Kind of a weird topic, but is anyone here a lawyer or a law student? I'm a 0L, confirmed to be going to law school next year. I've talked to lawyers but they've all been some variety of liberal; I want to know what it's like to be a gommie lawyer.
I'm currently looking at public defense or immigration, though I'm keeping my options open.
Maybe, but as it stands I have no real job prospects (graduated with a degree that really only leads you deeper into academia or a couple of niche fields). I figure I might as well try to help people if I'm going to be making shit pay anyway.
/leftylaw/
Camden Powell
Elijah Powell
Gabriel Powell
This is a topic that interests me a lot
Occupations like Law and Finance are full of righties and we have no idea what to do with them and their institutions after capitalism.
Grayson Campbell
Finance doesn't need to exist at all. Law would probably get significant restructures since so much has been built around the assumptions of punitive, for-profit prisons and criminal law designed to suppress problematic communities.
Juan Campbell
Are you sure about this? Because that sounds exactly like the sort of moral high standard people set for themselves before they enter the so-called "real world", and once it's beaten out of them they allow all their political worldview to be beaten out as well, becoming the stereotypical asshole who thinks everything he does is okay because he "was once an idealist and only got fucked"
People always come here with those weird career questions and my advice is always the same: you live under capitalism. You need money, and a lot of it, to earn even a small degree of comfort. So be a little more detached and career-oriented at first, and let the good deeds for a safer time.
Leo Campbell
This. Having standards will fuck you and then getting fucked may turn you against your standards. Better to be a smooth operator and become fully integrated into the hierarchy before you start acting according to your ideology. You have to successfully infiltrate before you become a mole.
Parker Barnes
There still needs to be people who work with allocating resources. Simply going on Zig Forums has convinced me that people with actual knowledge of basic economics or finances are a necessity because many people here are ignorant to the allocation of resources in efficient manners.
Matthew Powell
Lol well I'm more interested in communist lawyers specifically in the US. That said I do find it a little inspiring that Lenin and Castro both attended law school.
Yeah, a revolution would definitely need some white-collar professionals (though not nearly as many as currently exist).
Well, worst case scenario I either end up unemployed or as a total scumbag but either of those seem quite likely even for those without aspirations. I don't see how wanting to do something worthwhile is actually a bad thing.
I'm aware of this.
I live in the US. Capitalism is probably going to exist here for the rest of my life, and if it doesn't it will probably be as a result of the total collapse of the country. There will be no "safer time."
I don't have any intentions of changing the system from within lmao, that's extremely idealist. I'd just like to do something that could help a few people while making enough money no to starve to death (even very poorly compensated lawyers like public defenders typically make more than the average American).
Aiden Torres
That's not what the finance sector does though. Coordinating production and distribution is a completely different game from competitive gambling with profits.
That's also pretty idealist. The notion that lawyer is (even potentially) a noble profession is some pretty pure ideology. In being a lawyer you'd be inherently upholding the legitimacy of the current system, too.
Ryan Gonzalez
OP careful you probably will become a liberal.
go on tinder. look at every bitch on okcupid. anyone in law school is a raging neolib. they are all disgusting imo.
Juan Brown
Isaiah Sullivan
Interesting. Can I ask what type of law you practice? Also, do you mean the ideology of your peers or the ideology baked into the system?
I don't see what's wrong with trying to help people with what tools are available. Homeless shelters are fundamentally liberal institutions that do nothing to challenge structural forces that create homelessness but that doesn't mean working in a homeless shelter is wrong.
I have no illusions about what type of person goes to law school, the overwhelming majority are some sort of neoliberal (with maybe a few succdems at a couple of schools but not the one I'm going to).
Heard it all before man.
Isaac Jones
Yeah. It's just gonna suck even worse for you because of how fucked the legal system is, dawg.
Nicholas Bennett
Im a polisci major and thought about doing it for a while. Learned I have horrible social interaction and am a giant pussy overall so i botched the idea. Decided after i get this B.A i'm going to get some computer science certifications instead.
Brandon Russell
It's a bit presumptuous to assume that you can find a job that relates to your ideology in any field. Say you were looking at studying to be a physicist - would you insist that your job afterwards be as a commie physicist? Of course not. Likely you'll have trouble enough just finding a job that pays the rent, never mind if what you do will be politically correct.
I'm almost tempted to say that there is no ethical employment under capitalism.
Levi Long
Finance will be replaced with a math-economics hybrid, rather than a purely quackery theoratical bullshit we have right now. Law will be turned completely upside down since most laws will basically change.
Elijah Williams
I'm a law student too, and it's worth noting that, at least here in the UK, there is quite a lot of volunteering and 'pro-bono' baked into the system, at the lower levels. Law is actually fairly liberal left, rather than right, in most of the country, for now, at least, as most lawyers are youngish professionals. May be different in the US.
I don't really know if there would be really that much of a shake-up in law were a communist revolution to occur. Clearly a lot of the bodies of law that exist today would be vastly less important, but that's enforcement and transgressions, which aren't really the concern of the lawyer themselves. The principles and philosophies guiding judicial law and their application are still likely to remain very important, and there'd still be plenty of need for lawyering of one form or another.
Cooper Carter
I have the equivalent of a 3 years Bachelor's degree in french public law, does that make me a state stooge?
Jaxson Gonzalez
Well I understand that it's hard enough to find a job as a lawyer, let alone as one who wants to practice public interest law. But, like I said, my job prospects now are pretty bad, so I might as well try.
My impression is that most law students here are left-liberals as well (except at some of the schools in more conservative parts of the country like the Deep South). I know lawyers as a whole are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans (especially the younger ones). I'm sure hardly any go beyond liberalism though.
That depends what you do I guess. If you're some sort of prosecutor than yes, if you're the French equivalent of a public defender then no. I don't know anything about the French legal system though (except that it's very different from the one everywhere in the US except Louisiana).
Henry Wood
Hi OP
I'm a law student in Ireland (also I'm an ancom). personally I'd recommend it, its a fascinating field but its very easy to fall into a revisionist mindset (although when you study the lunacy that is the common law , you'll quickly realise that bourgeois law is irredeemable)
also from my interactions , the majority of law students are liberals. there are also quite a few libertarian/ centre right types, very few comrades so you'll be quite lonely in that regard.
Brandon Robinson
en.wikipedia.org
It's for working in public locals administrations, probably specialized to public finance because of my other degree in accountancy, I would prefer spatial planning but I don't have the right diploma.
Sorry if I'm getting a bit irrelevant to the thread because it's not the justice/trial type law.
Jason Torres
probably not a good idol to have
Joshua Sanchez
I reckon that the Anglo-style antagonistic law would not be suitable for communism, and that civil law systems, as in most of Europe and the rest of the world, would be suitable. Less emphasis on barristers/attorneys duking it out in inter-party conflict, with the judge picking up the pieces afterwards, and a more inquisitive process led by the judge.
Connor Gray
REEEEE frick off neoliberal scum read davidharvey reagan = hitler 2.0
Jace Reyes
Evgeny Pashukanis is a well known Marxist legal thinker.
marxists.org
Marxism and Law (Marxist Introductions) by Hugh Collins is a place to start with the tradition.
Leo Cook
Lawyers are completely enthralled by liberal ideology 99% of the time. STEMlords have more revolutionary potential even in the 1st world.
Nolan Wilson
Roman Law >>>>> Common Law
Common Law is some extremely dumb shit and needs to be destroyed.