The Law School Disease

Today is LSAT day. This means that most of my friends are stationed somewhere writing the Law Schoot Apptitude Test (this being one of the four test days a year). Law School Here We Come! (to the tune of California, by Phantom Planet)
As a holder of a Bachalaureate Arteum, BA Hon, Law School offers some sort of sick fascination for us political science and history majors - who aren't really qualified for much; no one wants to publish the 102 pages I wrote on the Weimar Republic do they? Most of my BA friends have either written the LSAT's, are writing the LSAT's today, or are studying for the LSAT's. Las summer it was like a thing, "I'm studying for the LSAT's." End conversation. I've even surrounded myself by law school wannabe boyfriends, both the M Brad and the Rama want to go to University of Toronto and study corporate law - I'm hoping they both get in, date and compare notes.

Why is this? Well, as a son of a lawyer, an embittered but lovable dreamer whose inner Holden Caufield just wants to sit in a beachside shack in Maine, I suppose I've realized that law school isn't exactly the ticket to financial freedom that most people think it offers. You wan't to make money as a lawyer - its doable, but there are way too many lawyers and big money often comes at the expense of working for a large soulless firm who will work you to the bone in the hopes that you will one day make partner. Lord knows that Sima would also bludgeon me repeatedly if I donned the altered mantra of New Hampshire, "Law School or Die."

When I first got back from Montreal, upon running into some of "those girls" (the classics) at Starbucks I asked one of them how her first year of law school had gone. "It's hard" she responded and thus ended our conversation. Of course it's hard, sweatie; sadly your four years of McGill Political Science, with a minor in bullshit Jewish Studies Classes, didn't quite prepare you for the rigours of law school. I suspect this isn't an isolated incidence of people going to law school simply because there is nothing else to do and realizing that they HATE law.

Sadly, law school, for most people is Default School. A couple of weeks ago while talking to my friend Papa Smurf I lamented the fac that I have no idea what to do with my life. "You aren't going to like my advice" he replied, "but write your LSAT's and go to law school." Default Option A, thus presented by a little man in red pants from Thornhill. Too many of my friends simply write the LSAT's and go to law school simply because there is nothing else to do; or at least there is no other simple option. The paved road of life that we all go happily along with, ended at McGill Convocatio and the future requires an off road SUV to navigate. Sadly this is what we've created; a society of people who wish to be lawyers because they aren't quite sure of their other options - but the reality is that they don't know their other options. But like most things the Law School Disease is tied to financial security. and I suppose for that fearful Forest HIllary in all of us who wonders how we are going to replicate the Centre Hall plan lifestyle of our parents, law school, seems to offer the only ticket to a future of Starbucks, Muskoka, and Diesel jeans. Securities may be the new plastics, but its all about credit, be it cards or your rating.

There are choices people. Things exist beyond the mainstream; shouldn't we all zest for a career that we are actually going to enjoy and not enter simply because we have no other choices. We deserve better then Default School; of that I am certain.