'Dear 16-Year-Old Me, Don't Go To Law School'

If you're a law student or a lawyer, do you regret going to law school, or are you happy with your decision? If you're in the former camp, this video's for you.

Here at Above the Law, we like to give our readers after-hours video content. Watching videos can be difficult if you’re at work or in class. But in the evening, when the office is more quiet or when you’re at home, you can enjoy videos without worrying about a colleague or classmate giving you a hard time.

Last night we put up a video about law student debt, in which Professor William Birdthistle crunched some numbers regarding whether it’s financially wise to go to law school. If you haven’t already done so, check it out here.

This evening we have another video about legal education. This one relies primarily upon cultural rather than economic factors in arguing why you shouldn’t go to law school….

It’s called Dear Me, Don’t Go to Law School. The basic argument is that going to law school will turn you into (even more of) a tool. It’s not really about how going to law school will put you in the poorhouse, an argument that’s quite familiar to ATL readers.

You may have already seen the video, since it’s starting to go viral. As of this writing, it has 86,681 views. Several readers have sent it our way. One of them, the commenter known as Pacific Reporter, offered this endorsement:

[I]t’s pretty good. At least the girls are cute — too cute to actually be in law school.

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Well, at this point we should interject and point out that this video comes to us from Canada. Perhaps Canadian law students are hotter than their American counterparts? (It seems that their job prospects may be hotter, and their debt loads may be lower.)

Although the video was uploaded to YouTube just a few days ago, on February 26, it was originally produced for the “Law Show” held on March 23, 2012, at the Orpheus Theatre – SAIT. That’s in Calgary, Alberta, in case you’re wondering. But even though it was produced for the Canadian context, it has been eagerly seized upon bitter U.S. law students and graduates (presumably due to its provocative title, “Dear Me, Don’t Go To Law School”). They’ve forwarded it to friends and relatives, and they’ve posted comments on the video like this one:

DON’T GO TO LAW SCHOOL because it is a severely over-glutted and miserable field and a great many JDs are unemployed or underemployed-involuntarily-ou­­­t-of-field. If you are seriously considering law school, you owe it to yourself to conduct large amounts of research before you ruin your life with huge amounts of student loan debt. Seek out the law school scambusting blogs such as the ones at Blogspot: JDScam, FlusterCucked, LawSchoolScam and search for the JD Underground discussion forum.

And right below it, there’s a rebuttal from a Canuck:

The Amercian situation is different from the Canadian situation.

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Okay, that’s enough prologue; you can interpret the video in whatever way you want. Whether you’re pro-law-school or anti-law-school, there’s much to recommend this clip. It’s funny, it’s moving, and it has some nice eye candy (both male and female). Watch it by clicking on the embed below.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, yes, we will be holding our annual Law Revue Video Contest this year. But we are not accepting entries yet. Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement on the site. Last year we opened the contest on March 28; we’ll probably do something similar this year.

Dear Me, Don’t Go to Law School [YouTube]

Earlier: Lawyers & Economics: Student Debt
Above the Law’s Third Annual Law Revue Contest Starts… Now!
Canada Has A Better System for Prescription Meds and Law Schools?