cheap JD

The schools themselves mention that their grads become DAs and PDs and enter private practice. I don't know any D/L grad personally but I DO know grads from unaccredited resident schools. They make perfectly good lawyers.

 

What's a "PD"? Public Defender?

I assume DA = District Attorney?

 

PD equals Public Defender in this context. Of course, it can ALSO mean Police Department.

 

There are tons of D/L JD attorneys in California. I was doing a search once -- and, forgive me, but I can't remember what for or what the search terms were other than I remember that Northwestern California University School of Law was somehow in it -- but I apparently included a search text string that caused to pop-up a whole bunch of bio pages from the web sites of various law firms in California, and I found all kinds of people who had perfectly respectable jobs as attorneys in both large and small firms who had gotten their JDs from Northwestern California University School of Law (NWCULAW). I suspect if I had done another search and had changed the NWCULAW part of the search text string to Taft or Concord or one of the other D/L JD programs, I'd have found all kinds of attorneys who graduated from those schools, too. Don't worry... there are plenty of them out there -- and many of them with a heck of a lot better jobs than what some people around here seem to think is possible given that their JD is from a mere D/L law program.

Correct me if I'm wrong (after all, my ex-wife used to do it all the time... even when I wasn't), but do I detect a note of doubt that a lowly D/L JD holder could possibly aspire to such laudable positions? Depending on the jurisdiction, ADAs are often not exactly the cream of the law school crop; doubly so for PDs. Don't get me wrong... some of the best attorneys on the planet cut their teeth as prosecutors and public defenders. I'm not saying they're not good. Believe me, they usually are. I'm just saying that some jurisdictions (and the operative word, there, is some) will take into their prosecutors' and public defenders' offices almost anyone with a law license and a pulse... pretty much no matter where their JD came from!

As for a corporate IP attorney, well, that's a horse of a different color. A corporate IP lawyer is likely (though not necessarily so) to be in a larger, higher-profile firm... and... well... see my response to you next question...

Yes. Not universally, perhaps; but certainly often.

But I've always argued here that the Bar card is the great equalizer. Once you're in the courtroom the objections that one learns how to make in a D/L law program carry the exact same weight as opposing counsel's learned about in an Ivy League law school. If you and your D/L JD happen to trounce in court enough times a few senior partners from the big, down-nose-looking IP law firms, you and your lowly D/L JD are as likely to become attractive to them as virtually any other candidate.

Win, and they will fear you... no matter where you went to school. Become a rainmaker and you can name your ticket anywhere.

 

Put it this way, if you were charged with a crime that could send you to jail, would you really want an attorney who based his/her training on where: "I could get it by the cheapest nontraditional means possible"?

 

Your posit is unsound. Neither the cost of the education, nor its compliance with tradition, have a single thing to do with its inherent quality. Your glaring ignorance of the rigor of California D/L JD programs is the only thing I can think of to possibly explain such a back-handed and smirking remark. Expensive, ABA-accredited law schools graduate bad lawyers by the boatload. So do D/L programs... just with smaller boats. But both of them graduate lots of good ones, too -- sometimes ones good enough to keep even the likes of you outta' jail.

 

Remember, too, that generalizations are difficult. I know of no Public Defender or District Attorney office here in New Mexico that would accept or reject a licensed applicant based on his degree. And in smaller jurisdictions, I don't imagine that the degree would matter much to most small law firms. (We have a sprinkling of medium size firms and only two or three firms that could be considered "large") Your personal and professional reputation is MUCH more important than your degree school.

HOWEVER, A D/L degree, an unaccredited degree, a degree from a relatively obscure state school or a degree from a lesser private school WILL bar the applicant from an associate's position with most large, national law firms. Go to their web sites; you will see that many such firms recruit ONLY from the major schools.

Fine. They can have it. The money is incredible, but so are the hours. Many, if not most, of these lawyers wish they did something else with their lives.

Job satisfaction isn't only, or even mainly, about money. It's more often about "doing right" or "helping people who need help" or "improving the system".

If you are willing to work in California for at least the first five years or so, and why ever not, and willing to work in places where you are genuinely needed, I promise you that your Taft degree (or whichever) will be entirely satisfactory. And being needed is probably the most important single factor to a happy and fulfilling life.

 

Were that there were a single syllable of the foregoing (including the snipped-out part) with which I could disagree.

Amen, I say. Amen!