The Big Picture

Just to clarify, this post has nothing to do with photography, painting or other forms of art. I apologize that I got your hopes up that I had something interesting to say.

As most of you know, I am in my second year of law school at BYU. It has been an adventure from the start. I must confess that I haven't enjoyed the "entire law school experience." The law is generally (and this definitely a generalization) divided into litigation and transactions. Law school is very focused on making people litigators, or those who deal with trials and go to court. I have never been interested in being a litigator. There is some appeal to Appellate work as it deals mostly with the legal questions only and not questions of fact; however, it wasn't enough to convince me to become a litigator.

I entered the law with the desire to do transactional work. My favorite aspect of undergrad was economics. I know that makes me a nerd and I don't care. The combination of predictions, numbers and business made it the perfect way to hold my interest while also engaging my brain. In the second-to-last semester of undergrad I took a class called "Law and Economics." At this point I had not really thought about attending law school, but I thought that I would give it a try. This is probably what finally pushed me to research and register for the LSAT. The majority of our time was spent on contracts and efficient compensation when dealing with damages and precautionary measures. I love contracts. I love efficiency. I love Meredith. I took Contracts during my first semester of law school and it remains my highest grade to this point (although there really isn't much room to improve on that grade).

The problem with law school being so focused on litigation is that there isn't much for the transactions people to do. All of the competitions are about oral arguments and brief writing. It is difficult to do any transactional work until you are actually practicing and, even then, you will probably end up doing "due diligence," reading documents involved in the transaction, for the first couple of years of practice. As a result, it is more difficult to find a job as a 2L in transactional work than it is to find work in litigation. During the Fall semester I had plenty of interviews for transactional work; however, the economy took a really hard turn right after these interviews. As a result, law firms in general have scaled back hiring. Transactional attorneys have been hit really hard because their jobs depend on companies actually having money, through cash or credit, to make deals with other companies. Plenty of firms are laying off transactional attorneys which obviously means that they aren't really hiring 2Ls at this time.

Since last October I have been searching for a job in any area of law that I can. I have met with some success, most of it being in Kansas City. Unfortunately, I am not the kind of person who can "act" in a job interview. These interviews that I obtained were 100% litigation, sometimes in areas of law that I hold absolutely no interest in. I can only assume that my lack of enthusiasm for the work I was interviewing for came through during the interview. I had one interview with the Federal Immigration Court in Dallas, TX which actually appealed to me. I hadn't had any exposure to immigration law and I thought that it might be interesting. I was still excited about the opportunity after the interview; however, the position was unpaid. This wasn't a huge deal because I could still get school credit and experience. Recently, however, I have finally found some clarity and comfort regarding my job search.

I flew into Kansas City on President's Day because I had an interview with a firm in Overland Park the next day. I was extremely excited for the interview because the website said that the firm practiced a number of transactional areas as well as some litigation. I thought that exposure to both would be MUCH better than all litigation. The interview went really well. I enjoyed the company of everyone that I met with and they seemed to enjoy me. The founding partner was extremely honest with me. He told me that my chances were good, but that they were interviewing someone with better academic qualifications the next day. He told me that it wasn't certain that there were even hiring anyone. He said that my chances were good: my resume was impressive, my grades were good, I am a minority and everyone I met with liked me a lot. This was encouraging. The only negative of this entire interview was that the majority of their practice was tort defense. As an economist, I feel that tort reform is necessary in the US. Tort defense is a noble sort of way to fight against excessive tort litigation; however, tort litigation is one of my least favorite things in the law. The firm does do transactional work, but it is only two or three attorneys out of the 25 in the firm. The founding partner said that I would probably do a couple transactional projects, but the majority of my work would be from the rest of the firm. Still, I was pretty excited. I was told to keep in contact with the firm and let them know about any changes in my plans. They wouldn't be making a decision for another 3-4 weeks, so there was plenty of room for plans to change.

So I flew back to SLC after a couple of days in Kansas. I don't have a lot of time to spend with Meredith because I spend so much of my non-school time searching for a job. As a result, I watch movies with my laptop in front of me sending out resumes, corresponding with networking contacts and looking through websites to find a job. As the next couple of days passed, I became more and more discontent with the fact that I would have to be a litigator because the economy chose to tank at this time. I do what I can to get good grades, interview well and find a job that will support my family; however, I just couldn't believe that I would have to spend years in a career that I hated in order to pay off my student loans. When choosing law schools, BYU was the last place that I wanted to go. I didn't even want to apply but did because of several external influences. My final choice in April of 2007 came down to BYU or KU. BYU was significantly higher in the rankings and slightly more expensive but had a better reputation for placing people in Big Law. KU had a wider, more interesting offering of classes and was in an area closer to home. At his point I wasn't sure if I wanted to practice on the East Coast or go back to the Midwest, so I prayed about my decision. I got the overwhelming feeling to go to BYU. Logic and spiritual guidance pointed towards BYU, so I made the decision to go. Meredith and I have since decided that we would like to return to the Midwest, barring any outstanding offer from another area. This has limited the job fields available.

Anyways, back to the job search. On Sunday I kind of went crazy. I somehow stumbled across a government job working as a law clerk for a government agency that regulates financial markets. I have known for quite a while that the best way to work with contracts and my other interests was to work in financial aspects of law. I find myself interested in banking law, securities, corporate transactions and others areas that are closely related. Earlier this academic year I had the desire to work for the Securities Exchange Commission, but I had missed the application deadline. Finding this government job posting led me to several other postings that offered jobs in exactly what I wanted to do. This is when I realized that, similarly to my choosing a law school, I did not know where to research for job possibilities or how to do it when I had really needed it. Finding these jobs on Sunday made me realize that there were plenty of options in government to work in the areas that I wanted. Also, I had always heard that the pay was dreadful. In comparison to Big Law it might be dreadful (about 45% of Big Law pay) but it would be enough to accomplish the financial goals that Meredith and I had. That night, I couldn't sleep and got up to search for more jobs. I applied to anything and everything that involved contracts or financial markets. It was entertaining, but I don't think anything will come of it.

Later in the week I spoke with one of my professors. It was a fairly long conversation, but the main thrust was that he had felt in law school that if he couldn't do what he wanted, he would look outside of the law. This was a sort of revelation for me. I had always known this realization but had never articulated it to myself. I don't want to practice law if I can't practice it in the areas that I want. I can use my JD in other areas, though it may not be practicing law. The day before this realization I had been made an offer by the Immigration Court of Dallas. I had asked for a couple of days to discuss it with Meredith and think about it. After discussions and realizations, we decided to reject the offer. We went to the temple to seek confirmation of a number of things, including our decision to reject the offer. It isn't very comforting to reject the only offer for legal experience that you have on the table, but we felt it was the right thing to do logically and spiritually.

Do what you love and the money will follow. I can't say that I am happy with my current employment situation, but I am happy with my current direction. It has been tough road so far and will probably continue to be so for some time. I guess this will help Meredith and me to grow together. It will be interesting to see how this new direction plays out.