The advantage of spending time in private practice this summer is I got to see first-hand that the average quality of lawyers is ... average. And half of them, necessarily, are below.

Because current & future law students may wonder: does a person with one year of law school know anything useful, legally speaking? I'm here to reassure you: yes, you do.

Because when you're in your highly selective law school, every day you're faced with the tedious reality of being surrounded by people who are at least as competent as you and in most cases more so. Your self-esteem just can't catch a break.

But out in the real world, it's a different story. Spelling errors. Mistyped cites. Misquoted cases. Misunderstood statutes. Failure to observe basic rules of procedure. The list goes on. I was working on a project where I discovered such an egregious error by opposing counsel that it took me about half an hour to convince myself it was really there. It's a good feeling.

12 Aug 05