediately scrolls to see where UNC is ranked out of habit*

-Maybe I shouldn’t apply to law school if I’m intimidated just looking at school rankings.

-And it’s not that I’m not competitive enough to do this, it’s just that the competitive monster is a difficult one to put back in a cage once I let it out.

-So what I’m hearing is that if I don’t get into a top 50 law school and graduate in the top half of my class, I basically wasted my money. Guess I’m taking the LSAT again, because goodness knows my current academic recommendations are not going to help my application.

-Ah, the UGPA/LSAT Score Searcher. The killer of dreams.

-Starting to think that this is really just going to be a multi-hundred dollar way for people to tell me that, no, actually, you’re not smart enough to be a lawyer. Shake the magic eight ball. Try again later. 

-But then I read these damn articles that are full of “it’s difficult and you’re going to work all these hours and it’s near impossible to have a personal life and it’s high-stress” and all I can think is, “Psst. Watch me beast that. I got this.” What is wrong with me?

-*Sees starting salaries* *Compulsively closes browser and walks away* SO. MUCH. MONEY.

-Okay, let’s just focus on what field of law we’d like to go into. If you’re going to go to law school, you should know why you’re doing it. What are some careers I’d like to consider?

-*Listens to What Do You Do With a BA in English? for self-confidence boost*

-*Resists urge to click on all foreign policy links because I would get nothing else done*

-Public Interest Law. That sounds like what I want to do! But maybe not. This is not the most helpful article: http://www.americanbar.org/publications/young_lawyer_home/young_lawyer_archive/yld_tyl_sept08_wimberly.html 

-I’m realizing that I want to advocate for people without ever having to work with them. I’m reading all this and all I can think is, “I have to talk to people?”

-But no, really, I don’t think I should be doing research for this while I’m tired. This all sounds existing. 

-LAW REFORM ORGANIZATIONS. YES. GIVE ME THIS THING: http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/careers/opia/public-interest-law/practice-settings/law-reform.html 

-But really, I don’t think I’m cut out for this. Like, at all. So I should stop researching and stop looking into this because it would exhaust me to do it and it would break me and I would be miserable and I would live for that one day when maybe we make an impact that stays on the books and saves people down the line and yet, I read this and still think, “But I WANT that.”