Saturday, May 23, 2009

They Should Have Read MacBeth

A young lawyer discovers that the American Paper Chase dream is not all it's cracked up to be:

In case they haven't noticed, time is the enemy. Time disappears faster than the weird guy dressed as Borat I mistakenly took home from the bar on Halloween. If they are making a habit of billing 2400 hours a year in their 20's, what the hell are they going to do when they wake up at 40 and look back on what they did with their youth? I know that they aren't actually enjoying the doc reviews, legal research and interrogatory drafting, so why are they so comfortable squandering the best decade of their whole entire lives on this crap? Is it because they think the best is yet to come?

That can't be the case, because all I have to do is take a look at the ashen-faced, graying, mid-level partners around here to realize that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. It's not like working your ass off now will result in some sort of distinguished freedom in 15 years.


To this day, television shows still portray lawyers as sexy crusaders for social justice. However, as the above quote indicates, there is little about a legal career that was not well stated by Shakespeare's MacBeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

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