Why I Am Not a Lawyer (Even Though I'm a Lawyer)

So, I'm a lawyer.  I don't mention that nearly as much as my having been in the military.  I find that people over here who find out I am mention it way more than I do...like they're impressed for me.  I'm a lawyer in that I went to law school, passed the bar exam, was sworn in to the SC Bar, and pay bar dues.  I've never had a client.  I've never worked or interned at a firm.  I'm a "lawyer", but not really.

People are often quite confused by that.  "Why go through all that trouble and expense if you're not going to practice?"  Well, to be forthright, had I managed to get a clerkship during my summers during school and had I found a legal job when I graduated, I'd be a practicing attorney.  I didn't, so I'm not.  At the same time, I wasn't remotely driven to do so like some of my classmates.  Bully for them.

You see, I didn't get that big driving passion to be a lawyer.  I've pretty much always wanted to be a writer, but that doesn't pay bills. I got out of the Army, needed to find a profession where I could feed myself and afford to have a family if the opportunity presented, and I was smart enough to do just about any graduate degree program.  Going into the corporate world was not even a consideration at the time.  I don't relish the idea of being around sick or aggressively dying people ("aggressively dying" because we're all headed that way no matter how healthy), plus the few requirements I'd need to get ruled out Med School.  I may come from professors, but that just means I understand what a fantastic waste of time getting grad degrees, publishing to publish, and competing with colleagues for tenure is.  No thank you.  That pretty much left law school.

Now, "This'll do..." is not the most inspiring way to make a career decision, but I figured that if it turned out I didn't want to do it, having a law degree wouldn't be useless.  At the very least, if someone messed with me, I could put the screws to him.  Never underestimate my drive to defend myself against theoretical antagonism.

At any rate, I went to law school.  I come from intellectuals.  Legal thinking is the exact opposite of intellectualism.  Instead of thinking for yourself, you're supposed to throw out original thought and find precedent.  Once every couple of generations, a slight majority of the Supreme Court will push forward a new thought ("Hey, it turns out black people do deserve truly equal treatment!") that gives the nation of lawyers something new to depend on.  Law seems mostly to be a battle between opponents who are trying to push forward why the thinking they're following is more derivative.  Brilliant.  (At the same time, I understand why it has to be that way, but that just ain't for me.)

Aside from law school though, I like to look at the big picture.  Running up $100k in debt for school was a mistake, perhaps (hey, I got to find drinking buddies for only $33k a year!), but I saw no reason to compound that mistake by doing something that looked to me to be miserable.  Some of my friends truly enjoy what they do.  They feel challenged and motivated and satisfied by legal work.  Many more, though, have discovered that being a lawyer kind of sucks.  There's a small cache of prestige (dwindling, I feel) to being an attorney, but not so much to outweigh the debt, stress, and long hours.  

I took a look at that while I was in school and said "Um, Dear Jesus! Only if I have to!"

To me, the easiest way to explain it is that law school is like a gaggle of people who are all fighting amongst themselves to get the opportunity to get punched in the genitals repeatedly.  Just because your groin is getting "action" that doesn't mean the action is good.  Thirty five years of that before I wander off to die ("retirement" the spin-doctors call it) and realize that it wasn't worth it?  No thank you.

I'd like to thank The Onion Movie for summing up my USC Law experience

in one classy graphic

So, I now do a job I didn't necessarily need law school for.  Being a lawyer looks like it will provide me with the ability to promote faster and higher, but the plan is to do this for the minimum amount of time necessary to not have to do this anymore either.  The difference between this and being a lawyer is that I'm under no illusions that I'm not taking brass knuckles to the juevos.  My jaded outlook is if it's gotta happen, let it happen quickly (at least I know I'll be ready should I ever go to prison).

At the same time, someone here asked me to be his corporate attorney for his helicopter company so he'd have the ability to say his company has a corporate attorney.  So, I'm an attorney who isn't an attorney even while being an attorney who isn't really one.  Got it?