Limping Across the Finish Line

16/5/2017

JESSE COWIE

Vol 11, Issue 11

I’m just about in my final weeks of the JD, and I’ve found myself developing an unhealthy habit – stalking people on LinkedIn. It began innocently enough: ‘Wonder what some other people in my cohort are up to outside of the course’, but it quickly spiralled into a panicked scrolling through the profiles of just about everyone I knew in the course. My conclusion? My god…..people are doing really, really well! And then the bitter afterthought. Why aren’t I doing as well?

My feelings of inadequacy have always been present throughout my studies in the JD. I failed a subject in the first year, and got pretty average grades for the rest. There was some other stuff going on in my life at the time, and I felt more concerned with just keeping my head above water than trying to go above and beyond. And yet I realised that people around me were embarking on their first steps in the legal profession: unpaid internships, working at community legal centres, shadowing an associate they happened to know. I mostly responded to this with a sort of vague curiosity, and some unjustly deserved snark. It definitely sounded interesting, but I was always more of a detached student, and reassured myself with the knowledge that I was studying law at Melbourne. My future success was assured, in some form or another. Good on other people for being more driven, but I was happy enough being a low-altitude flyer.

Then came my next steady realisation: the job market was far more grim than I had understood it to be in my happy ignorance. Maybe I wasn’t going to be able to slide into a graduate job in a government department, or complete my PLT and happily begin work at a smaller law firm. Is this why everyone was doing those internships? Why didn’t anybody let me in on the big secret?

It’s quite a confronting moment when you realise you’re not necessarily preordained for success. If anybody had asked me point-blank whether I felt I was, I would have of course laughed and played down my own achievements: ‘I’m at Melbourne, but I’m not a genius or anything, mate, really I’m happy to just keep on keeping on’. And yet there was something inside me that felt differently. A certain quiet confidence, that I was going to be just fine. Somewhere along the way I had internalised my acceptance into Melbourne and people’s kind flattery, and come to believe that, of course, I was a young man who was going places.

And then it hits you. It hits you when you put in 20 graduate applications, for government jobs, consultancies, large corporations, and find yourself rejected in the first round from nearly all of them. It hits you when you start reading threads on Whirlpool and articles online about how tough it is being a law graduate. It hits you when you look at your CV and you realise that you just don’t measure up: a lone internship, a lone extra-curricular placement. And it hits you when you realise that life isn’t going to take you back. To quote Cormac McCarthy, ‘You are now at the crossing. And you want to choose, but there is no choosing there. There's only accepting. The choosing was done a long time ago.’
And so, where does that bring me? Limping across the finish line of the JD, battered, bruised and disillusioned. I never thought that a degree from the most prestigious law school in the country would feel so worthless, and yet here I am. There isn’t any great truth to discover from this experience. No pithy quote about failures making you stronger. If I could impart any wisdom it would only be these two parting thoughts.

To the first years happening to be reading: Get out there now. Hit the pavement. Internships, CLC’s, placements, competitions. Not next semester. Not next year. Now. We live in an incredibly competitive, stress-filled cutthroat environment, but merely acknowledging that isn’t enough. You need to accept that you live in this world, that you are not special, and that it will not change for you. You need to adapt, or you will not survive. Secondly, you should probably stop looking for the ‘point of it all’. As I said, there is no great lesson in my experience here. You could say that the point is there is no point. If you can accept that the world isn’t waiting on you, that the universe doesn’t owe you a thing, then hopefully you can begin to strive for something better.

Jesse Cowie is a fourth-year JD student

More articles like this

The rest of this issue

Tim

16/5/2017 07:50:05 pm

I enjoy reflective pieces like this and am glad you shared it, and hope it positively influences some earlier year students who read it.

One minor point though, and I acknowledge it is a small bit of your article, but I don't think you should have encouraged people to do unpaid internships. Unpaid work is illegal, exploits the person doing the work, and widens the gap of inequality for those who can't afford to work unpaid.

Check out
1) This previous De Minimis article; http://www.deminimis.com.au/home/other-peoples-money-life-as-a-law-student

2) This ABC article on unpaid work experience;
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/unpaid-internship-trend-may-penalise-poorer-job-seekers/8188976

3) and the Interns Australia organisation website, for a group that advocates in this area
http://www.internsaustralia.org/

Otherwise, good piece.

Former intern

16/5/2017 08:33:35 pm

Fuck off, Tim — until the situation is as such that there exist paid internships of the same quality as unpaid internships this article has great wisdom.

16/5/2017 08:45:14 pm

People get the conditions they accept. Unpaid internships exist because people are willing to settle for them.

Sarah

16/5/2017 09:15:26 pm

I think you missed the point of what was a really heartfelt and important piece about Jesse's experience of law school. He doesn't 'encourage' people to complete unpaid internships. Instead, he notes that people around him were completing them. He encourages students to apply for 'internships'. Nowhere does he say that they are unpaid. The exploitative conditions law students are subjected to in the process of trying to get a foot in the door are an entirely different topic.

16/5/2017 09:21:06 pm

Earlier in the article; "unpaid internships, working at community legal centres..." then later calls back to it: "Hit the pavement. Internships, CLC’s, placements, competitions."

I note that he doesn't use the phrase unpaid the second time. So perhaps Jesse did not intend to encourage students to do such work. However, the article could be construed as doing so. I hope it isn't, because yes, if someone were convinced to see unpaid internships in a positive light because of this article, then it's unfortunate that a heartfelt and important piece have such an effect.

Lol

17/5/2017 02:15:02 am

It's just supply and demand. Nobody is saying unpaid iinternships are a good thing, stop pushing your pet project. Doing an unpaid internship is a rational move if it gets you a step closer to a paid job where the alternative is nothing. Your advice is like telling a person dying of thirst to wait until the cleaner water arrives. Or worse, to not drink because everyone else wants a drink too. If you don't do the internship someone else will. Then they'll get your job.

17/5/2017 08:44:02 am

You've asked me to "stop pushing" this point, yet continued the debate - I left a comment which was largely positive to the article but expressed discomfort at one small aspect; it could have been left there but the natural defensiveness of law students in our clearly insecure work environment seems to have kicked in the fight-or-flight mechanism.

It is "supply and demand", but that isn't the whole story; working conditions have only ever been improved through collective rejection of poor ones (ie; the eight-hour day, etc.,) coupled with organised reform of the law (which is looking more likely at present re unpaid internships, though it is currently unlawful today). I think people should look elsewhere than unpaid internships, but understand why people take them in these trying times and don't resent everyone who does (although I reckon they should keep the evidence and claim backpay a little while down the track when they no longer need the reference). What I resent is any intentional or otherwise inducement to participate in them. To that degree, Jesse's advice was irresponsible.

From what I see the problem isn't so much that most law students don't get involved in enough - it seems to be more common that people try and too much and spread themselves too thin. But then, experiences and attitudes clearly vary. Either way, having some "selectiveness" to opportunities you take up isn't a bad thing, rather than going for "everything" regardless of its quality or ethical underpinnings.

Scott Colvin

16/5/2017 08:29:29 pm

Fuck the law, you should become a writer.

Former JD student who should stop reading De minimis

16/5/2017 10:45:42 pm

Damn straight. I remember you from the year below me and you were interesting and different from majority of people who were happy (or just willing) to accept the pre ordained path we are put on at MLS. Maybe don't listen to your own advice though of 'accepting' ... I don't agree that the choosing part is over. If you never felt particularly inspired at law school then use your law degree to do something else that actually does make you want to go above and beyond. We are in such a small privileged minority to have this educational background so its our responsibility not to merely accept and exist.

Me too

16/5/2017 09:41:03 pm

Jessie, you're not alone.

I'm also haunting the whirlpool forums awaiting rejections, and getting LinkedIn invites makes me feel sick to the stomach with anxiety and inadequacy. My grades are average- mainly because I've been dealing with real-life-stuff that took priority over classes and assignments, and the couple of things I have on my resume seem inadequate compared to the long list of clerkships and internships that I've seen on others.

I think your advice is really good and I wish someone had given it to me three years ago. I don't think those of us who come from non-law backgrounds appreciate how far behind we are simply for not having connections in the field/knowledge of how the system works It's not an even playing field, and if you're already behind on day one, it feels impossible to catch up in year three.

I know things look incredibly bleak right now, but I really hope you find something and everything comes together for you. Best of Luck

Agreed

17/5/2017 12:16:08 am

I relate to this article more than any other I've read while at law school. I'm scared too. I also don't have much extracurricular involvement. I've come close to failing two subjects. My grades are in the fat part of the bell curve. Right now, I don't want to be a graduate lawyer, and I don't think that opinion would change if the job market were less hellish. Then what were the last five and a half years good for? Were they just an escape? I don't feel prepared for any job market, much less the canine pit of graduate applications.

I think many of us have gone through similar experiences in self-identification. The first is studying Arts, "pre-Law". We define our self worth on the fact that we're the clever ones who are going to make it in. Then the exhiliration of actually achieving entry lasts a summer. We make plans to do everything at law school, even the stuff we don't know about yet. We resolve to be the top of the class. Then the rot sets in. As it turns out, law is a passion I thought I'd be able to cultivate, but I can't compete with the blind obsession of the top students.

We still have the prestige. People who are actually getting on with their lives still look up to us for working so hard and being so clever. Fuck that. Law isn't mentally challenging, not like particle physics, or a maths PhD. It's just work. The free-wheeling Arts tutorial gives way to the mechanical, box-ticking exercise in rule application which is the legal "seminar". I know how to get good marks in the law, despite some poor results. You just have to dot your i's and cross your t's twenty times over. I just don't have the stamina.

Somehow, people simultaneously impress on us both the incredible career "flexibility" of the JD and the absolute burning necessity of spending as many free hours as possible in the law's extracurricular sweatshops. Now we're expected to beg for scraps? We were promised a lot here, and we gave up plenty, if you count course fees and opportunity costs. We haven't been delivered much. Don't tell me this is what I signed up for. My father told me "aim for law" - society tells us the same.

I'm not sure I can redefine myself at the age of 25. All I know is study. I'm approaching the start of the big game and I feel like I've been running laps all day beforehand. I don't think there's any prospect less appealing than working twelve hour days doing discovery for whichever shit firm takes me in on $50k, assuming they haven't replaced me with an app by next year. The sunk cost fallacy has chained me this long. Maybe it's time to break that chain.

Not 25

21/5/2017 10:17:24 pm

It's been a while since I was 25 (thankfully), but I can tell you with some experience that you absolutely can redefine yourself. Not only that you can, but that you will. Good Lord if I was the same person I was when I was 25...how utterly depressing it would be to not have grown at all.

You change. You learn (and not from study). You will realise stuff you used to like you don't like much anymore, and you'll go do something else. That might or might not be law related. It makes no difference. You'll be OK.

I feel you

17/5/2017 08:33:02 am

Totally feel this article. I was a lucky one who managed to play off someone who I knew to get a foot (or probably more like a big toe) in the door. But I think for a lot of my degree

Funny how we do everything we are told is what is required to acheive our goals only to find they added things halfway through and no one told us.

On you though Jessie, as someone who had some classes with you along the way, its refreshing to have people with personailty and opinion around. Even if I disagreed with you a lot of the time. This was an incredibly honest article and I agree with Scott, with this quality you could be a writer.

Great Article

17/5/2017 10:15:10 am

Really enjoyed this and identified with a lot of what you wrote. Good on you, keep writing.

Anon

19/5/2017 09:05:33 pm

LOL "turns out other people weren't just drinking on Wednesday afternoons instead of lectures"

http://thefootnotes.com.au/prestigious-university-graduate-affirms-ps-get-degrees-dad-gets-job/

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Limping Across the Finish Line

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