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I interviewed with Firm A months ago and accepted a position to start this upcoming fall. Group leader called me to offer the position back in November 2020. Besides interviewing with partners at the firms, and diligent follow ups notifying them of my interest to get started, no communication has transpired since.It turns out that I accepted a better offer w/ Firm B for personal reasons and won’t be going to Firm A. What is the best way to notify Firm A? Call/email group leader? Call/email HR?
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Main argument is that the entire ESG industry is not grounded in scientific boundaries and therefore doing more harm than good.
https://www.r3-0.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Opinion-Paper-1-Ralph-Thurm-The-Big-Sustainability-Illusion-March-2021.pdf
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I had a very similar conversation with a friend about this! If graduation from law school isn’t enough, why have the bar?
I think both are very much needed, especially the bar exam. I didn’t when I was getting out of law school but after working for years now it’s become apparent how needed they are. I would even require lawyers to retake some version of the bar (maybe a watered down one) every few years to retain their license.
The point of law school and the bar is not to prepare you to practice the specific field of law you choose right out the gate. That’s impossible. How would a single or multiple classes in a law school be able to teach students how to file something in court when there are so many jurisdictions in the country (and each state) and each varies as to filing and students will spread out in different jurisdiction after graduation? Even during the bar exam, why is it fair to require someone who doesn’t intend to file a single document in court cause they’ll do M&A work to learn how to file a document in court within a specific jurisdiction, or require someone who never plans to do M&A work to negotiate reps and warranties for example (especially when those things can further vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in single state and subject matter to subject matter). It’s very difficult to get specific.
Law school and the bar exam are meant to make sure you have the basic ability to reasonably learn and do legal tasks once you start practicing in your particular field. When you’re faced with a legal question, you (unlike an everyday non-lawyer) should be able to situate the question within the general legal framework, spot the legal issues, sift through information (i.e. facts and legal rules), apply the rules to the facts, and communicate your opinion in an organized, clear, and concise way. This requires you to have two things: (i) a general understanding of different field of laws (torts, criminal, contracts, etc.) and procedures (I.e. civil, criminal, evidence, contract formation, etc.) so that you have the big picture and can situate yourself within it and (ii) a basic level of intellect, reasoning, and memory to be able to sufficiently go through a lot of information, analyze it, and communicate it clearly (I.e. think like a lawyer). Once you develop these things (and showcase that you have them on the bar exam), then you should be set to specialize in whatever law you want and pick it up quickly enough. That’s why on the bar exam, you’ll get a question for example requiring you to go through a packet of materials containing facts and legal cases, analyze it, and communicate it via writing when answering a question. You likely won’t get that time pressure or organized materials to review in real life, but your ability to pick up new material, comprehend it, analyze it, and communicate it is literally pure legal skill no matter where you go.
I’ve encountered so many attorneys (and people wanting to be attorneys) who need improvement in the two skills I noted above. When I clerked, I would see so many attorneys lose their clients’ cases on summary judgment cause they failed to comprehend the legal standard enough and go after the evidence needed to survive summary judgment during discovery. Or they cite inapposite cases (or cases that hurt them) or stuff that’s soooo simple you can’t believe someone would do it. Maybe law school and the bar aren’t the best gatekeepers but if someone can’t pass the bar cause they’re not able to remember basic info about torts, contracts, etc., or can’t sift through info and analyze and communicate it effectively (when all these other bad lawyers could do it), it’s hard to feel bad for them. At the end of the day, clients aren’t paying lawyers to do secretarial work of filing, mailing, proof reading, etc. They’re paying lawyers to use the skills law school and the bar exam test for in the clients’ specific situation.
Edited to also say: As much as people complain about memory tasks, clients are not paying you to research issues from scratch either :)
I just graduated from law school 2 weeks ago. My take is that law school is valuable in that it teaches us to “think like a lawyer”. But as I’m studying for the bar, I’m realizing how many rules, elements and details I don’t know off hand. The bar forces you to memorize all those rules and be able to recite and apply them quickly.
To me, the question is “do we really need to memorize the law to be effective lawyers when we will almost always have the ability to simply look things up in the real world?“
After first year, you have a lot of freedom as to what classes to take - some real fundamentals like evidence usually aren’t required. And my professional responsibility class was geared toward the MPRE, not state ethics rules. So I do understand the argument that the bar is to ensure that all lawyers in a jurisdiction have a core set of knowledge. But then, part of me thinks that the bar is just another gatekeeping mechanism (and financial drain) to keep people out of the profession.