Sure, law exists - as it is written, rewritten, and interpreted. And it matters to the extent that it is enforced.
Just like gravity!
And the vast majority of lawyering could be performed by just about any reasonably intelligent individual with training far short of the law school/bar exam ritual.
Law is just a job, like many others. I think it rather silly that participants wish to tart it up as something more. At least on this side of the pond we don’t have to wear wigs!
I think this is incredibly irresponsible advice for several reasons.
First, on a professional level, if a person intends to practice law and to do the best they can by their clients, then they owe it to themselves and those clients to learn the profession. If you’re not interested enough to learn the profession, then find something else to do. Otherwise, you are wasting your time and setting yourself up to fail at your chosen job.
Second, you might be able to bullshit your way through while learning the bare minimum and aiming for “Cs,” but you are paying a hell of a lot of money for an education, so it seems obvious why learning as little as you possibly can is self-defeating. It’s your money, and you pay the same whether you learn a little or a lot – assuming you pass, that is.
Third, first jobs out of law school depend to a great extent on law school performance. There are tons of new lawyers graduating every year, and competition for ALL jobs, not just “good” jobs, is keen. You don’t have to be on Law Review or graduate Top 5 in your class, but if you think you’re going to have a shot at a decent job with a “C” average and no actitivies, you’re nuts. Now, maybe what you’ve always wanted to do is DUI defense in a three-person firm in Assboink, Idaho, in which case – fine, sleep in. You can still make a very nice living that way, and it is a lot less work. But if you want better than that for yourself, you’ll have to work for it.
Dinsdale, you are IMO a good guy, but an unfortunate example of a person who neither likes nor respects the profession they work at. How you drag your ass to work every day, I don’t know. Why you drag your ass to work every day, instead of doing something else that you believe has meaning and relevance, I don’t know. I’m not trying to pick a fight, but it is important to me that these law students know that your cynicism and bitter opinion (“truth, accuracy, right and wrong are luxuries”) are neither universal nor necessarily correct.
I’m proud to be a lawyer. I’m good at it, and I like it. I didn’t sell my soul for my law degree and I didn’t drop my ethics at the door when I picked up my diploma.
I agree that law school and the bar exam are overblown, to a certain extent, and don’t necessarily do much to produce good lawyers. There were a number of people passing the exams and whatnot that I wouldn’t hire as an attorney.
By the way, re: late to your professionalism seminar, don’t sweat it. I missed the whole first day of orientation. I had a good excuse (car wreck!), but whatever it was, I got by without it.
The main gist of what was probably said at your professionalism seminar:
Don’t lie.
That’s it. Don’t lie about the little things, don’t lie about the big things. The most important lesson my dad taught me about the practice of law is never lie to a judge, never lie to another lawyer, and never lie to your client (occassionally he and facetiously adds “everyone else is fair game!” He’s joking, mind you.) When a judge asks you why you didn’t appear like he ordered you to and the true answer is “I screwed up,” that’s what you have to say. There are lawyers in town that I don’t trust to tell me the truth, and the judges know who they are just as well as I do. Don’t be one of them. Be the lawyer who, if he swears he filed something that can’t be found now, the judges believe because they know you wouldn’t lie.
Maybe so, but “the law school/bar exam ritual” is what is required, and where you can go after law school does depend to a significant extent on how you do in law school.
It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure! 
No, not really. But any profession can be reduced down to “it’s just a job,” if that’s all you want it to be or let it be. And what’s wrong with a job anway? Why the “just”? Since we all are going to have to have a job for, oh, 40 years or so, why not take one in an area that interests you and where you believe you can do some good?
Quick first-week-of-law-school anecdote, from a friend of mine.
The set up: my friend wants to be a patent attorney… he’s pretty introverted, so no trial lawyering in his future. The professor immediately establishes a classroom style in which he calls on students to answer questions without warning and seemingly at random. The first few days, everyone is required to wear nametags.
About a week in. My friend, nervous, is trying to always be ready to answer anticipated questions based on current subject matter, that he might then return to anonymity. Professor calls on my friend. Instead of asking one of anticipated subject-matter questions, professor starts off by asking my friend’s name. Flummoxed, he looks down at his nametag. Worse, he finds that he is actually NOT wearing a nametag, which were required only the first couple of days.
He got a lot of “Wait, what’s my name again?” for the rest of the year.
Well, color me nuts, then, cause that’s what I did.
Very simple answer - it pays very well with no overtime or heavy lifting.
Yeah, but IMO not every “profession” has quite such an overly inflated opinion of itself as the law.
IMO, a huge percentage of lawyers are little more than whores, selling themselves out to the highest bidder. While another huge percentage are little more than parasites, seeking ways to get a cut out of someone else’s productivity or creativity. Obviously, many other folks’ mileage does vary. 
I suppose your follow-up will be to lie about this tardiness in ethics class…
Since you’re in it for the pay and the easy work, would that make you the whore or the parasite or both?
Probably a little of both.
Fair enough, but you’ll forgive me if I encourage the baby lawyers to aim a little higher.
Is this practice for billing later in life?
Feel free. I’ll do my best to encourage them to aim elsewhere.
I would agree it’s not for everyone, and sometimes I even wonder if it’s for me. Still, why project your desires and expectations on others? Give them a realistic picture of the profession and get out of their way.
I also am tired of this “whore” metaphor. Someone collects a paycheck and all of a sudden they’re a leach, a whore or both. That’s just lazy.
There is no universal description of “lawyer” – A litigator’s job is nothing like a transactional lawyer’s job – your unhappiness may be with an aspect of your job that many laweyrs never know.
Maybe I’m luckier than our friend Dinsdale. I’ve been at this business for 40 years now. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, I’ve loved some of those minutes. The Law is not only a learned profession but, in my own judgment, it can be a noble one. My contemporaries are thinking about retirement. Not me. I’m having way too much fun.
Maybe it’s a matter of attitude. Maybe it’s a matter of finding the right practice in the right community. Maybe it’s just a matter of luck. What ever it is, some of us have found contentment and satisfaction in being lawyers. If I were as unhappy as some of our learned brethren purport to be I’d think about a career (as one of my more sarcastic and hardnosed old professors used to say) in the ministry.
Randy, you are about to enter a wonderful new life. Make the most of it.
I think that it’s important for a baby lawyer to know that law school does very little to prepare you for actually practicing law. I got through a whole year of Contracts without ever seeing an actual contract in a classroom setting. Took a semester of Wills, Estates, and Trusts (and aced it), and the first will I ever saw was this year after my grandfather passed away. Law school teaches you how to think like a lawyer. Your job teaches you how to be a lawyer. And depending on what you want that job to be, your law school experience may differ from the guy sitting next to you in class.
The advice to take your writing and research class seriously is the best in the thread, so far. No matter what you plan on doing, you’ll need those skills.
I agree with this, and will go further: sometimes you gotta unlearn skills and attitudes engrained in law school.
One thing that law schools do not teach is the virtue of being concise. One of the most important skills a baby lawyer must learn is that a large part of our job is about persuasion. This means, among other things, cutting to the heart of the matter and explaining your position simply and succinctly. Law schools. particularly in the form of exams that they tend to use, and the academic form of essay, appear to reward the ability to mention and account for as many factors as possible rather than strong persuation.
I do not take the approach of our colleage Dinsdale to this, that persuasion is mere sophistry. There is an art and a science to it, based on ethics, logic and principle, and I strongly believe that our current system based on persuation is the best possible one (yet discovered) for protecting rights and solving disputes - and that by doing so, lawyers perform a valuable public service.
Moreover I’ll disagree that the best thing to do is to do a minimum amount of work. I’d say the opposite - the fact that regular law school does not really prepare one for “real life as a lawyer” behooves the budding lawyer to go out and do more - volunteer at a legal clinic, engage in mock trials and moots, etc.
Hmm - I wonder what profession comes up most often in this thread asking about the most overrated “status” careers? 
Thanks for the kind words and advice everyone. I’m writing this from the law library, where I have been for four hours straight. And it’s only the 2nd day.
I think you’ll enjoy Overhead in Law School (laugh till ya cry)
http://overheardinlawschool.blogspot.com/