Going to Law School... but...

[Polish3d]

After completing my UG degree I will be headed to law school. I am currently in a pre-law fraternity organization here at my school. This is one of four organizations I belong to.

In the other three organizations, there are talented, bright and enjoyable people. They are pleasant to be around and I like them.

However, in my pre-law fraternity, at least 50% of the members are, while not bad people, quite unpleasant in many ways that I do not find amongst people elsewhere.

I've wondered if this were a case of cognitive dissonance, but I really don't believe it is.

I have found some of my peers to be incredibly contentious, (a stereotype of lawyers actually) for no valid or pratical reason that I can determine.

And perhaps oddly obsessed with rules and procedures purely for their own sake.

ie, making things way more complicated than they need to be, and in a way that is frankly quite obnoxious.

I personally tend to dislike rules and structure that is inefficent and find rules for the sake of rules to be time-wasting and exhausting. I am ENTJ mostly


For instance:

This is an email I recieved from one of the members. I too am an officer in this fraternity, and I know this girl pretty well. We are on casual terms, but she sends this letter:



" (Me),

....just quick reminder to let you know that I still have your $40 partial payment of dues that you asked me to hold until our next (Name of Frat ) meeting. Please know this is $10 short of our required $50 fall dues.

(Me), will you please pay the remaining $10 that is still outstanding towards your dues at our meeting this evening? Thank you and....

Have a GREAT day,

Her Name
Our School
Her Email
Her Position in our Frat
Her Phone number
(as though I don't know she's the damn secretary of the frat we belong to at the school we both go to. lol. she had to type all this out manually too)


Here is another from someone else:

"16 October 2007

Hey y'all! Attached are the minutes from the last meeting. If you have never looked over minutes before, PLEASE look over these. **There were some serious changes made to the entire structure of our chapter of (Name of Frat) that you should be aware of, as you will be held accountable with this e-mail. *** (z0mg, let's make things needlessly more stressful for everyone than they are. the rules aren't even that important, its petty stuff for the most part)

Have a great day and we hope to see you at tonight's meeting!!

Fraternally,
Her Name


Her Name Again
Our School
USMC - PLC
College Republicans (this alone should get me some sympathy since its AToT of course)
Alpha Phi Sorority - Alum
Our Frat - Secretary
I Have A Dream Foundation Tutor"



Anyway, the above emails do a decent job of demonstrating the attitude that many of those in my frat seem to have. The president is pretty cool thankfully, but my concern is:


I would not want to spend time around people like this....


Thankfully not everyone there seems to be this way... but nonetheless everytime we have one of these meetings and I'm sitting around doing nothing in the comp lab waiting for the meeting to start, reading the barrage of "rules we must follow tonight" emails that come each week, I have the same thoughts.

I would post a cliffs but this post is so long I'm out of energy to write further sorry

 

[bonkers325]

if you dont like dealing with unpleasant people you're probably not going to like your job as a lawyer

 

[HN]

Sue'em

It'll be good practice.

 

[ElFenix]

not into rules for rules sake? you're probably not going to like lawyering.

you do know that only the very top of the graduating class gets the $150,000 jobs, right? for everyone else, they'd probably have been better off getting MBAs.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: HN
Sue'em

It'll be good practice.

LOL

 

[Deeko]

I graduated from computer science and I can't stand most of the people in that field.

So?

 

[Pantoot]

My only comment is that I find it funny that a woman would sign "Fraternally,"

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
not into rules for rules sake? you're probably not going to like lawyering.

you do know that only the very top of the graduating class gets the $150,000 jobs, right? for everyone else, they'd probably have been better off getting MBAs.

I know I am in that category though. (Top 3-5 LS)


I actually am seriously thinking about going the MBA route though. I just haven't finished researching what is necessary to get into a top business program, and whether I will qualify. My gpa is 4.0 (but will likely be about 3.95 upon graduation), but I don't have any distinguished work experience that schools like Wharton/Sloan/Harvard want so .. but I still have more research to do on it

 

[RKS]

Originally posted by: bonkers325
if you dont like dealing with unpleasant people you're probably not going to like your job as a lawyer

QFT

I talk to dozens each day and even though I am helping them; some of them are among the rudest and self-absorbed POS I encounter. I guess it is circular whether the profession lures the assholes or it turns them into assholes. I guess also have the distance/non-personal/safety of a distant phone call doesn't help either.

FWIW The majority of the people I went to school with were good people. As with any other graduate program the competition level differs by school but you will always have jerks that think that a cut-throat approach is the best way to go in both school and life.

 

[jandrews]

that doesnt really seem bad. Frankly it seemed like they are just trying to followup to ensure everyone knows what they need to know. The last thing that chick would want is for dues time to come around and you forget about the 10 dollars. She is saving everyone time by ensuring that you know what your responsible for.

I have a guy that works for me that reminds me of you somewhat. He had an argument that he doesnt respond to many emails because people should just assume he is responsible and will take care of issues people email him about. The thing about this world is that people are generally not responsible and you need to make sure your end is taken care of. Whether that is a followup email or a seemingly unneccessary response, it needs to be done.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Frackal

Originally posted by: ElFenix
not into rules for rules sake? you're probably not going to like lawyering.

you do know that only the very top of the graduating class gets the $150,000 jobs, right? for everyone else, they'd probably have been better off getting MBAs.

I know I am in that category though. (Top 3-5 LS)


I actually am seriously thinking about going the MBA route though. I just haven't finished researching what is necessary to get into a top business program, and whether I will qualify. My gpa is 4.0 (but will likely be about 3.95 upon graduation), but I don't have any distinguished work experience that schools like Wharton/Sloan/Harvard want so .. but I still have more research to do on it

yes, you have to work, but if you've got a 3.95 to 4.0 from a good school getting a good job somewhere isn't going to be difficult.

if you can get into wharton i'd go there. if you're more interested in getting things accomplished than procedure and rules for rules sake you'd be better off in the business side than the legal side.

 

[jumpr]

You didn't pay your fall dues in full, and when they came collecting the balance, you started complaining about 'too many rules?' Talk about petty!

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: jumpr
You didn't pay your fall dues in full, and when they came collecting the balance, you started complaining about 'too many rules?' Talk about petty!

no no, that wasn't my point (the dues issue itself), unrelated

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Frackal

Originally posted by: ElFenix
not into rules for rules sake? you're probably not going to like lawyering.

you do know that only the very top of the graduating class gets the $150,000 jobs, right? for everyone else, they'd probably have been better off getting MBAs.

I know I am in that category though. (Top 3-5 LS)


I actually am seriously thinking about going the MBA route though. I just haven't finished researching what is necessary to get into a top business program, and whether I will qualify. My gpa is 4.0 (but will likely be about 3.95 upon graduation), but I don't have any distinguished work experience that schools like Wharton/Sloan/Harvard want so .. but I still have more research to do on it

yes, you have to work, but if you've got a 3.95 to 4.0 from a good school getting a good job somewhere isn't going to be difficult.

if you can get into wharton i'd go there. if you're more interested in getting things accomplished than procedure and rules for rules sake you'd be better off in the business side than the legal side.

You may truly be right on that. I've already planned to, at the very least, to take the GMAT and apply to some of the schools before graduation just in case.

 

[jumpr]

Originally posted by: Frackal

Originally posted by: jumpr
You didn't pay your fall dues in full, and when they came collecting the balance, you started complaining about 'too many rules?' Talk about petty!

no no, that wasn't my point (the dues issue itself), unrelated

I understand the point you were trying to make - that they're too concerned with rules and do things that annoy you. Even though it's a college pre-law frat, it's a professional organization. If members - especially officers of that organization - don't act professionally with regard to the daily business of the organization, then no one will take it seriously and it won't 'look good on resumes.' They're just trying to preserve the professional nature and serious attitude of the fraternity.

 

[Aluvus]

Both people most likely copy-pasted the signature at the end. When I was in school (typing that felt odd...), any email that went to a professor on behalf of a team had the same copy-pasted signature at the bottom to be sure they knew who I was and what group I was with. Anything internal to a team I was on had my full contact information just in case. You get the idea. Other people used their email client's signature functionality, sometimes attaching enormous blocks of text.

If the examples you provide are representative, it sounds like you are over-reacting. I've been through plenty of over-engineered meetings, and generally that is more representative of the people that planned the meeting and of the particular organization than of an entire profession. My impression of frats is that this sort of thing is especially common for them. The sort of people that choose to run a frat are not necessarily the ones best equipped to do so.

If you're concerned about whether you can live with "lawyer" personality types, you need to get some exposure to people outside this frat. If that means people at another school, so be it. This will help you judge whether the issue is more just the people in that fraternity.

 

[fishmonger12]

Don't apply to business school straight out of college. You won't get in, and even if you do your degree will mean dink.

Get a job in the industry you're interested in working it, work 2-3 years, then think about it.

 

[Whisper]

As with a few other posters in this thread, I didn't find the emails to be at all obnoxious or overly-structured. Perhaps you're looking a little too hard for information to support your already-held beliefs?