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I’m not asking this to be snarky, I really wonder:

What the hell is wrong with lawyers?

Think about it:

Law School: Do you have any friends who are teachers? Ask them how effective they’d expect an educational system to be when there’s no practice and no feedback. Answer, not very. Surprisingly enough, it turns out law schools aren’t improving their students’ legal reasoning skills by any measurable degree. Shocked, I tell you. I’m shocked! Law Firm Attrition: If I told a businessperson I was going to create a business model where I’d invest tons of time and effort training my already highly educated workforce, only to see 75% of them quit in the first five years (just when they were potentially really profitable), what do you think he’d say? That I was crazy, and not very bright. So….why are all large law firms doing this? I don’t know either. Law Firm Billing: Try this one. Go up to the average person on the street and ask what they think about the idea of paying someone extra for working more slowly. I predict a lot of blank stares. Remind me how paying someone to be inefficient makes sense? The Bar Exam: Finally, everyone’s favorite dead horse, the bar exam. Suffice it to say that if you did what you’re required to do to pass the bar exam in real life — namely, make snap legal judgments in areas you barely understand without bothering to look anything up — you’d be disbarred in a heartbeat. THIS is what determines whether someone’s qualified to join the profession?

How does this stuff keep going on?!?

I suppose we can all collectively shrug our shoulders and say “Oh, well. None of it really matters anyway.” Except that it kind of does.

We’re talking about a profession that takes perfectly well-adjusted people, and makes them into depressed substance abusers in a matter of months.

Maybe part of the reason for that is that, fundamentally, we’re going about this all wrong.

That might lead to some cognitive dissonance, you know?

Read On:

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