January 23, 2006

Exploding The Myths

Take this portrait of a young lawyer as a lesson -- lawyers do not all lead glamorous lives, wear thousand-dollar suits, have encyclopedic knowledge of the law and everything else, and drive Mercedes-Benzes. The article describes a guy on the low end of the bell curve, to be sure, but it's part of the picture of what lawyers really are. I admire him -- he may not be the smartest lawyer around, and maybe he could have made more money inspecting asphalt for the state. But he's doing what he wants to do, putting in the time and doing the hard work it takes to learn the profession. He needs to learn what he can from working at the PD's office and get out before he gets burned out, though.

It makes me ask if I'm burned out (no, I'm just weary of a difficult job market) and if I've learned what I need to know in order to practice my profession (yes, but there's always more to learn) and whether there are alternatives for me like this guy could have had inspecting asphalt (I'm sure there are but I haven't a clue what they are yet). Anyway, I've got seven work days left here at the Law Offices of the Great Man and I need to fill that time with something useful and productive for my clients instead of feeling sorry for myself.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, no, one of the law books on his shelf was upside down! Why does he even bother?

I thought PDs made the same amount as district attorneys, assuming equal experience levels, and had about the same workload. Yet, they seem to get stereotyped as the losers of the legal system.

Salsola said...

That article appealed to me too. But, you are not him.