Sherry has a rundown of the Legal Lies that are bandied about in the legal profession, especially to law students and young lawyers. As a law student myself, I can attest that I’ve been told more than a few of these by people before. Some of them I still tell myself occasionally.
Some Hard Truths
May 20, 2005 by
A few of the things she said could really be applied to just about any advanced degree–it doesn’t teach you to BE what you will be when you get out, but it’s supposed to stuff your brain with all this basic knowledge and analytical skill that will allow you to start down the road of becoming a professional in the profession you’ve chosen.
Try talking to some of the masters students in computer science or informatics–you’ll find the same thing. Same goes for the instructors — let’s pay someone a shitload of money who probably could not function properly in the day to day professional world, and have him teach the younglings, dragging them into debt for the priviledge.
I think the core problem lies with a very long standing problem, and that’s what the academic programs were really formed to do is not in line with what people — including students and faculty — think it is formed to do.
Law does seem to be an outstanding example of this, because it’s so out of whack. But it’s not unique; it’s gatekeepers are also institutionalized, and who controls that? Just like doctors, it’s lawyers who control who becomes lawyers. When the stakes are potentially high, the wagons gather around to protect their own