WHERE'D YOU GET YOUR LAW DEGREE?

I am not a lawyer. I work with lawyers. I know many lawyers. My best friend is a lawyer. Lawyers irritate the living crap out of me.

Many lawyers see themselves as better than others. They place a great deal of value on that big certificate framed and hung on their wall. That represents thousands of dollars of student loans and 5 to 7 long years of study in school.

The amount of importance a lawyer attaches to their law degree is very distrubingly revealed by the statement so many of them make during an argument: "Where'd You Get YOUR Law Degree?!"

This happens, most often, when an attorney enters into a conversation with a non-attorney, and there is a disagreement. An impasse is reached and the lay person has pointed out something or questioned something and the attorney just can't articulate a response about why their opinion should be taken as the gospel. Out comes the arrogant declaration "And Where'd You Get YOUR Law Degree?!"

It's not really a rhetorical question. Lawyers only use this line when they damn well know their verbal opponent doesn't have a law degree. And it's a signal to that non-lawyer that the conversation should be ended.

Every time I hear the law-degree query, I get pretty angry. A variety of responses swirl in my head, but I know that it is pointless to discuss anything any further with someone so conceited.

I mean, I could point out that lawmakers aren't required to have law-degrees. Or any degrees. Or even high school diplomas.

I could point out that police officers, who enforce the law, aren't required to have law degrees.

I could point out that some Judges, on the town or city level, in some States, don't have to have law degrees.

I could point out that citizens, without law degrees, are expected to follow the law.

I could point out that that the first "lawyers" had to get a degree from folks who didn't have one themselves.

Or, I could point out that there has only been one Jesus Christ, and that no matter how fancy that big diploma is, lawyers are people, and still make mistakes, and can be wrong.

Our legal system is based on the fact that people can be wrong. Every day, lawyers argue in Court, trying to convince a Judge they are right, and their opponent is wrong. If they both were such perfect, infallible geniuses, then how could one of them be wrong? Wouldn't they both reach the same conclusion and the debate would be over before it began?

I know that lawyers aren't the only ones who like to throw around their diploma. It's a standard defense for the mentally weak and lazy to give up trying to debate or explain themselves and fall back on their imagined superiority.

"And how many children do you have?"

"Where'd you go to medical school?"

"You were in the military for how long"

Those are just examples of how every day, in all walks of life, people just refuse to admit they're wrong. Lawyers didn't invent this, they just do it with more vigor and arrogance than anyone.

Yes, a degree is a worthy accomplishment. But sitting in a classroom, reading and listening and testing cannot compete with the same, or more, years of experience from someone who was actually exerting themselves and doing a task, rather than studying it. Experience is the greatest teacher.

And everybody can be wrong. Perfection can't be taught or learned.

Get over yourselves.