Law School Special Snowflake Trigger Warning: I’m A Jerk

Above the Law:  Special Snowflake Syndrome Trigger Warning: I’m A Jerk, by Keith Lee (Hamer Law Group, Birmingham, AL):

So when did law students start acting like a bunch of wimps? Cause that’s the takeaway I’m getting after these past couple of weeks. Don’t get me wrong, some pretty upsetting events have gone down recently. But that doesn’t translate into Harvard Law Students asking to delay their exams because “feelings.” It’s also bizarre to expect to go into a criminal law class and never discuss rape law. What happened? When did law students become so spineless?

There has been speculation around the web. Notably from Judge Kopf in his post Batshit crazy law students. ... And from Scott Greenfield, in The Environmental Cleanup of Toxic Academia.

It drives me crazy to think that there are law students out there with nothing better to do than wring their hands in desperation as they look at their Twitter feed and have their feelings hurt. ... You do realize you’re in law school to become a lawyer, right? Adversarial system, competition, zealous advocacy for your client, etc.? I’ve made the point before, but it bears repeating: lawyers are professional a**holes. Like, that is your job. More importantly, it’s going to be other people’s job to be an a**hole to you. ...

Clients don’t care about your work, your feelings, or your attitude. They have a problem, they want it solved. Period. Judges don’t care about your feelings. They have a docket, they want it cleared. Opposing counsel doesn’t care about your feelings. They just want to beat you. And actually, sometimes they want to do it vindictively. And at no point in time in dealing with these people in practice do you get to hit the boohoo button and get to have a time out. Sorry, that’s not the way the real world works.

The practice of law is hard. Life is hard. Get used to it.