Electric youth

David Auburn’s Proof posits that mathematicians supposedly are at their peak of ability around 25. If you haven’t done some great math by then, supposedly you almost certainly never will. Michael began recording Thriller at 23. He asked rock star Eddie Van Halen, 27, to perform the guitar solo for “Beat It”. When Jim Morrison was 23, he performed “Light My Fire” on The Ed Sullivan Show; he died at 27. Madonna, who was born 13 days before Jocko, released her two biggest albums before she turned 29. John wrote “Help!” when he was 24. Paul wrote “Yesterday” that same year. He was 22. The Beatles broke up the year John turned 30. Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer at 21. When he was 30, he was ousted by the board. (Apple brought Jobs back when he was 41.) Bill Gates, who is eight months younger than Jobs, started Microsoft the same year Apple was founded. Walt and Roy formed Disney Bros. Studio when Walt was 22. Mickey Mouse appeared in Steamboat Willie in 1928, when Walt was 27. Michelangelo created David between ages 25 and 29 (but he painted the Sistine ceiling from 33 to 37). Picasso developed cubism in his twenties (but painted La Guérnica in his fifties). And that’s without bringing sports into it. (Rafael Nadal is 23; Roger Federer, 27. And there’s the whole thing about the NBA recruiting high school kids.) Oh, and Auburn wrote Proof in his twenties. Feeling a little unaccomplished? Me, too.

If you’ve read Outliers then you know that to be really excellent at anything, you need to practice it for a minimum of 10,000 hours. (Gladwell writes about The Beatles and Jobs and Gates and gives other examples.) If you combine Proof’s premise that whatever greatness you have will at least begin to blossom in your twenties with Gladwell’s observation that practice (and only practice) really does make perfect, then the huge salary gap between first-year associates at mega-firms and, say, new state public defenders begins to make some economic sense. Assuming no time off between college and law school, the youngest lawyers are about 25 when they finally pass the bar. Twenty-five is old to be doing anything for the first time; there’s not a minute to spare. To do immediate hands-on lawyering, you generally have to work as an assistant D.A. or public defender—jobs that pay so little as to make your parents wonder why you even went to law school. Instead of money, you get experience. Mega firms, on the other hand, pay young attorneys obscene salaries in lieu of experience. New associates “review documents” or watch senior associates fumble through their first depositions. Firms pay you to forego any dreams of spectacular individual achievement and become part of the hive. (Yes, yes, I know. Like the Borg. There, I said it.)

Thurgood graduated from Howard Law at 25. He won his first major civil rights case at 28 and was arguing in the Supreme Court at 32. If some giant Wall Street firm had offered him a kajillion dollars to do document review, would Brown v. Board have gotten off the ground? Wouldn’t that be like Michael Jackson spending his career singing and dancing in Broadway choruses?

The best thing law schools can do for their students is figure out how to graduate them earlier. Hell, if either Gates or Jobs had finished college, I’d probably be writing law review articles on something like a TRS-80 Model III with WordStar. Washington and Lee has already conceded that a third year of lectures is unnecessary. It scrapped the traditional third year in favor of experiential learning. (They promise their students “will be ready for practice from day one.”) At the same time, six-year B.A./J.D. programs are proliferating. Competition will continue to exert pressure to eliminate the third year. Frankly, I don’t see why you couldn’t produce a well-rounded lawyer in five years of higher education. That seems like plenty of book learning to me.