mycatharsis.com

and laments …

 Laments in Ohio that “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”

As a former corporate lawyer herself, though, I’m sure she understands exactly why so many do. Obviously there are plenty of glory seekers and those who want to climb the ladder out there, not that there’s anything wrong with that.  But there’s also a sizable percentage that may hate the hours and lack of fulfillment, but need to do it to pay off massive amounts of educational debt.  I looked at law school for quite a while myself and was even offered a scholarship to Ave Maria in Ann Arbor. But the ABA won’t allow you to work more than 20 hours, and suggest not at all, if you’re a first year law student going full time.  So even with a scholarship, I would have needed some loans to get by, and the cost of living in Ann Arbor, I was stunned to find out, was even more expensive than here in Madison.  Of course the loans are even higher when you have tuition to worry about.  And I have enough work experience in enough areas to know that the corporate law work and 80 hour work week it often entails wasn’t for me, even if I promised to do it only long enough to get ok financially and jump off into the criminal defense/appellate law areas that interested me.  There are always ways around following that path, no doubt, but it definitely requires some creativity and most likely much sacrifice.

Cost was not the deciding factor for me not to go, rather my own comfort level with going and general happiness with my own career and life played bigger roles.  But I sure can’t begrudge anyone who does decide to go down that path and find themselves in a corporate or hedge fund job, because I’ve done the math, numerous times.   An expansion of programs offering tuition repayment for those working in needed, but low paying, jobs would go a long way to getting the results she’s encouraging here.   I don’t think that’s necessarily a federal government function, or necessarily a governmental function at all.  But it would be effective at the state level, I think,  and each state can decide just how badly they want or need to try to redistribute where brain power is going.  With the way government is wasting  our money today, we could sure do a lot worse with it.

Oh,and for some great video commentary on her statement today, there’s a must see video on youtube … have a great Friday!