LLB: a study in futility or a passport to greatness?

Just because you have a law degree, it doesn't
make you Rumpole. God, I wish it did.

This post is brought to you by the letter L and the number four and a half. I was tempted to muse on the L that I have just been working on, which is Lime and Grapefruit Marmalade, but this is not the sole source of my joy this weekend. You see, I found out on Friday that after four and a half years of dutifully turning up to lectures, only half listening to them and then panicking when it came to exam time, I have now completed my law degree. I have finished and bring on the lawyer jokes, because until I pass the bar exam I cannot be called a lawyer and I still have my soul in my possession. A law degree is a funny thing because it doesn't enable you to do anything you couldn't do without one except sit the bar exam, and even then, you still have the additional proviso that in New Zealand you have to have passed the legal ethics paper. So if you aren't contemplating becoming a lawyer in New Zealand, you may have letters LLB after your name, but it entitles you to bugger-all.
Those undergoing the arduous slog of their law degree can take some comfort in the fact that once they have been admitted to the ranks of LLB holders, they are entitled to describe themselves as 'esquire' rather than 'mister'. You can do this, but no-one does. Why? Because you'd have to be either Bill.S Preston and about to undergo a big adventure or a bogus journey, or you'd have to be a massive, massive tool.
The only other thing holding an LLB allows you to do is to fold it into a $45,000 paper dart and see how far it flies.

So, unless you become a practicing lawyer, your shiny new LLB is of no use whatsoever, so what does a law degree actually teach you? Does it teach you what the law is? Behave. The law is viciously convoluted: many brilliant minds have been working for thousands of years and creating millions of laws by legislation, precedent and action that if Methuselah himself had started trying to describe it as a fresh faced young student, he wouldn't have finished in his 900th year. I think it politic to adapt PG Wodehouse' description of futility for this one. You've as much chance of describing what the law is than a one armed blind man has of getting half a pound of melted butter into a wild-cat's left ear with a red hot needle. It just can't be done. So, does a law degree give you a basic handle on what the law is in a specific area? Well, yes and no. I have a friend who happens to be a partner at a Christchurch law firm and he said that everything he learned at law school twelve years ago is now completely and hopelessly out of date.
So what the bloody hell have I been doing for the last four and a half years that was so arduous except for the cryptic crossword?
Logic, old thing. Logic.

Shotguns at the ready... pull!

My degree announces to the world that I have reached a standard in expressing logical thought. I can approach an issue from several angles, break it down into its elements and then solve each element until an overall solution manifests itself. Then I can walk away and hopefully email a bill to someone. You know what else four and a half years at university has taught me?
Not to do it again.
It's also taught me to be slightly more dangerous in a pub quiz, however, I hope that my new found qualification can be used properly in arenas other than answering trivia questions in a pub, although that's a pretty good start.