Linchpin Lawyers

I started reading Seth Godin's new book Linchpin yesterday. One of the chapters is titled Indoctrination: How we got here. He argues that schools have been designed to generate compliant and obedient workers for the factory (and his definition of factory is pretty broad, I have no doubt that a law firm would be considered a factory for the sake of his argument). There were several passages where I felt like I was reading a description of law school. Compliance, obedience, following the prescribed path to a socially accepted prestigious career (where it's more of the same compliance and fitting in to get to the top). That's the essence of law school. Law school isn't about processing information in an insightful manner, it's about regurgitating as much as you can during an exam (at least that's what I've been told by two reasonably successful law students, they're both 3L's with job offers at good firms, that's the defition of success for law students right now). The path to a BigLaw career is clear from my position. Go to X law school, get Y grades, be on Z journal, and you'll end up in one of these firms, bill a couple thousand hours a year, and you'll be partner making big bucks in no time. I think that clarity is one of the things that attracts successful students to the law. If you're good at school, that kind of clear path is appealing. The requirements of a successful academic career are clear. It's not much of a jump to apply that same approach to a law career.

Law has a bit of a brute force element to it. You plug away for hours reading casebooks in law school and work crazy hours as a lawyer delving into every little detail of every document. It falls into the idea that if you show up and do the work, you'll be rewarded ideas of career that Godin discusses early in Linchpin. I like to take the smarter not harder approach myself. I have always considered law school as a means to a new stage in my career, but I will have to get lawyer experience at some point to make the transition worthwhile (especially as being in law school does not teach you how to be a lawyer). Maybe there is a better way to access the business develop side of the industry.