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6 years ago I wrote my first ever blog on TL, here. I was considering studying for the LSAT to go to law school, this was around when I was finishing my undergrad.
6 years later, I've finished undergrad and gone through grad school, and been working in esports full time since 2010. I founded NASL and left in late 2012 to pursue CSL full time. That has been a lot of fun and I definitely intend to continue it.
Anyway - point being. When I was in undergrad I took all of the law classes that UCSD offered (under the political science department), thought it was okay. Our professor was also a lawyer and professor at a law school. One of my thesis advisers was also previously a lawyer before deciding to get his PhD in political science. Both of them told me, "if you don't want to be a lawyer, don't go to law school." I didn't think I wanted to become a lawyer, but studying law was really intriguing to me, so I decided to goof around and study for the LSAT anyway. I studied a bit and signed up to take it summer of 2010. I had a panic attack midway through the test, I'm a notoriously horrible test taker, and I abruptly cancelled my score right at the test center. I moved to DC for grad school, came back to LA to do NASL and esports full time.
Fast forward to last year... I took a huge risk, personally, when I quit my job at NASL. At the time I was probably the highest paid employee there, I was the first person in that office and had built it literally from the ground up with Russell and those who came later. It was a hard decision to leave, but funnily enough, Azubu gave me a chance and serious funding to do a huge CSL season ($180,000 prize Azubu Collegiate Champions), but in order to do that I needed to put 100% of my energy into it. I took a huge gamble and left NASL to put all my energy into CSL. I also dropped all my other eSports projects (team LighT, SPG) to focus on my goal. CSL was (and still is) my dream and I figured that this may be a once in a lifetime opportunity to be given a budget to do everything I wanted to do. I had saved enough money for the past 2 years that I figured I'd be okay.
Well, Azubu flamed out (and has since been rebranded, whatever), which wasn't entirely unexpected, and I've continued to do CSL. It is going quite well, we've basically broke even this year and I was able to run the league entirely off sponsorship money and haven't needed to put my own personal money into it, which I consider to be a huge accomplishment. It isn't generating enough money to pay myself or any other staff, but it's sustainable so I'm very happy. However, I have been unemployed now for over a year.
I realized that it's very difficult being several years removed from school without any 'real' experience. Now obviously NASL was a real company and the experience I got there was very real, and running CSL is a very real thing, but in terms of finding a specific job I don't have any specific experience. Working at small esports startups doesn't really lend itself to giving you specific experience. For example at NASL, I acted as a producer, a project manager, talent manager, logistics coordinator, ran operations, finance, and tournament administration. That's a lot of things.
My dad suggested I go back to school, that it serves essentially as a 'career reset button' which makes sense. The best time to find a job is right after leaving school, in many respects. My girlfriend moved to LA so I knew I wanted to stay in LA so I started thinking about law school again. Last summer I started studying for the LSAT again, and after I got back from a month in Turkey to visit my country, I took the test. I didn't have a panic attack this time.
I applied to one school only, Pepperdine. I think it's a pretty good school, I love the location, and my step-grandma went to law school there so I had some legacy points. There was some confusion with one of my rec letter writers who forgot to submit his rec letter and didn't get it in until almost a month after the application was due and I got put on the wait list. I just got an email saying I had been admitted. A 6 year journey of waffling back and forth about whether to go to law school or not has finally come to its end. I'm going to law school to start a new phase of my life, and thankfully my life will be government subsidized for 3 more years (and I won't spend my student loan money to host CSL LAN events this time).
I will continue running CSL, that's for certain. That dream is still very much alive and doing better than ever and I'm excited for the next year. I'm also excited to go back to school, life sucks when you're unemployed and it's stressful as fuck when you have no money, so now I'll have a way to keep busy while building for my future. Anywho I just wanted to share that since I've been talking about this whole journey on TL for the last 6 years.
Thanks for reading. Please give me all your chairs.
 
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Congrats, but please read all you can about the post-law school job market. I'm sure you're aware, but you'll be spending a LOT of money (that doesn't feel so real now, but will in a few years when you have to start making loan payments) for an extremely uncertain future and job respects. The job outlook is not rosy even for lots of students at top schools, which, all due respect, Pepperdine is not. I have lots of friends from upper tier 1 schools who are jobless years after graduation.
Before you commit to going, make sure you are willing to accept either 1) hanging your own shingle as a solo or 2) doing very unglamorous work in very small firms making the same or less than many college graduates. Those are very real possibilities even for those who go to top schools; I have multiple friends from my class who ended up in both situations, and I went to a T6. Unless you are independently wealthy, I would view going to Pepperdine Law as an extremely large gamble at best. If you think it's stressful being unemployed and not having money now, it will be ten times more stressful in a few years if you're once again unemployed, out of school, but with hundreds of thousands in loans to pay off to boot.
If you do go through with it, I would highly advise throwing everything you can into law school. I know I and many others appreciate all you've done for the scene, but you really shouldn't be doing something else on the side (especially something as potentially time consuming as running CSL) if you want a shot at doing well.
P.S. - feel free to hit me up if you want any law school, job search, etc. advice. I'm generally pretty realistic, though I probably skew a bit pessimistic because of when I went through law school - I was a member of essentially the worst class ever in terms of prospects (I was in law school from 2008 to 2011). My friends span the full gamut of success to misery, from supreme court clerk down to those who are still unemployed. As for myself, I'm currently nearing the end of my 3rd year in NYC biglaw.
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Congrats, and I hope you planned out the end game starting from day 1. Some enjoy the work, others despise it. Being an attorney can be a fulfilling profession, but it also can be a soul sucking job that will make you want to shove a knife into your eye. It all depends on the type of work and the individual.
I went in for public service, but now I'm wholly disillusioned with the entire practice of law (on a practical and philosophical standpoint). Went to a T14 school with a scholarship, so I'm in the fortunate position where I don't have to worry about loans. But fuck me if I had to do this for the rest of my life, so I'm basically switching out asap (passed the actuarial exam MFE recently yay!). And I'm also grateful for holding a technical undergrad degree, as opposed to some pre-law bullshit like philosophy or eng lit.
Just be careful before you willingly take $$$ in loans to get a puffed up education from schools that give out deceptive prospects. I personally know many who don't particular enjoy the practice of law but are chained to it because of the loans or they essentially have no way to lateral to something else. Actually, I was out for drinks with a colleague the other day, and when I told him about my plan to leave soon, he replied that he couldn't do it because he literally has no other skills that are marketable. I believe his exact words were, "...there is nothing else that I can do." Don't let this happen to you.
But then again, I also know a good number attorneys who love their jobs. And I'm more in the public interest circle, so these tend to either be litigation enthusiasts or those who actually believe they're doing the work of God. I used to be of the former and latter category, but my perspective has irrevocably changed after real life experience. Sigh...and I used to actually enjoy doing my job.
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Braavos36375 Posts
congrats, gl, and lemme know if you need any tips :D
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On July 26 2014 13:04 Hot_Bid wrote:
congrats, gl, and lemme know if you need any tips :D
whats the average amount of debt to be expected to take on to complete law school?
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The funny (not really) part about that... you work and put all your spare money into paying off the loans you got to pay for school... and by the time you are done paying off the loans you have already moved but a little in your field, so I imagine by the time you get it paid off you'd be making at least 80k or more, so you go from being very poor, to having more money than you know what to do with immediately after getting that loan paid off  Of course then you get a home loan and start over again lol.
Xeris, best of luck to you with this new stage in your life! It will be tough, but you can get through it and thrive in the end. I'm glad I got to talk to you for a little bit in Anaheim, you are a great role model and someone I look up to. I appreciate everything you have done for the NA starcraft scene and hope you never leave it!
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This is where I hope to be in 4 years. Congratulations Xeris, you're an incredible dude. I read one of your blogs earlier describing where you come from and your life's twists and turns and you're honestly one of the coolest people in this community from what I've seen of you.
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TLADT24920 Posts
Congrats! Nothing feels as good as achieving a goal that you have in mind. Now it begins lol.
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༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ GIVE CHAIR. I said it once, I'll say it again, congrats man  I have been fiddling with the idea of law school but I have a long ways to go. Let me know how it goes
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EPT
