There was primarily and there was had been always. I was not in the always group, more in the knew how to get up off the canvas one, but I hung out with MD PhD crowd (not one myself) and most of them had been in the always before then.
The transition to make for some was learning that the grade and the competition mattered less than actually learning the material going forward and that you could not learn it all.
I think that undervalues the post-grad degrees. It’s not just that it helps you get the job that you want. Having that additional learning helps you become well-established in your area, because you have a more in-depth knowledge base.
At least, that’s my personal experience. Having additional degrees past the basic LL.B. Has been invaluable to me in my career. Helped me get the job I wanted, but have had additional benefits in my practice, and opened doors in my practice that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Malcolm Gladwell made a similar point about lawyers in his Revisionist History podcast a few seasons back. He argues first that the LSAT and law schools don’t prioritize the rights skills because they focus too much on speed over understanding and analysis, based on the short timeframes test takers are provided. Using a “tortoise and hare” metaphor, he makes the case that the LSAT (and thus top law schools) favor hares over tortoises, when in reality, tortoises generally make better lawyers.
They’re a fascinating couple of episode, which include a former Supreme Court law clerk who discusses the plodding pace at which they work through researching and writing opinions and a consultant who advises law firms on recruitment using data similar to “Moneyball.” That consultant claims that their data show that the “top” students from the “top” law schools actually perform worse in legal practice than students from other good (but not T14) law schools.
Gladwell also torches Scalia quite well, which is fun.
Link:
Similar recollection here. If you wanted that A or B instead of a C, you simply had to outwork everyone else. It also helped if you found the material interesting. IMO cases, regardless of the subject (crim, contracts, property, etc.) can be fascinating stories if approached with the right frame of mind. Makes several hours of reading every night much easier.
Throughout high school and college, I could pretty much get As and occasional Bs with little or no effort. The first semester of law school just baffled me. As I recall it, the classes I thought I knew the best and had done well on the test, I got Cs, and the class or 2 in which I felt I had NO IDEA what was going on and had bombed the test, I got Bs. (No As for me until 2d-3d year when I took classes with essay assignments. I just never could figure out those law school finals! And I had always excelled as a test-taker.) Faced with that perceived irrationality, (and lacking interest in the material), I decided the easiest path made the most sense.
Oh yeah!
As a pre-med, I was insanely and unhealthily ambitious and focused on those ‘A’ grades, and this landed me in the top 10% of my class. That got me into a so-called ‘prestige’ med school, where I truly met some brilliant folks and some really twisted individuals (often the same person). I knew I couldn’t compete there as I had before, and actually never looked up my grades for the first two years of basic science. You could only find out your letter grades by asking, but they would let us know if we were doing either great or badly, and no one said a thing to me. Not having to ace everything came as a huge relief, as it always felt like I was on the verge of drowning in all the info anyway. I was quite content to NOT achieve Alpha Omega Alpha (the Phi Beta Kappa version for med students, i.e. the top 10% of the class).
Turned out I was right smack dab in the middle of my class ranking at the end of med school, and matched my first residency choice. Where I also proved to be a basically competent but quirky resident, but definitely not anything like a superstar. ‘Basically competent but quirky’ sort of defined my career ever after (in my mind at least) and frankly I’m happy with that.
I had a similar experience just with plain science classes in university. I’d been in the top 5 in my class all through high school, usually with no effort; and it was a private school, with a very limited supply of learning challenged. Nobody was really stupid. (I’ve been to class reunions, surprised at how successful some of the mediocre students in my class have been).
But then I get into a good university STEM class, and suddenly I’m average among the students. I wonder how many A students run into that? And is it a different experience for arts, where a lot of the “Pre-law” take courses before law school? it was my experience that a lot of the less critical thinkers went into Arts (although many of the Arts students were no dummies either).
Regardless, the doctor wannabees not only were smart, they locked themselves in their rooms for 2 or 3 years and studied, studied, studied because back then, the competition was intense and all about marks.
(I must confess my lack of study discipline - coasting through high school - also caught up with me.)