Law schools: BYU 41, Utah 45

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by All-American

And you maintain that this alone entirely accounts for the hyper-inflated number of lawyers and their outrageously excessive salaries? What of the appreciable number of lawyers who have nothing to do with the litigation proccess at all?

I don't have the patience to explain it to you. Nor am I an expert in it.

You are kind of like me, I suspect. I didn't know very much at all about the profession of medicine before I jumped in. It sounds like you are in the same position regarding law.

It's okay to be idealistic, it really is. Talk to me in 4-5 years, and tell me if I was wrong. About any of this.

What society needs and what lawyers need are not necessarily the same thing.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I don't have the patience to explain it to you. Nor am I an expert in it.

I concede on both counts, particularly the latter.

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

You are kind of like me, I suspect. I didn't know very much at all about the profession of medicine before I jumped in. It sounds like you are in the same position regarding law.

It's okay to be idealistic, it really is. Talk to me in 4-5 years, and tell me if I was wrong. About any of this.

So far, the only positions you've taken is that there are too many lawyers, that they are overvalued, and that I am a naive imbecile. I may not care to seek you out in 4-5 year.s

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

What society needs and what lawyers need are not necessarily the same thing.

No kidding. Is there a profession about which this statement would NOT be true?

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by All-American

No kidding. Is there a profession about which this statement would NOT be true?

You think an invisible hand is choosing the number of lawyers and their reimbursement.

You think me calling you naive is insulting. So I'm not sure how to respond other than to say, you are wrong and naive.

I certainly don't believe that an invisible hand is doing the same for doctors.

Another thing, which is a qualitative statement of opinion, is that there are a lot of dumb people going to bad law schools (and good schools as well). Lawyers complain that there are too many lawyers.

A trap that exists for both doctors and lawyers is this: I went to an expensive, good school, I got good grades, so a higher paying job is available to me. I have to take it, because there are many other people that would kill (they are lawyers for chrissakes) to have this opportunity. Then they embark on a journey that is motivated by what they perceive as the preferred values of others, and not by an inner compass.

There was a kid in my ward that was Harvard Law grad. Corporate/big firm job. Freaking guy was trying to talk his wife into letting him go to med school. That doesn't strike me as someone happy with his job/career. He's changed jobs/firms, no doubt, hoping that the new place will do for him what his law career has failed to do, so far.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

You think an invisible hand is choosing the number of lawyers and their reimbursement.

You think me calling you naive is insulting. So I'm not sure how to respond other than to say, you are wrong and naive.

I certainly don't believe that an invisible hand is doing the same for doctors.

Mike, lawyers go into law because there is money in law. The less money there is in law, the less lawyers would be willing to go into law. That's law of supply. There's money in law because there is demand for the services lawyers provide. This is as "invisible hand" as it gets.

This is Econ 101 stuff, Mike. If this isn't what's happening, I'm open to hear alternative explanations. As it is, you've given one highly self-serving example of the medico-legal industry, and when asked to substantiate your claim, refused to do so because you "don't have the patience to explain it" and you're "not expert in it."

So if you're too lazy to do anything but call me naive, let's move on.

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Another thing, which is a qualitative statement of opinion, is that there are a lot of dumb people going to bad law schools (and good schools as well). Lawyers complain that there are too many lawyers.

A trap that exists for both doctors and lawyers is this: I went to an expensive, good school, I got good grades, so a higher paying job is available to me. I have to take it, because there are many other people that would kill (they are lawyers for chrissakes) to have this opportunity. Then they embark on a journey that is motivated by what they perceive as the preferred values of others, and not by an inner compass.

There was a kid in my ward that was Harvard Law grad. Corporate/big firm job. Freaking guy was trying to talk his wife into letting him go to med school. That doesn't strike me as someone happy with his job/career. He's changed jobs/firms, no doubt, hoping that the new place will do for him what his law career has failed to do, so far.

I know a guy who did just what you describe. He went to Harvard, got a law degree, and then went to Georgetown for medical degree. He's now a board member of a pharmaceutical corporation worth more than Chrysler, earning millions and millions of dollars. Things seem to have worked out for him.

Do people fall in that trap? Absolutely. And for others, the "trap" is the beginning of a long, happy, and successful career.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by All-American

A lawyer does not necessarily have to win to get paid, no, but a client has to win, or settle, to get paid. And if the odds are stacked against him winning or settling, he's not likely to hire a lawyer in the first place.

A lawyer can convince him that he has a chance, and because the lawyer a lot more knowledgable than the dude, he can take advantage of what we call in economics "asymmetric information."

So you are going to grad school in basketweaving?

[All-American]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

A lawyer can convince him that he has a chance, and because the lawyer a lot more knowledgable than the dude, he can take advantage of what we call in economics "asymmetric information."

So you are going to grad school in basketweaving?

Luckily, law is the only field where somebody takes advantage of another.

I'm going to NYU law.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by All-American

Mike, lawyers go into law because there is money in law. The less money there is in law, the less lawyers would be willing to go into law. That's law of supply. There's money in law because there is demand for the services lawyers provide. This is as "invisible hand" as it gets.

This is Econ 101 stuff, Mike. If this isn't what's happening, I'm open to hear alternative explanations. As it is, you've given one highly self-serving example of the medico-legal industry, and when asked to substantiate your claim, refused to do so because you "don't have the patience to explain it" and you're "not expert in it."

So if you're too lazy to do anything but call me naive, let's move on.



I know a guy who did just what you describe. He went to Harvard, got a law degree, and then went to Georgetown for medical degree. He's now a board member of a pharmaceutical corporation worth more than Chrysler, earning millions and millions of dollars. Things seem to have worked out for him.

Do people fall in that trap? Absolutely. And for others, the "trap" is the beginning of a long, happy, and successful career.

Dude, you are going to get exactly what you deserve. I don't think we need to discuss this further.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Dude, you are going to get exactly what you deserve. I don't think we need to discuss this further.

awesome. My sister went to Columbia law. She went in hoping to do feminist stuff, but came out working for Baker & McKenzie.

[MikeWaters]

I really should have never said anything. AA is excited about this journey he is going on, and really, that's the thing about life--it's like a stage. Actors come on stage left, and they leave stage right. The actors leaving the stage can shout to the actors entering the stage--but it is useless. They have to learn the play, do the play, live the play themselves, and then one day, they will be leaving stage right, and they will be tempted to yell to stage left, "do this" or "do that".

And it's then they understand, at least, the motivation of the old fogey who shouted out to them long ago, at the beginning, when all was new.

I don't mean it as something terrible, or something wrong. I'm not saying it is bad or evil. I'm not saying it won't be good and wonderful. I'm saying, it will be what you deserve. And that's really as good as we can hope for, any of us. Exactly what we deserve, no more, no less. Not everyone gets that. It would be an unfortunate life, where the lessons learned were not commensurate with the efforts made. The sun rises on all of us, the good book says, and such is true.

[Levin]

"Weren't psychiatrists supposed to be wise, deep-voiced, fatherly sorts of people? Then how could you feel anything but soiled in the presence of a red-eyed, nail-biting little man who used adhesive tape to hold his glasses together and a piece of Woolworth jewelry to keep his tie clamped flat against his white-on-white shirt -- who had to thumb moistly through a dozen manila folders before he could remember which of his patients you had come to see him about, and who then said, 'Yes; oh yes; and, what was your question?"

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates, p. 162

"I don't think any home visits would be wise at this time," the psychiatrist had said last month, hideously cracking his ink-stained knuckles, one after another, on his desk blotter."

Id., at 168-69.

AA, don't trust a psychiatrist; his job is to place labels and to explain something that defies labels and explanation. The psychiatrist is in the business of diagnosing, just like a pooper-scooper is in the business of picking up shit. It's what they do.

Life is too complicated for Waters to try to condemn you to an unhappy, hellish existence. And understand that the diagnosis he imparts always has a piece of himself in it.

Enjoy New York. Enjoy law school -- a fulfilling, stimulating, and wonderful experience. Being a lawyer can be tough, but it can be wonderful. There are peaks and valleys like any profession; the good and the bad. But it can be an honorable profession -- and it is for the very great majority.

Don't let the cracked-up psychiatrist place doubts in your mind or puncture your optimism and excitement about your future. You've got plenty of reasons to be optimistic and excited.