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Gen Y Tech Savvy, But Not Interested in a Career
jcatcw writes "Young people aren't choosing computer science majors because they take technology for granted — it's something to use not something to make a career. "By and large, this generation is very fluent with technology and with a networked world," according to James Ware, executive producer at The Work Design Collaborative LLC, a Berkeley, Calif., consortium exploring workplace values and the future of the workforce. That future may be in managing technology, which requires skills today's college students don't have: writing, critical thinking, hard work and just plain showing up. One of their primary concerns is a flexible schedule and healthy work/life balance."
> You want fewer crappy lawyers? Lobby to allow the ABA to get back to its job of keeping those people out of our field.
I have a better idea: let's change things to make lawyers less needed in the first place.
I used to be in law school, and this is what I concluded before moving to a profession that produces value, not consumes it:
a) Ignorance is not a defense, but
b) It's easy to violate a law, often regardless of mens rea.
Why is b) true? Because thanks to our wonderful common-law system, there's an ungodly number of statutes. These statutes are inter-related, not necessarily the way you'd expect, and the relationships are often only implied. Of course, it's not just enough to know what's on the books, but also know how their interpretation has been modified by precedents (and not just local precedents either; judgments from overseas can have an effect too). How is anybody other than some specialist in the area supposed to untangle that? So we have people who acted in what they believed to be a lawful manner being punished. I find it particularly charming when even legal experts are largely clueless outside their area of specialization. In fact, I'm charmed by the number of specialists who don't even know their own specialization all that well. This isn't a problem of education, this is a problem of out-of-control complexity.
You'd expect that every citizen of society should clearly understand what is expected of them, right? If they break a law, which they of course knew about, there are repercussions. This is just. Instead you have cases being decided on fine nuances of meaning of single words thanks to whatever crazed set of precedent and statute some team of lawyers was able to drag together, rationalized by the excuse that it's a living law. Now toss in lawyers who charge sums of money that is beyond the reach of most people (and pro bono is a risible excuse to protect your guilty consciousness', because you fuckers almost never do it except for friends or cases that'll improve your visibility), and who only benefit by dragging cases out, and we have a problem. A few hundred to a few thousand dollars for a simple printout of some old template in your local copy of wordperfect or word, and it's not just a problem, it's pathetic unadulterated greed at everyone else's expense.
In short, to your profession and those of you who 'graduated' to politics: fuck you. You're a leech on society and promulgate a fundamentally unjust and morally-repugnant system. I don't know how you sleep at night -- while your new associates naively slave away of course. If Diogenes was to wander into a law firm you'd try to sell him a lamp for $5,000, and yet you're supposed to help propagate justice?
Advice for the rest of you: never use a lawyer unless the amount is -- or worth -- millions. Just move on; you'll save yourself much grief and debt.