So what did you learn from your law degree?

This question was put to me yesterday after one of the regular readers of my blog had emailed me. Then there was a post from someone this morning about students not being able to get their dream jobs in the legal profession. 

I did my degree in law a long time ago now. I am old enough to be the grandmother of present university students - and even then I was almost old enough to be the mother of most of the students. They were doing law with the idea of working in or around the legal profession. I was doing law because my job demanded an understanding of a wide variety of law and the knowledge about where to find it - on an international scale.  

My interview to be admitted to law school took place when I was lying in a hospital bed having just had knee surgery. I still don't know whether the good Professor P... took pity on me or whether my explanation of why I wanted to do law impressed him. I hope it was the latter. 

I went through law school as a post-graduate student. There were several of us and we took a very different view from the younger students. We didn't have thoughts about being top flight barristers working our way up to a place on the High Court. Nobody in my year - or in any subsequent year while I was there - has achieved those giddy heights. I think the most anybody has achieved was a place in the Senate and then as an ambassador to a country of some importance. 

The other question which was aimed at me yesterday was, "Well, did you actually use any of it?" I know what they were aiming at. Wasn't all this a waste of time? Why did you bother?

Well yes, I did use it. I still use it. It most certainly was not a waste of time. I bothered then because I thought I needed to have the knowledge - and I was right. My work on language planning and the law could not have been done without it. No, I haven't written fancy research papers. That wasn't what it was all about. It was about designing forms and instructions and information sheets. It was about helping people do what was best for their communities. I just wanted to do something that might be useful for at least a small number of people. 

There are very few young students who are going to get the positions of "judge's associate" for a year or get mentored by a top flight criminal barrister or find a job in a firm because that is where an influential relative works.  The judge's associate is going to have worked incredibly hard to get that position. The student who is mentored by the barrister will also have worked incredibly hard and be prepared to put in very long hours of meticulous research. The student who gets a job in a law firm through the influence of a relative may or may not succeed but they will find that working in the legal profession isn't a nine-til-five job with a day off to play a round of golf.

If I played golf then I still wouldn't have time to take a regular day off. I am still working - although I try not to do eighty hour weeks now. Doing law and doing it well means you go on doing it...at least I hope I am doing my little bit well.