Lowered Expectations

Dear Evening Program Prof(s):

I know that, for many of you, teaching evening program classes is a new experience. It's also apparent that teaching older, employed students is relatively new for you as well. This is evident when you go to extra effort to let us know that what new associates do is very important and that your senior attorneys will rely on it heavily, and that if we make mistakes is could have serious consequences. I know that you know most of the class is employed, but do you think we work at McDonald's or something? Maybe you think that what we do on a day in and day out basis for employment isn't important, and that other people don't rely on it and that there are no consequences if we do it wrong. But we don't work at the Gap!

Given the average age of our class you should be able to determine that many, if not most of us, have been in our careers for close to a decade. That's long enough to become Senior Managers, directors, or even VPs and to hold positions of authority and responsibility in our respective companies. In addition, my classmates are medical professionals, law enforcement officers, and teachers raising your children at local schools. This means that what we do on a daily basis is important, at least within our company/industry, that people rely on what we do, and that there are legal and/or financial consequences if we screw stuff up. Many of us already have high stress jobs and I know at least some already have high paying ones.

The point I'm trying to make is that you need to stop treating us like we're fresh out of undergrad, have no work experience, and have no idea how the "real" world operates. We do and we know you have enough information at your disposal to realize this. So stop it.

And quit inferring that the high stress of lawyer jobs is okay because it's high paying. High pay isn't an incentive for many or us, though it is a nice benefit. Most of us have made calculated choices to go through law school at this point in our lives to get to someplace specific. We've got well thought out goals and law school is how we think we're going to get there. We're not doing this out of boredom or for entertainment (for the most part) and we're aware of the consequences of our actions. So give us credit for the modicum of forethought we've put into this and treat us like the professionals we are. Thank you.

Tex Lex.