Pmpm and davidcox have really handled the questions well, IMO. One thing I’ll add is that what you get out of law school will vary quite a bit by where you go. Tier 1 schools do not teach to the bar exam in their respective states much. They teach “black letter law,” which is like a combination of all the most common rules of law.
Sure, you’ll study majority and minority rules where there are jurisdiction splits, but mostly you do NOT learn the law of any one state. Third and fourth tier schools, it is my understanding, do more to teach practically in a way that is geared toward practicing in a given state. But they also focus less on theory and higher level application (forgive me if I am mistaken, this is based on what I’ve been told by people who went to them).
Mostly, law school familliarizes you with 95% of the law you are likely to encounter in practice, such that you know where there are issues that you will then need to research. For example, I know that the parole evidence rule has something to do with oral statements relating to contracts and whether they are admissible as to the meaning of the contract.
I don’t remember how exactly it works, but if a situation presents itself where the issue arises, I know what to research. That’s how most of law school works.
FWIW, I also used to work for a Big Firm in MN, and left after two years. It was an excellent experience, and I learned a ton, but never have I missed working there (well, there was the day a few months after I left that they gave out $20k bonuses to everyone - I was bitter I didn’t stay those last couple months!). Now I work for the airport authority in MN, and I like it a lot.
One final point, I have come to learn that there is no such thing as a simple, boilerplate contract. Every single contract is different in little, significant ways. Show me a storebought contract, and I can improve it within 10 seconds, I’m sure. Part of the reason is that a good contract depends on which side you are on. If you find a contract at Office Depot to sell your car, if may not give you, the seller, as much protection as you would like.
You probably want the buyer to bear the risk of a breakdown right after sale, whereas the buyer would undoubtedly want the seller to bear that risk. The form OD contract will not advise you as to this risk, nor will it suggest language to protect you. In any contract, there will likely be dozens of these types of issues. Not to mention that fact that many of these contracts are not specialized to your state, where many provisions may be illegal or unenforceable.
Or perhaps your state requires “magic words” to make something enforceable (yes, many states do require magic words for many things). Simply put, store bought contracts will never replace attorneys.