OPINION
6 Obiter Dicta
The Curves on the Yellow Brick Road
Where can you go once you’ve committed?
quinlin gilbert-walters › contributor
I
wa s h av i ng lunch with some law school
friends last semester. We were discussing some
of the careers our peers had before coming to
law school. I noted that one of our classmates
had been a food blogger in her pre-law school life.
My friend shouted, “that’s my dream job!” Her
exclamation made me laugh. What on earth are you
doing in law school, I thought, if you really want to
be a food blogger? In my naiveté, I thought everyone
at law school wanted to be Chief Justice. Are there
others at law school who aren’t following their passion? What options do students have if law school
and being a lawyer isn’t for them? Alternatively, if
you are committed to law school, but are not set on a
type of practice, what options are out there?
The hardest part of law school is getting in, as
the saying goes. Currently, it is nearly impossible
to flunk your way out of law school. Only 5% of us
will get Ds or Fs, and the Fs are not mandatory in
marking. Generally, if you study, you will pass. This
is contrasted with the welcome given to Osgoode
students a generation ago which said “look to your
left, look to your right. One of you won’t be here by
the end.” We now, more or less, have the choice of
whether we want to complete law school. Dropping
out is usually a result of different kinds of pressures
now.
My LSAT prep course was taught by a young man
who had dropped
out of law school
after first year.
He aced his LSAT
and was accepted
into most schools
but, once there, he learned that he didn’t like the
environment. He didn’t like the competitiveness or
the subject material (needless to say, he didn’t go to
Osgoode). I appreciated his honesty about leaving
law school to pursue an alternative career. He was
lucky enough to take a position at his father’s consulting firm while he was figuring out what to do
next. He appeared happy with his decision. Most of
us are not fortunate enough to have something to
ê Keep calm and follow the yellow brick road.
fall back on but if you find yourself truly unhappy,
leaving law school to pursue the career you actually
want, though drastic, may be the best option.
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak
w it h O s go o d e
Professor
Ed
Wa it z e r a b out
his legal career.
Un l i k e m a ny,
Prof. Waitzer did not initially intend to practice law
with his law degree; nor did he want to be a professor, or a politician. For Prof. Waitzer, a former community organizer who started his career without a
high school diploma or an undergraduate degree, a
law degree was the most effective way to change the
world.
Knowing that he had no intention to practice,
Prof. Waitzer did not conform to the legal system
“...there are doors that will open
that don’t even exist yet.”
as it then was but made his career conform to his
vision. During our chat he said, “[there is a] different
mindset when you’re there because you want to be.”
After receiving his LLB from the University of
Toronto in 1976, Professor Waitzer articled for Ian
Scott, who went on to become the Attorney General
of Ontario. The pair had an agreement that he would
not be asked back once the year had finished.
Like his LLB, earning his LLM was another means
upon which he could rely on at a later time. Since
earning his degrees, Professor Waitzer has worked
in several areas such as the Toronto Stock Exchange
and the Ontario Securit ies Commission. Professor
Waitzer said that without the LLM he probably
wouldn’t be a full-time professor now.
During our discussion, Professor Waitzer told me
that life rarely happens in a straight line. The degrees
he has earned have helped him get where he is now.
Those degrees, the same degrees we are working
toward now, are more than a license to practice law.
A legal education has the added benefit of giving the
recipient a different perspective on the world and
the skills by which to change it.
Unlike a generation ago, a law degree now costs a
small fortune. The benefits of a law degree have also
changed and, as ELGC has informed me, jobs are not
readily available after graduation. I am writing this
article just after having paid the second installment
of my tuition which means that, barring any major
gaffes, I will be staying around a few more months
and probably a couple more years.
This makes models of success like Professor
Waitzer so much more important. I don’t propose
telling your OCI interviewers that you don’t want to
work at their firm, but it’s important to know that
there are doors that will open that don’t even exist
yet. My advice is that, unless you truly don’t enjoy
what you are doing, you should continue trekking
down the yellow brick road and consider designing
your own career. After all, life rarely happens in a
straight line. u
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