h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's me, Irv.

Irving! Incredibly glad to see you about. It's been far too long. Have you finished Landshark school?

Yep. School's done. Took the Bar exam, I'm putting together my Character & Fitness report (it's this big background check they do) and waiting on the results of the test. Meanwhile, I'm working, but I can't represent clients or give legal advice.

Which is too bad, because sometimes I just want to scream at them about waiting so long between being served and seeing an attorney. But I'm pretty sure that constitutes "legal advice."

What about you? Still in SLC?

I moved to North Carolina for a couple of years, but I am back in SLC. I work as a network administrator for a financial company. I still have AIM MSN Yahoo etc. if you want to get in touch with me via IM.

What sort of law did you get in to?

At the moment, I'm working for a Legal Services type organization. We help low-income clients by providing them with some free legal advice/help/etc. There are restrictions, of course. For instance, if it's the sort of case that would generate attorney's fees, we can't accept it, because the client would most likely be able to get a for-profit attorney to take it on a contingency basis.

So mostly I see divorce/custody/child support, landlord/tenant, and collections, with a fair amount of government benefits thrown in there (turns out some gov agencies like to kick people off of their benefits without explaining why -- it leaves people who are already helpless feeling very confused).

I am glad that you are done with school. It's still a shame that you are a landshark, but at least you are not doing tort law or worse IP law.

It's really great to see you around these parts again my friend.

There's no way I'd do IP. I'm not cut out for patents and things like that. There are some torts I'd do -- I still want to go into environmental law eventually, and sometimes torts are involved with that. But no PI (personally injury) or IP for me.

IP, PI, Tort law are why I hate your rarefied profession. I still think that lawsuits are inherently evil.

I had a long defense of my profession written out, but then I deleted it, and I'm replacing it with these words:

Yeah, you're pretty much right.

I really don't mean to trash on your profession. Legal counsel is the only way some people will see justice. Prosecutors are the last voice of the victim. Defenders are the last voice of the accused. But the perversion that is apparent from over litigation has soured me on the profession as a whole. For every DA out there busting his hump to get offenders behind bars there is a Mike Nifong (Duke Lacross rape case). For every public defender trying to keep the innocent free there is a Johnnie Cochran keeping the rich from paying for their sins.

All I ask of you, as an attorney, is to be honest with yourself always. Don't let your ideals be corrupted.

It helps that I didn't get into the profession to make money. And my current job appears to pay my bills and that's about it. In about 6 months, I hope to have enough money saved to buy and iPhone

In six months they may be worth buying. I am not sold on them myself. I had to decide against one myself due to the fact that they are having some issues to start.

The 1st gen iPods were crappy too, I think. I waited several years before getting one of those (as a birthday present) and loved it until it was stolen. I'd love to have my old study playlist at work right now. Pandora just isn't cutting it.

I'm hoping that the next gen iPhone will cost less and rock even harder. So I might wait more than 6 months, but we'll see. There's a lot of pressure on me now to get a cell phone, and I've always resisted. I told myself that if I got the iPhone I wouldn't really be buying a cell phone, I'd be buying a toy.