Ethics Hero: “Ludo,” Under-Employed Law Grad Blogger

True Grit - Reminds me of me

As Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) says of plucky Maddy Ross (Kim Darby) in the original, and best, film version of “True Grit,” Ludo “reminds me of me.”

Naturally, I admire him.

Ludo is, in his own words, ” a recent law school graduate and aspiring writer from Southern California. He is currently overeducated and underemployed, working two jobs and keeping sane only by writing down the stories of the crazy stuff happening to him.  He is currently working on his first book, a collection of stories from his days driving a taxi in Orange County….” He is beginning to get some publicity thanks to his blog, Law Grad Working Retail, which provides sometimes hilarious accounts of his current existence as an over-educated, presumed automatic admittee to America’s powerful and elite presumably thrust into life the way most of America lives it.

Do not lump Ludo with “Nando” and the other bitter, unemployed or under-employed recent law grads who have had their ire aroused by my observations about them on Ethics Alarms   (also here). He is doing exactly what he should be doing, using his unique talents to open up new opportunities while presenting himself to the world of law and elsewhere as a likely asset. As he writes in a recent post rebutting criticism of his blog… Continue reading

Unethical Website of the Month: Third Tier Reality

Mr. Furious, of the Mystery Men

Third Tier Reality is one of many blogs recently founded by disappointed law graduates who somehow labored under the misconception that a law school degree guaranteed that they would get 6 figure offers from big law firms and then live the life of Denny Crane until they could retire to a Caribbean island at the age of 55. A depressing number of these deluded souls managed to get themselves in hock up to their eyeballs, and when the recession hit and law firms cut back, felt first, like fools, second, angry and desperate, and third, that it was everyone else’s fault. Thus was born the “law school scam” conspiracy theory. Third Tier Reality, like the others of its breed, maintains that law schools intentionally misled scores of trusting students to pay their obscenely high tuitions,  knowing that they were pumping out more lawyers than the legal market would bear.

To the extent that the site tries to educate would-be law students that there is no guaranteed gravy-train at the end of three years of law school, the website is, at worst, harmless. “My goal is to inform potential law school students and applicants of the ugly realities of attending law school,” he writes. His message: Do not seek a law degree unless…

“(1) YOU GET INTO A TOP 8 LAW SCHOOL; (2) YOU GET A FULL-TUITION SCHOLARSHIP TO ATTEND; (3) YOU HAVE EMPLOYMENT AS AN ATTORNEY SECURED THROUGH A RELATIVE OR CLOSE FRIEND; OR (4) YOU ARE FULLY AWARE BEFOREHAND THAT YOUR HUGE INVESTMENT IN TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, GUARANTEE A JOB AS AN ATTORNEY OR IN THE LEGAL INDUSTRY.”

That’s all good advice, though it presumes that more people get law degrees under the delusion alluded to in (4) than I believe is true. Nobody ever told me that a law degree guaranteed a high-paying job as an attorney, and if we understood that decades ago when law was booming, I don’t see where the confusion set in. I worked in the administration of Georgetown Law Center, and that school never made such a representation. In addition, Third Tier Reality goes further, as its brethren blogs do, to insist that a law degree from less than a “First Tier” school is actually an impediment in the job market. I hate to kick this particular hornets nest again, but this is a self-serving rationalization for failure. Continue reading