Frankly, I am a bit disappointed by the unwarranted attacks and slights against my profession, and more so, against my particular practice area found in this stream.

As a person whose letters have ended up on Chilling Effects, I ask that you consider that there may be more to how the world works than you might read in one article (or any number of them).

And as a person who did not get a large firm job right out of a top-tier school, who has huge amounts of student loan debt, and yet was able to make my way into one of the top five largest firms in the world, and don't feel like I "pray [sic] on fear," I take some exception to your comments.

Let me break it down (like this).

Being a lawyer (much like life) is what you make it. There are limitless specialties, practice areas and types of jobs you can take. Not everyone is a litigator, who apparently "win in court not because they are right, but because their counsel is more persuasive for bad reasons." There are innumerable other things you can do as an attorney.

(Indeed, rarely does anyone win in court because they are "persuasive for bad reasons." Either you are indicting the jury system because you feel your fellow citizens are too dumb to come to a rational decision, or you are blaming the winning party for winning because they had a better reasoned argument. It rarely comes down, in court, to pedigree. Many of the best and most famous litigators went to lower-tier schools.)

That said, you have identified a primary rub.

If you go to law school, like any other professional school, you have to pay for it. Thus, you have to actually take a job that pays money in order to pay it back. And when it comes down to it, law school, per year, is no more expensive than any other degree (that you actually have to pay for).

As a result, you can't simply become an "officer of the court" for free, just because you want to serve for the betterment of mankind as a public interest attorney. Not unless money is no object.

Thus, you have to take a job to pay your bills. Sound familiar? The easy route to get out from your crushing debt, as it turns out, is to take a higher paying job. And, if you can believe it, employers who pay a higher amount, don't do it out of the graciousness of their heart! They make you work (read: bill) more hours.

So, you end up in a situation where students are fighting for the higher paying jobs, in the higher paying markets, and it becomes an employers market. Thus, they can demand the people from the best schools.

Is there truly no difference in the quality of education between a top-ranked school and a third tier school? Is that why you went to such a terrible engineering school? (That's sarcasm, before I get flamed.) That said, don't get me wrong, I have met a lot of dumbasses from Harvard Law, and I have met a lot of people who came from lower-ranked schools who were intelligent, hard-working, and much better lawyers than me. But that's not to say that the quality of their educations were not different. Again, what you make of it.

The big firms demand the people from the top schools because your ability to get into such a school and get good grades is the best performance indicator they have to judge whether you could make a good lawyer. That's their entire set of results for law students. Now for corporations, its different:

You said "law is not about results, its about perceptions." "Every corporate manager is afraid that if he isn't getting defended by a student from a top school he is going to loose his shirt." Right. You tell that to my clients to whom I send the bills each month. I can assure you that if the client doesn't get the results they want, they will go to another (perhaps lower-priced) law firm. No one in the business world gives a shit where you went to school. It's a nice marketing point, but they want results, not the perception that they hired Harvard grads. I work for some of the largest trademark holders in the world, and they want only a few things:

1) Results. They want to get the business result that they want.
2) Honesty. At the same time, they don't want me to blow rainbows up their rear end. If a business outcome is not possible through using the law, I will tell them. (Maybe there are other lawyers out there that are not quite so scrupulous. They will eventually be found out when they lie and they will be fired by the client).
3) Peace of Mind. Basically, my job is to tell the client that we will solve something and that they don't have to worry about it. And if we can't solve it, my job is to tell them we will take steps to fix or rectify the problem.
4) $$$. I need to do the above in the most cost-efficient manner possible.

And I am not alone. I know you may see the legal profession as a morass of hucksters, snake oil salesmen, and shysters, but it's really not like that. I come from a family of lawyers, real estate, corporate, insurance and now me, an IP attorney. I know of no time where my family or I have sacrificed the clients interests instead of my own. We're there as part of the business decision. Indeed, our job is to hear the problem, discuss the potential legal consequences, and then let the client make their decision.

Now, keep in mind that sometimes that business decision flies in the face of your legal advice. You reassert why you think that is bad, but then you do what the client asks (within the law and ethical requirements) because you serve them.

There is a strict ethical code, licensure and other requirements for lawyering. We are required, under that code, to never turn down a client who can pay. Indeed, we are required under the law to take on pro bono clients who cannot pay. That said, we are also required to never take a position which requires us to hide a crime or to lie to a court or other federal agency. But to say that "you'll never dream of making Partner in a firm without taking up cases that you yourself do not believe your own arguements for or against" (hijexx) is just not true. You can control your own destiny.

I would also like to take on your assertion concerning trademark attorneys. I am, frankly, insulted at your characterization of my practice area, the real reason I went to law school. This is a long discussion for another thread, but do you really think that I can tell any of my clients to do something without a business case behind it? Do you not think that I spend hours each month culling through the bills to make sure everything is documented? The Trademark and Copyright Acts have very specific provisions, which require enforcement of certain kinds in order to maintain your rights. This is the position that Mark from Boingboing attacks all the time, but it's not as simple as it is attacked to be. On the other hand, a corporation also wants to protect its brand, not from loss, but from mischaracterization, association with elements it does not want to be associated with, dilution, etc. While they must always respect free speech (on which I have advised numerous of my clients in the past, and they have backed down from their demands), they have rights under the various IP laws as well.

You state that a "lawyer has convinced a corporation that if they don't vigorously defend their trademarks by threatening every blogger who mentions them in passing they won't be successful at defending that trademark when they do have a real competitive threat." Rather, *OTHER CORPORATIONS* have convinced the rest that they must take everyone on. You have to know what side of the law you are on.

Indeed, K's statement is well-taken. Behind every asshole lawyer, there is an asshole client. I see that on the other side every day. Some people are paid (and are willing to be paid) to be asshole lawyers. I have been fired by a client for not being enough of an asshole. It's just what you are willing to do. And sometimes you have to be willing to say no.

And that's the difference between being a bad lawyer and a good advocate. As it turns out, the situation, as with nearly everything, is not as simple as it may seem from the outside (or from journalists who don't know what they are talking about) and, much like every lawyer answer ever, the answers to your questions are always going to be "it depends."

I'm not sure any of this helps you make your decision, but I felt you were operating from a faulty, or at least one sided, set of facts... I would hope a different perspective might provide some benefit as you work through your options. Of course, I am always happy to discuss more of the pragmatics in your decision-- there are a number of variables.

RE: The Problem with the Legal Profession