I am not in a good place and haven’t been for 30 years. I am Harvard educated – J.D., same class as Michelle Obama – and was roundly rejected by every law firm in town because I was born and raised working class. Every place I ever interviewed the first question out of a partner’s mouth was â€where did you go to high school:†I was a high-school dropout who managed to graduate from the University of Minnesota, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. That counted for nothing. Nothing. Accepted to nine of ten law schools to which I applied – all but Yale – and I have been a temp document reviewer for almost 20 years. Never stood a chance of a real, permanent job. I wan’t â€acceptable†in polite circles. My retirement plan when the temp work runs out is a bullet in the brain. No friends, no family, no nothing. And I was not only lowborn, it turn out I was on the autism spectrum – Asperger’s. Lost my home and lived in a â€shelter†full of psychotics who pissed in the elevators and shit on the floor for two years.
Y'know, people with even less connected backgrounds in my Big Ten law school got jobs without that kind of flak, in fact almost everybody who passed the bar was probably employed
somewhere in a legal profession job within three months of graduating, granted not all in wonderful jobs - being a 'junior associate' anywhere is the legal profession's equivalent of a medical residency, i.e. you work ridiculous hours and others reap the benefit, and it often goes on a lot longer than a residency to boot. Still, even with an unimpressive class standing, a Hahvahd JD would have immediately outcompeted all but an honor grad in those job apps. I would bet your problem was your personality and demeanor, not your background.
