They're Coming for You
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An Ask E. Jean Classic
Dear E. Jean:
I'm twenty-nine, I just finished NYU law school and moved to California to take a tax program. l've invested a lot of time and money (more than $220,000) in pursuit of this degree, but I'm dispassionate about the idea of spending the rest of my life in a law firm.
Why? I don't like how attorneys view the world. I don't want to work around people who want to stab me in the back. I want to enjoy a job where integrity is more important than competition. And I want to have fun! I'm smart and motivated; but I'm feeling stupid, inadequate, lonely, scattered, and uncertain about why I'm headed where I'm headed. I'm more interested in fashion, films, and music than the Rule Against Perpetuities.
But here I am up to my ears in the country's hardest bar exam. What should I do? I've devoted all this time and money and still have doubts as to whether I should even be in the law. Please help!! —Stressed in the West
Stressed, My Schnitzel:
Doll, are your briefs so tight they've cut off circulation to your brain? Law school has given you energy, perseverance, scrappiness, discipline, powerful friends, and the urbanity to write to Ask E. Jean. It has taught you to win an argument, flex your reasoning powers, and that when you stab someone, stab them in the front, not the back. These skills are worth far more than $220,000.
Take the bar! Whatever career you choose, you’ll get a nice bump in your starting salary because you possess a law degree and passed the bar. And, by Gawd, if you don’t get a bump, you can sue them. And then sue me.
But forget the money for a moment. You want to really “have fun”? You see this guy?
This is Rudy Giuliani. When Trump lost the 2020 election and tried to stage a coup, and then put old Rudy-Tooty in charge of filing lawsuits in state and federal courts seeking to overturn election results, The Big Drip lost all of them: 62 suits were filed, and Trump lost 61 of them. Why? Opposing lawyers were having “fun” saving America from a nascent dictator.
Let’s see what other hilarious opportunities are available to a young attorney who wants amusement:
E. Jean’s Four Funnest Careers for Legal Beagles
1. Suing Republican-Controlled Legislatures Stomping on Our Voting Rights.
Just watching Ted Cruz explaining why Texas’s new constrictive voting law is not racist, may cause you to move to Texas just so you can interview at firms fighting it.
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2. Appealing Every Law in Every State which Deprives a Woman of Her Right To Choose.
The Supreme Court is hearing a Roe v Wade case December 3rd. Be afraid. Be very afraid… and start thinking about interviewing with firms disputing the right of men to control women’s bodies.
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3. Hauling White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis into Court
You see these boys?
You see this woman?
This is Robbie Kaplan. Having paved the way for gay rights in America by winning Windsor v United States in the Supreme Court, she’s having a very good time these days raining down justice (and hell-fire) on the 24 neo-Nazi and white supremacist leaders who marched in Charlottesville and caused riots. Watch Robbie meet them in court this October. Here’s a link about the upcoming trial:
https://www.integrityfirstforamerica.org/our-work/case/charlottesville-case
And here’s the link to the big pre-trial event this Thursday.
https://www.integrityfirstforamerica.org/unite-against-nazis
P.S. Robbie is also my attorney, Mary Trump’s attorney, the NCAA’s Gender-Equality attorney, and is currently shellacking Donald Trump in the ACN fraud case.
Speaking of whom . . .
4. Donald Trump Needs a Lawyer. Bad. (Even a lawyer who’d rather work in fashion … he’s desperate.)
I know, I know, you’re just out of law school, Ms. Stressed, and you thought odds were good that if you took a job as a first-year associate, you’d be spending your days and nights and weekends looking up case law. Not true!
At a time when Donald Trump has more criminal and civil law suits pummeling him than at any other time in his extraordinarily litigious life, his big-name attorneys are dropping away like suck fish off a dead whale. Trump will be so glad you showed up, he may put you in charge of defending him in California Representative Eric Swalwell’s lawsuit claiming he incited the January 6th Assault on the US Capitol.
Yes! Trump needs you, Ms. Stressed! If I, an elderly, unlettered woman, beat his hotsy-totsy attorneys and the DOJ four times—so far—in my case, imagine what a brilliant first-year lawyer would be able to bill him! $20,000 a day would not be out of the question! So step up, Ms. Stressed! Help out the former leader of the free world. (But I have to warn you—after Mary Trump and Robbie Kaplan get done with him, all he’ll be left with is his greasy makeup compact, his Gorilla-Glue hairspray and his second-best set of golf clubs. So bill him early and often!)
And if you don’t like the idea of handling Trump’s filthy briefs, perhaps you can spare a couple of hours a week volunteering your lawyerly skills by fighting to keep our voting rights. Otherwise, he could be back in the White House in 2024. You’ll not only be helping your country, you’ll be meeting wonderful people and discovering that you are not “stupid, inadequate, lonely, scattered, and uncertain”... and that you know exactly what you want! Good luck!
But, if I am wrong, the Conflab will set me (and half the world) straight!
The Conflab is where we hash over the questions sent to Ask E. Jean—and where our boisterous community regularly rescues mankind. Today, we’re solving the problem of Ms. Stressed, who has spent $220,000 on a fancy law school education, and now wonders if she should “go all the way,” and practice law.
She likes music, fashion, film, hates “competition” and “back-stabbing,” and wants a job with “integrity.”
Is it just me, or do most of you Conflabbians suspect that a little more experience in the world will enlighten Ms. Stressed and show her the way? And meanwhile, can anyone tell her about working in the music business? The movie business? The fashion business? Do you remember trying to decide what you wanted to do with your life? Have you decided yet?
And what about the art of back-stabbing? How do you do it? How do you pull the knife out of your back if you’ve been stabbed by a work colleague? And . . . who do you want to stab lately?
What in Blazing Hell Is this Thing?
Was this email forwarded to you and you are now wondering what the heck it is? Ask E. Jean has been solving snafus since 1993. Now the Conflab is pitching in and we’re the #2 Health Substack in the United States. Click here.
You can get me on Twitter, or send me your questions by using the Voice Memo on your phone (I may run the recording on Ask E. Jean), or shoot a video question (again—I may put it on Ask E. Jean), or write to me about what’s driving you crazy: your career, your wardrobe, your love affairs, your lusts, your languishing, your politics, your finances… at AskEeeeJean@gmail.com.
P.S. I don’t know a single thing about finances. But I love your pet photos!
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And here’s the latest update on Carroll v Trump
Photo of Amy Coney Barrett and other Justice Thomas, Tasos Katopodis / Stringer, Getty Images; photo of Rudy Giuliani, Tom Williams / Contributor, Getty Images; photo of woman holding sign, Tom Williams / Contributor, Getty Images; photo of woman in mask,Michael M. Santiago / Staff, Getty Images; photo of Donald Trump, Andy Jacobsohn / Contributor, Getty Images; photo of Joshua Matz, E. Jean, and Robbie Kaplan walking into Federal Court: Jefferson Siegle for The New York Times
Dear Future Lawyer, take that bar exam. It will be one of the hardest things of your life- on the third day of my bar exam way back in the day, I think I was hallucinating and thought that one of the test proctors who was carrying blue books was carrying a baby. Yes, it is that mentally taxing to wonder what random law you will be quizzed on. And once you’re a lawyer, you will forget it all. Girl I never understood the Rule Against Perpetuity, never plan to, don’t care about it. I don’t even know how to write a will. That’s the beauty of the law- you don’t have to do boring shit if you don’t want to. I’ve worked for the federal government (great job security, so terribly boring that it sent me to vet school and now I have a second career because you have the right to change your mind at any time, and change it a million times). After I helped build my now ex-husband’s law firm and he divorced me, I opened my own solo practice in criminal defense. Never had a boring day thus far. Less job security, lots of stress, but when you win someone his or her freedom, it is the best damn feeling in the world. I then worked as an overnight ER veterinarian. Burned out on that, went to work for an insurance defense firm (got COVID and was sick for a year with post-COVID sequelae; however, I wouldn’t have lasted in that field because I’m a bleeding heart with an Irish temper and I have a “can I look myself in the mirror test when I defeat a lawsuit against a doctor for a kid in a wheelchair?” Answer: no. Also, “Can I work with some of the most serious, billable-hours obsessed people when my real peeps are the crazy trial lawyers on the other side?” Answer: f no. Anyway I fought my way back from losing everything from being so sick from COVID, which taught me the best lesson: you may lie awake at night worried about your work, but your employer does not lay awake at night worrying about you. They don’t lose one ounce of sleep over you. So if you get a law job you hate, quit. It’s that simple. Burn the bridge and don’t look back.
Now, I am a relief veterinarian and slowly rebuilding my law firm into a healthcare firm. I’m completely broke, but I’m also happy to be alive and whether it’s healthy or not, on the days when the remnants of COVID have me crying from pain to get out of bed in the morning, several things motivate me: revenge for the assholes who have screwed me over/sexually harassed me/fired me for being “sickly” after I started working again, and also the desire to make enough money so that every time someone googles my ex husband’s name looking for an attorney, my name appears above his in big bold letters. And money for Botox and Juvederm. Yep I’m petty but it keeps me going.
You, girl, take what you love and make it work for you- fashion houses have general counsel, Hollywood has tons of entertainment lawyers. And if that doesn’t work, start your own firm-learn how to scale, put in the work for long hours of learning curves, and network like crazy. And you may fail. It’s better if you fail. I’ve failed a lot, and the more you fail, the better you get.
The most important thing is whatever you decide to do, DO NOT EVER LET ANYONE ELSE TELL YOU THAT YOU CANNOT DO IT. Use their negativity to fuel your dreams. And if your dreams take you out of the law, so what? And finally, I made a rule for myself: I will never ever take the attributes required of a lawyer: constantly acting as if you know what you’re doing when you don’t, arguing your position doggedly, etc— and let those bleed into my personal life. Keep it in the courtroom. Your friends don’t want to hear you argue with them just to be right, and they don’t want you to act like you’re always ok and never cry. They won’t like you- save that stuff for the day job. And don’t just hang out with other lawyers bc then you will most likely end up an asshole. You got this. And feel free to email me at jennie@jennielaw.com if you ever want to vent.
Love, The Flaky Lawyer Veterinarian
Lawyer here, admitted to the bar in 3 states. That means I took and passed that exam first time, three different places including CA. CA bar isn’t harder than the others; it just permits more people to take it who haven’t gone to a decent law school. Don’t get caught up in the pass/fail rate.
Before I went to law school, when I was trying to figure out how to change the world 40 years ago when women were 30% of law school students, a friend told me to imagine the LSAT —and academics —as a series of hoops. You can train a cat to jump through a hoop. Once you’ve jumped the hoop, even a challenge like a flaming hoop is no different. Do not put so much emphasis on this. The bar exam is the final hoop in this measurement of your “worth” and you’re making it a lot bigger than it is.
AFTER you take the exam, think about why you went to law school. If it’s not to change the world, as EJC suggests, then yes, you have over-invested and you will be miserable in a law firm. Maybe take a year off to do anything else and think about this. You’re finally confronted with “what do I want to do with my life” after having avoided that Q for the last decade. You’re smart and persistent. You don’t seem to have a burning desire to make a difference in your community or in the world. That’s ok; there are plenty of people like you who want to coast through life. If that’s the case, did you waste your time? Probably. But you’re young, and many life paths are a desultory stroll through things that happen to you.
What you’re afraid of is taking charge of your own destiny. I’m here to slap you in the face and tell you : snap out of it. Spend your time thinking hard about why your big brains and ambition are thwarted by your lack of self direction. Experiment with a completely different way to earn a living. Go find a job in fashion, and you will quickly see it’s a wage-slave existence if you don’t love it. Same with law or any job you take—jerks and lazy back biting hacks are in every profession.
I wish you did want to change the world, even a tiny corner. I wish you want to care for your community, whoever populates it. Think about what pisses you off. Go there and push. No one can motivate you or make it easy. You have to find it in yourself.