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11 Famous Law School Dropouts

by Bitter Staff
01:46 AM, 05/20

Everybody knows someone who thought about going to law school but decided to do something else instead. And then there are those lawyers who left practicing to follow a different path.  But whatever became of the law school drop out? You know, the guy who just stopped showing up to Criminal Law one day, or the woman who got up to go to the bathroom during Contracts and never came back—where did they go?

While we’re pretty sure most law school dropouts ended up in the gutter, crushed under the weight of a year and a half of loans and their own odium, a handful gained notoriety for something other than being a lawyer (though in the case of at least two members on this list, that isn’t a good thing). Here are our favorite (in)famous law school dropouts.  How do you like them now?

1.  Demetri Martin
After two years of a full ride at NYU Law, Demetri Martin called it quits and began working as a comedian, even though he wasn’t certain that comedy was a viable career option. In May, Martin told Believer Magazine that once he figured out what he wanted to do with his life, law school was a “waste of time.” [Believer Magazine]
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2.  Gabriel García Márquez
Like many great writers, Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez “had absolutely no interest in his studies” and dropped out of law school in Colombia in 1950.  Ironically, the book that convinced him to abandon law was written by a law school graduate. “I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that,” Márquez said. “If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago.” The book? Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.  [The Modern World]
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3.  Marco Antonio Barrera
Law students who found the Socratic Method intimidating probably shouldn’t follow in the shadowboxing footsteps of Marco Antonio Barrera who gave up an associate’s salary for national pride.  He dropped out of law school in Mexico to become a professional boxer. Now that Barrera is represented by Don King, we can only hope he stayed in school long enough to learn how to read his contracts.  [The New York Times]
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4.  Bernie Madoff
It turns out that pleading guilty in a New York courtroom wasn’t Bernie Madoff’s first experience being defeated by the law. Prior to operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history, Madoff spent a year at Brooklyn Law. This is where you have to think that maybe a securities law elective would have helped.  [CNN Money]
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5.  Teddy Roosevelt
Even though he postponed his honeymoon to take up law as “something to do,” after a year at Columbia Law School, Teddy Roosevelt dropped out to run for the New York State Assembly. According to Henry Pringle’s Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography, the future president simply found the study of law to be “dull.” [Google Books]
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6.  Seymour Hersh
So why did Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who broke stories on the My Lai Massacre and Abu Ghraib, quit law school to first become a police reporter? Simple, he “flunked out” of the University of Chicago Law School, an experience he “hated.” [PBS]
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7.  Marv Levy
Big sky, big crowd.  Marv Levy, the former head coach for the Buffalo Bills, has been to more Super Bowls (four) than he spent weeks in law school (three). According to his website, Levy, who earned a Masters in English Literature from Harvard, quit law school because he didn’t want to be “just another lawyer.” [MarvLevy.net]
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8.  Ted Bundy
Yes, that Ted Bundy. Before beginning his murderous college campus rampage, the diabolical Bundy was a student at the University of Puget Sound School of Law. But to be clear, there’s absolutely no evidence that Bundy began killing because knew the chances of going from TTT Puget Sound to BigLaw were slim.  [Rome News-Tribune | The Prescott Courier]
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9.  Vince Lombardi
What is it with football coaches and the law? We’re not sure what the connection is, but at this point we’re not surprised that the father of NFL coaching, Vince Lombardi, went to law school. What is surprising is the fact that he dropped out of Fordham law school’s night program after a year.  According to his son’s book, What It Takes to Be #1 : Vince Lombardi on Leadership, even though Lombardi ditched Fordham, he still insisted Lombardi, Jr. peruse a law degree.  Lombardi, Jr. dropped out of the University of Minnesota’s law program after only a few weeks.  He did, however, later go on to earn his JD after completing four grueling years of night school at William Mitchell College of Law, to which a proud Lombardi gushed at graduation, “My son, the lawyer.” [Google Books]
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10.  Dabney Coleman
Here’s the IMDB biography for Dabney Coleman: “For twenty years Dabney Coleman has appeared mostly in one type of role: a smarmy, selfish, nervous person mostly with money, who is out for himself” (save for the totally awesome “Jack Flack” in Cloak & Dagger). Had Coleman actually finished his law degree at the University of Texas, he might have been able to pull off that singular smarmy role in real life. [NNDB]
________________________________

11.  Ray Manzarek
“I stayed in law school for about two weeks, and dropped out of law school realizing that [it] was totally insane for me to be in law school,” Ray Manzarek said of his experience at UCLA Law School. Manzarek knows a thing or two about insanity. After dropping out of UCLA, the Light My Fire author went on to co-found The Doors with Jim Morrison as the keyboardist. [Rainer Moddemann via geocities (complete with Doors muzak soundtrack)]

Check out other lists, tallies and scores to settle in Bitter by Numbers.
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  1.  
    Bill Dugan | May 20 | 03:43 AM 12. Larry Peck -- he dropped out of my law school after 1 year, and is now selling life insurance in Pittsburgh, PA, and making a pretty decent living ($100K). He discovered that pretty women would still date him even if he did not have a JD, because his uncle had a profitable pickle business.
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    BL1Y | May 20 | 06:23 AM They date him because it's Pittsburgh. $100k there makes you top dog.
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    Anonymous | May 20 | 06:39 AM Dugan, How is "Larry Peck" (doubt he really exists) famous? For a lawyer, you aren't that great at reading, Dugan.
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    Alex Hump | May 20 | 07:48 AM I found Peck. Look him up, Anonymous, on Google. At the very least, he's famous to Duggy Dugmeister! And if $100K gets him verifiably hot babes in Pittsburgh, some men will be on the next bus out there. Anonymous, you sound like a d-bag.
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    Anonymous | May 20 | 08:26 AM Hump, I am a d-bag. That much is true. But I'm not so naive to think that there are ANY hot chicks in the Pitt. Get real.
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    Jed | May 20 | 08:51 AM I was fairly close to dropping out, but glad I did stay the course.
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    Alma Federer | May 20 | 09:55 AM You men are gross. You always talk about women like they are chattel. We're not. We are human beings deserving of respect. I don't know where you were brought up, but the men I associate with are gentlemen, interested in me for more than my body. When you guys grow up, you will appreciate women like me for what we are, not as a bunch of body parts.
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    Mark P. | May 20 | 01:55 PM Thanks for the big chuckle lady.
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    Adanielch | May 21 | 09:36 AM Hate to burst your bubble, but this should be a ten-person list. Lombardi was the one who did the year at Fordham. His son, Vince Jr., graduated from William Mitchell.
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    Movie Nerd | May 21 | 08:33 PM Dabney Coleman played Jack Flack in Cloak & Dagger, not Jack Flash.
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    Quo Warranto | May 23 | 12:44 AM Robby Krieger was the principal author of "Light My Fire."
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    Zoul | May 23 | 11:11 AM Harry Truman also went to law school for a few semesters, though he never graduated college.
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    1st Republic 14th Star | May 23 | 11:21 AM Harry Truman completed two years of the four year night program at the Kansas City Law School and did not receive a degree. He attended law school because he thought it would enable him to perform more effectively as Jackson County Judge, the administrative and executive position he held before winning election to the US Senate. His daughter wrote that Truman could have received his law license as a professional courtesy when he was between terms as county judge, but opted not to. Franklin Roosevelt attended Columbia Law School from 1905 to 1907. He passed the bar before graduating and left before receiving a degree. Even though he passed the bar, Roosevelt's professional career was mostly in insurance and other business ventures, not practicing law.
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    HI | May 30 | 09:46 PM I think Ted Bundy is more famous for the time that he spent at the University of Utah School of Law... A little recognition please. Thank you.
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    Unhappy L1 | September 10 | 09:50 AM You forgot my favorite: BILLY WILDER filmmaker, screenwriter and producer, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films You may know his best work: Some Like It HOT! .He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age, and my personal hero. I plan on dropping out to follow in his mighty footsteps soon as I can summon the nerve.
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    Blogger | January 27 | 12:00 AM I am at William Mitchell right now. Also, I love that the word chattel was used in this discussion thread. Lawyers really are pretty pompous.
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