EnfantTerrible

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

@eternallyephemeral Just FYI, most people in PhD programs in cultural studies—history, art history, regional studies, anthropology, sometimes poli sci, English literature of the non-US, etc.—will end up spending a lot of time in the region they study by the time they graduate. This does produce a classist effect for anyone lower class who wants to study a region to which they a) don't have family, regional, or cultural ties, b ) have no work experience in and c) go to unsupportive PhD programs that only provide support for a few months' of work abroad, you're right. There may be ways to ameliorate that further, but because you can't be an armchair researcher of other cultures any more (i.e. studying it without leaving your metaphorical house), somewhere between most and all cultural studies PhD programs support their students getting significant experience in whatever region they're studying. You're right that you do, in almost all cases, need experience working in that region to get an academic job...but it needs to be professional experience, which most PhD programs should be designed to give you. Personal experience often helps, but you can also acquire personal experience with a culture even if you start doing so past age 18.

As I wrote a bit about in another thread, I don't think there is a lot of reason for me to worry about my own individual future as an academic. I don't think Trump has a lot of issues on international student status (to him, we are "legal"). I also don't think I will be personally targeted by Trump's policies. The reasons that this outcome affects my decision is my unwillingness to live in a country that seems to be so much more out of alignment with my personal beliefs and my inability to do anything about it since I'm not a citizen. If this was happening in my own country, although it's fun to joke about moving elsewhere, I would definitely stay and do what I can to change things. And that's partially why I would want to leave the US after my degree---Canada is having an election in ~3 years and I don't want Canada to go this way either. I want to be back to do something about it.

Just chiming in here:
It seems to me that you've already decided that you want to pursue a PhD. Your responses to others are more arguing that you're right than considering what they're saying. You're definitely a lawyer.
I'm a lawyer, too. I went to a top law school. I have ten years of post-law school experience. I stopped working as an attorney 3 1/2 years ago. I stopped working in law altogether one year ago. I spent the last year broke, living with my parents, writing fiction, and applying to MFA programs. I've never been happier.
But I'm not convinced that this would work you. First, you haven't said how long you've been practicing. It matters. Age and experience matter, too. If you're 26, BigLaw is your first real job, it's your first or second year and you're burned out, that doesn't mean that you need to change careers altogether. Second, your undergrad grades tell me that you weren't that into English when you were a college student. If you weren't passionate or excited enough about it then, you probably won't be into it now.
For me, I always wanted to be a writer. I never really wanted to be a lawyer. I went to law school because I didn't want to be a starving artist. My undergrad grades in English were stellar. My law school grades were terrible. Grades are not an indicator of my abilities, but they are absolutely an indicator of my interest in the subject matter I was studying.
But what concerns me most about the original and subsequent posts is that the focus is not on wanting a career in academia. It's not even about not wanting a career in law. It's about wanting a break from BigLaw, specifically. You don't have to pursue a PhD to take a break. 
You have a lot of options. First, save up your BigLaw money. From there, you can either take a break from law altogether or you can pursue another type of law practice. I know people who've gone from BigLaw to legal academia, public interest, criminal trial practice, or consulting work. There may be some other type of law practice that works for you. I knew a guy who did BigLaw, took a break, worked at a public defender office for two years, and then went back to Big Law. Not all lawyers work 70 hours per week.
I think that the advice about an MA program was actually good advice. Why is it wasted time? What are you in a hurry to do that you can't spend a year or two in an MA program? You'll get a taste for what grad study of English is like and you can decide if you really want to commit to it. You'll get a decent writing sample out of it, too. Humanities programs get thousands of applications from recovering lawyers. They will look at your grades and know that you have buyer's remorse. An MA program will definitely balance out your bad undergrad grades.
Legal writing is very different from academic writing. You don't realize how different it is because you haven't done any academic writing lately, which I am assuming since you don't already have a writing sample. The reading is different, too. It's a very different type of reading and a lot more of it. There is a learning curve to transition back. Sitting down and writing a sample for your applications will be more difficult than you think it is. With your grades and no MA, the writing sample will make a huge difference in the quality and number of programs you get into.
I'm not trying to convince you not to apply. But whoever said, "This here is why every humanities job search in the country gets 33% of its applications from retired lawyers" is absolutely right. Society gives lawyers and doctors a boost that people in other professions don't get. People think we're smart or accomplished because we have the lawyer or doctor title. They think we must be smart because law and medical school are "hard". The bar exam is "hard". And when you go to a really good school with international recognition, people are basically bowing down and saying, "We're not worthy!"
And then we, as lawyers, start to buy into it. We start thinking that we can do any job or study any topic in the humanities because nothing is more difficult than practicing law. That is simply not true. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. You will, too. 
Good luck. For what it's worth, I hope you figure it out. There are too many unhappy lawyers in the world. But if I were you, I'd go for the slow transition.
Also, University of Virginia has an MA concentration in Law and Literature.
 

I refrained from commenting yesterday, and boy am I glad that I did.

This here is why every humanities job search in the country gets 33% of its applications from retired lawyers who decided they want to "give back to the community" and "teach a class on something or other I've been pursuing as a hobby on the weekends for the past 3 years". Yes, law school is different from literary scholarship. I've never set foot in a law school, and I can already tell you that you didn't spend the last 3 years building encyclopedic knowledge of a distant corner of some literary canon, maturing your ideas through planning, completing, and revising lengthy projects intimately connected to the matter of your scholarship, developing a relationship with major and minor literary theorists, and trying the daily bread of the trade, such as conferences, teaching, department politics, and which invited talks have the best doughnuts. Of course the skills you learned in law school are transferable - most skills are. Of course you're going to have an easier time transitioning into literature than into physics. But the same reason law school doesn't qualify you for any kind of work but law is the reason it doesn't qualify you for grad school in literature - because the really important ingredient to forming a sophisticated argument, besides being able to form an argument, is having something to form an argument about, and that comes from experience, which is a word for a lot of time spent working through a specific subject matter, which is the piece that many unsuccessful applicants don't have. Being a good writer or whatever is kind of the necessary but not sufficient piece; likewise, being a good mathematician is the best predictor for success in a math or economics program, but good mathematicians don't always make good physicists and economists because math is neither physics nor economics. Math is math, and law school is law school (I will have no Magritte jokes, please).
 

 
Oh boy. Tell you what, I don't know how much control over their lives lawyers have, but I do know that all academics but the likes of Hawking and Chomsky have very little control over their lives, and they are moreover not paid shit for it. An academic in the humanities usually can't choose where they will live, because they have to accept whatever position of employment is offered to them, even if it's in Bumfuck, New Jersey, they have little leeway in deciding when to work on things simply because they have to be working all the time, and the what and how are often limited by grant funding, department politics, and getting fucked in the ass by the administration for any attempt at non-compliance with the party line. You remember that guy who tweeted something untoward about Israel this time last year and immediately got fired (which, in academia, is the same as having your forehead branded with DO NOT HIRE, EVER - other offenses with similar punishment include going to a non-fancy school and adjuncting to pay your bills)? That could be you. When academics finally get control of their lives is when they are tenured, have made a name for themselves in a profession, and can show up on campus  maybe1 day a week to teach a graduate class and do nice things like give invited talks and write op-eds for the NYT, which happens when they're like 50 (in law, I think this is called "making partner").
Don't go into academia expecting to have a good work-life balance. Don't go into academia expecting to live the "life of the mind", chill out on the quad green, and make conversation with attractive undergrads and get paid for it. Professional scholarship is signing up for Investment Banking hours for months at a time, for the next 20 years of your life (if you're lucky - if you're not, you're thrown out and have to start your life over at 35, married, with two kids). 
 
Sigh. Sometimes I am annoyed at the VM thread, but other times I see posts like this and I understand the importance of VM's work.

I have a couple of sizable tattoos in places that aren't on show very often (thigh and below ribs) but, like the OP, I am considering getting one done on my forearm.
 
The advice so far has been good, so I'll just add the following:
 
When I worked as a high school teacher, there was a policy against visible tattoos. A colleague had a small one on her wrist which no one cared about and she didn't cover, but a colleague with a full sleeve tattoo was made to always wear long sleeves to work, which as a phys. ed. teacher was a source of some annoyance. If you think you might go into school teaching in the future (perhaps not likely with your subject field, but often a popular option for the academically minded), it might be worth considering whether covering your forearm every day would be a nuisance. While I don't often get negative responses to my tattoos, people do often ask me about them, so if you choose to get one which is very visible, I'd be prepared for a lot of "but what does it mean?"-type questions. It amazes me how much people feel they have a right to interrogate you on your modes of self-expression, even if they're well-meaning! I usually draw a sketch of my tattoo idea in waterproof liquid eyeliner on the place I'm considering getting it done, in order to see how it looks from various angles/how clothing falls across it. If you don't scrub it, it'll last a couple of days and you can see whether you like the placement. By doing this, I realised how often I roll up my sleeves to my elbow, and am now considering getting the tattoo just above the elbow, which I apparently reveal a lot less!

yaaa no.... people in this thread are saying that "they know they should pick their dream school" but insist on being neurotic and beating the question to death by asking everyone and anyone their opinion. even when all of those opinions align with "pick the dream school" these people STILL don't decline offers. you people are gross, selfish and awful.

Holy heck -- congrats!

Congratulations Enfant!! You have to change that fact on your signature now
 
I really wanted to go to Stanford, but didn't even get waitlisted. I'm counting on my Harvard waitlist now, I'll know for sure in the next day or two!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

I've just declined an offer from Toronto (PhD Medieval Studies). Hope it helps someone on here!

Yeah, I just declined an offer so I expect that will have set off a little cascade of acceptances and withdrawals. Places aren't all settled yet!

YAY!!!

Damn.  Way to go!

Crikey! That's amazing news!!! Congratulations!!!!

Yeah, I just declined an offer so I expect that will have set off a little cascade of acceptances and withdrawals. Places aren't all settled yet!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!

Wonderful, breaking news: Stanford just made me an offer. Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee doesn't even cover it!
 
Good luck to everyone waiting. IT CAN HAPPEN!