[nukkad] 20 Commandments for Lawyers

[Mean Drake <>]

Hello Nukkad,
      
Steele's Twenty Commandments 
For New Lawyers
By Edgar J. Steele
steele@conspiracypenpal.com
3-30-5
 
"There are way too many lawyers, but not nearly enough good ones." 
--- should be considered conventional wisdom 
Sooner or later, most with whom I speak say something like, "You know, I always 
considered going to law school," or "I've been thinking about going back to 
college and studying law." It seems like everybody at one time or another 
considers going to law school. Few of those who actually do so should have done 
so. A young man recently told me that he soon would enter law school and sought 
my advice. Here is what I told him: 
1. Everything your law school professors will tell you about not using 
commercial outlines and case summaries is a lie. If you can,t read 50 appellate 
opinions and get the drift, you should not become a lawyer. All you really need 
for law school is what is known as "black letter law." In my third year of law 
school, there were some classes for which I never even bothered to buy the 
assigned texts - just the commercial case summaries and legal outlines - I got 
As. Buy all the texts your first year and read some of the opinions, but also 
buy the stuff that everybody tells you not to and make them the centerpiece of 
your classroom preparation. 
2. The main point of law school is to prepare you to deal with more work than 
you possibly can do, in order to stay focused through complexity and be able to 
choose what not to do, day in and day out. You never can do all the homework 
assigned...never. Don't even try. Prove your worthiness to be a lawyer and 
cheat by using outlines. Law school is designed to breed mindless and obedient 
little exercise-wheel-spinning rats for the big law firms to put in harness for 
60-80 hours per week and bill out so that the partners can afford to drive 
their new luxury cars home to their mini mansions and their trophy wives (see 
Commandment 16, below). 
3. No relationship withstands law school. Do not get married until long after 
you recover from the process of becoming a lawyer. If you want to stay married, 
don't go to law school. Kiss your girlfriend goodbye. Law school breeds 
a**holes. It makes bigger a**holes out of those who are a**holes to begin with 
and it attracts a**holes like moths to a flame. Guard against feeding into your 
hostile side. Consider taking some sort of "personal growth seminar" during the 
summer after the first year to help counteract the influence. 
4. Law Review is for weenies and sycophants. Moot court is for real men. 
Externships, if available, are well worth the time. After graduation, the best 
job you can get is the one nobody wants: working for peanuts in the DA's 
office, where you will get more trial experience in your first month than most 
lawyers get in a lifetime. 
5. There is no relation between law school and legal practice. I hated law 
school, but I have loved being a lawyer. Everybody I knew who liked law school 
hates being a lawyer. Go figure. 
6. There is no transfer from law school to the bar exam. The prep course is 
mandatory. Make outlines of your outlines, then make outlines of them. When you 
finally have everything reduced to acronyms and notes that fit on a single page 
that you review the morning of the bar exam, you are ready. If BarBri (bar exam 
prep course) has an "early bird special," buy it. Their legal outlines are 
superlative, albeit less complete than what you need for class. If they let you 
audit the prep course in the summer after your first year, DO IT! It will be a 
great help with learning how to write law school essay exam answers. 
7. There is no relation between the bar exam and legal practice. Everybody 
starts from ground zero. The bar exam is like a job interview in that no skills 
learned for it will transfer. 
8. Map out all the possible states in which you might ever want to practice law 
and take those bar exams serially (i.e., one every 6 months) right after law 
school. You need to really book it for only the first couple (I took my fourth 
bar exam with zero preparation and passed). Though I could pass any bar exam 
today blindfolded, never again will I be allowed to take another in any state, 
due to my politically-incorrect status. 
9.Those who can't do, judge. Those who can't judge, teach. Both teachers and 
judges hate practicing lawyers, believing themselves superior and envying the 
money they see some lawyers make. The natural enemy of the trial lawyer is not 
the county clerk, as commonly thought, it is the judge. Any time you encounter 
law professors after law school (as expert witnesses, most often), they will be 
your enemy, too. You are in enemy territory until you graduate. Then you will 
be in enemy territory every time you enter a courtroom. Keep that in mind and 
wear your flak jacket. 
10. Be a litigator. Like all true warriors, litigators are born, not made. You 
must enjoy grinding the other guy beneath the heel of your boot. If you don't 
want to do trial work, then do yourself a favor and become a CPA, instead. 
11. Never trust a woman litigator. They don't play nice and they always go for 
the jugular (something to do with playing with dolls as a kid instead of toy 
guns, I suppose, though brain wiring has a good deal to do with it, too). 
12. As a beginning trial lawyer, you have precisely one advantage over your 
more experienced opponents: a willingness to prepare your case for trial like 
it is Judgment Day. They never will. Today, I could try most cases by being 
handed the file on my way in to pick a jury. When you begin to think like I do, 
it is time to retire. 
13. A great deal of lawyering is smoke and mirrors. The sizzle often is more 
important than the steak. Never underestimate the importance of appearance, 
bearing, posturing and phony self-righteous indignation. Always remember to 
deliver the freight, though. 
14. When it comes time for either you or your client to go to jail, always make 
sure it is your client. No client and no case are worth breaking the law and 
nobody every breaks the law unless, at the time, they are certain they will not 
be caught. Lots of lawyers get caught. 
15. Make a difference. Have an internal moral compass and never violate it. Do 
the right thing, not the smart thing. Be able, always, to stand tall and be 
proud. 
16. Lots of money just means a newer car (the new wears off after a week), or a 
bigger house (you can only be in one room at a time), or a prettier wife (with 
higher maintenance requirements and the sex wears off after 6 months) or any of 
a number of other things that you don't need and won't want once you get them. 
My happiest years were when I was young and poor. If youth is wasted on the 
young, then surely money is wasted on the old. (Corollary: No fool like an old 
fool.) 
17. Remember: If you are bored, you are boring. (Corollary: If you want to be 
loved more, be more lovable.) 
18. Marry a genuinely nice person, someone who can stand to be around you. 
Someone exceptionally forgiving, as you will require a great deal of 
forgiveness. It helps if she actually thinks you are cool, too. Don't even 
think about dating or marrying a law school classmate (see Commandment 11, 
above). 
19. Have kids. This is the only way to learn how to love someone else more than 
you love yourself, perhaps the single most vital lesson that life has to offer. 
20. Have fun. When it stops being fun, do something else. Always plan on 
eventually doing something else and prepare for it (beginning with taking your 
undergraduate degree in something truly useful, like History or Philosophy and 
certainly not Business or Political Science). No legal career should exceed 20 
years. Most litigators are toast after ten. Litigation was not my first career 
and it certainly won't be my last. 
(Yes, I know that I am a sexist pig. That's Mr. Sexist Pig to you. Please spare 
me your invective in that regard and don't tell my wife, who seems not to have 
noticed, even after twenty years. All other invective cheerfully received.) 
New America. An idea whose time has come. 
Copyright ©2005, Edgar J. Steele 
-- 
Best regards,
 Mean

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned
rather than housed in them. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To join/leave, use the form at: http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/#options
This list is archived at: http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/archive.html