This evening, I saw a guy I graduated law school with. He was working as a manager in a fast food restaurant.
Now I don't know this guy well. Maybe he managed a fast food restaurant all through law school, and its how he paid his tuition bills, and he keeps doing the job a few nights a week even though he's got a law gig during the day. Maybe he's joined the management team recently as a training thing before he gets to work at some corporate headquarters in-house. Maybe he's hung out a shingle, but needs to work in fast food to pay the bills. Maybe his family owns a bunch of fast food restaurants and he just went to law school for the fun of it.
But maybe, and this is what I suspect is true, maybe he looked and looked and looked for a legal job and couldn't find one, and his law school education didn't provide him with enough skills to hang out a shingle with any confidence.
I didn't get to ask. He briefly made eye contact and then walked to the back of the store.
Ouch. Wow. Given his reaction, I'd say you're right.
ReplyDeleteI know there are people who are worse off in the world, but this post quite literally broke my heart. At least the part of my heart that's a lawyer. If your version is right, and it probably is, that's not why anyone goes to law school and it would just suck. Good for him for making the best he can out of a crappy situation and getting a paying job, but still, I hurt a little for him.
ReplyDeleteOh, don't scare me! I have too much to worry about just trying to get through this first semester. It scares me senseless that I have to seriously worry about the job market too.
ReplyDeleteThis just made me cry.
ReplyDeleteUgh. I feel bad for him, not b/c I there is anything wrong with managing a restaurant (anyone who works hard gets my respect), but b/c it so clearly wasn't what he wanted for himself. The thought of giving so much blood, sweat, tears and money to law school, and come up empty-handed at the end, well, that sucks and there's no two ways about it.
ReplyDeleteAs a fake law prof, I would quibble with the "maybe law school failed him" theory. Maybe he didn't do well in law school. It's most likely a combination of a lot of things (poor job market and/or needing money on the side while going solo). I don't know that it's law school's job to teach the students how to run a business. Honestly, when I went out on my own after having worked for three years already, I wasn't fully prepared to be a business owner.
ReplyDeletei'm shocked when someone does leave law school thinking they can hang a shingle. i know a couple people who have done it, but i know i never could have. i picked up a few useful legal skills in jobs and clinics i did during school, but not enough to be my own boss in the field, to have felt like i could ethically represent clients without having a superior with whom the buck stopped.
ReplyDeleteas for the majorly not-legal job, i guess i come at this from a different perspective as someone who graduated law school, practiced for a while, and is now much happier in a new, nonlegal career. i'd say maybe he did decide he didn't want to be a lawyer...but the fact that he slunk back to the back of the restaurant without talking to you makes me think you're right, that he went to law school and hasn't been able to find legal employment yet, and that's at least a partial explanation of why he's there. if he were happy in his new job, he'd have probably been more willing to chat with an old classmate.
and...that's really depressing, and is still happening to way too many people. there are people i graduated with in '08 who still want to be lawyers, and still haven't found legal jobs almost two and a half years out. it's a mess.
Oh wow, I totally feel for that guy. I graduated college with a degree in engineering and ended up working as a nurse's aide for a year before going to law school. The job market sucks right now...I hope it's better in a few years!
ReplyDeleteMy husband feels this way very often. He also has a JD, but wasn't lucky enough to have a family friend looking for a lawyer for his healthcare company (like I was). It should make us feel better that, at least, my husband works at a Big Bank, which at least requires him to wear a tie, talk intelligently, and pays fairly well. Thanks for the reminder that things are good for us.
ReplyDeleteim so afraid this is my future.
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