Law school tutor: big law vs. public interest?

academics law school admissions

One of the biggest cultural divides at any top law school is likely to be the divide between the warm-hearted, caring public-interest law community, and the soulless, greedy, cold-blooded big-law-firm crowd.  Or, it might be the divide between the naïve, holier-than-thou do-gooders and the realistic, well-trained, practical law-firm hires. It’s all a matter of perspective!

At Harvard Law School, where I went, this was a constant source of conversation, discussion, tension, etc.  There was a student group called "Firmly Refuse," which pasted the school with fliers highlighting the malfeasant corporations which big law firms had represented. But there was also an equally strong and impassioned backlash to this group.  So, who's right?

Big law vs. public interest

When I was researching law schools, I remember them telling me ad nauseam about their public interest opportunities. I heard about clinics, summer funding programs, fellowships, you name it. From what I heard at the admitted students weekends, you’d think that all law schools did is pump out public defenders, legal services lawyers, human rights advocates, and government attorneys!

Of course, the job placement statistics, at least at Harvard and other top schools, tell a different tale.  I don’t know exactly what percent of Harvard graduates go into the private sector (with or without a clerkship)… and I bet Harvard doesn’t want me to know.  From personal experience, though, it’s a lot. 

It isn’t just those business-corporate types, either. As I've written in another post, many law school graduates end up doing something that seems completely different from what those graduates intended to do when they matriculated. That’s definitely true along the public/private line too. Often, both the students who came in wanting to grease the wheels of capitalism and the students who want to derail the trains all end up in corporate law jobs.

How did this happen?  I’m still not totally sure. It just… happens! Often, over 1L summer, when students started to get worried about law firm interviews at the start of 2L year, they begin to migrate to big law. There are a lot of factors pushing students towards early interviewing: summer supervisors who recommend a few years of “training” on a big law firm’s dime, anxiety about facing the uncertain public-interest job market, and even the feeling that “everyone else is doing it” and “I may as well try to see what it’s like.”  Then comes the wine and dine, the high-paying job offers, and the prestige game. And then, when you start to calculate just how much you owe in loans…before you know it, everyone’s going to a firm!

But, of course, that’s too cynical. All law firms do interesting work that’s important to someone, and is often practiced by excellent lawyers and people. To lump “big law firms” into one group –– and I know, I just did! –– is itself impossible: there are firms which do all sorts of work and the lawyers who go there are as diverse in interests and experiences as in any public-service sphere.  There’s a lot of important work to be done there too.  I know that from having many friends who are in the corporate world.

The secret: many lawyers end up doing both! 

Transitions between public and private spheres seem to be a common factor in many careers, and can go both ways.  The public-interested law student who ends up moving to a firm right after graduation might well end up moving back to the nonprofit world a year or two out of law school, while someone who goes right into a public defender or legal-services office could end up at a firm before the five-year reunion.  Knowing that makes this vaunted public-private divide seem a little silly after all.


So, what does this mean for me?

As a law school tutor, I think it’s important for any incoming student to be aware of the pressures that exist in law school, and the way that many students’ interests – or, at least, career preferences/choices – can shift during law school, and to know that job placement statistics don’t always line up with what law schools promote to applicants.  The struggle is real.

But it shouldn’t actually be a struggle!  Or, at least, not the sort of good vs. evil struggle that so many law students seem intent on making the job process out to be.  It’s a journey, to be sure.  (Mine ended with a math teaching job!)  But it’s more complex than it might seem on the surface--or even when you’re in law school.

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