Part of what's happening here, I think, is an interpretation of Diplock and CleanHands' posts as amounting to, "anyone that chooses BigLaw but says they actually want to practice people-centred/social justice law is a liar and bullshit artist."  I don't think that's what they meant, but seeing it that way can be forgiven because of, erm, the packaging and delivery. But it's also because you're choosing to frame the conversation as a series of personal attacks and are responding accordingly. You're digging your heels in and are relying on similar fallacies you're accusing them of using.  The "lesson" woven in the thread is that admits, 1Ls and more have a tendency to permit themselves to live and move through their legal careers - and, more importantly, their lives - in a state of self-delusion, denial, or immaturity and they need to carefully consider what seem like basic questions. The problem with law students or anyone saying they want to choose the 'virtuous life' but must, by circumstance, choose financial comfort (until debs or paid off or whatever) is that the deficiencies in thinking and thought-action incongruence are palpable to everyone that's considered those things deeply and seriously. It's natural for a person to get their back up when they're confronted in that way. Why? Because everyone - especially law students and lawyers - think of themselves as intelligent, thoughtful, reflective, self-aware, morally "right", and congruent, and now there are a bunch of people saying that, in fact, there are significant flaws that undermine the moral righteousness of saying "I wish I could do the good thing". Others have bluntly called it bullshit, but it's simple immaturity - by avoidance, inability, or choice. Law students and lawyers are generally smart people, so we can eliminate inability.  Now, those in the trenches tend to have jaded, cynical views of those claiming to share the same perspective, values and drive as they do. The why is easy here; doing the work requires sacrifice and the bottom line is that those who say they want to but don't have chosen not to make that sacrifice, "we are not the same" sorta thing. I'm one of the ones in trenches and the gross income of the people I serve is, on average, less than $16,000/yr. I earn a modest salary and, if I'm honest, I'd do it for less because the work means a lot to me and the people mean a lot to me, and also to my colleagues and support staff. It's thankless and mostly awful, so I find meaning and significance in the ethics and greater purpose of what's largely a Sisyphean task. I tend not to get caught up on people saying they wish they could do what I do but for yadda yadda yadda because, again, those who truly want to, do. I trust others see the virtue signaling for what it is.  Part of answering those basic questions is understanding that when words and actions conflict, a person is judged - and they must judge themselves - by their actions. What a person do can and will undermine moral virtuosity if it's inconsistent with the values they're telling everyone they have. It's immature because allowing the inconsistency to exist suggests the person doesn't identify the problem in the first place, they're avoiding because of the implication of the having to confront the problem, or they refuse to recognize it. Being generally smart people, it's easy to understand why users are going to respond harshly to a law student or lawyer that's failed to identify the problem, and if we're smart people it's easier to assume the person is simply avoiding it or refusing to see it as an issue at all.  Again, the lesson is to seriously consider those questions and adjust current and future decisions accordingly, and to ensure they are consistent with what you want to do and why. The wisdom is that relieving yourself of living an inconsistent life/lying to yourself is an incredibly important stepping stone in living well (by your own metrics). Heavy handed as the messages might seem, they have your best interests at heart. And, if someone doesn't want to do that and instead chooses to act like a hero for wanting to do the right thing, they can fuck off. 

Hi, i am looking to apply to law schools this fall. My lsat is 158 and cgpa is 3.81 and best 2 years is 3.87. I would like to go to Ottawa, Queens, or Western. My goal is to work in toronto, specifcially corporate biglaw. However, i am wondering if i have a decent chance in getting into Queens or Western, or Ottawa (and maybe uvic/ucal) as I am not sure if should retake the lsat in January.  Also, if i do get in Ottawa, is it hard to go to school there and work in biglaw in Toronto during the summers and after grad. Mind you I have no experience in the law field and probably below-average softs. Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Looking for likeliness acceptances to BC or Alberta schools. I bet UBC is a long shot so I might retake the LSAT but I want to know if you think this is enough for other schools like Uvic, U cal or UofA. Little worried it'll come down to my ec's and thus debating getting a stronger lsat. 

All right. My advice might be terrible on this; I sent in about three hundred unsuccessful law school applications in the decade before last, followed by getting my shit together and sending in about five successful law school applications ~12 years ago, followed by deciding not to go to law school, followed by...still hanging out here for some reason that's not clear to anyone at all, especially me. Tons of things might have changed in the lifetime since the experiences I'm about to describe. My stats in my prime were 161/0.6/a great personal statement. And I filled out everything right on the OLSAS biographical sketch. And I was the vice-president of several campus clubs. And so fuckin' what? My GPA was 0.6, so I didn't get in anywhere. I gather that York is claiming to be more holistic than it used to be. Windsor was always a little bit holistic. But almost all applicants, at almost all schools, in almost all circumstances, admissions are about your grades and your LSAT. Your grades and your LSAT. "But I was the captain of the junior varsity---" Your grades. And your LSAT. Everything else is ephemera, vestiges of the day when the world ran on, "Oh, well, his father knows Chet's father, and Chet is sure a sound fellow." If somebody who's successfully gotten into a Canadian law school, recently, wants to tell me it's not 2009 anymore, I'll believe them. But I've been on this board and its predecessor for fifteen years, and there've always been applicants who got het up about shit that didn't matter. (To be clear, "whether you can write well" matters. Your personal statement? Just put the commas in the right place and you're fine.) One fight I once had on this board is seared into my brain. Some guy was having trouble understanding the advice he was getting, and I said, "Look, jackass [ed: I was 3% more abrasive back then], you're going to want to work on your reading comprehension." And he came back with something akin to, "I'm PTing -1 on RC right now, which is way better than I bet you're doing on logic games!" But I was not using "reading comprehension" as a term of art to refer to a section on the LSAT. Who does that? Even on a law applicants forum, who does that? I was referring to one's ability to understand what one reads. I tell this story because there's a danger, when you get into any system, of losing the forest for the trees, and because anxious law school applicants have a tendency to say, hey, this tree, this tree here, this tree is the key to everything, I'm finally going to get into Oz and my dad's going to say he's proud of me. And, like, nope. It's just a tree.

I won't comment on the debate or discussion that's happened here, but I did want to say something regarding your last point.  I'm a third year law student, I don't really have any input on most of the discussion that would be more valuable than the words of actual lawyers, but the "logic" point reminded me of something.  A lesson I learned early on (and keep learning it seems) is that sometimes there isn't any logic to things and learning to deal with that is crucial. If you'll indulge a story, I'll give you an example.  I was in court last week, the last session of a case that had been dragging on all summer. We knew that a particular issue would rear it's head that day and I had prepared an argument complete with fairly straightforward case law supporting it. Opposing counsel didn't have anything like that and made, quite frankly, a baseless argument (trust me, for once this isn't sour grapes). Judge decided to agree with them. Now, was this logical? No, not at all! We chatted off the record and even he was shocked it went his way. But there's no point fighting it, the decision had been made and we had to adapt to get the most value we could out of the situation as it was.  And this kind of thing happens all the time (especially at tribunals, adjudicators love to just make stuff up) but you can't get caught up in trying to argue a point that has already been passed by. I think it's pretty clear how this applies here's. Maybe you're right in a cosmic sense, maybe you're right in a very literal sense, the point is it doesn't matter. I'm not saying concede or roll over whenever you are disgareed with, but learning to be "flexible" might pay dividends down the line. It is something I personally find really hard, but like I said, it seems an important skill! 

The dean at Dal remembered my personal statement and complimented me on it! That had more to do with her being Kim Brooks than it did with my statement, but it was still a perfectly good statement.