yale law school, or dream job?
The New York Times has an interesting article today about Brian Deese, a 31-year-old Yale law student who has put his education on hold to work for the Obama administration. He started off by volunteering for the Clinton campaign, and then was contacted by the Obama campaign once Hillary Clinton withdrew her candidacy. Now he offices in the Treasury Department and has managed to make himself quite valuable to the Obama administration in its handling (or mishandling, depending on your perspective) of the auto industry.
Cool, huh? It turned out well for him, but would you do the same? Would you indefinitely postpone your legal education (at Yale, no less) for the chance to work on a presidential campaign? Keep in mind that his initial campaign choice (Hillary Clinton) was unsuccessful. Discuss.
I would. If anything, that kind of practical experience, expertise, and knowledge makes one even more attractive to law schools when applying or re-applying, and it’s not like law school’s going anywhere. You can go back to school at any point in your life. Working for the Obama administration was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for this guy, presumably, and by definition, those don’t come along that often.
Similar example: I have a friend who joined a financial firm right out of college and worked there for years. She does actuarial stuff and insurance packaging and financial analysis and all sorts of stuff. She made tons of contacts along the way and was personally asked by a member of Northwestern’s law school admissions committee to attend the law school, and that her admission was pretty much guaranteed. That kind of experience, like I said, is very attractive.
Bottom line, this guy isn’t missing anything by putting off law school for another 4 or 8 years. Right now, he’s working at his dream job. Sure, you could argue that in two years or whatever, he’d be taking the Barzam and be a practicing attorney for the rest of those 2 or 6 years, so there’s the opportunity cost there of how much he could be making at BigLaw. But in my opinion, and I’m betting his, he’s gaining a ton in this situation. He’s making up for that BigLaw salary with contacts and experience and personal reward.
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Yes. Absolutely. 100% yes. In fact, I almost did postpone law school for at least a year because I couldn’t decide whether or not to stay at my job on a Presidential campaign. We didn’t get the nomination, so in a way I’m glad I decided to go straight to school.
I’ll be done before we have another Pres. election, but we’ve got a hot gubernatorial race coming up in my state and, if the right job came along, I would *seriously* consider taking a “break” to work full-time.
Besides, the way the economy is I actually probably stand a better chance of getting a job via political channels than the normal, “Hi, I’m a recent law school graduate, here’s my transcript/resume” process.
I’m insanely jealous of him…seriously. I’m not into econ, so sub in some other policy area and that’s my dream job. *sigh*
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Ninja lady – you are such an inspiration to single moms and future law students everywhere -and your blog is really pretty
)
Wishing you all the luck in the world, I know you are going to kick law school butt this year!!
All the best,
Pickles
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