Alphas

If you earn $300,000 a year you are wealthy. But everything is relative. You probably wouldn't feel very wealthy if everyone in your neighborhood earned the same amount...But what if your neighbors earned $1 million? You'd probably feel, dare I say, poor. You're still wealthy, but you feel poor. You still have the money, but no one is going to be impressed by it since they have as much or more than you.

The point of this illustration is to illuminate what it's like to be in law school. Law school is where people who have been the alpha dog their whole lives are suddenly surrounded by other alpha dogs. And all of a sudden, you don't feel so special or smart anymore. But that doesn't keep you from talking about it.

For the most part the kids that come to law school are opinionated and they're used to being heard. They're used to people listening to what they have to say. They're talkers. They're the alphas. They're used to earning 300k...They're not used to being proven wrong or being vulnerable. They're not the best listeners. (Which is ironic because in order to counsel clients, you first need to listen.)

When I say alphas, I don't mean that we're actually smarter. Those are the medical school students down the street. When I say alpha I just mean that we think we're smarter.

When you take opinionated talkers and start teaching them the law, we become very self-righteous. Because now we're right because the LAW says so. And if you disagree you're dumb. This sense of superiority starts to spill over into other topics. Politics? Medicine? History? You are wrong and I am right because even though I don't know shit about the subject matter, I can think and reason like a lawyer. Which makes me logically superior and therefore right.

Unfortunately there's more than one way to interpret and apply the law. (Otherwise there wouldn't be a need for lawyers.)

So lets recap. You put a bunch of opinionated talkers in the same building every day and then embolden them with a sense of intellectual superiority. What results? A lot of passive aggressive debating. You get classmates debating with each other but neither party is listening to a word the other side is saying. You're just waiting until they stop talking so you can make your point. And at the end of it, everyone walks away the same as when they started. No learning. No sharing of ideas. No meaningful dialogue. Just a "look-at-how-smart-I-sound" circle jerk.

Now don't get me wrong, the environment as toxic as you're probably imagining it to be. My classmates are "collegial" in that we don't actively sabotage each other. We share notes. We go to social events and we're friendly. But that's why I said passive aggression.

Law school is a place where you go to be strong. It's a place that teaches you very early that there are winners and losers. Ultimately this isn't a place where you debate the philosophical tenets of justice and morality.  It's a place that creates as many opportunities for competition as possible. It's where you learn to bring home a victory for your client. An intellectual hunger games where the alphas are pitted against other alphas.