Why Are Lawyers Such Snobs?

Ethical Esq. and I are having a little conversation about young lawyers' debt and its impact on the profession, and it's gotten me all worked up.

I promised him I'd think it through a little more and post my thoughts. Which I will do, one of these days. But for now here's a hasty and poorly-thought-out reaction right now. Any conversation about the future of the profession is incomplete if it doesn't acknowledge how pervasive and influential our profession's snobbery about pedigree is. I happen to think it's ugly and stupid, myself, but there is no arguing that it is there, and I think maybe older, well-pedigreed lawyers forget or don't recognize just how strong a pull it exerts on young people.

I mean, I love my life and I love my law firm. I had a great time at my law school and feel that I got a real bargain -- a terrific education with student loans under $50,000. I try to make pretty deliberate choices and follow my own compass (although I still care what people think of me way too much and run astray again and again because of it). I think I've managed to do a really good job fitting my work and my life to what I really want. And yet I still REGULARLY question my choice of law school and of law firm.

Why? Because our profession worships credentials. We assume people from big, fancy law firms are smarter, and we assume people from fancy expensive law schools are better. You're a big liar if you pretend it's not true. Maybe it goes away or subsides after a career of practicing law, but we young lawyers (and certainly those applying to and attending law school) feel it acutely, and I bet the middle-aged lawyers who might have forgotten this need only check their ingrained assumptions to see that it's still there.

I was relatively oblivious to the handicap I was giving myself when I enrolled at UMaine School of Law (and I had both personal and financial reasons keeping me in Maine). But, luckily or unluckily, I did well there and got offers at the fancy skyscraper firms in the big city of my choice for my summer associateship. As a summer associate I began to realize what I was up against when I discovered what an indelicate conversation stopper it was to answer honestly when attorneys asked me where I went to school. (Harvard and Georgetown were the acceptable answers at that particular firm.) Generally, the best the inquiring lawyer could muster was "Er... I went to camp in Maine." Literally, once an attorney froze, turned away, reconsidered, turned back, and asked hopefully where I went to undergrad. When I gave him an answer within the tiny universe of acceptable schools, his relief was visible. He happily changed the conversation to that school.

And EVERYONE -- parents, professors, lawyers, business folks I knew from town -- urged me to accept my offer there, or one from another fancy law firm, even when I explained that I was pretty sure the life I wanted to build looked different than that. "Just for a couple of years," they urged. "It'll open so many doors." I didn't do it, but I recognize that my mobility is limited because I went instead to a firm nobody's ever heard of. I recognize that plenty of lawyers assume that I'm here because I didn't have the option to go somewhere "better." And the SCARIEST thing is that, after a couple of years, I'm doing it, too. I'm impressed by people with a recognizable law firm name on their resume, or a fancy diploma on their wall. Even though I have neither. Talk about low self-esteem. That's ugly. And when I talk to my friends from undergrad who are miserable at the most prestigious of white-shoe firms, I wonder whether I would've could've should've taken that route.

People, this is crap! Let's think about this. Is this really a good way to discern among people in our profession? I thought the Harvard summer associates in my class were the worst of the bunch -- not good writers, not especially impressive thinkers, and with an air of entitlement that was really ugly. The guy in my class who will be the best lawyer is a former merchant marine who didn't have the interest or inclination to go anywhere but UMaine, but he's got a fantastic mind, a real-world practicality and a great work ethic.

I could rant a lot longer (don't get me started on law review, for example, which I'm reading a lot of law students blog about) but the gist of it is, our profession exerts a nearly irresistible pressure on talented young people to climb to the highest rung of a specific and extremely narrow ladder. To do so, they incur big big debt, and take on impossibly demanding schedules, at school and in the beginnings of their professional career. And then the golden handcuffs kick in (and the professional snobbery sinks deeper) and making a different choice means admitting you can't "hack it". It's a real trap for the unwary.

Can any of you seasoned lawyers help me see this in a different way?

Comments

[Dave]

Great Post. I'm from Australia, and we get the same snobbery here as well. I've got a theory as to why there's so much snobbery in the law.

Its because law is poorly defined. Its often very difficult to tell whether one lawyer is better than another. Because of thsat, its necessary to invent arbitrary barriers of quality; lawschool, marks at law school etc etc etc.

You would never hear salesmen say 'oh that salesman's from Maine, he wont be good', (or they might intiially), but pretty soon the sales figures will either be on the board or not; then he'll be judged on that.

So its time to call the snobs bluff. I do a lot of litigation against big 'establishment' firms, and I'm consistently amazed at some of the stuff ups they make.

[Chrissy]

Having worked in fancy law firms in staff before entering a non-top law school who would want to work at them as an attorney to be working 24/7 with outrageous billable requirements making you a slave weekdays and weekends to the law firm, then possibly no guarantee making partner 7 years after that slavery. Young 20-somethings have no idea what they're in for fresh out of undergraduate school. Could care less to get in posh firms with posh peers. Let them be in that boat.

[nweiuxtk]

Good bye till we meet again in summer.
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[Melody Kramer]

Interesting that although your post is obviously years old, the snobbery continues. I've been writing a series on pedigree vs. quality on the blog for the National Association of Freelance Legal Professionals (www.naflp.org). I'd love your comments.

[Honey]

Give please. I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
I am from Iran and learning to read in English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: "This focus, made as a warm process hair or disease, is administered on conditions that sustain more also when they are smaller."

:-) Thanks in advance. Honey.

[Angela]

Hello,

Really interesting blog. I am currently an undergrad applying to law school for next Fall. My goal is to become a public interest lawyer. Therefore, law schools that have a focus on public interest and are generous with scholarships. I go to GMU and I am eyeing on UDC because they have what I need. I want to graduate and have minimal debt so I can do what I care about and not have to prostitute the law degree I would earn- basically. I have a 3.58 GPA, lots of volunteering, and waiting to take Dec. LSAT. Many people say I should aim for and apply to better schools. But to me, I like UDC and it is exactly what I need. Thoughts of I could do better started to enter my mind. But honestly, it doesn't really make sense because in the end- I will be the one living with however much student loan I borrow and I would be the one who would have to live with what I decide ultimately. I want to do public interest law and reading your blog makes me think- I never want to forget that. This is why I will go to law school. I want a law degree and I want to pass the bar. Also, to graduate being able to afford to do so is important especially as a single mom. Dr. Seuss said: "People who mind don't matter, people who matter don't mind"/ Now, I just hope any future probono/ indigent clients aren't snobs and would look down on where I went. That--- would really make me cry :)