COLUMN: Why not to be lawyer

From Tom Nessinger's "Inseparable My Nose and Thumb," Fall '96 From Tom Nessinger's "Inseparable My Nose and Thumb," Fall '96Wondering what to do after college withFrom Tom Nessinger's "Inseparable My Nose and Thumb," Fall '96Wondering what to do after college withyour liberal arts degree? Unless you reallyFrom Tom Nessinger's "Inseparable My Nose and Thumb," Fall '96Wondering what to do after college withyour liberal arts degree? Unless you reallywant to practice law, don't go to law school. From Tom Nessinger's "Inseparable My Nose and Thumb," Fall '96Wondering what to do after college withyour liberal arts degree? Unless you reallywant to practice law, don't go to law school. As those of you who are regular visitors to my corner of the DP may have gleaned, I'm kind of the Old Man of the staff here, at the ripe age of 35. You'll usually find me sitting on the front porch here at DP HQ in my rocking chair, smoking my corncob pipe, holding forth on the dangers of the Marshall Plan and the virtues of a high-fiber diet. Well, pull up a fireplace and get comfy, kids. This is Tom's Cautionary Tale -- too late, I know, for you seniors who've already been accepted to law school, but maybe I can help some of you underclasspersons before you blow big bucks on the Kaplan LSAT prep course. The title of today's story is "Why You Should Think Thrice Before Going to Law School." Actually, law school itself is OK; it's just that practicing law, for me at least, wasn't a bushel of grins. Sure, you decide you can write well, can speak in public without having to vomit, can think logically -- and these are invaluable skills for an attorney. What they don't teach you in law school, and can't teach you really, is whether or not you'll actually enjoy it, or at least tolerate it. Consider: what does a lawyer spend 90 percent of his or her time doing? Arguing about money. What breaks up most marriages in this country? Arguing about money. Do the math. Plus, legal arguments aren't like the "arguments" you had in high school debate. Think more of pro wrestling, where people yell and scream a lot and smack you upside the head with a folding chair when the ref's not looking. I kid you not: a lot of litigators make their reputation solely by being the kind of people who make you wish you had the Ebola virus -- just so you could give it to them. Small wonder that the prime purveyors of lawyer jokes are other lawyers. Not that non-lawyers think any more highly of attorneys. I don't need to go into it, but a couple points are telling. First, check out Bartlett's Familiar Quotations sometime and look up "Law" and "Lawyers." Note that virtually the only people who have anything good to say on these topics are -- you guessed it -- lawyers and judges. Second, realize that "lawyer" is one of the few professions singled out in the New Testament for scorn by Jesus Christ, who loved everybody. "Woe to you lawyers also! You lay impossible burdens on men but will not lift a finger to lighten them!" (Luke 11:46) It's one thing when Jay Leno tells lawyer jokes, but when The Nazz Himself comes down on your ass, you'd pretty much better kiss it goodbye. So why, you may ask, does anyone go into law? Part of it is the lack of a job market for liberal arts majors. Law is the ideal profession for smart people who scored higher on their SAT Verbal than on the Math. Also, at some point or another, someone -- a well-meaning parent or aunt or cousin -- will try to sell you on The Myth: "Oh, you can do anything with a law degree!" News flash, kids: you can do one thing with a law degree, and that's practice law. You don't get hired as, say, a writer just because you have a law degree. You get hired because you can write. Yet there's an entire industry that caters to the wholesale job dissatisfaction in the legal profession, based entirely on The Myth. You'll see ads for seminars with titles like, "6.023 x 1023 Things You Can Do With a Law Degree," in which you get a booklet with helpful suggestions like, "Fred Thompson, the former actor and current senator, was a lawyer -- so you can be an actor! Or a senator!" Yeah, sure -- and if I had twin turbojet engines and variable-sweep wings, I could be an F-14. Granted, there are things you can do despite having a law degree, but they all hinge on having some talent or skill aside from law. While there are some advantages to legal training, I wouldn't advise anyone to go to law school solely as preparation for another career -- you ought to at least figure that sometime you might actually have to practice law. Now, you probably think I'm warning you all away from law school entirely. Not true. For some people, law can be a good career. If you're naturally argumentative, impervious to pain, sarcasm, criticism and just plain nastiness, or if you're incurably idealistic, I say go for it -- but do yourself a favor. Find someone, or several someones, who are lawyers, whom you trust to be candid, who are similar to you in temperament and whose opinions you trust, and ask them how they like being lawyers. Don't just assume that just because you have the skills you'll be a happy attorney. Try to find out what the daily life is like, the good and bad points, and assess them against your personality. Don't be afraid to conclude it's not for you. It's not for about half the people in the profession, and a few of them (like a partner in a firm here in Philly recently) take the long way out -- 43 floors straight down, in his case. We don't need more lawyers. We sure as hell don't need any more miserable ones. Don't just go to law school for lack of anything else to do. Do it because you want to and you think you'll like it. Or end up like me. You've been warned.