Any advice for someone going into law school?

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Hey, so I'm going to going to law school in a month and I was wondering if I could get any advice about what to expect when I get there from a fellow Aspie who's been through the process. Thanks!

I don't want to unduly discourage you, but DON'T go to law school unless.

1. You have spent at least 6-12 months working in a law firm experiencing what the everyday life of lawyers is actually like and asking them about the pros and con of the profession.

2. You have concluded that this is what you want to be doing for the next 30-40 years of your life and really want to do it.

Most lawyers (NTs) are MISERABLE, and many who are okay with the career are that way out of resignation that it is all they can get. I know of very, very few attorneys who LOVE what they do.

Back when I went to law school, the employment numbers were not good (but they were hidden). Employment was around 50%. Had I known, I would not have gone. Today, they are BELOW 50%. So, even if you graduate, it will be all about finding a job you like enough to spend on for the rest of your life. That JD degree is like a millstone around your neck. Good luck finding ANY job outside the legal profession. Oh, and pay....it's laughable. Long, long hours is the common denominator with those who make good money. The average lawyer works more than John Q. Citizen and is lucky to make as much.

I didn't know I had AS when I went to law school. All I knew was that my brain was "wired weird" because I could do stuff others could not do. I attended every class and took copious notes because that's how I remembered things. Studying for exams consisted of spending an hour the night before going over my outlines. I took 3 hour exams in 1.5 hours and actually passed with acceptable grades.

I worked for two firms while going to law school doing piddly stuff. In spite of the bosses being nice guys, I HATED what I was doing. It wasn't until I started having anxiety attacks in my 3rd year that I knew I was trying to do something I really didn't want to do. I only finished my degree because it seemed stupid to quit in the last semester, but in hindsight, I might have done myself better by dropping out. The degree has done NOTHING to improve my job prospects...indeed, the experience of all JDs is that the degree holds you back and closes doors outside the legal profession.

Now, one would think that an Aspie would make a good lawyer. That's not really so.

Where your AS likely helps is that you are very focused and detail-oriented. That's good in law where the "devil is in the details." Executive function can be a problem, though. For me, I can't be distracted when I'm focused...it makes me very, very annoyed because I can't stay focused without considerable effort on my part. If you disrupt my concentration, I must waste time and energy to figure out where I was at before you interrupted me.

I can do the simple nuts and bolts stuff and "multitask" if none of it requires any real concentration. I can do very focused work, BUT I CAN NOT DO BOTH. I am miserable in my current job (paralegal) because (1) it's a job I really don't want to be in and (2) my boss keeps expecting me to shift back and forth from focus work to unfocused work.

Then there's the issue with memory. I have a quasi-photographic memory, but I can't remember what happened 5 seconds ago with any reliability. I depend on being ultra organized with "to do" lists, whiteboards, and copious documentation so I don't have to rely on if my memory kicks in as it should. This goes hand-in-hand with how I did well in school. I "studied" according to how I learned my brain works....my job DOES NOT work the same way, and it is very, very stressful for me.

Finally (for now), being a lawyer is a HIGHLY SOCIAL occupation. Unless you get an ideal job where you are given a quiet room with no distractions to grind away at what you do best, you have to deal with PEOPLE all flipping day long. They will cry, whine, complain and generally expect you to have all the answers and to really give a rat's hind side about their problems. It gets old REAL FAST for NTs who have to fake compassion for every customer because they don't know if they will actually care about their problems. Your career prospects will be based almost entirely on WHO you know and WHO you are connected to, not how great a worker you are.

So, if you want this path, FROM DAY ONE (if not sooner) you need to find a position that will pay you well for what you do best and not expect things of you that you can't do. Might as well play the AS card up front with every prospective law school, job placement service and prospective firm/agency you apply to. DO NOT consider going solo...at best, you might be part of a partnership where the stuff you're good at is what you will be regulated to doing.

THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT BEING A LAWYER ISN'T RIGHT FOR YOU, but I can't in good conscience encourage any NT (even less so a person with a disability that negatively might impact their odds of being successful and prosperous in the profession) to go to law school in this abysmal economic reality unless someone is paying 100% of your costs to do it. The student loan debt is soul-crushing. The work can be soul-crushing, and EVERY 12 MONTHS a new crop of graduates emerge who will compete for the same jobs you are trying to apply for.

For more insight, go to www.jdunderground.com

You should take what's posted there with a grain of salt because most posters are law students and graduates who learned too late about the truth of the legal profession and how schools misrepresent the profession to keep the money pouring in, but the numbers they post up are accurate. The profession is nowhere near as good as it represents itself to be, and the field is supersaturated with qualified people who can't do better than someone with a 2-year community college degree performing a trade.

Good luck in finding your path.

Much of what zer0netgain said I agree with, but there are places where I differ, though it is possible that my condition just isn't as far along the spectrum (as it could be argued it's not truly handicapping me) - so I guess I'm offering a concurring opinion. I also didn't know I had AS (am borderline anyway) 20 years ago, but I am also legally blind with a bit of cerebral palsy. There are not many things I *can* do and with the number of factory and other jobs already going down then, I wanted to profession.

The comments about employment are very true. I'm a sole practitioner and work out of my home. I do wills, estate planning, and probate, so I don't need to do courtroom work, though I tried it for a few years before it got way too stressful since I can't even afford my own secretary. I have been unable to get anyone to look at me outside of the legal field, and even in I got nowhere.

Now, I did go back to school and got a Masters in ministry in '05-'08 because I wanted more eternal rewards, but what I did with that is I started working in online ministry. So, I'm only part-time as a lawyer but the thing is, there are so many expenses even if you don't have an office and all because of liability insurance, association memberships, etc.. And then the school loans are awful. When I went back to school it was through online courses.

So, it might not be all you do for 30-40 years, and you can open a practice by yourself, but it is really hard, and so many of the areas of law I just couldn't do. I never wanted criminal work, and even some litigation has so much anger and animosity and I just can't stand to see people arguing and such. It's not uncommon for me to say, "Too many meanj people" and just turn away from something or to avoid some situation because I say ,"I can't allow that to enter my brain" because it's so gruesome.

And, here is where I will add to the problems zer0netgain mentions. You have to read so many subjects in law school, and my memory is photographic enough, some of the criminal law or family law cases are so gruesome and they caused problems like nightmares because they stuck in my brain. I have to watch scenes unfold in my mind when I read to understand thigns fully, so reading law scaes was very hard for me in some areas.

If I had it to do over I'd do sportcasting because sports talk radio really barely existed in '91 but now I could do tht and talk all day about baseball and stuff. I don't know if I'd fit in well at ESPn but I think they'd like me, and while I couldn't broadcast games I was on the radio doing a show for 4 yars in college so I could do it.

But, yeah, there wasn't much else out there in the early '90s, and with my intellect I thought I had to accomplish something. The nuttiest part was that I didn't want to do law my whole life but use it as a stepping stone to politics. Boy, I realized fast that politics is even worse than law because you need money for that to run anywhere.