The View From LL2

Dear George Washington University Law School:

Today marks the end of our relationship.  It’s not me, it’s you.  After I keep giving and giving, you keep letting me down.  And so, today, I’m taking down the diploma and blocking your fundraising emails from my inbox.  And no, I don’t think we can still be friends.

It wasn’t all bad, of course.  Some of the people I met at GW Law are great, and continue to be good friends.  Even some of the professors were good: Orin Kerr’s interesting CrimPro classes [edit per Susan: with a little bit of "hot ass" on the side], Roger Trangsrud’s underrated classes that always turned out to be the most useful ones in law school even though I hated them at the time, etc.  But time and time again, you’ve let me down, and I can’t take it anymore.  Classes often seemed like an afterthought for the professors who taught them.  Deans were typically unresponsive.  The school, it seemed, was always asking for money of some kind.

I should have known better from the moment we met.  I got a little letter of admittance (and an even smaller aid package), but I liked you because you were so metropolitan, so big, so ambitious.  So, I didn’t hold it against you when, unlike other schools I looked at, you didn’t offer tours to admitted students (except during one preview weekend) or give any sort of real contact point after admittance.  I didn’t even think twice when, after dropping off my admissions deposit, I got a grunt rather than a welcome.

But over the next few years, you continually reminded me that the law school viewed me as a funding source and not a person.  Look, I understand that GW is on some kind of mission to buy every piece of property in Greater Northwest Washington.  Why, I don’t know.  But I’m not a real estate investor, so I wish I could have gotten a great educational return on my money. 

Law school is, of course, a professional school, so I hoped that you would actually help me find a job.  In short, you didn’t.  When I went to the Career Development Office to express my interest in working for a larger law firm or the government, they (somewhat politely) informed me that, “given my skills,” I might consider mid-size firms.  When I asked for help with my resumé, they read it, gave me a withering look, and reminded me that “I wasn’t in undergrad anymore.”  When I wanted to apply for a federal clerkship, CDO suggested I look at state courts instead, as I was a “long shot” for the federal courts.

By the way, GW, I start at my fed. clerkship in August.

I’ve been one of the lucky few to have actually found a “BigLaw” job.  I was very fortunate, and many of my classmates were not so lucky.  Instead of supporting these graduates, however, I’ve learned that you continue to ignore them, mistreat them, or, even more hilariously, ask them for money.  Have you no class?

I suspect that many law schools are like you, GW.  But I don’t know that for sure.  All I do know is that you will no longer be a part of my life. 

This hurts you more than it hurts me.

Sincerely,
Michael