My law school asked me to give a talk to first year students on the practicing lawyer's view of what they should study. What words of wisdom do you share with the new law students when there are 80,000 lawyers in America, and 30,000 new ones joining the Bar every year? Do I tell them to quit now or stick it out and join the multitude: Not sure what to say I asked for input from lawyers at my weekly Bar Association lunch. Their recommendations were surprising and varied. Some wanted to inspire, others wanted to stifle ambitions to study law.

Materialistic advice was the most common recommendation; "If yo want to make money go into personal injury law, "The big money is in corporate law," "You'll make more money in law taking a percentage of your client's deals than on hourly fees - - you can retire at age 40 if you get a piece of the action." It's interesting how many lawyers assume law students are in school to learn how to become wealthy.

Some recommended idealistic advice: "Don't be afraid of all the lawyers out there because there's always room for a good lawyer." Pick any area of law you like and work hard at it because any field is great if greatly pursued. .""There is no better way to help people with their problems than the practice of law."

Many jaded, burned out lawyers recommended dampening law students' enthusiasm by telling them: "Don't go into law, go into business;" "Be a plumber, there are too many lawyers." "Anyone who wants to be a lawyer today must be crazy with all the lawyers out there; there are no jobs and everybody hates attorneys," "Don't be a lawyer unless you want to work 7 days a week, 20 hours a day with no vacations, and argue about fees with every client.

Then there were lawyers who simply recommended giving advice about how to be successful in day to day practice: "Always return phone calls and you'll always have clients;""Don't take every case that walks in the door;"Never take a case from a client who walks in with newspaper clippings about big verdicts;" Give business advice to clients - - they need it more than legal advice."

I confess to being surprised at the interest of lawyers in advising lawyers-to-be, as well as the variety of their advice. Expecting a heavy dose of practical proverbs, instead I received a little bit of everything - - both positive and negative. I decided to use and discuss all the recommendations in my talk, as well as my own favorites: "All a lawyer needs to be successful is common sense and clean fingernails;" "Don't chase ambulances, chase clients on the golf course;" and "Any person who wants to be a leader in his or her community should go into law so long as he understands that he will not get wealthy but simply have a good income."