Lawbrahs

Hell yeah, I've been meaning to read the Trial by Kafka, and Bleak House by Dickens.

Also, is it that bad, man? My end goal is to become a legal scholar, or to become a judge. While the likelihood of either of those career paths are quite small, it's still a goal. Should I quit while I'm at it? I love reading dense contemporary literature, the SCOTUS blog, circuit opinions, my county docket, etc.

I spend a lot of my time writing for university research in public policy, and last semester, as a Freshman, I had an essay accepted by a professor where I talked about theoretically reforming peremptory challenge use, post-Batson v. Kentucky, in efforts to create a more equitable voir dire process.

I don't know, man. I really like this stuff. But, everyone that's actually practicing tells me I'm delusional, and to "run away while you can". I understand the banalities of the profession, but I can't convince myself to not pursue law.

Yeah, completely understand. I'm in Freiburg.

None of the literature has anything to do with law, really. You're better off reading what authors wrote about studying law (many of them did), like Flaubert's "Studying law is making me stupid and want to kill myself, I shit on law".
I don't really want to give you any advice since I was never as motivated or enthusiastic about it as you are, so maybe it's a good decision for you. For me, it's the biggest mistake I ever made and I'd do a lot to undo it.

If its what you wanna do just do it. Every career sucks in its own way just do what you wanna do.

The Pickwick Papers
A Modest Proposal
To Shill a Mockingbird
Broker Trader Lawyer Spy
Things Fall Apart
Catch 22
Eichmann in Jerusalem
In The Penal Colony
The Royal Physician's Visit
Bartleby the Scrivener

Some stuff I read in uni that was vaguely inspired by law. I don't particularly recommend you read any of these until graduation because you should really be spending every waking moment reading cases and articles. Even the best textbooks only serve as intros. Good luck. Brah.

Du hast die richtige Einstellung, mein Freiburger Kollege. Jura ist die Hölle. Meine besten Wünsche.

From what I heard law is 'easier' in the states,but this is hearsay. Grain of salt is adviced.
Law is bone dry. You won't shine with those outstanding ideas about justice and morality or innovative concepts. In the end it's even more mindlessly memorizing (in your case) verdicts or (in my case) legal opinions of scholars. Studying law is boring, numb, mindless. What kept me going was the prospect of becoming a prosecuter. My grades aren't accordingly, so now I'll be stuck with an average degree in an average job with average pay. The only upside is slightly above average social prestige.

Go be a doctor, seriously.

get out while you can. Minor in something that isn't law. Thank god I did accounting, I made bux doing it for people who were too stupid to do it for themselves. But you'll paint yourself in a corner if, god forbid, you get disbarred. You're basically fuked then. Go work for a lawyer, be a paralegal. It pays a shit ton and doesn't require much work.

Thank you!

Kind advice, I appreciate it.

I would argue that doctors memorize facts at the same degree of boringness. Considering I'm in my first year of undergrad, by the time I take the bar I wholeheartedly believe that machine learning, and AI will replace the banalities of the profession, as well as many professions including medicine, which would free lawyers to use their time in a more intellectually valuable way. Excuse me in case of my ignorance, but I would appreciate to be corrected.

My undergrad major is in finance, to mitigate risk of crashing, and burning as a lawyer. I agree; having a degree to fall back on that has value, as opposed to a humanities major that plagues most of this board, is ideal.

Assault with a deadly weapon is a felony.

Read Gadamer and Betti's books on interpretation (Wahrheit und Methode and Teoria Generale della Interpretazione) and Aristotle's books on logic (Organon). Italian, french, german, spanish, portuguese, and latin are extremely useful languages if you're a law student. Also, get yourself in touch with “beweisrecht. La Prova dei Fatti Giuridici di Michelle Taruffo and las Siete Partidas de Alfonso X el Sabio for dem historical street cred. Interpretation and proofs are fucking everything.

>Dworkin
>Hart
>Kelsen
>Stammler
>Castanheira Neves
>Attienza
>Alexy
>Hegel
>Kant
>Alf Ross
>Hagelstrom
>Olivecrona
>Taruffo
>Finnis
>Raz
>Radbruch
>Kaufmann
>etc

>basically anyone who takes legal, mainly criminal law matters writes about them from an outsiders perspective while having inside knowledge.
Pretty much this.

>My end goal is to become a legal scholar
In the US? Good luck. You guys ride our European dicks in Law and in Philosophy. Plus, common law doesn't allow any sort of development of legal philosophy since precedents are all that matters. A legal "scholar" is pretty much a legal archaeologist.

>or to become a judge
That's a decent goal.

This is also true - at least for countries with positive law. To read novels about law while studying law, is like a construction worker finishing a shit and going back home to play a simulator of his own job. It's not healthy in the slightest.

>From what I heard law is 'easier' in the states
I wouldn't say it's easier, but just more mechanical. There's absolutely no soul to it. For me, law in the US boils down to being a walking wikipedia of cases. It astounds me how their ius is called "ius commune" rather than "legis commune" since they don't have stricto sensu Ius but rather Legis. They don't even have a word for Ius.

>Law is bone dry. You won't shine with those outstanding ideas about justice and morality or innovative concepts
Positivism is dead. Someone just needs to shake the academia with new ideas through the use of force. I, for one, plan on using my outstanding ideas on Legal Philosophy together with the Alt Right movements to make the academia butthurt.

> In the end it's even more mindlessly memorizing (in your case) verdicts or (in my case) legal opinions of scholars
>BAWWWWWWW, I need to learn doctrine in college >:(
(I kind of agree with you anyway)

>My grades aren't accordingly, so now I'll be stuck with an average degree in an average job with average pay.
Try and run for judge.

> is like a construction worker finishing a shit and going back home to play a simulator of his own job.
shift*

I would also like to add that I regret studying Ius or "Law". I would rather study pure mathematics or anything like that. The people are shit, the professors are shit, the environment is shit, the pay will be shit (compared to the amount of effort I will put)...etc. I recently did an oral exam to better my grade on the subject of Family Law with a paper on "The Duty of Fidelity". This paper had the an amazing quality in terms of research in Law, psychology and sociology. I went from a 15/20 to a 16/20. Some cunt takes as a topic for her oral exam "The Woman In Family Law" and went from the same grade that I was going with to a 17/20. Am I butthurt? Yes. I literally wish I was studying an exact science rather than this dialectical hellhole.

This thread is killing any desire I had to study law. I wish I could find a STEM field that I was passionate about, because fuck, this shit sounds soul-crushing.

Avoid Law. Law is for wealthy and well-connected people. If you're a nobody you'll have the same fate that most programmers have.

OP here, kinda same.

Wait. You think this doesn't happen in most STEM degrees? Friend, this isn't exclusive to non-stem courses. We're talking about the academia itself.

0L starting Berkeley in the fall

Look up the Epstein Yoo podcast - conservative law profs talkin shit

Georgetown 2l here, I listen to the life partially examined on the way to class everyday.

Don't spend all your time on law related things, you'll burn out

Yeah it's the same with STEM. Unless you are a complete autistic code jockey that loves staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day, you won't like your job. Engineering is pretty much a high paying office desk job.

With that said, I've been considering law since I'm 90% done with my undergrad. I got a buddy in class who already did law school and is doing engineering now just to get into patent law. Is law school worth the headache, or should I just climb the corporate ladder in engineering?

Dude, is Georgetown as much of a scam as the community makes it sound like? The employment statistics are pretty average to say the most.

Not sure, my situation is weird because I want to work in the midwest. Anything t20 places really well out there.

"Pre-Law" majors are among the lowest performers on the LSAT.

Also, many law schools look down upon the major, regardless of what your LSAT score is.

Change it now while you still can.

Haha, I'm a finance major, just within the pre-law program at my university.

>it's good have a degree to fall back on that has value
>as opposed to a humanities major
voluntarily commit first degree self-slaughter my senpai

We don't run for judge. Judges are selected on the same criteria as prosecuters in Germany. Not mad or anything, just thought you might find that interesting.

At the law firm Im doing work experiences at there are 10s of law graduates applying for the work of the front office secretary and they were all rejected because its cheaper to hire 17 year olds.

Its a vicious industry with long and irregular hours and comparatively little pay.

Yeah you have people who get payed 5K a day but for most that is a pipe dream

In Portugal, you run for the position of judge by doing exams to enter into a judge school. If you manage to pass the extremely hard exams to enter said judge school and if you managed to survive the judge school you become a judge.

The biggest benefit of law is knowing what you can and cannot do in most social situations, or how you can exploit said situations.

I'm in my 3rd year (have criminal law left from the second atm, hope it doesn't take me more than 3 months). I mainly read things law is related to, but not law itself, alongside regular literature and theology.
So lots of philosophy, but almost nothing post 15th century, untill the 20th atm. Medieval metaphysics and contemporary thomist ethics.
Studying law in a german system, but not in germany, means I have to study for hours every day in lifeless texts, but will later on also enjoy corruption and communism.

Read cases, since that's what you'll be doing if/when you go to law school, anyway.

I'm a big fan of Cardozo's opinions, so I'd recommend them (you'll have to read a lot of them anyway). nycourts.gov/reporter/archives/meinhard_salmon.htm

>Studying law in a german system, but not in germany
What? You mean the Romano-Germanic legal system?

It makes sense to me that they wouldn't hire a J.D. to be a legal secretary; that stuff is mindless and doesn't require any substantive knowledge about the law. But a lot of firms also don't even hire J.D.'s to be paralegals, which seems very stringent. There is a huge difference between the work of a secretary and a law clerk, for example. There isn't so much of a difference between a law clerk and a paralegal, however.

I know the difference, the point I was making was that the market is so fucked that people who spent 4+ years in university are genuinely competing and loosing out to jobs that arent even law related just simply part of a firm all for the hope of being given the chance to be a paralegal some time in the future

Natural Right and History - Leo Strauss

>Haha

yo leute. hab auch in freiburg studiert. ebenfalls größter fehler meines lebens. bin jetzt kurz vor dem zweiten und hasse jede sekunde. die woche kommt die erste abmahnung rein, die wollen mich freuern aber keine chance.
jura ist echt der langweiligste unnötigste scheiß.
klassenjustiz, undemokratisch und alle verstecken ihre persönlichen ressentiments hinter pseudoohjektiven worthülsen und dogmen. manchmal hab ich das gefühl jura ist wie eine verschwörung:
man nehme junge abiturienten, scheiße sie komplett mit unnötigem stoff zu, schüre konkurrenzdruck, eliminiere jede kreativität, belohne autoritätshörigkeit (mehr punkte für h.M. etc), mache komplette fachidioten aus ihnen und überlasse ihnen dann justiz und weite teile der verwaltung um alle anderen zu quälen,

Fucking amen, my german brother. The same happens in Portugal.

It sounds like the European legal education system is overly mundane, and banal than the U.S. system.

>banal and mundane
>engaging in tautology to express something by using posh terms
Ironically, you were the one who sounded mundane. Pls, I have yet to know a relevant american legal scholar, or any other relevant legal scholar outside of Europe for that matter.

i also studied american law and chinese law.
its the fucking same everywhere. case law or civil law it doesn't really matter.
law is just privilege thinly veiling itself as justice, when in fact it has nothing to do with one another.
when you question the nature of law, why it exists, what it serves, how it came into existence and if it is just and how it can be legitimzed will will get a blank stare in turn, with unintelligeble mumbling along the lines:
THE LAW IS THE LAW

>'twas bait

>bait xD
>>/b/

>education system is overly mundane
Yeah, well, buddy, I know it is going to be schocking to you but school is not supposed to be a kindergarden for adults.

Can we talk about The Sot-Weed Factor instead, it's more interesting

We study in the same way the germans do, but without any of the benifits.

We study in the same way anyone in our legal family does. Where are you from and what's your university?

Portugal, Lisbon's Classical Law School representing my thots

bump

REE STRAUS WAS LITERALLY A RIGHT WING WAR CRIMINAL

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/J/bo3534640.html

Just passed the bar last week. I fucking hate law and wish I had done anything else.

hehe xd

1L at a T14 here, I think I'd rather kill myself than ever get a private sector job in this field. This profession self-selects for gunners rather than intelligent people. If you want to get anywhere you better be on your fucking grind but be personable enough to not totally bomb an interview.

I don't mind going to classes etc. but everything else is too much. If you aren't checking your e-mail and rifling through the school website 24/7 you're going to be behind. I just want to graduate and become a coal miner or something.

nice

sick

Make explainings for yuros, pl0x. Whats a gunner g

>tfw starting law in spring
>tfw I always wanted to become an author instead
Is law at least cool or is it full of daddy's boy prep losers like I suspect it is?

what are good back up careers for law grads?

If you're inclined to becoming an author, you will absolutely detest it. It's the complete opposite.

It's also far from "cool" but prep boys only make up about 20% Unfortunately then there's also 20% prep girls and a really big amount of people who genuinely love being graded and don't mind putting in 10+ hours daily so if you're someone who gets easily distracted, has other interests, or tries to solve problems with pure intellect or original thought instead of quoting what you've learned by heart, you're going to be subpar. If you spend more than 30min on Veeky Forums daily, it's really, really stupid to get enrolled in law.

Nah, I was one of the people who didn't mind putting in the effort in school and got really good grades so that isn't a problem even though I've always felt it's a ridiculous concept. I've been suspecting that university is going to be Highschool Part 2, especially if you're going to study something that's filled with career-hungry sheltered idiots. I've been on Veeky Forums just because I've been living the NEET lifestyle for a few months now and it's been more annoying than enjoyable tbqh.

If you don't mind following a concept you know to be ridiculous for the sake of approval, then law is literally perfect for you.

I don't mind it but I can already feel how fucking rich my therapist is going to be at the end of my time at the university. I think I'd hate to do almost everything except for one idealized, very small field (writing career). It's a part of maturity to part with the things you like to do if they're not realistic I guess, especially if you're not from an Upper Class background.

>I think I'd hate to do almost everything except for one idealized, very small field (writing career). It's a part of maturity to part with the things you like to do if they're not realistic I guess
That's 100% me when I started and now I want to kill myself. But I don't want to exaggerate - if you have good discipline and are a social person, it's not that hard to get through. Which is why I said enjoying Veeky Forums is a bad sign for a law career.

Yeah, from experience I'm the kind of person who can just do what's expected in those situations but doesn't find even the slightest enjoyment in it. There's a good chance I'll just have a nervous breakdown if I just continue spending my time with thing that I hate but there's just no viable alternative. Sad to hear that you fucked your life up, but I'm pretty positive that I'll end up the same way (but at least with a good degree).

bump

Law is a hit or miss profession, so no alternate routes.

Politics. t. Political Science undergrad going into Law School.

That is completely wrong, at least in Germany. As long as you graduate and especially if you graduate with good grades, you're welcome almost anywhere. Public sector, private sector, virtually any kind of company. You won't be paid as much as if you used your skills properly but it still beats a degree in the liberal arts.

Just thought I'd add the positive since I complained a lot.

>at least in Germany
You guys have the ruthless admission system in the world. I wouldn't try to be a lawyer in your country.

Also true in Portugal. Although you would be better off being a judge getting dem 5k salary per month

"most" ruthless. Fix'd.

Anyway, It's good to see fellow lawbros in Veeky Forums. Keep up the good work guys.

>not just highjacking a plane for political reasons

So what are you going to do to get around this?

Where are you going to school.
>tfw public uni hell

Like I said, Freiburg. If I had known how bad my self-discipline is I would've gone to Hamburg.

Is that a good school in Germany. (I thought I was responding to the American poster).

Ich bin Erstsemester in Jura in Heidelberg und ich glaube ich ende genauso wie alle hier im Thread. Mann ich wünschte ich hätte reiche Eltern, auf dem Gymnasium haben alle Lehrer noch gesagt ich soll Literatur weiterverfolgen. Dann ist die Schule aus und niemand interessiert sich einen Scheiß um das was man machen will, es soll nur Geld bringen.

a tryhard.

Not the one you responded to but Freiburg is considered one of the better universities. The LMU in Munich and Heidelberg are supposed to be the best but I seriously doubt that considering most of the people I know in Munich are the worst tools I've ever met.

I wish I would have tried harder and wen to a better public Uni like NYU or something.

>tfw UCF fag

Munich is still the greatest city in Germany and the only place worth living.

Yeah top5 for law but it's completely different from the US - no one here really cares what uni you went to so if you choose a good one, you're just making it harder for yourself because you're in a state where 80% of all students fail as opposed to just half as many in others.

Munich and especially Heidelberg just attract a certain kind of people. I'm not really in the position to judge other unversities but I agree the people I met were very unimpressive.

I didn't start hating it until third semester (before then, everything is fairly well-structured and easy to keep an overview of) so if you already hate it in the first year, I'd just switch. But give it a chance. It's not just law, university can ruin anyhing for you and if you sit in one seminar after the other with idiots discussing gender roles in Harry Potter, you might come to hate literature too.

That attitude is probably what he meant when talking about the tools there. I agree it was nice though five years ago before it became the capital of Romanian beggars. The 5-museums-for-1-Euro-deal is still sweet though.

bump

Agamben and Schmitt can teach you all there is to know about law

Try LAW AND LITERATURE by Richard Posner, which has an overview of the subject and is very interesting and sprightly. Posner is quite brilliant; sometimes he has his head stuck up his ass and can be very stubborn about it, but a lot of the time he's right.

FEDERALIST PAPERS is well worth reading for its basic overview of American constitutional norms and structures.

You should pursue law if you like it, and it sounds like you have the intellectual chops for it. Know in advance that there are a *lot* of unhappy lawyers (not speculation, it's a fact), but the smarter you are, the happier you'll be, because a lot of the unhappiness comes from having to grind through billable hours with a slow-processing brain. If you're blessed with a core 2 duo processor in the old noggin, everything will go much more smoothly.

You really have to be quite bright to become a legal scholar, which is basically a law professor. But maybe you are. The one thing you really, ***really*** want to avoid in exploring that option is taking on a life-destroying student loan debt burden.

Turow's ONE-L is a reasonably accurate picture of the law school experience, and demonstrates Turow's excellent writing skills.

A CIVIL ACTION by Jonathan Harr offers a realistic picture of life in complex civil litigation.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AS FICTION by Lewis H. LaRue is a minor work but one I very much enjoyed.

G. Edward White, THE MARSHALL COURT AND CULTURAL CHANGE is an example of a top-tier scholar doing top-tier work of a kind that's a bit dizzying to my little mind -- like standing on the sidewalk and trying to see the top of a *very* tall skyscraper.

If you have access to Westlaw or Lexis via school you can find an abundance of interesting legal scholarship -- indeed, there's no end to it.

Not true at all. If you are smart and hard-working and emotionally stable, and you can succeed at law, no connections needed.

I know Posner is an intellectual heavyweight but am I the only one who thinks he would be hell to clerk for? I mean if you have the intellectual I am sure you'd be able to keep up. It's just that he seems to be a dreadful person sociably.

I also wouldn't be surprised if some of his current and/or former clerks were browsing this thread right now.

Lol

t. one of his clerks made that post?

>phil undergrad
>tfw wish I would've just stuck with engineering
>tfw bilingual in a useless language
>tfw will probably just teach probably
>tfw to smart for blue collar work and to dumb for academia
End it.

*teach abroad
>tfw too dumb to spell correctly