Since none of the former, current, or larval lawyers have weighed in on the issue, I'll give my two bits. The question is this: is it a good idea for list members to go to law school? Issues of accredited vs. unaccredited, reputable vs. correspondence vs. diploma mills, etc. First, there are obviously already a huge number of lawyers in the U.S. I can't speak for Europe, where the "Eurorights" person is presumably from, but it's crystal-clear that there are many, many lawyers in the U.S. And a lot of kids in law school. And yet lawyers are working as low-paid paralegals, doing clerical work processing wills and divorces, and joining "law factories" where they probably make less money than engineers. Second, most of these lawyers won't be doing "interesting" work. See above. Certainly most won't be doing crypto or EFF-type work..unless they go to work for EFF, EPIC, etc. Those with a history of incisive comments on mailing lists and in crypto-related fora may find it possible to get in with these kinds of outfits. (But why bother? The D.C. groups are mostly lobbying groups...and my strong impression is that they are mainly oriented around their founders and chief mouthpieces. A junior lawyer would mainly be a water carrier for one of the luminaries.) Third, "pro bono" Cypherpunks-related work is not very remunerative, by definition, and also not very common. Even if one thinks of the Parker and Bell cases as "Cypherpunks-related," which I don't, there are not many of these cases. The recent cases of Dmitry/Adobe and West/Oklahoma are more related, but these are likely to be taken over by high-profile experts if they go to trial. What I'm saying is that a few lawyers will end up in interesting areas. The vast majority will be off in Skokie and Boise and L.A., processing immigration requests, meeting with DWI clients, and processing OSHA forms for Fortune 500 companies. I base this on statistics, on talking to some lawyer friends, and on experiences my brother in L.A. tells me about: he has some lawyer friends who went to UCLA Law School, some even studying under such luminaries in the online world as Eugene Volokh, and it's "slim pickings" these days for many of them. They simply don't have the luxury of picking cases to work on...they're grubbing to make ends meet, to pay off loans, and to maybe, just maybe, get a nominally permanent job at an acceptably prestigious law firm. A friend of mine is now a senior IP lawyer at a leading Silicon Valley law firm, so it _does_ happen. However, he left Intel in the mid-70s and went to Stanford Law School, so he beat the rush and he had the street credentials from his Intel work. Getting into law this late in the game is not for the faint of heart. Fourth, much too much is being made of the role of law in pushing or enhancing Cypherpunks-type themes. This goes back to Lessig's custom-law-technology analysis again. Fighting a few cases where some hacker is busted for being stupid is all well and good, but these cases are NOT altering the landscape in ways that certain technologies are. I suspect a lot of people these days (more than the several on the list who have spoken up) are talking about law school is that it's a way to change a career. Seen most cynically, it's a nebulous "in several years I'll be doing something different!" sort of shift. A lot easier to make plans to go to law school than to write a new software application, if one doesn't have the inspiration, that is. Fifth, consider that I can think of at least two vocal people on this list who went to law school and got J.D.s One or both may have passed bar exams. Neither are practicing anything related to law at this time. (Though their "legal training" may be slightly useful in their careers...that's not for me to say.) A third lawyer I'm not sure about...he was at a software company, but doing law-related stuff. There's a fourth lawyer, who may be a professor, but he's very quiet these days. Another former list member is definitely a lawyer, and has been active in crypto and ICANN issues. I just don't see spending 3-4 years in law school as being very exciting. And I don't mean my personal opinion of whether I'd go to law school or not: I mean that not much exciting work is being done by lawyers. Most are tucked-away in cubicles, in government offices, in small one-person offices scattered hither and yon. Processing wills. Forwarding escrow documents. Reviewing divorce papers. Ugh. But people should do what really drives them. Anyone going into law this late in the boom just to make money is probably going to be in for a rude awakening. Ditto for anyone going into it in order to do pro bono work on Cypherpunks issues. For the relatively few people--you know who you are--who have a sharp mind and are laying the groundwork for working in the "cyberlaw" industry, my analysis may not apply. My two bits. --Tim May