Abstract: | This article is concerned with the ways the law school experience eases entry into a stratified market thereby further compromising adversariness in the American legal process. It identifies some dimensions of legal education, broadly construed, which tend to acclimatize some students to existing realities of the job market. Interpreting interview data gathered from first-year students at the University of Wisconsin—Madison Law School, it suggests that socialization to a professional identity can resemble "cooling out" in the ways it reconciles some to accept any employment in lieu of seeking employment more in tune with their personal goals. Such acclimatization thwarts adversariness because, in accepting the dictates of a stratified market, these lawyers are channeled to serve some interests and people to the disadvantage of others. |