Lawyers, Guns, and Money

[Tim May]

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