Power Of Attorney - Not Happy Hour At the Bar

You go through college, then law school, then if in the States you pass the bar after minimum 2 tries, then the demeaning associate in the top notch firm who slogs through hours and hours of drudgery, toiling hard to pay off those student loans and if you are lucky you make partner. You have the power, you are an attorney. Oh what status, what money, what a dream! NIGHTMARE?

Or

You go through college, then law school, then if in the States you pass the bar after minimum 2 tries, then you look like crazy for a job, months and months of bills are piling up, no one wants you, you have no choice but to work for the Government if you are lucky, even Legal Aid will do at this point but no But what the heck! You have the power, you are an attorney, what status, what money, (oops no money), what a dream! NIGHTMARE?

Or

You go through college, then law school, then if in the States you pass the bar after minimum 2 tries, then the demeaning associate in the firm who slogs through hours and hours of drudgery, toiling hard to pay off those student loans but this time you were not lucky you don’t make it to the partner - no respect, then you leave the firm, you open your own practice, you have the power, you are an attorney. Oh what status, what money, (not sure about that), what a dream! NIGHTMARE?

No matter the permutations, it is likely that at some point as a recent law school graduate or as an attorney you will have had one of these experiences or something similar. Come on we know the truth. Mike over at barelylegalblog showed us how to be smart, however. He went to law school but that is where it ended. He wised up quickly and didn’t even sit the bar exam. What a sensible fellow.

For those of us who went on from prestigious law schools, (even if they were third rate the law still has the whiff of prestige attached to it), with a prestigious law degree and on to the prestigious practice of the law. Let us take a hard look at our lives and be real. The countless meetings, the tortuous depositions, the courthouse bureaucracy, the battles with other asinine lawyers, the arguments with demanding clients, the drafting and redrafting of dreary contracts, the filling out of time sheets in the name of churning out every single dollar you can manage in the mindless bid to reach targets set by god knows which joker and the 90 hour work week, being a lawyer sucks most of the time. Admit it, it's no dream, you have the power, you are an attorney but it is not happy hour at the bar. So if you are like me struggling for years to get out of the quagmire that is your job at the bar, we have no 12 step program, so we say: Be bold, be strong, dump those precedents, throw out those statutes and get rid of those boring dark suits. Just get up and leave the Bar!

• Esoteric legal phrase

Sui juris (Latin): describes someone who can enter into a contract without any restriction.