Legal News

Born to be Lawyers: Responses to Wurtzel?s Take on the Cravath Deal

By Ashby Jones

We always enjoy reading what Elizabeth Wurtzel has to say about the practice of law. Often we agree with her, sometimes we don't. But we always find her take on things to be refreshingly unapologetic and pointed, sharply written and direct.

We also like the fact that she elicits strong reactions, often of the sharply written and direct variety themselves. Often, the responses are every bit as provocative as what Wurtzel set to paper in the first place.

Take the two responses published in Wednesday's WSJ, to Wurtzel's Dec. 15 column on the fact that so few had seemed to jump at Cravath's generous deferral offer. (Click here for the column; here for our blog post on the column, which contains some glorious responses.)

To recap: Wurtzel's main point in that piece: that folks were crazy not to take Cravath's "$80,000 for bubkas" deal. She wrote:

If even one person said no to $80,000 for bubkes, I’d question the sanity and intelligence of that sole holdout. Cravath recruits the best and the brightest kids from the most highly ranked law schools-and given $80,000 and a dream, all many of them could do was report to work on Monday.

The responses to Wurzel pubbed today make fair points.

Writes Allison D. Foley of Washington:

One obvious motivation for declining the offer is professional, and at the same time deeply personal: Some people actually want to be lawyers and cannot wait to get started.

Ms. Wurtzel describes as “peachy keen” the “opportunity” to watch the door close-for a term of at least one year in a market where practically anyone understands there are no guarantees-on a career that you have worked toward through four years of college and three years of law school, a world that you dreamed of as a child watching “L.A. Law,” a profession that made you hold your breath the first time you visited the Supreme Court, a system that dwarfed and inspired you as a nine-year-old standing before the Capitol building.

Let's call Foley's the "this is what we want to do" argument. There's also the "this is what we have to do" take, submitted by Donna J. Laut of Branchburg, N.J.:

It takes a first year salary of $137,000 to $178,000 to break even for “hot prospect” type lawyers who paid in excess of $40,000 annual tuition to attend an elite school. Anything less than this is a negative investment according to Prof. Herwig Schlunk’s recent white paper, “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be . . . Lawyers.”

LBers, go back and read Wurtzel's piece, then tell us: who, in the end, gets the better of this debate: Wurtzel, Foley or Laut?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).