Startng today, New York Lawyer is syndicating a book by two lawyers who claim they attended virtually no classes (at Harvard and Stanford), led wild lifestyles instead, and each graduated in 1998 to jobs in top firms. As NYL puts it:
“In their book Brush With the Law: The Turbulent True Story of Law School Today at Stanford and Harvard, co-authors and practicing attorneys Jamie Marquart and Robert Byrnes explain how they mastered getting a J.D. in absentia.”
Over the years, I have often said I would have been a far better person, and not any less of a law student, if I had slept in rather than attending classes. (Those 8 AM Antitrust classes with Prof. Breyer were especially painful.) It irked me that I was too conventional or worried to stop wasting my time on classes that seemed pointless for anyone willing to do the reading assignments. It never even crossed my mind to head for casinos and bordellos instead (maybe because of my limited budget).
From an ethical perspective, missing out on law school classes seems to have virtually no relationship to future competence — although it might suggest a certain lack of diligence. On the other hand, these guys probably aren’t billing clients for unnecessary tasks. You can check out the serial installments every Wednesday.