4 December 2008
Will you end up trapped in pinstripes?
Written by self-confessed escapee of the so-called “Pinstriped Prison”, the publication of this book in the second half of 2008 caused a few murmurs among both prospective law grads and recent grads out in the corporate workforce.
In her first book, journalist and former law student Lisa Pryor delved into the world of corporate recruitment of the “best and brightest students in Australia” and asked why (and how) a significant proportion of the nation’s top achievers end up leading soulless, miserable lives in corporate law firms and management consultancies when they mean to pursue other careers.
As the publisher’s blurb explains:
The Pinstriped Prison is a funny, frightening look at how big firms seduce brilliant students into joining the corporate world, with all its perks and excesses, and at what happens next.
Crazy work hours swallow these young professionals’ lives, just as dry cleaning, taxis and take-away food swallow their large salaries. And by the time they discover their work is fundamentally boring, they are usually captives of the debts they’ve incurred to get a lifestyle that will compensate them for their life.
What does it mean for us as a nation when so many of our cleverest people are siphoned off from careers in which they could be doing something useful? The Pinstriped Prison is a smart, witty look at the consequences of selling your soul.
As someone who went to law school wanting to ’save the world’ but has been kinda ignoring that (I’m off to start as a grad at a Big Firm next year) the book was a bit of a kick in the guts.
The Top Grads and the Top Firms
Pryor’s central thesis is that the brightest sparks in high-school (the ones who do drama, music, rowing, netball, debating, sit on the Student Representative Council from the age of 13 AND get perfect grades) enter law school regardless of what their passions might be because it’s The Top Course. And then, because of their innate desire to be ranked and marked as the compete for top-spot, these kids seek out graduate positions at the Top Tier law firms that can offer them million-dollar views, champagne and canapés.
There’s a more sinister suggestion in the book, however, which makes the big firms look bader than they might actually be:
Big firms are terribly eager to make the jobs they offer seem fabulous and desirable. They go to expensive lengths to bribe students with free food, twilight drinks and sponsorship money. For all the questions overachieving braniacs ask during the recruitment process, they seem to miss the most important one: if these firms are really so brilliant and do offer a life beyond compare, why do they have to work so hard to convince people to join? (emphasis added)
As the allegory about choosing between heaven and hell in one of the book’s chapters implies, once the grads have signed their life away to The Firm, things turn out to be less fun than previously represented (hrm… but could we try arguing an estoppel to prevent the firms from putting away the sparkling wine?).
Pryor gives us stories from several ex-Top Students who have been sucked into the corporate black hole. Some came out alive, some are still there — trapped.
We all know about the dramatically high rates of depression and anxiety (and often, self medication) among lawyers, and the issue of career satisfaction is something all law students need to think really hard about.
The two types of Law Grads
I think what Pryor fails to make explicit is that the bad ending isn’t going to turn out like that for EVERY young lawyer. Because, actually, it isn’t. I know people currently working in Big Firms who absolutely adore what they do.
Law is NOT for everyone. For the ones who don’t drop out of law school and end up in the Big Firms, there will be some who love it, want to be there, have always wanted to be there, and are meant to be there. The love the work, they love the exposure to top end clients and high-level training they get, and enjoy the great office support and fancy stationery that comes more often at the top than elsewhere in the law world.
The scenes from The Castle where Dennis Dennuito has to type up his own dictations and clear his own paper jams are probably more nightmarish for these kids than the prospect of wearing pinstripes every day.
Other grads, who are really the target audience of the book, were never meant to be corporate lawyers (let along lawyers at all, and I will return to this point) and yes, did get sucked in. Then they realise much too late that they hate it, and come out with the stories of woe and misery. They will hate looking up archaic points of law or figuring out if that conjunction in that contract should be an “and” or an “or”, and will go home every night and cry themselves to sleep, before they start popping the anti-depressants or write the next Hell Has Harbour Views.
It’s really up to the law students to think hard about who they are, what they value and what they want throughout the recruitment process. Or possibly even before that.
The cut-off score trap
I got a feeling from the book that one of the biggest problems here is the nature of the education system. The tertiary entrance process ranks every school leaver and forces them to compete for a few select spots in a few select courses that, somehow, are deemed to be more worthy and respectable than others. Because of this process, kids who aren’t supposed to be lawyers end up studying law, and then, without stopping to examine things, end up stuck in jobs they hate.
I’m not sure who to blame for the current problems of all these law grads who hate what they do– the unis, the HR people, the grads themselves–but I think it’s important to remember that the firms also lose when they pick “The Best And The Brightest” who were never supposed to be corporate lawyers. They pay out of their noses to train these people only to watch them burnout/jump off a building/leave and then struggle have the numbers in the 3-4 year range to do the work they need done. Just look at the number of ads in Brief and Lawyers Weekly for qualified post-admission solicitors.
Should you think about escaping?
It’s not all bad news. Pryor provides a few ideas for how to break out of the pinstripes, along with the stories of others who’ve done it before. It wasn’t too preachy or anything, but this is the closest thing to a self-help book I’ve actually read (cf bought. Which I do. A lot. Because I’m neurotic). Pryor’s cautionary tale is of the sort that tells you to learn from other people’s mistakes before you make them yourself.
For prospective graduates, the most important thing is probably to get as much information as you can before even thinking about making a decision. Talk to people who work in firms (and lots of different firms to get a clearer picture) as well as those who went to Legal Aid, government, out in the country or even something totally different.
Getting a law degree even if you don’t want to be a lawyer is certainly not a waste of time, because you learn about the system that is so central to the way our society works as well as skills in critical thinking that can be applied ANYWHERE.
What did you think of the whole law grad recuitment process? Which group are you in — the natural corporate lawyer or the freaking-out possible-sellout?
We’re able to link you up with young grads out in the workforce if you have specific questions, so leave your email address when you make a comment if you’re after more info.
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