Friday, March 28, 2008

Bar Exam Results Out By Tomorrow?

Well with the Supreme Court, you can never tell. The BAR results may come out this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow or even next week. However what is sure is that the 5,626 law graduates who took the bar exams last year are all fidgety now, unable to sleep, eat and be merry. Well, not until the verdict is out.

Passing the bar is the ultimate dream of any law student. I should know. But what after the bar exams? Unless your goal in becoming a lawyer is to help the poor and the needy and those who cannot afford a lawyer, better not go into law school anymore. If your main goal is to earn money then you might want to look somewhere else, like being a content writer perhaps or a big time drug dealer (then you can buy all the lawyers in the world!).

A lot of my classmates who are lawyers now are complaining about how low their incomes are. A starting lawyer should be happy if he gets a P7,000 monthly salary from a respectable law firm. Mos newbies I know are however thriving with the 30-70% payment being given by most law firms---the 30% goes to the lawyer and the 70% goes to the firm. Well,. you're even lucky if you get a case in a month because if you are a new lawyer then you would probably be relegated to the pro bono cases which the big guys are not interested in anymore.

However, there are also lawyers who have made it big. Call it luck, perseverance or whatever. My former professor Atty. Edison Batacan used to tell us how his life has changed when he became a laywer. He got a Masters before he went to Law School but nothing much there. All good things came when he became a lawyer.
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I had been racking my brain trying to think of other lawyers I know who became successful financially and that's what I got. Blank wall. Well, there are other successful lawyers in Manila and in other places. But based on who I know and what I know of their financial status, I am encountering a blank wall. Maybe I should get to know more people then. Or more lawyers earning big bucks.

But if you are planning to take up law, don't let my cynicism get to you. Go ahead with your ideals. One thing I learned in life is to "do what you love" because then, you will never have to work a single day in your life. Maybe that's why I have remained a writer.

1 comment:

jack daniels said...

the problem with the premise of looking for lawyers who made it "big" is that it is supposed to be an oxymoron. no lawyer worth his salt will "announce" his affluence. yet, just look at the flashy cars lining up the hall of justice premises and the glistening houses owned by lawyers in old rich villages and nouveau rich residential parks - and you will get your answer. nonetheless, such premise saddens me. no matter how trite it may be, it still is true, LAWYERING IS NOT AN ORDINARY MONEY-MAKING TRADE BUT A PRIESTHOOD OF JUSTICE. sadly, it is the davao lawyers themselves who cheapened the profession granting new associate lawyers "starvation wages". some law firms have tried to correct this though (our law office does) by ensuring that associates receive at least 20k to 25k or 30k to the flexible maximum of 35k per month based on salaries, appearance fees, share in legal fees and the like. the problem however will only be fully-remedied once the davao legal community agree to adopt TIME BILLING as in manila and cebu. but then again, it's supposed to be a priesthood of justice, right? lawyers aren't expected to be materialistic and dead set on screwing clients for their last centavo. Stir!!!!!!

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