Hey, Have You Heard the One About the Lawyer? : Career: The only thing more boring than law school is the actual practice of law.

Like may other law school graduates, I just learned that I passed the Connecticut State Bar examination and I’m tickled pink. I think the last time I was so excited was when Pepsi started dating its cans for freshness.

Passing the bar means that I now have the authority to practice law, which in my estimation ranks in importance between having the authority to donate my organs and having the authority to feel superior to Connie Chung. Put another way, the only thing in life more tiresome than the potential practice of law is the actual study of law. Yet, despite the growing public awareness that law school and all things legal are monstrously dull, the nation’s law schools keep filling up at an alarming rate. How can this be?

In an effort to get to the bottom of this frightening national trend, I examined my personal motivation for entering law school as a sort of test case for all law students. I reflected on my own calamitous decision and then tried to determine, essentially, what went wrong. In other words, when did the tendency toward law school first develop? Were there any warning signs? Was breast-feeding a factor? After reviewing all the evidence, I arrived at the hideous truth: Like most saps who enroll in law school, I just had nothing better to do.

The decision to enter law school is not without real costs, though, and should not be treated lightly. I myself acquired numerous impairments during the experience, all of which deserve mention. First, I somehow lost 21% of my vocabulary and 43% of my goodwill toward men. As an example of the former, I no longer know what the word candor means, although I can tell you it generally evokes feelings of terror and loss. I now become irritable and withdrawn during McDonald’s commercials.

Other manifestations of my law-related disability are that I insist on calling tenants “lessees” and I’m no longer capable of pronouncing the word statue. Try as I might, the word always comes out as statute. (I’ve since discovered that this particular affliction besets all those in the legal community. It is, quite simply, the mark of the beast. The password into the coven. The Big Tip-Off. So consider yourself warned.)

Even more disturbing than these superficial malfunctions is the fact that many law students become truly addled. I, for example, am totally unable to make definitive statements and I’m actually frightened by “yes/no” questions. Just to give you real perspective on how badly I’ve deteriorated, I spent more than 20 minutes last week trying to determine whether “material misrepresentations of fact” are “lies.” I still have no idea.

But I did get something out of law school--a treasure I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. It’s an IOU for One Zillion Dollars payable to various student loan programs. (I’m considering making up T-shirts: “My Law School Got $90,000 and All I Got Was This Lousy JD.”)

To sum up, law school is a costly, boring and a genuinely debilitating fiasco. Its only purported reward is admittance to a bar and thus a lifetime of boredom as a practicing attorney.

Now that I’ve passed the bar, I guess the drinks are on me.