Chew on This, Losers!

 Posted on February 24, 2010 in Uncategorized

No doubt about it: it's hard out there for a new lawyer. There are vocal bloggers on the internet, failed wannabe attorneys who blame the game for their failings: L4L, BL1Y, Nando. It's much easier to hang out on JD Underground blaming the profession for the fact that you are living in your parents' basement, than to actually try to make something of yourself.

Here (via Walter Olson via Brian Tannebaum), by contrast, is the story of Wajahat Ali, a law school graduate who got over his sense of entitlement, girded his loins, and did legal battle (from his parents' house, no less) with the "shit-covered bear" of Wells Fargo Bank to save his first clients' home.

Most of the unemployed law school grads reading this will think of several reasons that they couldn't, or wouldn't, do what Waj Ali did. In doing so, they will reaffirm their inherent loserness.

But my bet is that every practicing solo, small-firm lawyer, or prosecutor reading this can name several new (say less-than-five-year) lawyers who are making their bones after striking out on their own from law school, without the benefit of benefits or salary. I know a bunch. They will not all succeed, but most of them will and all of them will, like Waj Ali, make someone's life a little better along the way.