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Journal Fiver-rah's Journal: IANAL... 24

Journal by Fiver-rah
Gee, Fiver-Rah. You barely write in your journal. And now there's been about a billion journal entries in the last week. What's up with that?

Good question. I'm having the "why am I in graduate school?" crises. Let me review the reasons I wanted to go to graduate school.

  • I like learning lots of interesting new things.
  • It would be way cool if I were Dr. Bond.
  • I didn't want any of the stupid jobs I could get with a joint Math/Chemistry bachelors degree.

Alas. I don't want any of the slightly-less-stupid jobs I can get with a Chemistry PhD, and I'm spending all my time doing basic research on a project that bores me. Furthermore, there aren't all that many other projects that are more interesting (aside from all the cool stuff the Santa Fe institute does, but they just have cachet). So my reasons for being here are somewhat less than stellar, and another 2-4 years for a PhD is looking like more and more of a drag.

Of course, without a viable option, this is all stuff and nonsense anyways. And then I came up with a viable option. I was talking about a friend from high school who went to Harvard Law and has since been traveling around the globe (last I heard she was brokering a human rights agreement with the UN in Sri Lanka) doing wacky and fun things. And it occured to me: Hey, I could go to law school.

Now it's undoubtedly true that I think it's interesting. I read every legal brief filed by the EFF and the DOJ in the Sklyarov case up until December of 2001 or so, and many of the ones filed in Felten's case. And DeCSS, and a couple others. For one. I have something like a clue in matters pertaining to biotech/bioengineering (I'm doing theoretical chemistry--I've *taught* a class on the subject). And frankly, there are probably far too few people who give a damn about an intellectual commons who go into intellectual property. I could do it. I could probably do it well, which is more than I feel about basic research. And I could enjoy myself.

Problem is, while I would love to be "Dr. Bond" I would hate to be a lawyer. Bad associations and all that. I've been thinking of this for ... uh ... 4 days now, and I've essentially made up my mind to do it. Or at least, I've paid money to register for the LSAT, which is the next best thing.

So ... what do you think? It's not selling out if I don't do go to a boutique IP firm and make six figures, right? Can I actually do any good as a lawyer? Or is this just a Really Dumb Idea?

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IANAL... More

IANAL...

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  • The stigma is bad, but it exists for any professional: accountants, teachers, doctors, etc. You're going to catch grief from a certain portion of the population, no matter what.

    So, to hell with 'em.

    Serious question: do you have any idea what you want to do? It sounds like you don't. If you do, it's easy: do what it takes to allow you to be able to do what you want. The question of 'should you' is moot. If that's what it takes to do what you want, do it.

    But I rather suspect you don't know. And there's a world of answers. Let me provide some.

    1) Law school is general enough to give you a little time to figure it out. You aren't forced to be an attorney; you can do lots of things, but will be attractive to good employers because of your background.

    2) There are cheaper ways of figuring out what you want to do. Take the crappy job, but live frugally enough to leave it and pursue education later. Or join Peace Corps, Americorps, etc. Build houses with Habitat for Humanity for a while. Join the military (somehow doesn't seem to be your niche, but I could be wrong). Hell, hitchhike for a while.

    3) Get over yourself and get a job. Most people don't have the luxury of being so wishy-washy.

    4) Get over yourself and get a job. Life isn't about what you do, it's about who you are.

    I don't have the 'right' answer any more than you do. If you have the funds, and you think that law school is along the path to where you want to be, go for it. Seriously, do you care what people think about you? I doubt it, or you wouldn't be Chem/Math in the first place. Even if you do become an attorney, who cares? It can be an honorable profession. Even if you become a patent or IP attorney in the US, who cares? You didn't build the system. And perhaps you can get more done from 'inside' than out. And anyway, 2600, Felton, etc. all needed people to defend them.

    Without attorneys with some standards, where would the EFF or the ACLU be?
    • Life isn't about what you do, it's about who you are.

      That sounds suspiciously like a false dichotomy. I don't know if I have the strength of character to deal with the cognitive dissonance that would result if I ended up litigating someone's ridiculous patent claim.

      When I use the phrase "stupid job" I generally don't mean one which doesn't pay well. If I wanted to, I could make a lot of money. But that has never really motivated me. Ultimately, I'm not worried about money in any of this. Not to say that I have it--I put myself through undergraduate, I know what it's like not to have money--but that these sorts of things normally work out quite well. I don't think I'm being quite as wishy-washy as it may seem. I don't want the higher degree just for the heck of it. I do have something like a coherent plan. I just recognize that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

      • Life isn't about what you do, it's about who you are.

        That sounds suspiciously like a false dichotomy. I don't know if I have the strength of character to deal with the cognitive dissonance that would result if I ended up litigating someone's ridiculous patent claim.


        It finally hit me: it is not a dichotomy. Think in terms of sets (if I remember that hoary old topic correctly:) Perhaps this will be more exact:

        Life isn't only about what your job is. It is about who you are. Who you are is the intersection of your job, your friends, your family.

        Even though I just finished "Atlas Shrugged", and am still thinking in an Objectivist mode, life is far beyond what you do from 9 to 5.
        • Oh. I guess it's been so long since I've not been thinking of "what I do" nearly all the time, I forgot that other people have neat compartmentalizations. No wonder we don't agree. :)
          • It's not compartmentalized. At least I don't think it is:)

            If anyone could lay claim to the fact that "what you do"=="who you are" it is I. I work in my father's company. The company he started about 12 hours before I was born:) Certainly where I work is more ingrained (sp?) in my life than anyone should ever experience.

            But is that "all"? Not by a long shot.

            Not sure if I was clear in earlier post (it came to me while I was playing with kid. Finished that, then posted. Didn't think much):

            "what I do" IS "who I am"

            But:

            "my employment/job/career" is only a part of "what I do"

            Maybe I can turn it around a little bit, and I can understand you better with a couple of questions:

            Is "what you do"=="who you are"?
            What constitutes "what you do"?

            At this point, I'm not willing to concede that our disagreement is anything other than using the same words to discuss different (however slightly) things. Ahh, the specificity of the English language...

            Now, if we are on the same page WRT our choice of words and the definitions of them, I'm much more curious why "your job" would be the sum defining characteristic of "who you are". See, when I put it that way (which is kinda how I'm interpreting what you are saying) that leaves me with a bit of cognitive dissonance:)

  • EFF? (Score:2)

    by red5 ( 51324 )
    Well the EFF is probably looking for a few good (wo)men. With a technical background like yours why not?

    As for mixing it up I understand what you mean. I've been coding perl/CGI for the past 3 years all I ever wanted to do is program. Lately I've had discovered I have an affection for video editing. It's a lot of fun.
  • If you decided not to become a lawyer, that would make you IANAL-rententive
  • I want the education just for the sake that well, heck, I love learning.

    Seriously, if you have the cash/capabilities to go after that PhD in whatever, heck, go after it in something that you love to do. No sense being able to choose any field of study that you want to and then going about and choosing something that bores you to death.

    Hrmm, I though that there where tons of fields related to chemistry out there? I remember a lady coming into one of those H.S. career day things and talking about how she was a self employed forensic chemist working out of her apartment. . . . LOL! Earned darn good money to, around 50k a year and that is with 6 months off. :-D (apparently she originally wanted to join the FBI but at the time of her original application they had a requirement that all agents had to have some field duty and she could not qualify for it. So she went independent instead and ended up with the FBI on occasion paying far more for her work as a contractor instead! LOL!)
    • I want the education just for the sake that well, heck, I love learning.

      Don't get me wrong. I do too. I had a blast my first two years of graduate school, and I was never happier in my life. And I did choose a field of study I love--you have no idea how pleased I was when I finally understood what made the Renormalization Group so cool. But now I've reached the point where I'm supposed to make a contribution. This involves lots of painful banging your head against the wall, and little emotional support. One hopes that one bangs ones head with enough force and persistence that eventually you leave a minor dent. Then they give you a PhD.

      Now, I'm a theoretical chemist (more of a statistical physicist, actually). I don't work with actual chemicals. If I just wanted a job that paid well, though, I could have it. I know people who get six figures going into bioinformatics even in today's crappy economy, because so few people still have a clue in that area.

      But I don't want to go into an industry that wants to patent genes. I really believe in both open source and open science. I want to spend my life building an intellectual commons, whether it's by building things and making them common or by creating a framework so that the commons isn't threatened.

  • become a career student. Just keep defering your loans and applying for grants. I know two people that do that. If you want a serious career then a law degree wouldn't be a bad idea. It doesn't mean you have to be a lawyer though, there are lots of jobs that could use someone with a law degree and a technical background. You could work for the police/fbi/cia, you could get a job in litigation support(what I do) doing just about any part of the business.
  • I think it would be just too cool to be Dr. Bond. But I hear what you're saying. My school plans, now that I've returned, are Masters in a Math/CS hybrid, followed by law school. I don't intend to actively practice law, at least not as a 9-5 job, but I want to have that knowledge base available to draw on in business context & elsewhere. Besides, a Subgenius must know the underpinnings of a society. I may even get more Slack. That, at least, was my plan until last night.

    ...I think I should post anonymously in a reply to this... read on.

    • Just so you know, getting a higher degree 'just for the heck of it' is a very bad idea. Trying to get a regular CS/Math degree will become a hassel. Employers will look at you, and someone with the same qualifications without the law degree and pick the other person. Having extra degrees means your expected salary is higher. If you aren't using those extra degrees, you'll find that getting a job will be a difficult process (especially in this market).
      • You didn't read my post. I'm not planning on Law as my central career focus. Also, I've been independent for almost two years now. Being able to represent myself on my own contracts, or at least being able to follow along with better lawyers, is worth the time and energy to pass the bar. Small companies getting screwed over by poor representation is not an uncommon thing, even on otherwise fair agreements. This is not 'just for the heck of it'. 'Just for the heck of it' would be a PhD in the study of Czarist Russian jeweled eggs or something.

        Job-wise, if I wanted to work for someone else, just means that I have to target much more narrowly. But there's something out there for everyone.
        • Oh hey. This reminds me. I was reading about various and sundry professors and law schools yesterday. Speaking of math and the law, this guy [umich.edu] sounds interesting. I also like the two IP people at Michigan; one of them used to be the director for Creative Commons, and the other one has advocated a biological public domain, which sounds very cool.
        • I'm not sure that doing law for the purpose of representing yourself or following along is a wise use of resources. For that kind of money, you could easily find a competent attorney, one willing to explain everything many times over, in as many ways as possible.

      • Enh. A degree is not a death sentence. Sure, having a degree means you have a higher expected salary. And the more the job pays, the fewer jobs there are. This is fact. But one cannot conclude that getting a higher degree is not a good idea because there is less employment for people with those degrees. By that argument, since there are so many jobs in the fast food sector, we should all eschew college education.

        The fact is, really smart people can almost always find some way to do something cool and unexpected. Degrees open doors. Getting a degree may close 100 doors for every 1 it opens. But that one door it opens is more likely to be exciting, different and stimulating than the 100 doors that have slammed shut.

        Making long term goals about your education on the basis of what the market is like today also doesn't make sense. After three years in a J.D. program, the market will be something really different. Don't prejudge it.

  • I dropped out of grad school (Ph.D track) a little over a year ago. No fun, not happy, and I didn't like my job prospects. Right now, I'm burning time as a software engineer, and I like it, but it's not something that I want to spend the rest of my life doing.

    I'm also fascinated by patent law. Oddly enough, there was a career spotlight on a patent lawyer in the Boston Globe last Sunday -- it was interesting information, because I could theoretically be the type of lawyer who just gathers the patent information for companies, rather than prosecuting them in the courtroom. I think that would be really neat...

    I don't know if I'll ever do anything about it -- I'd need three years of law school and then I'd be good for the technology sector. But I think about it alot...

    I suppose the difference between thinking about how much I'd like something and actually jumping for it is pretty big...

    • I suppose the difference between thinking about how much I'd like something and actually jumping for it is pretty big.

      Or maybe this means that you don't really think it's quite the thing to do. I spent a lot of time thinking to myself that I would make a great college professor at a small teaching school. After all, my students have loved me. And performed better on the exams they took than students from other classes. I also really enjoyed it. I thought about it a lot, but never really went for it.

      I never thought about being a lawyer until this last week, but as soon as I did, I could see myself doing something. It made sense, and I knew I wanted to do it. Jumping for it was not a question. Within 2 days of having the initial "maybe I will go to law school" idea I had registered for the LSAT. By now I've already figured out what schools I'm applying to. I've downloaded applications and started working on a personal statement.

      I know that I want to do this because I'm not balking. It's crazy, but it makes sense, and it feels like the right thing to do. It took less than a week for me to transition from "I might go to law school" to possessing a timeline and considering contingency plans. When you know, you know.

  • I know people that make six figures, and are unhappy. They are so unhappy that they try to make everyone around them unhappy, so they don't feel so bad. I make decent money, (nowhere close to 6 figs) but I enjoy my life. I love my job 90% of the time, I have enough money to buy things I want, I have great family and friends and I don't work so much that I never see them. I work with computers, which I love. Don't get my wrong, I love chemistry, too, but not in the same way. I got my Bachelors in Chemistry and the Senior level courses were tough, but enjoyable. Everytime I shop, I still check the ingredients to see how many I recognize, or better yet, have synthesized!

    You can be a force of good or evil (or neutral) in anything you do. (Sorry, need to lay off the RPGs...) There are teachers that discourage learning because they are only there because they couldn't find anything else to do. There are teachers that encourage learning, and could be making more money elsewhere, but the want to make a difference. And there are teachers who are just there. Same for Lawyers, doctors, (some are in it for the money, not to help people) etc. It sounds as if you really enjoy law. I say go for it. If you start hating it, look for something else. My mother loves photography and forensics. She would love to be a crime scene photographer. I told her to just go for it and see what happens. The worst that could happen is she wouldn't like it and she could do something else. Dad makes enough money to keep them up and she isn't working now. If she had a job she liked, I wouldn't push so hard, but she is sitting at home wishing she were doing something like that.

    If you need money, find a job you like and see if they will pay for your education. Most larger corporations are big on furthuring your education. My boss is talking to HR about them paying for my Masters. It seems very probable that they will do it. It sounds like you already know that money won't make you happy. But making good money won't make you unhappy, unless you sacrifice who you are or what you believe to make money.

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