There’s a school of thought that law school — especially at the T14 level — isn’t really about making good lawyers as much as it’s about giving a golden ticket of approval to people who will succeed in any endeavor. It’s certainly an expensive ticket, but that’s why it’s golden! This may sound like a cynical view of the role of the legal academy as a professional school, but the phrase “practice ready” is mostly a joke for a reason.
Some schools — and by this I mean the whole school culture rather than some affirmative decision on the part of the administration — even unintentionally lean into this reality and publicize the fact that their graduates wash out of the profession and then become big successes in other fields. Think, for a moment, about how insane that is. No architecture school is getting excited about articles that go, “let us tell you about one of our best and brightest who completed our extensive, industry-leading coursework and wouldn’t you know it couldn’t tell from that experience that he hated buildings so now he’s a stand-up comic!” It’s a stunning indictment of how poorly law school actually teaches “legal practice.” It’s also, at best, a plaintive statement that, “hey, this might suck but you can land on your feet.” Hardly a ringing endorsement.
Harvard Law School graduate Nisha Vora went to work for Sullivan & Cromwell and then tackled a public interest job before deciding to blog about vegan food. Obviously, there’s no shame in leaving private practice for blogging, but there’s also a reason NYU focuses more attention on my classmate who was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States than, “the guy who wrote a really intricate ‘your mom’ joke about Greenberg Traurig.”
But the Harvard Gazette has a feature on Vora who just released her new cookbook, The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook (affiliate link):
“I wanted to create a vegan Instant Pot cookbook that would be not only the bible of Instant Pot cooking, but also a beautiful book of photos inspiring you, a cookbook you share with family and friends,” Vora said.
While vegan isn’t my thing, this is a great gift for anyone in your life who either already is vegan or is just trying to eat more vegetables.
However, more importantly, it underscores once again that T14 grads are going to be successes no matter where they end up. The only question is if there’s some way for cookbook authors to find their calling before shelling out all that tuition money.
Planting herself in the right career [Harvard Gazette]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.