How true is it that law schools try and push students into pursuing big law?

[citysymphony]

I have been reading more about the culture of law schools and it seems that there is coercion happening to push students towards big law. Not just for the bigger paychecks but to increase the reputation of the university as well. How true is this in your opinion?  

[Rashabon]

I don't think this is true. It is a function of the atmosphere created by students hungry for a job where a lot of them without a more defined interest converge on big law hiring, coupled with CDOs that have an easier time helping people land jobs in a simple, structured recruit than the unstructured nature of most other hiring opportunities. It's easy and path of lease resistance to go through the big law hiring route. When I was in law school none of the profs or admin really seemed to care or suggest anything relating to big law frankly, even the adjuncts from big law.

[Hegdis]

When I was in law school - and this is 20 years ago now - I was a very lost soul surrounded by people who all seemed to know a hell of a lot more about what I was supposed to be doing than I did. It's instinct to follow the crowd until you figure it out, and it's not always a terrible plan to do that, but in law school this means it's very easy to subscribe to the idea that it's Big Law Or Bust.

Within your first month at law school you'll become aware of all the 2Ls losing their minds because the On Campus Interviews (OCIs) are coming up. They'll go around practising their handshakes and speaking knowledgably about the six or seven big firm myths that get recycled every year as if they really have insider info you aren't privy to. This is intimidating as hell and if you're like me, you'll think you have a lot of catching up to do about these "Seven Sisters" before it's your turn.

Then it IS your turn, barely into second year, still reeling from your first year 100% finals and that B-, probably the first B- or God forbid C in your life ever, and now you have to buy a suit and wear it and sound like you know what the hell you're talking about in front of actual real live fire breathing employers. Lawyers! Real ones! Where? How? What colour suit? Do you need to know about the stock market? What about golf? Surely you have an opinion on wine?

And so you'll mumble the recycled Seven Sisters myths to yourself like a maniac and spend more money than you've ever spent on anything aside from tuition on a truly hilarious garment, made of weird itchy fabric that makes your shoulders look gigantic, comical even, and you'll pretend to like it. You'll increase the PSI of your grasp to painful levels and start wondering too much about your mouth- are your teeth straight? even? do you show too much gum when you smile? how about now? does your breath stink? You will ask people this, people you aren't close to, and you'll care about their answers.

You'll read a single article about wine or golf and be ready to regurgitate whatever the hell it said in an effort to be interesting for your interview. But then you'll hear Jeremy had a great conversation with the Blakes OCI people about skiing. Shit! How could you forget about skiing! Why don't you know more about skiing! You'll gossip and google and get blisters on your feet from your brand new shiny shoes and you'll wonder why they even HAVE classes at this point in 2L because almost nobody is paying any attention aside from that weirdly intense public interest guy and the girl whose dad is some kind of supreme court justice who has had her clerking gig all lined up since she was three (her first word was "hearsay").

Everyone will talk nothing else, nonstop, and it'll be a numbers game. I got two OCIs. That guy got six. Your best friend got zero and now she won't leave her room. You'll come here and post frantic topics about what it MEANS if they interview you on a Tuesday instead of a Monday, and you'll think we have any clue. Other people in the soup with you will answer, and you'll boil yourselves up into an overcooked mess about it. You'll post terrible morose topics titled things like "How fucked am I?" when you don't hear back and get an offer. It will matter to you, in a way that is hard to describe because at the same time, it doesn't actually really matter at all, like it doesn't matter now, because you don't know what the hell I am talking about. 

OCIs might be for the work you actually want to do. But they just as easily might not be. I can tell you not to worry overmuch about them and hope you might listen. But you probably won't, and you'll go through it, and maybe in 20 years you too can post long insensible screeds on the internet hoping it spares some one down the line some stress.

[Yogurt Baron]

14 minutes ago, Hegdis said:

long insensible screeds

Pshaw. This was some of your best work ever.

[123]

24 minutes ago, Yogurt Baron said:

Pshaw. This was some of your best work ever.

Are we forgetting the CYOAs?!

[Yogurt Baron]

Just now, realpseudonym said:

Are we forgetting the CYOAs?!

That's why I said "some of".

[Hegdis]

Second person perspective is my natural storytelling voice. I've been meaning to do another CYOA.

I have like eight big trials coming up this summer and my brain is like dooooo it, you have time!

[chaboywb]

That was like a trip down memory lane. Funny how universal and timeless the law school experience is.

[cherrytree]

There was a user on the old forum who participated in the formal big law recruit in the same cycle as me and reading the piece above brought back clear memories of reading that user's posts stressing about how he'd come across to employers at in-firm interviews by carrying a backpack versus a briefcase. For those who were too young to experience this first hand or fortunate/bold/confident/well enough to have missed the ridiculous level of irrational panic and overthinking that @Hegdis's CYOA piece so aptly captures, none of these details is exaggerated. People can really get into their heads in an extreme way during recruit season, which is not healthy to say the least.

To answer OP's question, I don't think law schools "push" students into pursuing Big Law. Rather, as a result of rising tuition, yet-to-be-resolved issues with access to legal education, pre-existing student debt, high cost of living, family expectations, the tendency of people with risk-averse personalities who are not quite sure of what they want to do with their futures self-selecting into the law school path, lack of self-knowledge/life experience outside of performing well at school...all of these factors play a role in the phenomenon of law students disproportionately chasing after Big Law jobs. Also, as an objective fact, Big Law is the most capable of funding law student employment positions.

In my personal experience as a graduate of a law school in Toronto, it's not so much that the law school "pushes" so much so as the law school does not make enough of an effort, or any effort at all to assuage the tunnel vision focus on Bay Street jobs. You really have to be the champion of your own non-Big-Law ambitions and goals to pull through law school without making Big Law the end-all-be-all of your time at law school.

[Aureliuse]

I think the weight of the growing law school debt (and associated cost of living debts) make the choice for many people, or is one of many key considerations.

This is not a criticism of anyone who makes or made that choice, we all gotta eat and have life goals that do not involve servicing a large debt.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Aureliuse

[toastedguac]

No one's ever pushed into doing anything. Unless ofc like other people mentioned in this thread, you have a debt load, and that's a lot of us. Though I will say that those big firms that cater to a corporation's needs tend to put on a bigger "show" for students such as buying them lunches, drinks, hosting endless formal events for networking, etc. I never liked all of that but I can definitely see the appeal of being a part of something like that.

Edited May 25, 2023 by toastedguac

[Diplock]

Criminal lawyers will appreciate this. When someone is pleading guilty to a crime, there are some standard questions the Court needs to ask and receive appropriate answers before it can proceed. One of them is some version of "are you pleading guilty of your own free will - no one is coercing you to do so?" Obviously the answer needs to be "yes" because a guilty plea that isn't free and voluntary would be a big problem.

Now, remember. We're talking about people who are often backed into a corner. The cost of proceeding to trial may be beyond them. Their lawyer may be saying they are probably going to lose and if they take it all the way it will be much worse than pleading guilty now. They may even be in custody and unable to get bail - so the option is between waiting in jail for a trial or pleading now and maybe getting out right away. Despite all of these factors, that doesn't make a plea involuntary. You know why? Because choosing the best of bad options based on the circumstances you are in is not the same thing as being forced to do it. Not liking your options is not the same thing as coercion. It just isn't.

I could add a few long paragraphs echoing much of what Hegdis said already and adding some more context. But students who feel they are being coerced into big law inevitably, invariably, without a single exception simply don't understand what coercion really is. And generally speaking, they don't understand it because they've never experienced difficult choices and compromises in their lives before. Sometimes life isn't easy. Sometimes the thing you want just isn't immediately available to you, or else it comes with trade offs so difficult you just can't justify it. And it's normal to resent the limitations you may experience and the costs associated with the things you want. But that isn't coercion. It's just life as almost everyone experiences it now and again. Try talking to the sixteen year-old kid who went to work in the saw mill to help his family pay the bills about how you are being "coerced" by your circumstances.

There are reasons people get pulled towards big law. See above. Make your choices accordingly. But don't confuse it with being forced to do something against your will. That suggestion, from the unbelievably privileged class of individuals attending law school (yes, even the least privileged among them are incredibly privileged, in relative terms) is simply ludicrous and embarrassing.

[cherrytree]

I find that if you don't enter law school with at least some kind of "purpose" (nothing grandiose: some kind of sense of yourself, what kind of life you want to live and how the high costs of law school can be justified in helping you get there, are what I'm thinking of), and/or you don't immediately begin searching for answers to these questions as soon as you make a firm decision to go to law school, then you are much more likely to be swept up in the OCI panic despite not even being sure that you want to practice law servicing big businesses doing big business things.

I know it's a trite saying of comfort at law school that "everyone lands on their feet", "everything works out for the best" when someone gets rejected from an opportunity they really wanted, but I think it's actually quite dangerous to lean too much into this passiveness. Don't be the kind of people who go to law school in their early-mid 20s simply because they have the grades and the LSAT scores to be able to put off making definite choices in their adult lives for 3+ years, by virtue of being a law student, and graduate as someone in their late 20s early 30s who still haven't got a clue about their purpose for being a lawyer. Be proactive, make choices and decisions of your own even when they are tough, and even if you fail, you will have grown significantly on a personal level compared to someone who just "lucked into" things working out. That is a service you do for yourself.

Edited May 25, 2023 by cherrytree

[Patient0L]

17 hours ago, citysymphony said:

I have been reading more about the culture of law schools and it seems that there is coercion happening to push students towards big law. Not just for the bigger paychecks but to increase the reputation of the university as well. How true is this in your opinion?  

Yes. This isn’t necessarily true of all the students, but my school is very big law oriented. The CSO resources for anything besides being recruited by a big firm pale in comparison. Our recruiting cycle is set up so that the big firms essentially get “first dibs.” Classrooms in the building are sponsored by big firms, which feature their names in huge carved wooden letters at the entryways.

The info I have gotten from graduates are that big law placements are good for the school’s reputation so they push it.

Most of the people in my circle seem conflicted about whether they want to work at a big firm but are going for OCIs to keep their “options open. ” Including me, I guess, even though getting dental surgery without anaesthetic seems preferable 🤢

Edited May 25, 2023 by Patient0L

[Diplock]

41 minutes ago, Patient0L said:

Yes. This isn’t necessarily true of all the students, but my school is very big law oriented. The CSO resources for anything besides being recruited by a big firm pale in comparison. Our recruiting cycle is set up so that the big firms essentially get “first dibs.” Classrooms in the building are sponsored by big firms, which feature their names in huge carved wooden letters at the entryways.

The info I have gotten from graduates are that big law placements are good for the school’s reputation so they push it.

Most of the people in my circle seem conflicted about whether they want to work at a big firm but are going for OCIs to keep their “options open. ” Including me, I guess, even though getting dental surgery without anaesthetic seems preferable 🤢

See, this is the thing. I don't disagree with anything you've written, but how does this amount to coercion? It sounds like a description of various realities that you don't particular like. Acknowledging these realities to keep them in proper perspective is, absolutely, very important. But complaining about them like it's something that's been done to you? That's like a freelance artist complaining about the fact that making art (with a few exceptions) isn't particularly well-compensated in society. That's true, and something to bear in mind before embarking as a career as an artist. But it isn't something that's been done to you by anyone or anything, unless you want to indict capitalism as a whole.

I mean, look. I'm a sole practitioner in criminal defence. I have one person working for me as an administrator, and I currently have an articling student. I've had one in the past. So I am, I suppose, an employer who stands as an alternative to "big law." But do you really expect either your school or myself to somehow arrange things so that working for me is presented to you on equal footing with working for large firms? You think I'm going to participate in OCIs on your campus, sponsor a classroom, go through the hoops at every school in Ontario to be sure that my one little articling job is clearly identified to any law student who bothers to look at a list of employers? That is never, never going to happen. Your school can't keep track of every little sole practitioner in the province who might hire a student, and there's no way in hell I'm motivated to do it either.

That's reality. If I'm hiring, and when I'm hiring, any student interested in criminal law will, absolutely, need to take much more proactive steps to find me. As my current student did. As every student I've every employed did. And while that's a single, personal example, I'm sure it stands well for the whole.

Anyway, I post this just to emphasize why I refute the "coercion" narrative. And also, more importantly, to indicate how and why students who don't want to do "big law" need to take their own steps to find and pursue other opportunities. If you wait around to eat whatever they happen to be serving, you'll get the same thing they feed to everyone. Because of course you will.

[Patient0L]

10 minutes ago, Diplock said:

I don't disagree with anything you've written, but how does this amount to coercion? It sounds like a description of various realities that you don't particular like.

I don’t think I was suggesting the former. The latter is probably more accurate—tho I don’t think I really care that much. To answer OP’s Q, the “push,” in the “momentum” sense of the word appears to be in favor of big law. Additionally, likely for a number of reasons you stated as well. 

[QueensDenning]

2 hours ago, cherrytree said:

Don't be the kind of people who go to law school in their early-mid 20s simply because they have the grades and the LSAT scores to be able to put off making definite choices in their adult lives for 3+ years, by virtue of being a law student

Hey, this is 80%+ of us (including me) and I'm pretty happy about how things have worked out so far! 

[cherrytree]

I guess to sum it up in one line:

If you're happy to go with the flow without being too intentional or proactive, it doesn't attract sympathy if you then turn around and complain about the currents pushing you in a particular direction. And certainly not if you do this x years out of law school, when you've gone along too far out to adjust course.

Personal experiences do vary, but I think the 80% figure is somewhat exaggerated -- people tend to befriend and surround themselves with others of similar mentalities, etc.

[WhoKnows]

11 hours ago, Aureliuse said:

I think the weight of the growing law school debt (and associated cost of living debts) make the choice for many people, or is one of many key considerations.

Thinking of a "It's the debt, stupid" sign for my office...

[QueensDenning]

4 hours ago, cherrytree said:

Personal experiences do vary, but I think the 80% figure is somewhat exaggerated -- people tend to befriend and surround themselves with others of similar mentalities, etc.

The other 20% go in intending to practice international human rights law and end up at Davies 😉

[epeeist]

8 minutes ago, QueensDenning said:

The other 20% go in intending to practice international human rights law and end up at Davies 😉

I'm reminded of a years-ago (US) comment by someone with expertise, who said (IIRC, paraphrased) something like: "If you actually want to practice international human rights law, to have a chance to get into the field you need at least two out of three of the following: (1) genuinely relevant and substantial pre-law experience in the field; (2) fluent in multiple languages; and (3) a genuine real political type of connection (parent is/was an ambassador, etc.)."

[Rashabon]

It's a nice, not exactly pithy quote, but also bullshit. If you want to work in international human rights law you have to be a very good law student, well liked, and actually seek out volunteer and pro bono opportunities that are directly relevant.

[PzabbytheLawyer]

46 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

It's a nice, not exactly pithy quote, but also bullshit. If you want to work in international human rights law you have to be a very good law student, well liked, and actually seek out volunteer and pro bono opportunities that are directly relevant.

I also think it's pretty clear an LLM is almost mandatory for most students or lawyers who aspire to do it.

It's why you have a lot more Europeans be "international human rights" lawyers than North Americans - their system is designed to get an LLM. Our is not. But those institutions tend to require it.

Edited May 25, 2023 by PzabbytheLawyer

[Rashabon]

Maybe. I think it’s probably overblown. I really think the way in is what I said. A guy from my year followed that path and after articling and spending a few years at Fasken jumped to the stereotype of what people think international human rights law is. As far as I’m aware he didn’t have any particular background beforehand, didn’t speak the languages (at least at first) of where he was stationed and isn’t connected. But he was a brilliant guy, super well liked and he volunteered and spent his energy on pro bono and international human rights related matters.

[BlockedQuebecois]

My experience largely mirrors @Rashabon’s. The prerequisites are largely: (1) be incredibly smart; and (2) be willing to work for significantly less than you could make in another industry.