Is Stanford that great?

CotoDeCasa
Tue, 14 Dec 2004 00:10:59 +0000

Stanford Law School takes a huge toll, not only financially, but also emotionally. Right before graduation, one of my friends turned to me and said, “If you had to do it over again, would you come here?” Before I could answer, she said, “I wouldn’t.” I wouldn’t, either. At the same time, I feel that I got an excellent education from Stanford, and I know that people are impressed that I have a JD from there.

The greatest virtue of Stanford is the smallness of the classes. You can get a lot of attention from your professors, and the professors are generally excellent. There are some terrible ones, but there are more very good ones.

Stanford has a beautiful, peaceful campus filled with palm trees, and a perfect climate.

So why didn’t I like it? I loved my undergraduate alma mater, and I expected to love Stanford, but I hated it overall. Part of it was the incredibly cruel financial aid rules. Even though I got married during law school and never received any financial assistance from my parents, Stanford refused to consider me eligible for financial aid. Their reasoning? I started law school two years after finishing my undergraduate work, which my parents did pay for. Because I had recently received money from my parents (who are NOT wealthy by any means), Stanford refused to consider me eligible for aid. Most schools automatically consider you as not relying on your parents if you are married, but Stanford did not. (It’s too bad that my parents didn’t use the same reasoning and consider me still dependent on them). The end result was that I graduated nearly $100,000 in debt, and I was forced to take a job at a large law firm in order to make my student loan payments. I wanted to clerk for a judge, but I couldn’t afford to. Before going to law school, I worked for a number of non-profits, but I certainly couldn’t consider that.

Another part of my experience was that the law school student body was overwhelmingly made up of people from very wealthy backgrounds. The parking lot was clogged with Porsches. The minority not from rich families felt out of place, and many had chips on their shoulders. If you’re not a rich, white kid, you will probably not feel at home here.

Graduating here makes it easy to find a job at a prestigious law firm. However, do you really want to work there?

The most important thing I have to say applies to all law schools. I cannot say strongly enough that law is a stressful and demanding profession and that a huge percentage of attorneys burn out within a few years. In my case, I practiced for nine years before burning out… but I still owe Stanford nearly $40,000. Many of my classmates left the law years before I did. Before enrolling at Stanford or any other law school, talk to actual, practicing lawyers and try to get a feel for what the law is really like. Disregard all television shows and movies. It’s not Cindy Crawford running around a jungle in a bra, like in the movies. The reality is long hours worrying about your billable hours, toadying to old, fat white men (i.e., partners and clients), and swimming in a sea of paper. I don’t have any friends who are happy practicing law after many years. There is a reason why lawyers have such high alcoholism and divorce rates: it’s a stressful and unhappy way to live.
If I had to do it over again, I would not go to Stanford Law School. Unfortunately I’m still paying every month for that decision.