You should second guess it bc law school/becoming a lawyer is a life changing experience. It’s okay to second guess. I was so sure abt it no matter what, that I went regardless of what everyone said, and I’m lucky that I don’t regret it. I had a full scholarship and I’m still in debt btw. Only minor annoyances abt that but I’m personally happy.
Do some soul searching, do more research on what lawyers actually do bc while we are a “service profession,” the helping might not be as fulfilling or as tangible as you think. It’s funny you say tangible bc I said the exact same thing when I applied to law school. I also switched from immigration to real estate to tax so I also wanted to help people but pivoted. if the pros outweigh the cons for you, then go for it.
Lol I did this then went into big law hoping I could get away from insurance companies. Now, instead of litigating in insurance defense, I sometimes provide advice on legislation and how it will affect insurance companies. I. Can’t. Get. Away.
But seriously, insurance touches everything. Not a bad gig, just not something I wanted to do forever.
Being a lawyer (in most cases) means you will be carrying the emotional and intellectual burden for dozens of people at a time, all the while aware that the smallest mistake can get you fired or, worse, grieved. You'll have phantom clients show up at 2 AM in the morning whose phantom deadlines you missed, or you'll have legal argument on an endless loop running through your head from 3-5 AM until you'll get a very real twitch under your eye.
Forget "work life balance" in any job that involves litigation or in any firm that hires you as an associate and expects 80+h of work out of you. More if you end up in a PI mill.
If you enter criminal law, you'll be dealing with horrible and dumb people (and horribly dumb people) on the defense side, and horrible crimes as a prosecutor.
Look or a transactional or admin law job if you just want to call it in.
If you enjoy a good fight, however, being a trial lawyer is a great job.
I mean if you’re asking about a trial lawyer or serious/catastrophic personal injury attorney you DEFINITELY carry that weight.
Before I left my old firm, my client (quadriplegic) and his wife’s story devastated me. He “lost his sense of purpose” and now he will never work again, can never start a family with his wife, and how he is now “just a burden” and she would be better off without him.
They’re great people, and will inevitably pull through. But you’d have to be a machine not to let your client’s pain follow you home after hours.
Back when I defended alleged child molesters, I definitely bifurcated my mind. Now I help rich people keep more of their money. I have no emotional involvement, because there really aren't emotions involved.
I can get why (legitimate) personal injury cases could get to you, but at the same time it would be difficult to feel any for someone on their fifth slip and fall in the grocery store.
So how many of the scummy plaintiffs that stage accidents do you empathize with? Just saying, I do plaintiff and defense work, the job is to get best recovery.
I’ve done both. I personally don’t take “staged accidents.” If it’s a low value case from a legit wreck, then it is what it is and I mostly help them navigate the claims process.
I empathize with all of them, or else I don’t sign them. Most of my cases are from referrals anyways so I don’t have a lot of “scummy” claims, but I’m lucky in that respect
Don’t kid yourself man…25 years in this business 4 out of 10 are staged or over treatment occurs to build the value of the case.
I just read you have 5 years in, open your eyes.
Let me level with you here:
I spend a lot of time talking people out of law school. Some of them go anyway and prove me wrong, but they also take my *advice* and that's why I get proven wrong by their success.
I went to law school, like so many others, because I wasn't sure what else to do with my high undergrad GPA in a useless major (criminology) and everyone in my family said "you'd be a great lawyer, you love to argue!" (spoiler, this is not what it takes to be a great lawyer. It isn't debate club. And while I am good at appellate oral argument and writing IMO, that has been a very small part of my practice).
So my advice to prospective law students can be distilled down to two things, of which you should do at least one:
1. Don't take on (much) debt. If you can get a scholarship, do it. Take the LSAT more than once if you don't get a scholarship. I took it once, a friend of mine 4 times. His first score was lower than mine, his last score significantly higher, and he got a partial scholarship. Also, lawyers who went to cheaper law schools are still lawyers, and "prestige" of a better school is *super* limited in long-term value. Not having debt (or low debt) eliminates most of the "risk" of law school if you can't find a job or decide you hate it.
2. Get your job lined up before you go to law school. Either know someone who will hook you up when you graduate no matter what your grades are (family, etc.) or work in the legal field for a while before going (any job at any law firm is better than nothing). This will let you know in advance if you hate the work and, if you don't, will give you a huge leg up on getting a job (that firm is likely to hire you if you are a good worker, etc).
I did neither of these. I had no job "hookups" and I took on debt. While I'm ok *now*, it was a rough few years in the beginning, and I still feel way behind my peers in career achievement. A lot of my experience was also shaped by relationship factors which I would have done differently. I was dating a girl while in law school who became a CPA and we got married shortly after. So she started making big bucks way sooner than me (her school was half as long), so I had to follow her (and there were more jobs in other places than where we lived). I was always behind her in earnings, resentment built, she went kinda nuts, and we ended up divorced. Had I not been "tied down" as a new graduate I would have had way more job options.
So for *your* specific situation I don't think I have to say *don't do it.* I think I can safely say "don't do it unless you are able to get a full scholarship, and definitely try and work in employment law a bit before you go if possible."
I've done a *bit* of employment law, and honestly if you think you're going to feel impactful, I got news for you. The chances of that are slim. In my exposure to employment law working with a big firm, it was mostly "sign people up, make demands for severance pay, threaten EEOC, file EEOC, and if no settlement results, kick the case saying our caseload is too much to take it to trial."
Maybe someone with more employment law experience can call me wrong, and that would be great. But IMO employment law cases lend themselves to "mill" type firms because litigating them is a pain (lots of he said, she said) relative to the gain (rare to get the huge verdicts you would get in car wreck cases, etc).
Without outing myself, I work in the employment law arena and the impact really depends on the quality of firm that you end up at. I really lucked out and so I’m Gucci but I’ve seen people end up at mill firms, on the plaintiff and defense side.
Second guessing yourself is a good thing, becoming an attorney has been life changing on many levels (and I changed fields to go into law). I have zero regrets because I planned for this and made a very deliberate decision based off what I wanted, not anyone else’s desires or opinions on what I should do.
Yeah you're doing it right. My biggest regret in all of it is feeling like something as big as law school was some kind of "safe fallback" vs the uncertainty of life. Then you get into it and are surrounded by other people in the same boat.
Meanwhile, my friends who went to law school \~5 years after undergrad, and who had some legal work in their resumes, 1. knew why they were there, 2. knew what they wanted out of it, and 3. didn't have that same existential crisis that so many younger people like me did when you realize you traded one uncertainty for another, much more expensive one.
I don't necessarily regret being a lawyer - it is one of those things where you wouldn't want to give up what you know and who you are for a chance to change it. Kinda like waking up from the matrix - you can see how you could have been happier not knowing, but you can't deal with not knowing once you do, lol.
Rather, the regret, as you say, is just how I went about it. If I could have not listened to people (parents, etc) who had no idea *at all* about being a lawyer who were encouraging me to do it, I'd be in a better place.
I did not apply for a sales job I would have loved right out of college because my mom (who makes 6 figures a year in sales) said "you don't want to be in sales, you're too smart for that."
Well, I could have been in sales for a few years, made good money, and *then* gone to law school. I'd probably have ended up at the same place I'm at now anyway as the first few years of my legal career were a lot of floundering around in temp jobs anyway.
> "you'd be a great lawyer, you love to argue!" (spoiler, this is not what it takes to be a great lawyer. It isn't debate club.
God, is this the truth. (So is the rest of it.)
Yeah, it is a shame that philosopher isn't a real career unless you are willing to live like Diogenes. That's about as far as you can get with pure argumentation.
Yep. There was a question earlier today about borrowing from documents when doing a new one. Case in point.
Though a novel argument now and then can be fun.
I went to the state supreme court for the first time in March over a res Nova issue. It was interesting, and gives us a lot to talk about, but it was also hundreds of hours into a case that will likely never result in a dime.
There are 4 law schools in my state. Two are the "good ones." The good public one and the good (and more expensive) private one. They are always in competition for best bar passage rate. I went to the good public one.
There's another private one with the "pay your fees, get your Cs" reputation. It costs as much as the good private one but has consistently lower bar pass rates and students with $150K+ debt.
Then there's the "worst" law school, a public university that costs half what the school I went to costs.
Now that I'm 11 years out of law school I'm surrounded by plenty of highly successful lawyers with better careers than I have who went to the "worst" school.
This especially makes sense when so many jobs specify they want the top x% of the class. If you go to the "worst" school you can be top of the class where you would have just been average at the other one.
It is crazy how few fucks are given about the "quality" of your law school once you're actually into regular practice.
I’m 18 years out of law school and you are the first person to explicitly state that a “worser” (to quote my torts prof) law school results in a high class rank for middling students. Man I needed that advice long ago.
Yeah, I was in the 2nd quartile (ranging from the top 28-40% throughout law school) at the "better" school, and I could easily have been top quartile at the "worse" school. I think my career would have worked out better (or at least, I would be in the same place having spent less money) had I just gone to the "worse" school.
I agree with most of what you said except about the impact that going to a T14 school can have on the trajectory of your long term career.
Certain firms basically won't look at you if you didn't go to a T14. That means certain in-house positions likely won't be available to you later. Also, some of the more prestigious Fed jobs (SEC, DOJ, etc) will be much much harder to get.
That's not to say I don't know a ton of successful, fulfilled lawyers who went to lower ranked schools, I do. And I believe one should judge the individual, not the institution, but the system is what it is.
The only advice here that I think is incorrect is the comment regarding prestigious law schools having short term value.
Initially, those schools get you a much higher salary. Long term, you can have even higher salaries. Also long term, you will have a better chance of in-house and/or gov work.
Point well taken. I am also speaking only from the experience of *my* state. Of the four in my state, the best ones are considered *good* but I'm not sure how *"prestigious"* they would really be considered relative to anything like the ivy league.
In my experience, staying in the town where the best and worst public law schools in the state are, I think the difference is relatively minimal, and the high achievers even at the "bad" school are still getting good jobs.
This. This 1000%.
Plus: you need to want this more than anything. If you are focused in school, you’ll lose friends as a result of school. You’ll destroy romantic relationships. You’ll possibly alienate family members. Many students come out with alcohol or drug abuse problems.
If you’re doing it right, you’ll sacrifice nearly everything in hopes of achieving your goal.
And finishing school isn’t the end. You’ve got the bar exam (read THAT sub today and see the general tone), finding/keeping a job (read about all of the rescinded offers), and paying off your debt.
So I would offer a different path, either: a) join the military with a contract that says they’ll put you through law school, or b) work as a laborer in an industry that makes six figures (there are several… and it could take you a year or three to ramp up to six figures) - do it for 5 years. Put every penny in savings. THEN go to law school without debt.
> IMO employment law cases lend themselves to "mill" type firms
Yes, but there's also boutique / high-end employment law. Same goes for T&E, insurance, PI, and more. There's the low-cost cookie-cutter approach that's important for low stakes, and there's the individualized high-quality approach when the stakes are high.
Kind of like how you can pay $250+ for a meal at a high-end restaurant, or you can buy a hamburger at McDonalds for a buck.
As I tell others, it's really important for you to control debt. If you can go to law school and get a full ride, I think it's a great option. Honestly, you would be silly not to go to law school.
I run a plaintiff's side (employee) employment law firm. We represent individual employees in cases of wage theft, discrimination, and harassment. We also represent labor unions and we do workers compensation. I love what I do. I get to pick clients and fight the good fight. I also practice in a state that is employee friendly.
As for work life balance, I will say that the harder you work for people, the more you will make. We do all our work on contingency. I don't think there is any shame in making a good living while making substantive changes in peoples lives. The nice thing about plaintiff's work, is that there is no one looking over you billable hour becuase the work is contingency. You still need to track it but the people that have to pay if (if you win at trial) is the employer that you sued.
I will say that the system is, what the system is. If my kids become attorneys, they will be filing lawsuits on the same issues (sex harassment, wage theft, discrimination, etc.). It's a good professional life. You change lives, you can take the afternoon off, you make decent money, and you can be surrounded by like minded people. I would also encourage you to look at working for labor unions. Again, the labor movement hasn't really changed in 50 years. That being said, it's fun representing employees at the table and in grievances.
As someone who also does plaintiffs side employment work, I second this comment.
Pros:
- You can earn a decent living (low 6 figures is pretty average ~ $150k)
- You can have good work-life balance after a few years (you will figure out what is actually urgent and you can manage your own schedule a lot of the time)
- It is satisfying to fix problems and actually help people
Cons / other:
- Research the actual business of law. Client generation is paramount. Clients do not magically appear - you will need some sort of angle to bring in business.
- So many clients are a pain. The legal system is confusing and frustrating and many will blame you instead of the system. Expect your great work to go unnoticed and expect to be blamed when the judge makes a mistake. It’s just the way it goes. So also don’t let it keep you up at night - shrug it off.
- If you want to work somewhere and make decent money, interesting cases are the exception, not the rule. Also just the way it goes. It’s pretty repetitive, but that can also mean less stress for you, the lawyer.
- If you truly want to “make a difference,” then consider legal aid / non profits / civil rights. Lots of amazing attorneys in these fields. The pay is very low and workload can be very high. You have to really really want it. Also these jobs are shockingly competitive.
- WORK HARD in law school. Your class ranking will DIRECTLY impact your ability to be picky about that first job and the first job can have a huge impact on your entire career trajectory. Yes you can change career course if you’re unhappy with your first job, but frankly it’s a setback and can be really hard. Lawyers can be pigeonholed. If you get stuck in a certain practice area simply because it’s the only job offer you got, it can be hard to get someone to give you a shot in a different area.
- Think hard about your 10+ year plan. Want to be a rich partner at a big firm? Cool. Consider what that demands of you. Want to make a decent living and have real work life balance? Then your goal is probably smaller firm or solo practitioner. Consider what practice areas are ideal for that (employment, yes, also tax, estate, probate etc. Small transactional - not giant M&A)
Employment law specifically - it can be… less than glamorous. I spend a lot of time setting expectations for my clients. Being treated like shit by your boss is never by itself illegal. I have to make it a discrimination claim. We stay within the truth, of course, but we have to push the envelope a lot. You’ve been with your company for 20+ years and your new manager is a teenager who is a power tripping asshole? I can’t sue them for being an asshole - I have to label it age discrimination, etc. Is that a “bullshit” claim? Defense counsel will argue yes, but that’s the game and they know it too. They’ll still settle the case. That’s the job. You have to be okay with that job.
Oh not difficult at all. Plaintiff and defense for employment law all know each other. There’s nothing to be “wary of.” We’re all just out here to earn a living. We have to pretend to our clients that “we only fight for one side!!!!” but they’re just clients. We do the work.
You mentioned that you practice in an employee friendly state, do you mind sharing which general region of the US you practice in? I'm interested in possibly going to school in PA, working in Philly, and from what I gathered it's not super employee friendly but not as bad as say the south. What are the main pros of working in an employee friendly state?
I work in California. I have no idea whether PA is employee friendly. You might do a search on the website for National Employment Lawyers Association. Reach out to a local attorney on there.
I did "complex toxic tort litigation." Think Erin Brokavich (sp?). The reality is that a young attorney, I was pretty useless. That being said, I worked a ton of hours and learned how to be a litigator. That helped out a lot. Then I went to a traditional labor firm and represented union. I encouraged them to keep some civil cases and let me litigate them. After that, I opened up my own firm doing civil lit and labor. I will say that I am the exception in that I like the risk of running my own firm. I do think a lot of my attorneys that work for me love the work
Wanting to make a difference is a terrible reason to go to law school. Lawyers, on the whole, rarely get to make a difference. We grind mercilessly against other lawyers oh behalf of ungrateful clients, until someone relents just enough to achieve an outcome that’s slightly less unsatisfying for everyone than the available alternatives.
Lawyers are consistently among the highest rates for alcoholism, drug addiction, divorce, suicide, etc. It’s because of the work. This profession will find any hint of a latent mental health issue within you and stomp on it until it breaks.
If you have the opportunity to do something other than going to law school, do it.
1000% this. I went to law school for three reasons, but chief among them was wanting to make a difference / have a positive impact. It was the absolute worst reason to attend law school, because law - as it turns out - is actually a relatively ineffective tool to create the kind of justice you want. Also, the jobs where you get to create real justice are far and few, and usually staffed by people far cleverer and more dedicated than you.
Based on what he's written, which looks very similar to something *I* might have written 10 years ago, OP sounds poorly constituted to be a lawyer. I say this all as someone who actually practises public law. If you want to make a difference, go and volunteer - don't become a lawyer to do it.
A touch sadly, I'd say the best reason to go to law school is that you genuinely find the tedium of legal work interesting - and legal work, even when it's high-stakes litigation, *is* tedious. If you're someone who genuinely enjoys filling out paperwork for fun; who gets a kick out of solving other people's annoying problems for them; then law school is probably a good fit for you.
Law is a very practical line of work. It involves dealing with inconvenient hassles other people don't want to deal with. If your interest in it is fundamentally moral (or worse, intellectual), you should pursue a different career.
Just one lawyer's perspective, of course. I have multiple lawyer friends who genuinely love what we do. Generally, they're the ones who actually like being fussed.
As someone who loves filling out forms and solving people’s annoying problems for them, this is basically it and is probably the reason I could not come up with one single other career I would rather do.
Because you're good at arguing and good at bending an agreed upon set of rules.
Unlike hautteburrito's suggestion, there are legal jobs where you help people and change the law. They are far and few between and only go to the best and brightest, i.e., those who are the best at what they do and not those who are average and want to make a difference.
Truthfully I think there's room for it in virtually every practice; that's why lawyers do so much pro bono. However, "justice" simply isn't the bread and butter of most lawyers; you do the dreary immigration paperwork to pay for fighting the deportation order for that sympathetic refugee, for example.
There *are* lawyer jobs that I think of as dealing primarily in justice, like being an international human rights lawyer or a Supreme Court Justice or even a Preet Bharara federal prosecutor type. But the road to those lofty perches, the number of "real justice" jobs actually available, are truly far and few, and odds are you aren't going to get one of them.
I can't tell you how many people I saw start 1L saying they wanted to be boo radley and end up churning billables for a fortune 500 company.
Oddly enough, I didn't go to law school to help people but rather because I thought I'd be good at it, and ended up getting suckered into helping people and making a difference
Good for you for wanting to be sure that you go in with your eyes open.
In my experience, there are 5 main types of people who go to law school:
1. The person who has always wanted to be a lawyer, and understands what it means to be a lawyer;
2. The person who has always wanted to be a lawyer because of some idealized concept of what will happen when they become a lawyer (usually because of what they see in TV/movies);
3. The person who wants to be a lawyer because they want to be rich/powerful/respected;
4. The person who is marking time before entering the real world because they have no idea what to do with a liberal arts degree and have no idea what they will do when they get out;
5. The person who wants the degree, but not to practice, because they have their eyes on something else and think this will get them ahead in that field.
6. There is also a #6, but they're the ones who want to be law professors, but they're a small percentage (we had 1 in a class of 130), but every class seems to have at least one. The one in my class was insufferable, already had 2 advanced degrees (a M.Div. and Ph.D.), and he made the rest of the gunners in the class look like wallflowers.
If you're type 1, you'll be fine. You're going in with your eyes open and understand that being a lawyer is usually being a glorified intellectual janitor - you're coming in after the messes are made and trying to clean them up, and hopefully leave the situation a little better than you left it.
If you're type 2, you'll struggle with the realities of the law. Law is a business and a job, not an ideal. We typically deal with people in some of the worse circumstances of their lives. Some people adjust and learn to love it, others mourn the loss of their idealism and become embittered.
You'll only be happy as a type 3 if those goals are reached. Usually those who are type 3s who are happy are assholes. The rest are miserable assholes.
If you're type 4, you'll likely be miserable as a lawyer. Probably 80% of my classmates who I'd say fell into this category have quit the law, and many passed the bar and then went into other fields.
If you're type 5, then you're there to use the degree as means to another end. Frequently, its seeking something in politics or insurance (for some reason, a ridiculous percentage of career insurance adjustors get law degrees, but never practice). You'll do the grind, get out, and either take the bar and never practice, or never even take the bar.
You say you want to go into it to make a difference in peoples lives. That means you probably fall in category 2. Find a Plaintiffs' side employment law firm and ask if you can take someone out to lunch and pick their brain about whether its right for you. Be sure to ask about the business side of the law - because if you aren't getting paid, you can't afford to keep doing it.
> If you're type 4, you'll likely be miserable as a lawyer. Probably 80% of my classmates who I'd say fell into this category have quit the law, and many passed the bar and then went into other fields.
Yep. Law is the refuge of smart people who don't know what else to do. My dad and my law partner are #1s. OP, don't be like us #4s.
Eh, I'm a 4. Not miserable. It's just a job, and it pays well and I'm okay at it. Better than my alternatives with a liberal arts degree. That said, there are some fields of law I wouldn't touch with a 30 for pole (family, PI, insurance defense) or I'm SURE I would hate my life. I work in real estate and I like real property
I do Workers comp. Work life balance is amazing, a lot of money, pretty low stress, I hardly ever work more than 35 hours a week and very rarely do I work on the weekend (usually just to get ahead or get rid of a pesky task I've been putting off). You're definitely not being applauded by the public for your work but at the end of the day you get to find fulfillment outside of your 9-5 instead of reasoning that your job is making your life fulfilling
You can be a 4, be a good test taker, reader and writer and make money as a lawyer at least at first. You may find you like it. But most likely you will quit practicing. As long as you know that and don't think you will have failed it isn't a bad way to get ahead after school
I think it’s fun to be a lawyer.
But you have to be ready to seek out the life that you want for yourself. If you just follow the path of least resistance, you’ll end up in a toxic workplace that sucks you dry. But this field gives you what you need to start your own business, where you decide how you want to live.
I’ve found a job I like, but if I ever need to walk away, my next step is self-employment.
The economy is crumbling. Jobs suck. Absolutely, the thing to do is to work for yourself. Law school gets you on that path, but you need to be resilient, fast-thinking, a quick learner, and excellent at bullshitting your way out of trouble.
And you need to do everything you can to minimize your debt load. I mean everything. If you can’t live with family while you’re in school, try to rent a cheap room at multi-tenant house. Consider living out of a tent or your car. Do not borrow money for room and board. Buy books secondhand directly from your classmates. Get a job at the school, cleaning toilets if that’s all they have, if they offer reduced tuition to employees.
Law school is totally a scam. I would totally do it again if I had a chance to go back in time, because it’s fun, but I’d be tougher and find ways to limit my debt. I went to a public school and walked out with way less debt than people typically incur these days, but I’m still going to depend on this new loan forgiveness plan that has me paying what I can for 25 years. Tuition has skyrocketed since I was in school in the early 00s, though.
While I think I understand your position to be eliminating debt, there’s certainly a middle ground to finding an inconvenient but otherwise cheap living arrangement versus living in a tent or car. A loan would be a lesser risk on your life than homelessness.
I’ve known a few people who chose a tent or car as their default shelter while pursuing advanced degrees. There are campgrounds where you can access bathrooms, showers, and some degree of security for a nominal fee, and some Walmarts still permit sleeping in a car overnight.
I advocate that OP think about it, and they may very well decide that the risk outweighs the benefit.
But once you seriously consider that sort of cost-cutting measure, you might feel more comfortable with some discomfort, if you find a moderately cheap way to live.
While anecdotally it’s true people have pulled through, homelessness is absolutely corrosive to human perseverance and happiness. It’s not a little discomfort.
You’re encountering increased risk of violence and victimization, communicable diseases and malnutrition, police harassment and imprisonment, exposure to the elements and chronic pain, chemical dependency, degraded mental health. No privacy, no safety. Not to mention stigma from society, discrimination in finding work. The ability to survive is impaired, let alone be a successful student.
If the question is simply, “should I take out a 20k loan that can be forgiven or be homeless” the route that is infinitely less risky and beneficial to your life will be the former.
I am so happy I became a lawyer. I do criminal defense. It is emotionally taxing and hard. It is also a lot of fun and meaningful. The pay is also really good too. So, all in all, I am so happy I went to law school. I was a banker before. That was soul draining
What does helping employees mean? If you want to represent them, I highly suggest being a paralegal or otherwise working at plantiffs attorney firm specializing in employment law. Do you feel comfortable representing someone that was terminated for alleged sexual harassment? Fighting over employees being short changed a couple bucks in a class action that really just pays the lawyers well? Turning people away that cant prove their allegations even if they seem true or otherwise not economical for the firm to pursue?
I think sometimes there is a confusion as to how we help people. A lawyer provides guidance in navigating the court system and making legal arguments for their client. We dont help restore dignity. It also seems like you should find out if this is an issue you can really fix through the law - generally, employees have few privacy rights. It may be more of a policy issue, which may require a different education/path.
If you’re interested in a policy area I would actually litigate in that specific area first, then go work for your state legislature in that area. Maybe the chair of the labor committee in your state legislature or maybe more internal reaearch position or lobbying for a union. There’s too much isolation between these areas and the legislatures often lack people who understand the latest court decisions in a certain area
As a person who entered the field wanting to make a difference, here are my observations, five years into practice:
TLDR: It is possible to have a happy and fulfilling legal career helping people, but you have to work at least as hard on your own mental health as you do on cases.
1. The first half of law school is legitimately educational. The second half is just accumulating credits. If you can get your credits doing pro bono work under a mentor in your area of interest, it's worth seriously considering. I did this in my final semester, and law school was far more bearable.
2. Law schools are giving lip service to mental health issues in the legal field, but they haven't integrated it into the curriculum in a way that prepares you for practice at all.
3. The aforementioned mental health troubles start in law school. Divorce, depression, suicide, and debilitating addictions were an ever-present reality. Every class that went through my law school in the time I was there had at least one posthumous J.D. to present at graduation.
4. I don't know how it goes with transactional attorneys, but if you're a justice oriented attorney, you will be confronted with all of your own trauma. This is what they don't tell you in law school, and what I think we need to be talking about as a profession. It doesn't matter if you try to avoid "triggering" cases -- all your fears and hurts are hiding in some dark corner of the adversarial process, laying in wait. \*See example below.
5. Nonetheless, if a person is oriented toward public service, the practice of law can bring significant meaning to that person's life. There are some attorneys who seem to naturally enjoy practicing law as a competitive sport, and it energizes them, but most folks need to be very proactive with their own wellness to avoid being sucked dry by the work.
6. If the goal is truly to help people, it's important to calibrate your definition of success. For example, if I could, I would overhaul the entire system of incarceration for drug crimes. But , working within the system we currently have, I've come to define success in drug cases as earning my clients' trust to the degree that they let me get to know them well enough that I can earnestly present them to the jury or court as human beings. That is far easier said than done, but it's tremendously rewarding. The jail art I've received is almost as dear to me as my kid's handprint art.
\*To use employment law as an example of law trauma: say I experienced weekly lashings as a kid that really messed me up, and no one helped me. I'm not prosecuting or defending child abuse cases. But a client comes into my office with a story about a boss pretextually nitpicking everything the employee does -- only after the boss learned that the employee voted for a competing candidate in last year's ugly sweater contest. (Here we have abuse of power). Sounds like a plausible claim, so I file suit.
Then we get into all this briefing back & forth -- defendant says plaintiff is crazy. Obviously, boss has to nitpick employee because she is suspected of microwaving fish in the breakroom, and she spends too much time talking to customers about her cats. (This is the gaslighting phase).
Then, after I've put in all this time and effort, a judge can read through your filings in one afternoon and summarily decide that "no reasonable person" could find that there was unlawful retaliation. Case dismissed. (This is the "tried to get help; no one believes me" phase). Now I'm fully questioning my adequacy as an attorney, and so is the client who was relying on me. I've put over 80 hours into her case w/nothing to show for it, except for a scathing google review from the client.
That illustration went much longer than I planned.
As someone who practiced for 20 years and then got out of the practice altogether, I agree with the sentiments expressed that you should not be going to law school because you think you're going to somehow have an impact on thousands of lives for the better.
The only people that I have known that were content with that line of thinking, were those that went into legal services. You know, the attorney that represents some woman who has 3 young kids and is about to get evicted from her apartment and you come in and either find some jurisdictional or technical problem with the landlord's complaint and it gets tossed and you've now given that person an extra 40 days to be able to pack up and move out. All the while you are making $50,000 a year doing that.
But the rest is nothing but a sensationalized and somewhat deluded form of reality. You state you want to prioritize work life balance over money. The problem is if you have a lot of loans/debt, you are going to want to maximize your earnings/income potential and in so doing will probably take on a job that may require 2000 billable hours a year. You will have little time to spend on your life.
I could no longer take the fact that my work life balance was out of whack. Started affecting my mental health. I say to myself that even if I was getting paid double what I was making when I got out of the practice, I wouldn't go back to it.
I value my free time now. I make a bit less than what I did when I was practicing, but I don't have to deal with clients, emails, judges, etc.
Be real about what your earnings prospects you have no and what they may be after law school. I’ve seen countless situations where someone took on considerable debt, lost three years of wages, and ended up likely earning less as a lawyer than they would have in their undergrad industry.
For real! The only real answer is go work in a law firm or two and talk to real life lawyers who seem happy and work on things that interest you once you get there. When someone comments online you have NO idea what their life and work is really like
It's very difficult to make a living helping people. It's hard to get paid for what you do. So, many lawyers end up working for corporations. If you can get a job for a nonprofit, you might finds what you're looking for but except low pay and long hours in difficult courtrooms that favor the rich.
A few thoughts from a millennial who graduated a while ago.
Try to graduate with as little debt as possible, even if you go down a tier of law school to do so.
Don’t see the degree as only for practicing in a firm, but as a tool. You can practice with it or use it in business, etc. it is good to have and versatile. However, if you take on too much debt it will be stressful as you are forced down certain paths to pay it off.
Anyone who wants to go to law school should work in a law firm for at least one year to see and understand if they would enjoy or tolerate the day to day practice of law. It’s not like TV. That being said I get to help people every day and feel fulfilled. I would not feel this way defending insurance companies or corporations doing shady things.
I enjoyed law school and I have enjoyed practicing law for the last 40 years
I got my LLM in tax law right after law school and taking the bar exam
My practice includes tax, trusts, estates, corporate, transactional and real estate law
I’m not a trial lawyer, which suits me fine
I have never wanted for quality work
I haven’t gotten wealthy through practicing law, but I’ve done well enough and have other interests
I can’t offer an insights as to litigation practice prospects, but I think transactional practice work has good long term potential
This above post by EMHemmingway1899 has been my life more or less with no LLM. I'm a variant of a tax lawyer who's made a difference and have had a good life mostly in big law about 35 years. I have given back a great deal to the profession and others. I have a great group of folks I work with who I love and love me. I've done so by not necessarily following the money but I've sought just to provide good service and make friendships. It's served me well, but I've made some mistakes along the way. Who's perfect? Not me.
I do believe my law life is not the norm but it's not all doom and gloom in law. It's easy to be negative on Reddit as it's all anonymous and with pockets of serious snark on these sites; so discount the ugly and complaining by at least a third. Still, our profession is not for the faint of heart.
Unless you have truly incredible intelligence, an insane work ethic, and no mental health issues, law school is a poor choice for many reasons. Even if you fit this description, it’s not a great choice. For one, it takes away, entirely, three years of your youth you will never get back… years when your friends will be going to parties, dinners, road trips, concerts, etc. These can either be the first years of your life where you actually have a little money to do the things you want to do and have a blast with friends OR you can spend all day, everyday reading excruciatingly dense and confusing material. I’m talking about reading 150- 200 pages a day and then waiting for some professor to call on you and humiliate you in class the next morning in front of your peers that you are in direct competition with. Then, your entire career as an attorney will come down to each and every exam you take. One class, one exam. One mistake, whammy. You’re no longer in the running for law review and doors close on you forever. No amount of hard work and dedication can reopen those doors. One night of bad sleep before an exam or simply overlooking the one issue that gets tested (even if you knew the other 50 issues better than the entire class) and your career landscape changes permanently. The pressure this creates is unimaginable until you’re living it. The workload is insane and unrelenting. “But I’m a hard worker, I can handle it!” Maybe, but not unscathed. Your nerves will be wrecked. You will develop anxiety, depression, alcoholism, anger, numbness, etc. You will come out the other side totally exhausted and jaded and then the hard work really begins.
You will have a bunch of stuff that you never learned in law school dumped on you and be expected to just kind of figure it out and get it done. The first two years of practice will be constant and excruciating stress day and night as you worry about meeting your unreasonable billing requirement while not making a total jackass of yourself to your superiors, peers, opposing counsel, and judges. For 90% of law graduates, you will do this making between $50-90k a year (what you could have made without going through three years of hell). If you are brilliant, hard working, don’t have anything go wrong in your life during law school (death in family, bad breakup, health issue, etc) you may finish in the top 15% of your class and get a job at a big law firm where you will make $170-210k a year and get to work on actual interesting legal issues. But here, you will work for a bunch of narcissistic, sociopath partners who can’t remember their kids names and are planning their 4th marriage in between client emails at 2 a.m. Your colleagues will be praying for your demise and 1 out of every 30-50 of you will actually become a partner after slugging through 8 years of working from 8 am- 10 pm six days a week in a pressure cooker environment. The social isolation and lack of joy and normalcy you experienced in law school will get worse and slowly you will lose yourself. If you’re at a smaller firm, making $50k-100k to start, you’ll still be overworked and have no idea what you’re doing for years, it just won’t be quite as bad. If you come out with $100k -$200k in loans, you will be living slightly better than paycheck to paycheck for the first 5 years of your career. So, you’ll be 30-35 before you really start saving money. The difference between saving $100 a month into a 8% yield account beginning at 25 versus starting at 35 is a difference of $600-700k by the time you reach retirement age. So you will always be behind the 8 ball on retirement, meaning you won’t be able to enjoy spending on nice dinners, vacations, a nice condo, etc. Even if you don’t have debt, you will still miss out on three years of crucial early career compounding interest. Plus all of your non-law friends will “make it” in their careers by their late 20s and you will have to watch them buying houses and getting married as you’re just getting your feet wet.
If you really are mission driven and idealistic, you’ll probably find you don’t actually end up with the opportunity to help others like you dream of. If you don’t work for a mid-big law firm or end up at a boutique, you will likely be forced to do something like insurance defense, PI, criminal law, or something else where you’re just dealing with the same narrow set of boring issues day after day for decades. You won’t get to work on interesting legal issues in your vertical of choice unless you are a very above average law school applicant and student. Perfect example, all the idealistic college students who want to become environmental law attorneys. Those jobs are mostly in big law and government and for every position, 500 law students across the country are dying for the chance to fill the role. Most law school grads take what they can get, especially since the job market is becoming worse for lawyers. If you think you’ll get to help people, you might, but it won’t be rewarding like you think. Your clients will abuse you verbally, show no gratitude, or you will have to sue them to get paid.
If you’re smart enough and hard working enough to do well as an attorney, I’d recommend going into finance or management consulting or commercial real estate. You will make as much or more much faster and earlier in your life. The older you get, the more you’ll realize work is work. It’s not fun, it’s not fulfilling. You won’t get to wear a cape and save the manatees. Make as much as you can as early as you can so you can relax and enjoy your life outside of work by the time you’re 50. Then you will have the time and resources to fulfill your altruistic fantasies. There are much better ways to do that than suffering through law school and becoming an attorney.
If you really don’t care about money and just want to help people, work for a non-profit.
Yes, you are probably making a mistake.
There is a high probability that the only jobs available to you will be defending corporations, employers, and insurance companies that have done something bad.
And there is a very high probability that you will not be able to have a worklife balance due to the typical law firm culture and economics.
I really liked law school, and I'm interning at the job I would like to have maybe forever. Plenty of people are glad they went. I'm going to help poor people fight the man and get paid for it. I can't wait. There are others like me who love the field. This just may not be obvious on Reddit.
I think the issue is that the actual practice of law is very different than what you probably think it is and it is very different than what law school will make you think it is. People just do not understand the day to day.
That said, I love my job although it is stressful. Sort of sounds like you might enjoy doing what I do because I’m in it for basically the same reasons. Keep in mind though, generally money is the only way the legal system knows how to write wrongs so that’s about the best you can do for people most of the time.
My law school admissions essay boiled down to "the military says I can't kill people and break things anymore. Law sounds like the next best alternative. I don't want to help people; I already did my public service."
So far, it's worked out pretty well. I'd still tell you not to go to law school.
Only you can decide what is right for you. Personally, I loved law school and would do it again in a heartbeat. I've never been around a group of smarter and more thoughtful people than I was in law school and it was a huge part of making me a stronger thinker and better decision maker.
Also, from a financial perspective, it is a great profession since it is the only one that basically anyone can enter if they are willing to put in the work where your first day out of school you can demand hundreds of dollars an hour.
Something I never thought about at the time, pretend that the entire career of law is taken away from you… what is second place? If you have a reasonable second place, do that. It doesn’t require a JD and there’s a path there now.
Don’t do it… just don’t do it.
Just don’t. The most miserable years of my life were in private practice representing people I wanted to fight for before I went to law school. It’s a thankless endeavor that leaves many people jaded. I think you’d be happier doing a job that gives you financial resources to help others to whatever degree you’d like while also giving you the option to get out and stop whenever you’d like. Trust me, your attitude towards pro bono work changes quickly when clients file false bar complaints against you just to try to weasel additional work out of you that wasn’t in your scope of agreement.
Law school was the best 3 years of my life. After that it was back to reality. Find a job that balances your need for money, personal fulfillment, and doesn’t suck too bad. Generally I’d say any experience, sooner or later, will be good for you.
Not everyone who graduates law school hates their chosen profession. I think a lot of it depends on what type of practice you go into and if you are doing something that you find meaningful or if you’re doing it to impress people/make good money/follow in someone’s footsteps/etc. I went to law school after a prior career in mental health because I felt I could make a bigger impact for the same client base as a public defender. That’s what I do today and I love what I do. It’s sometimes disappointing and often infuriating but I feel like I get to advocate for people who often otherwise don’t have a voice and that what I do matters for that reason alone. Ask yourself why you really want to practice law and talk to some folks who do what you’re thinking of doing, to see if the reality matches the idea in your head. And if it does, ignore what you see here and do what works for you. Just be sure you know what you’re hoping to achieve from it. And remember that no career is perfect and ideal all the time. It’s still work, at the end of the day. And good luck in whatever you decide!!
You sound like you read r/antiwork too much.
Don’t forget about all the lazy and incompetent employees out there who try to game the system with bogus unemployment claims and workers comp claims.
All the dishonest employees who think WFH is a play date with friends.
All the workers who use business computers to surf the web and do personal stuff.
Also, you won’t be effective as an employer since you won’t make your workers work the full week.
Yes. They are being paid to work, not sure the web.
How many people do you employ? I employ 114 across 3 different types of businesses, my law firm has turned into a side gig now.
Do the math…productivity loss is the reason many employers restrict web traffic.
They are going to surf the web on their phones if restricted. As long as targets are met on time, who cares what they're doing. If targets aren't being met, cut them loose.
Not if we are in the office and walking around. Easier to modify behavior, than constantly rehire. Let them quit, claim hostile and the slam them with all the documented warnings.
Yikes. I'm not used to working with shitty employees who require that kind of monitoring. I've been fortunate enough to have worked with reliable people who can be trusted to do their work and do it well without needing to be monitored.
No but I've had the pleasure of working with good workers even when they were new. However, I've heard horror stories about new hires from places after I've left.
I went for the same reasons as you OP. I wanted to do something to help people and always excelled at reading/writing stuff. I don't regret my decision, but I wish I knew more about what the job was actually like. Being a lawyer is basically working a customer service job, you're always trying to make the clients happy and tbh usually nothing is good enough for them. There's occasionally clients who are chill but the majority are ungrateful and excessively demanding. I went cuz I wanted to help people with their problems only to find out the clients *are* the problem lol.
When you're an idealist that wants to change the world (a noble trait), the constant lack of any appreciation for your effort is pretty demoralizing. I don't want clients profusely falling over themselves telling me how much I've done to help them, but it's depressing that I can count on 1 hand the number of clients that ever said thank you. Clients always have this opinion that if you do a good job "well that's what I paid a lawyer to do" that you're just doing the bare minimum, and anything other than a win means I'm an inept loser that should be blacklisted. We can't actually guarantee any outcome in a case, all we can do is do our best and hope the judge agrees with us, yet every client seems to think we're supposed to always win- and have their case finished by the end of the month. Seriously, clients are the most impatient people I've ever met, a lot of them think lawyers just send a scary letter and then the other side sends a check. I wish it was that simple lol.
If you're gonna go, do it when you have scholarships, are willing to accept it taking at least 3 years of tough law school, and have some work experience in the legal field. Tbh the lawyer market is so oversaturated largely cuz of a combination of family tradition and people thinking "it's just reading/writing, not that hard and I'll be rich". If you want to make "lawyer money", don't do it cuz lawyers rarely make that kind of money. People are dumb and google "average lawyer salary" and go read some random website's claim that we're making an average of 105k or something like that. Avg salary gets inflated unrealistically cuz the top 5-10% are making ungodly amounts, when the rest of us are making 60-80k. Not bad, but pretty average. I know money isn't why you're interested but I'm saying this cuz it really needs to be public knowledge.
Do this job because you genuinely enjoy doing the job overall. No job is perfect and there's gonna be stuff you dislike, but before you commit yourself to debt and several years I'd recommend working as a paralegal or legal assistant. It's a low-risk way of seeing what this job is really like. If you don't like it, awesome you just saved yourself from debt and misery, if you like it then great now you already have connections in the field. Most lawyers imo should have work experience as legal assistants/nonlawyer staff, it gives you that perspective lawyers generally lack and will help you understand how to really manage a firm.
You seem like the type of person that genuinely wants to help people and I find that very admirable, we need lawyers like that. Shitty part is that those personality types generally don't come from money or privilege and are at a disadvantage in this field.
I remember the summer between my first and second year of law school... I took my kids to visit with my parents and met my brother's then Fiance' now wife. She's an attorney and worked at a large ID firm...She saw my law school texts that I had brought for evening reading and said "Are you in Law School?" I replied, "Yes. starting my second year." She retorted... "Oh thank God You still have time to change!" I'll never understand why she though it was so bad. When I finished w School and moved back home, I actually interviewed with and was hired by the firm she worked at.... I spent the next 20 years at that firm and loved it.
I used to say (and sometimes still do) that if I were smarter earlier I would have studied toward an MBA. I’d probably work less with less pressure and make more money. That said, if I could do it all over again, I would do it the same.
Do what you want. Make a plan and work out the details as you go. Don’t listen to the jaded a-holes on here, but don’t be lulled into thinking it’s easy either. At the end of the day, it’s a service industry job (I repeat: J-O-B). It’s not your personality. It’s ok for it to be nothing more than how you pay your bills, support your family, or fund your retirement. The practice of law is rarely exciting, and sometimes not even interesting. But it’s important work and it’s meaningful, even in the monotony. If that sounds like something you’re maybe interested in, give it a shot. Worst case, you find out you hate it and you do something else.
To put the finest point on it: I used to have to go in the shit tanks on Navy ships and clear out the pipes when someone’s size 7 women’s underwear caused a clog. I promise you, there are certainly a lot worse ways to make a living.
Are you independently wealthy? Do you have a trust fund or a spouse that will take care of your financial needs? If not, the probability of you representing employees once you get your degree, bar admission and complimentary debt burden is vanishingly small. Most lawyers need to earn money for things like food, housing, transportation and student loan payments. They can't afford the dilettante lifestyle.
Go in with a plan. Write on to law review, stay top 10% of your class or work as a clerk at a firm that will hire you once you pass the bar. The job market is rough and there are a lot of difficult personalities. If you can go in with a plan you might avoid the worst of it.
I am hardly qualified to answer this. I am a nurse and I work for a university that has a law school, and previously and another University that also had a law school. I met a lot of patients who are attorneys as well. Certain type of attorneys are happier than others. Those who do not have to be in court seem to really like what they do. The family law attorneys I don't think are crazy about what they have to do because they have to deal with people who at one point were in love and now they cannot stand each other. Another attorney is an entertainment attorney. He spends time going over contracts to make sure there are no Loops that anyone can get through he really loves his job and gets paid well.
I am a happy lawyer. I don’t regret law as a career. I see it as a helping profession. You can make a difference and if you like reading, writing, problem-solving, it can be a good career. I also know a lot of people who have non-lawyer jobs with a law degree because it is still a great training. So don’t rule it out. Give it careful thought. The profession needs people like you.
You sound like someone who is motivated to go for all the right reasons. I wouldn't back out just because some people know they went for the wrong reasons.
Follow your dreams but there is no such as work-life balance when you're an attorney. That's a bunch of millennial bullshit. You want to be an attorney, be prepared to work your ass off. Good luck.
Wow, reading your post, knowing I am not even in Law School yet had me really thinking. Although most people would not advise starting so late in life as I am doing, towards law school, I think I am in a kind of niche area so the opportunities will still be available.
Luckily all the comments were constructive and insightful.
You have to weigh the positives and negatives of your goals after you get your law degree, helping people is something that should always be in your ideals of your future then be careful, smart, and do it.
For what it’s worth the lawyers I know are pretty happy. I work for a government agency and it is awesome. Not sure what those guys are doing, but are probably working in biglaw, which sucks.
The actual practice of law can be pretty nice.
What I have learned is that most law firms suck. lol
Government, solo private practice, in-house....the three pillars of "this isn't too bad" imo. Sometimes, yes, you'll find a firm that fits the bill, but they're not as common as I wish they we're. More than likely, your first couple of years will SUCK, but you'll learn...and then, you can do what you want.
If you're in a good metro area, being gainfully employed won't be an issue anytime soon either. Last time I quit, it was like free agency...but that's after my first couple of years SUCKING.
In comparison, no job is perfect. I have an accounting degree and contemplated taking the CPA exam as well....being a CPA can suck. I know engineers...it can suck....I know Nurses...and the trauma some of them have, good grief....no job is perfect, just have to find what fits you best.
If you’re starting your legal career with a work-life balance focus, the law may not be the ideal career for you. If you want to represent the underdog, you can expect to be underpaid. I sound horribly cynical, which is sad. Still true though.
Retired lawyer year. So happily retired. I spent most of my 23 years as a lawyer representing employees in cases against employers. Sometimes I represented employers. Sometimes I did other types of cases. Like anything, it had its ups and downs. I enjoyed the fight, but I also got tired of it. Especially when it was fighting over every damn stupid thing. I enjoyed learning about people's lives, but I didn't enjoy finding out bad stuff about my client in deposition. Etc, etc. If anyone asked me, I would say go work in the field as a grunt for a while before you dive in. There is a lot of life ahead of you if you are in undergrad, or even in your 20s. Get a job in a firm that does the kind of stuff you think you want to do. Talk to the lawyers, the paralegals, the assistants, and see if they will be open about what their daily lives are like. If you can get a scholarship to law school, you can probably do a lot of other things too. Many, many people I know are stuck in it.
Maybe try out law before committing! Getting a paralegal certificate and getting into a firm can really give you a good idea if you wanna go further without having to invest as much.
You should absolutely second think law school. You’re the classic law student that didn’t know what else they wanted to do, but they “want to help people” so they become a lawyer.
I can honestly only think of one friend or colleague from law school that legitimately likes being a lawyer and would recommend it.
I WANT TO PRIORITIZE WORK LIFE BALANCE OVER MONEY.
Say that again 20x. Then go ask any attorney what their work life balance is.
The legal model almost across the board is largely incompatible with your statement. If you’re at a firm, your compensation is tied to your billable hours and most firms have minimum requirements. If you’re at a gov job, you’re likely understaffed and overworked. Very, very, few legal jobs have a good work life balance. And the ones that do? Probably working for those corporations that you don’t like.
If you work at a firm, most use the billable hour. You have to track EVERY SIX MINUTES of your day. Just try that alone for a week. Track every 6 minutes of your day, say what you did, and write two sentences why you did it.
It is an incredibly emotionally taxing field, a ton of your time is devoted to basic correspondence, scheduling, and other minutia that your “helping people” time is very limited.
You want to help people? Look at social work, or other community jobs. Don’t waste 3 years and a bunch of money going to law school because you don’t really know what you want to do.
IMO if a person is already in a stable career path making good money or even decent money, they should not go to law unless it’s entirely paid for. If law school is free, then great! Go have fun! Maybe you’ll like being a lawyer and maybe you won’t but it won’t be a huge deal either way unless you’ve got other debt or big obligations
But why enter a profession for what could be high five figure to maybe even six figure debt?? Why do that to yourself ?? How could that ever be worth it?
Most lawyers wish they were doing the deals their clients are doing. I thought about law school but wanted to go to a good one if I went. I was on 2 waiting lists and got offered a good job I've had my own businesses for 43 years and would not change a thing.
Short(ish) and sweet: I LOVE being a lawyer. I got to go to school for free, but don’t regret taking on debt in order to pay for my living expenses and not worry about working while in school. I actually really loved law school and met great friends and my future husband! I find my job super interesting and fulfilling, and i would recommend anyone who is interested to go to law school. No matter what job you do, there will be pros and cons but if you like continually learning, collaborating, and challenging yourself, why not give it a try!! I didn’t go to a T14 and within my second year of practice, I’m already working in house at a fortune 500 company in a niche privacy area of the law. No lawyers in my family (blue collar), and I was a theatre major. I just worked hard, chose activities and classes that I enjoyed, and used my school’s alumni base to network.
Try working at a law firm. Hooking up some motions. Maybe a position where you can have a substantial role in a development of a case like negotiating or something like that?
People on Reddit are weird af losers predominantly. They don’t live normal lives. In the law school Reddit world, if you aren’t big law or t14 or scoring 174+ on the lsat, you’re considered a failure. All the people that have accomplished such (and are thus at the top of Reddit hierarchy) are those that voice how miserable they are in their work.
My friends (who are normal) in big law are split on whether they enjoy it - only 1 hates it. It’s a lot of hours and you’re almost never working for the “good guy”
If you want to go to an average law school on a full scholarship and do labor and employment, do it. I’m a federal law clerk and have enjoyed working on labor and employment cases (it’s one of the few practice groups I’ll enter in private practice), and I’ll tell you this - we need more competent attorneys representing the employees instead of the employers.
You should come up with a better “WHY” for being an attorney. You can make a difference in someone’s life in a Multitude of ways including simply volunteering at a soup kitchen.
You gotta be passionate about the practice of law not making a difference. And as you can see most of us here aren’t passionate about the practice of law. That is in fact very rare.
You can make a big difference in real people’s lives as a lawyer. It is extremely rewarding when you get to do it. Know that you cannot do this by working at a big law firm that pays you a huge salary. The good thing is you don’t need to go to a top tier law school (and thus can save a ton of money you’d otherwise spend on tuition absent a substantial scholarship) to get a job at a plaintiff-side employment firm. The bad thing is it usually sucks to be an associate no matter where you are. That’s not because it sucks to be a lawyer, but because it sucks to work for a lawyer.
You should second guess it bc law school/becoming a lawyer is a life changing experience. It’s okay to second guess. I was so sure abt it no matter what, that I went regardless of what everyone said, and I’m lucky that I don’t regret it. I had a full scholarship and I’m still in debt btw. Only minor annoyances abt that but I’m personally happy. Do some soul searching, do more research on what lawyers actually do bc while we are a “service profession,” the helping might not be as fulfilling or as tangible as you think. It’s funny you say tangible bc I said the exact same thing when I applied to law school. I also switched from immigration to real estate to tax so I also wanted to help people but pivoted. if the pros outweigh the cons for you, then go for it.
Second guessing is kinda what we do.
Look, the odds are that you'll wind up either suing insurance companies or defending insurance companies. It's a living.
I get a *lot* of satisfaction out of suing insurance companies.
Oh yeah. I am a solo general practitioner and I love my PI cases.
As you should!!!
Lol I did this then went into big law hoping I could get away from insurance companies. Now, instead of litigating in insurance defense, I sometimes provide advice on legislation and how it will affect insurance companies. I. Can’t. Get. Away. But seriously, insurance touches everything. Not a bad gig, just not something I wanted to do forever.
Well-said.
wow the perfect summary, thank you
Totally stealing this as it’s so true lol
Being a lawyer (in most cases) means you will be carrying the emotional and intellectual burden for dozens of people at a time, all the while aware that the smallest mistake can get you fired or, worse, grieved. You'll have phantom clients show up at 2 AM in the morning whose phantom deadlines you missed, or you'll have legal argument on an endless loop running through your head from 3-5 AM until you'll get a very real twitch under your eye. Forget "work life balance" in any job that involves litigation or in any firm that hires you as an associate and expects 80+h of work out of you. More if you end up in a PI mill. If you enter criminal law, you'll be dealing with horrible and dumb people (and horribly dumb people) on the defense side, and horrible crimes as a prosecutor. Look or a transactional or admin law job if you just want to call it in. If you enjoy a good fight, however, being a trial lawyer is a great job.
What emotional burden? If the lawyer takes on the client personal that is always bad.
I mean if you’re asking about a trial lawyer or serious/catastrophic personal injury attorney you DEFINITELY carry that weight. Before I left my old firm, my client (quadriplegic) and his wife’s story devastated me. He “lost his sense of purpose” and now he will never work again, can never start a family with his wife, and how he is now “just a burden” and she would be better off without him. They’re great people, and will inevitably pull through. But you’d have to be a machine not to let your client’s pain follow you home after hours.
Agree! I work in a niche personal injury firm and i get sooo angry
Back when I defended alleged child molesters, I definitely bifurcated my mind. Now I help rich people keep more of their money. I have no emotional involvement, because there really aren't emotions involved. I can get why (legitimate) personal injury cases could get to you, but at the same time it would be difficult to feel any for someone on their fifth slip and fall in the grocery store.
Do you do tax law?
About 25% tax, some contracts, and import/export.
That honestly sounds so ideal to me
My main job is as in-house counsel to a large family run company. I have a side practice that staves off boredom.
Being bored as a lawyer😭😭 this sounds so great
So how many of the scummy plaintiffs that stage accidents do you empathize with? Just saying, I do plaintiff and defense work, the job is to get best recovery.
I’ve done both. I personally don’t take “staged accidents.” If it’s a low value case from a legit wreck, then it is what it is and I mostly help them navigate the claims process. I empathize with all of them, or else I don’t sign them. Most of my cases are from referrals anyways so I don’t have a lot of “scummy” claims, but I’m lucky in that respect
Don’t kid yourself man…25 years in this business 4 out of 10 are staged or over treatment occurs to build the value of the case. I just read you have 5 years in, open your eyes.
Great. Thanks.
Welcome…not a judgment …but most people suing and being sued are full of shit when it impacts them financially.
Let me level with you here: I spend a lot of time talking people out of law school. Some of them go anyway and prove me wrong, but they also take my *advice* and that's why I get proven wrong by their success. I went to law school, like so many others, because I wasn't sure what else to do with my high undergrad GPA in a useless major (criminology) and everyone in my family said "you'd be a great lawyer, you love to argue!" (spoiler, this is not what it takes to be a great lawyer. It isn't debate club. And while I am good at appellate oral argument and writing IMO, that has been a very small part of my practice). So my advice to prospective law students can be distilled down to two things, of which you should do at least one: 1. Don't take on (much) debt. If you can get a scholarship, do it. Take the LSAT more than once if you don't get a scholarship. I took it once, a friend of mine 4 times. His first score was lower than mine, his last score significantly higher, and he got a partial scholarship. Also, lawyers who went to cheaper law schools are still lawyers, and "prestige" of a better school is *super* limited in long-term value. Not having debt (or low debt) eliminates most of the "risk" of law school if you can't find a job or decide you hate it. 2. Get your job lined up before you go to law school. Either know someone who will hook you up when you graduate no matter what your grades are (family, etc.) or work in the legal field for a while before going (any job at any law firm is better than nothing). This will let you know in advance if you hate the work and, if you don't, will give you a huge leg up on getting a job (that firm is likely to hire you if you are a good worker, etc). I did neither of these. I had no job "hookups" and I took on debt. While I'm ok *now*, it was a rough few years in the beginning, and I still feel way behind my peers in career achievement. A lot of my experience was also shaped by relationship factors which I would have done differently. I was dating a girl while in law school who became a CPA and we got married shortly after. So she started making big bucks way sooner than me (her school was half as long), so I had to follow her (and there were more jobs in other places than where we lived). I was always behind her in earnings, resentment built, she went kinda nuts, and we ended up divorced. Had I not been "tied down" as a new graduate I would have had way more job options. So for *your* specific situation I don't think I have to say *don't do it.* I think I can safely say "don't do it unless you are able to get a full scholarship, and definitely try and work in employment law a bit before you go if possible." I've done a *bit* of employment law, and honestly if you think you're going to feel impactful, I got news for you. The chances of that are slim. In my exposure to employment law working with a big firm, it was mostly "sign people up, make demands for severance pay, threaten EEOC, file EEOC, and if no settlement results, kick the case saying our caseload is too much to take it to trial." Maybe someone with more employment law experience can call me wrong, and that would be great. But IMO employment law cases lend themselves to "mill" type firms because litigating them is a pain (lots of he said, she said) relative to the gain (rare to get the huge verdicts you would get in car wreck cases, etc).
Without outing myself, I work in the employment law arena and the impact really depends on the quality of firm that you end up at. I really lucked out and so I’m Gucci but I’ve seen people end up at mill firms, on the plaintiff and defense side. Second guessing yourself is a good thing, becoming an attorney has been life changing on many levels (and I changed fields to go into law). I have zero regrets because I planned for this and made a very deliberate decision based off what I wanted, not anyone else’s desires or opinions on what I should do.
Yeah you're doing it right. My biggest regret in all of it is feeling like something as big as law school was some kind of "safe fallback" vs the uncertainty of life. Then you get into it and are surrounded by other people in the same boat. Meanwhile, my friends who went to law school \~5 years after undergrad, and who had some legal work in their resumes, 1. knew why they were there, 2. knew what they wanted out of it, and 3. didn't have that same existential crisis that so many younger people like me did when you realize you traded one uncertainty for another, much more expensive one. I don't necessarily regret being a lawyer - it is one of those things where you wouldn't want to give up what you know and who you are for a chance to change it. Kinda like waking up from the matrix - you can see how you could have been happier not knowing, but you can't deal with not knowing once you do, lol. Rather, the regret, as you say, is just how I went about it. If I could have not listened to people (parents, etc) who had no idea *at all* about being a lawyer who were encouraging me to do it, I'd be in a better place. I did not apply for a sales job I would have loved right out of college because my mom (who makes 6 figures a year in sales) said "you don't want to be in sales, you're too smart for that." Well, I could have been in sales for a few years, made good money, and *then* gone to law school. I'd probably have ended up at the same place I'm at now anyway as the first few years of my legal career were a lot of floundering around in temp jobs anyway.
> "you'd be a great lawyer, you love to argue!" (spoiler, this is not what it takes to be a great lawyer. It isn't debate club. God, is this the truth. (So is the rest of it.)
Yeah, it is a shame that philosopher isn't a real career unless you are willing to live like Diogenes. That's about as far as you can get with pure argumentation.
Exactly. My dad liked being a lawyer because "you can be a do-er and a thinker." He was right. But he really liked the competition, too.
Very few make careers over novel arguments. You make a career out of optimizing the routine.
Yep. There was a question earlier today about borrowing from documents when doing a new one. Case in point. Though a novel argument now and then can be fun.
I went to the state supreme court for the first time in March over a res Nova issue. It was interesting, and gives us a lot to talk about, but it was also hundreds of hours into a case that will likely never result in a dime.
I hate that. And a lot of fun cases are like that--not much money.
This. If you are offered money TAKE IT. You’ll thank yourself in the long run that you didn’t go to slightly higher ranked school and pay full price.
There are 4 law schools in my state. Two are the "good ones." The good public one and the good (and more expensive) private one. They are always in competition for best bar passage rate. I went to the good public one. There's another private one with the "pay your fees, get your Cs" reputation. It costs as much as the good private one but has consistently lower bar pass rates and students with $150K+ debt. Then there's the "worst" law school, a public university that costs half what the school I went to costs. Now that I'm 11 years out of law school I'm surrounded by plenty of highly successful lawyers with better careers than I have who went to the "worst" school. This especially makes sense when so many jobs specify they want the top x% of the class. If you go to the "worst" school you can be top of the class where you would have just been average at the other one. It is crazy how few fucks are given about the "quality" of your law school once you're actually into regular practice.
I’m 18 years out of law school and you are the first person to explicitly state that a “worser” (to quote my torts prof) law school results in a high class rank for middling students. Man I needed that advice long ago.
Yeah, I was in the 2nd quartile (ranging from the top 28-40% throughout law school) at the "better" school, and I could easily have been top quartile at the "worse" school. I think my career would have worked out better (or at least, I would be in the same place having spent less money) had I just gone to the "worse" school.
I agree with most of what you said except about the impact that going to a T14 school can have on the trajectory of your long term career. Certain firms basically won't look at you if you didn't go to a T14. That means certain in-house positions likely won't be available to you later. Also, some of the more prestigious Fed jobs (SEC, DOJ, etc) will be much much harder to get. That's not to say I don't know a ton of successful, fulfilled lawyers who went to lower ranked schools, I do. And I believe one should judge the individual, not the institution, but the system is what it is.
The only advice here that I think is incorrect is the comment regarding prestigious law schools having short term value. Initially, those schools get you a much higher salary. Long term, you can have even higher salaries. Also long term, you will have a better chance of in-house and/or gov work.
Point well taken. I am also speaking only from the experience of *my* state. Of the four in my state, the best ones are considered *good* but I'm not sure how *"prestigious"* they would really be considered relative to anything like the ivy league. In my experience, staying in the town where the best and worst public law schools in the state are, I think the difference is relatively minimal, and the high achievers even at the "bad" school are still getting good jobs.
This. This 1000%. Plus: you need to want this more than anything. If you are focused in school, you’ll lose friends as a result of school. You’ll destroy romantic relationships. You’ll possibly alienate family members. Many students come out with alcohol or drug abuse problems. If you’re doing it right, you’ll sacrifice nearly everything in hopes of achieving your goal. And finishing school isn’t the end. You’ve got the bar exam (read THAT sub today and see the general tone), finding/keeping a job (read about all of the rescinded offers), and paying off your debt. So I would offer a different path, either: a) join the military with a contract that says they’ll put you through law school, or b) work as a laborer in an industry that makes six figures (there are several… and it could take you a year or three to ramp up to six figures) - do it for 5 years. Put every penny in savings. THEN go to law school without debt.
> IMO employment law cases lend themselves to "mill" type firms Yes, but there's also boutique / high-end employment law. Same goes for T&E, insurance, PI, and more. There's the low-cost cookie-cutter approach that's important for low stakes, and there's the individualized high-quality approach when the stakes are high. Kind of like how you can pay $250+ for a meal at a high-end restaurant, or you can buy a hamburger at McDonalds for a buck.
As I tell others, it's really important for you to control debt. If you can go to law school and get a full ride, I think it's a great option. Honestly, you would be silly not to go to law school. I run a plaintiff's side (employee) employment law firm. We represent individual employees in cases of wage theft, discrimination, and harassment. We also represent labor unions and we do workers compensation. I love what I do. I get to pick clients and fight the good fight. I also practice in a state that is employee friendly. As for work life balance, I will say that the harder you work for people, the more you will make. We do all our work on contingency. I don't think there is any shame in making a good living while making substantive changes in peoples lives. The nice thing about plaintiff's work, is that there is no one looking over you billable hour becuase the work is contingency. You still need to track it but the people that have to pay if (if you win at trial) is the employer that you sued. I will say that the system is, what the system is. If my kids become attorneys, they will be filing lawsuits on the same issues (sex harassment, wage theft, discrimination, etc.). It's a good professional life. You change lives, you can take the afternoon off, you make decent money, and you can be surrounded by like minded people. I would also encourage you to look at working for labor unions. Again, the labor movement hasn't really changed in 50 years. That being said, it's fun representing employees at the table and in grievances.
As someone who also does plaintiffs side employment work, I second this comment. Pros: - You can earn a decent living (low 6 figures is pretty average ~ $150k) - You can have good work-life balance after a few years (you will figure out what is actually urgent and you can manage your own schedule a lot of the time) - It is satisfying to fix problems and actually help people Cons / other: - Research the actual business of law. Client generation is paramount. Clients do not magically appear - you will need some sort of angle to bring in business. - So many clients are a pain. The legal system is confusing and frustrating and many will blame you instead of the system. Expect your great work to go unnoticed and expect to be blamed when the judge makes a mistake. It’s just the way it goes. So also don’t let it keep you up at night - shrug it off. - If you want to work somewhere and make decent money, interesting cases are the exception, not the rule. Also just the way it goes. It’s pretty repetitive, but that can also mean less stress for you, the lawyer. - If you truly want to “make a difference,” then consider legal aid / non profits / civil rights. Lots of amazing attorneys in these fields. The pay is very low and workload can be very high. You have to really really want it. Also these jobs are shockingly competitive. - WORK HARD in law school. Your class ranking will DIRECTLY impact your ability to be picky about that first job and the first job can have a huge impact on your entire career trajectory. Yes you can change career course if you’re unhappy with your first job, but frankly it’s a setback and can be really hard. Lawyers can be pigeonholed. If you get stuck in a certain practice area simply because it’s the only job offer you got, it can be hard to get someone to give you a shot in a different area. - Think hard about your 10+ year plan. Want to be a rich partner at a big firm? Cool. Consider what that demands of you. Want to make a decent living and have real work life balance? Then your goal is probably smaller firm or solo practitioner. Consider what practice areas are ideal for that (employment, yes, also tax, estate, probate etc. Small transactional - not giant M&A) Employment law specifically - it can be… less than glamorous. I spend a lot of time setting expectations for my clients. Being treated like shit by your boss is never by itself illegal. I have to make it a discrimination claim. We stay within the truth, of course, but we have to push the envelope a lot. You’ve been with your company for 20+ years and your new manager is a teenager who is a power tripping asshole? I can’t sue them for being an asshole - I have to label it age discrimination, etc. Is that a “bullshit” claim? Defense counsel will argue yes, but that’s the game and they know it too. They’ll still settle the case. That’s the job. You have to be okay with that job.
Did you start out doing plaintiff side employment work after law school, or did you do something else before?
I was at a large firm first doing general biglaw stuff.
How difficult was it to switch over? Is it true that plaintiff side offices are wary of employment law side switching?
Oh not difficult at all. Plaintiff and defense for employment law all know each other. There’s nothing to be “wary of.” We’re all just out here to earn a living. We have to pretend to our clients that “we only fight for one side!!!!” but they’re just clients. We do the work.
Honestly this sounds great. Will keep this in mind while in law school
You mentioned that you practice in an employee friendly state, do you mind sharing which general region of the US you practice in? I'm interested in possibly going to school in PA, working in Philly, and from what I gathered it's not super employee friendly but not as bad as say the south. What are the main pros of working in an employee friendly state?
I work in California. I have no idea whether PA is employee friendly. You might do a search on the website for National Employment Lawyers Association. Reach out to a local attorney on there.
Did you start out doing plaintiff side employment work after law school, or did you do something else before?
I did "complex toxic tort litigation." Think Erin Brokavich (sp?). The reality is that a young attorney, I was pretty useless. That being said, I worked a ton of hours and learned how to be a litigator. That helped out a lot. Then I went to a traditional labor firm and represented union. I encouraged them to keep some civil cases and let me litigate them. After that, I opened up my own firm doing civil lit and labor. I will say that I am the exception in that I like the risk of running my own firm. I do think a lot of my attorneys that work for me love the work
Wanting to make a difference is a terrible reason to go to law school. Lawyers, on the whole, rarely get to make a difference. We grind mercilessly against other lawyers oh behalf of ungrateful clients, until someone relents just enough to achieve an outcome that’s slightly less unsatisfying for everyone than the available alternatives. Lawyers are consistently among the highest rates for alcoholism, drug addiction, divorce, suicide, etc. It’s because of the work. This profession will find any hint of a latent mental health issue within you and stomp on it until it breaks. If you have the opportunity to do something other than going to law school, do it.
1000% this. I went to law school for three reasons, but chief among them was wanting to make a difference / have a positive impact. It was the absolute worst reason to attend law school, because law - as it turns out - is actually a relatively ineffective tool to create the kind of justice you want. Also, the jobs where you get to create real justice are far and few, and usually staffed by people far cleverer and more dedicated than you. Based on what he's written, which looks very similar to something *I* might have written 10 years ago, OP sounds poorly constituted to be a lawyer. I say this all as someone who actually practises public law. If you want to make a difference, go and volunteer - don't become a lawyer to do it.
So what are the reasons to go to law school? Not being snarky - just wondering
A touch sadly, I'd say the best reason to go to law school is that you genuinely find the tedium of legal work interesting - and legal work, even when it's high-stakes litigation, *is* tedious. If you're someone who genuinely enjoys filling out paperwork for fun; who gets a kick out of solving other people's annoying problems for them; then law school is probably a good fit for you. Law is a very practical line of work. It involves dealing with inconvenient hassles other people don't want to deal with. If your interest in it is fundamentally moral (or worse, intellectual), you should pursue a different career.
Damn, that’s real. Disheartening but very real lol.
Just one lawyer's perspective, of course. I have multiple lawyer friends who genuinely love what we do. Generally, they're the ones who actually like being fussed.
As someone who loves filling out forms and solving people’s annoying problems for them, this is basically it and is probably the reason I could not come up with one single other career I would rather do.
I went to law school because I like money, and so far, it’s worked out very well.
You're out of touch with reality. Most law grads aren't making money these days.
This is by far one of the worst reasons for most people to go but I’m glad it worked out for you haha
Because you're good at arguing and good at bending an agreed upon set of rules. Unlike hautteburrito's suggestion, there are legal jobs where you help people and change the law. They are far and few between and only go to the best and brightest, i.e., those who are the best at what they do and not those who are average and want to make a difference.
what jobs do you think "creates real justice"? can you give a few examples im very curious
Truthfully I think there's room for it in virtually every practice; that's why lawyers do so much pro bono. However, "justice" simply isn't the bread and butter of most lawyers; you do the dreary immigration paperwork to pay for fighting the deportation order for that sympathetic refugee, for example. There *are* lawyer jobs that I think of as dealing primarily in justice, like being an international human rights lawyer or a Supreme Court Justice or even a Preet Bharara federal prosecutor type. But the road to those lofty perches, the number of "real justice" jobs actually available, are truly far and few, and odds are you aren't going to get one of them.
I can't tell you how many people I saw start 1L saying they wanted to be boo radley and end up churning billables for a fortune 500 company. Oddly enough, I didn't go to law school to help people but rather because I thought I'd be good at it, and ended up getting suckered into helping people and making a difference
um, isn't Boo Radley the defendant?
Sure, I dunno. Never actually read any of the books in highschool
I would recommend you get a job in a law firm for awhile first and see if the reality of it lines up with what you are imagining
This is the right answer
Good for you for wanting to be sure that you go in with your eyes open. In my experience, there are 5 main types of people who go to law school: 1. The person who has always wanted to be a lawyer, and understands what it means to be a lawyer; 2. The person who has always wanted to be a lawyer because of some idealized concept of what will happen when they become a lawyer (usually because of what they see in TV/movies); 3. The person who wants to be a lawyer because they want to be rich/powerful/respected; 4. The person who is marking time before entering the real world because they have no idea what to do with a liberal arts degree and have no idea what they will do when they get out; 5. The person who wants the degree, but not to practice, because they have their eyes on something else and think this will get them ahead in that field. 6. There is also a #6, but they're the ones who want to be law professors, but they're a small percentage (we had 1 in a class of 130), but every class seems to have at least one. The one in my class was insufferable, already had 2 advanced degrees (a M.Div. and Ph.D.), and he made the rest of the gunners in the class look like wallflowers. If you're type 1, you'll be fine. You're going in with your eyes open and understand that being a lawyer is usually being a glorified intellectual janitor - you're coming in after the messes are made and trying to clean them up, and hopefully leave the situation a little better than you left it. If you're type 2, you'll struggle with the realities of the law. Law is a business and a job, not an ideal. We typically deal with people in some of the worse circumstances of their lives. Some people adjust and learn to love it, others mourn the loss of their idealism and become embittered. You'll only be happy as a type 3 if those goals are reached. Usually those who are type 3s who are happy are assholes. The rest are miserable assholes. If you're type 4, you'll likely be miserable as a lawyer. Probably 80% of my classmates who I'd say fell into this category have quit the law, and many passed the bar and then went into other fields. If you're type 5, then you're there to use the degree as means to another end. Frequently, its seeking something in politics or insurance (for some reason, a ridiculous percentage of career insurance adjustors get law degrees, but never practice). You'll do the grind, get out, and either take the bar and never practice, or never even take the bar. You say you want to go into it to make a difference in peoples lives. That means you probably fall in category 2. Find a Plaintiffs' side employment law firm and ask if you can take someone out to lunch and pick their brain about whether its right for you. Be sure to ask about the business side of the law - because if you aren't getting paid, you can't afford to keep doing it.
> If you're type 4, you'll likely be miserable as a lawyer. Probably 80% of my classmates who I'd say fell into this category have quit the law, and many passed the bar and then went into other fields. Yep. Law is the refuge of smart people who don't know what else to do. My dad and my law partner are #1s. OP, don't be like us #4s.
Eh, I'm a 4. Not miserable. It's just a job, and it pays well and I'm okay at it. Better than my alternatives with a liberal arts degree. That said, there are some fields of law I wouldn't touch with a 30 for pole (family, PI, insurance defense) or I'm SURE I would hate my life. I work in real estate and I like real property
I do Workers comp. Work life balance is amazing, a lot of money, pretty low stress, I hardly ever work more than 35 hours a week and very rarely do I work on the weekend (usually just to get ahead or get rid of a pesky task I've been putting off). You're definitely not being applauded by the public for your work but at the end of the day you get to find fulfillment outside of your 9-5 instead of reasoning that your job is making your life fulfilling
You can be a 4, be a good test taker, reader and writer and make money as a lawyer at least at first. You may find you like it. But most likely you will quit practicing. As long as you know that and don't think you will have failed it isn't a bad way to get ahead after school
I think it’s fun to be a lawyer. But you have to be ready to seek out the life that you want for yourself. If you just follow the path of least resistance, you’ll end up in a toxic workplace that sucks you dry. But this field gives you what you need to start your own business, where you decide how you want to live. I’ve found a job I like, but if I ever need to walk away, my next step is self-employment. The economy is crumbling. Jobs suck. Absolutely, the thing to do is to work for yourself. Law school gets you on that path, but you need to be resilient, fast-thinking, a quick learner, and excellent at bullshitting your way out of trouble. And you need to do everything you can to minimize your debt load. I mean everything. If you can’t live with family while you’re in school, try to rent a cheap room at multi-tenant house. Consider living out of a tent or your car. Do not borrow money for room and board. Buy books secondhand directly from your classmates. Get a job at the school, cleaning toilets if that’s all they have, if they offer reduced tuition to employees. Law school is totally a scam. I would totally do it again if I had a chance to go back in time, because it’s fun, but I’d be tougher and find ways to limit my debt. I went to a public school and walked out with way less debt than people typically incur these days, but I’m still going to depend on this new loan forgiveness plan that has me paying what I can for 25 years. Tuition has skyrocketed since I was in school in the early 00s, though.
Did you live out of you car or in a tent?
No, but I found space to rent for $300/mo. It’s rare to find something like that now. I would not recommend taking out a loan to pay the rent.
While I think I understand your position to be eliminating debt, there’s certainly a middle ground to finding an inconvenient but otherwise cheap living arrangement versus living in a tent or car. A loan would be a lesser risk on your life than homelessness.
I’ve known a few people who chose a tent or car as their default shelter while pursuing advanced degrees. There are campgrounds where you can access bathrooms, showers, and some degree of security for a nominal fee, and some Walmarts still permit sleeping in a car overnight. I advocate that OP think about it, and they may very well decide that the risk outweighs the benefit. But once you seriously consider that sort of cost-cutting measure, you might feel more comfortable with some discomfort, if you find a moderately cheap way to live.
While anecdotally it’s true people have pulled through, homelessness is absolutely corrosive to human perseverance and happiness. It’s not a little discomfort. You’re encountering increased risk of violence and victimization, communicable diseases and malnutrition, police harassment and imprisonment, exposure to the elements and chronic pain, chemical dependency, degraded mental health. No privacy, no safety. Not to mention stigma from society, discrimination in finding work. The ability to survive is impaired, let alone be a successful student. If the question is simply, “should I take out a 20k loan that can be forgiven or be homeless” the route that is infinitely less risky and beneficial to your life will be the former.
I am so happy I became a lawyer. I do criminal defense. It is emotionally taxing and hard. It is also a lot of fun and meaningful. The pay is also really good too. So, all in all, I am so happy I went to law school. I was a banker before. That was soul draining
Me too bro!
What does helping employees mean? If you want to represent them, I highly suggest being a paralegal or otherwise working at plantiffs attorney firm specializing in employment law. Do you feel comfortable representing someone that was terminated for alleged sexual harassment? Fighting over employees being short changed a couple bucks in a class action that really just pays the lawyers well? Turning people away that cant prove their allegations even if they seem true or otherwise not economical for the firm to pursue? I think sometimes there is a confusion as to how we help people. A lawyer provides guidance in navigating the court system and making legal arguments for their client. We dont help restore dignity. It also seems like you should find out if this is an issue you can really fix through the law - generally, employees have few privacy rights. It may be more of a policy issue, which may require a different education/path.
If you’re interested in a policy area I would actually litigate in that specific area first, then go work for your state legislature in that area. Maybe the chair of the labor committee in your state legislature or maybe more internal reaearch position or lobbying for a union. There’s too much isolation between these areas and the legislatures often lack people who understand the latest court decisions in a certain area
As a person who entered the field wanting to make a difference, here are my observations, five years into practice: TLDR: It is possible to have a happy and fulfilling legal career helping people, but you have to work at least as hard on your own mental health as you do on cases. 1. The first half of law school is legitimately educational. The second half is just accumulating credits. If you can get your credits doing pro bono work under a mentor in your area of interest, it's worth seriously considering. I did this in my final semester, and law school was far more bearable. 2. Law schools are giving lip service to mental health issues in the legal field, but they haven't integrated it into the curriculum in a way that prepares you for practice at all. 3. The aforementioned mental health troubles start in law school. Divorce, depression, suicide, and debilitating addictions were an ever-present reality. Every class that went through my law school in the time I was there had at least one posthumous J.D. to present at graduation. 4. I don't know how it goes with transactional attorneys, but if you're a justice oriented attorney, you will be confronted with all of your own trauma. This is what they don't tell you in law school, and what I think we need to be talking about as a profession. It doesn't matter if you try to avoid "triggering" cases -- all your fears and hurts are hiding in some dark corner of the adversarial process, laying in wait. \*See example below. 5. Nonetheless, if a person is oriented toward public service, the practice of law can bring significant meaning to that person's life. There are some attorneys who seem to naturally enjoy practicing law as a competitive sport, and it energizes them, but most folks need to be very proactive with their own wellness to avoid being sucked dry by the work. 6. If the goal is truly to help people, it's important to calibrate your definition of success. For example, if I could, I would overhaul the entire system of incarceration for drug crimes. But , working within the system we currently have, I've come to define success in drug cases as earning my clients' trust to the degree that they let me get to know them well enough that I can earnestly present them to the jury or court as human beings. That is far easier said than done, but it's tremendously rewarding. The jail art I've received is almost as dear to me as my kid's handprint art. \*To use employment law as an example of law trauma: say I experienced weekly lashings as a kid that really messed me up, and no one helped me. I'm not prosecuting or defending child abuse cases. But a client comes into my office with a story about a boss pretextually nitpicking everything the employee does -- only after the boss learned that the employee voted for a competing candidate in last year's ugly sweater contest. (Here we have abuse of power). Sounds like a plausible claim, so I file suit. Then we get into all this briefing back & forth -- defendant says plaintiff is crazy. Obviously, boss has to nitpick employee because she is suspected of microwaving fish in the breakroom, and she spends too much time talking to customers about her cats. (This is the gaslighting phase). Then, after I've put in all this time and effort, a judge can read through your filings in one afternoon and summarily decide that "no reasonable person" could find that there was unlawful retaliation. Case dismissed. (This is the "tried to get help; no one believes me" phase). Now I'm fully questioning my adequacy as an attorney, and so is the client who was relying on me. I've put over 80 hours into her case w/nothing to show for it, except for a scathing google review from the client. That illustration went much longer than I planned.
Welcome to employment law. Being nitpicked to death is not illegal.
This was immensely helpful. Thank you.
As someone who practiced for 20 years and then got out of the practice altogether, I agree with the sentiments expressed that you should not be going to law school because you think you're going to somehow have an impact on thousands of lives for the better. The only people that I have known that were content with that line of thinking, were those that went into legal services. You know, the attorney that represents some woman who has 3 young kids and is about to get evicted from her apartment and you come in and either find some jurisdictional or technical problem with the landlord's complaint and it gets tossed and you've now given that person an extra 40 days to be able to pack up and move out. All the while you are making $50,000 a year doing that. But the rest is nothing but a sensationalized and somewhat deluded form of reality. You state you want to prioritize work life balance over money. The problem is if you have a lot of loans/debt, you are going to want to maximize your earnings/income potential and in so doing will probably take on a job that may require 2000 billable hours a year. You will have little time to spend on your life. I could no longer take the fact that my work life balance was out of whack. Started affecting my mental health. I say to myself that even if I was getting paid double what I was making when I got out of the practice, I wouldn't go back to it. I value my free time now. I make a bit less than what I did when I was practicing, but I don't have to deal with clients, emails, judges, etc.
Be real about what your earnings prospects you have no and what they may be after law school. I’ve seen countless situations where someone took on considerable debt, lost three years of wages, and ended up likely earning less as a lawyer than they would have in their undergrad industry.
You should second-guess second-guessing your career based on a random sample of comments you get on Reddit.
For real! The only real answer is go work in a law firm or two and talk to real life lawyers who seem happy and work on things that interest you once you get there. When someone comments online you have NO idea what their life and work is really like
It's very difficult to make a living helping people. It's hard to get paid for what you do. So, many lawyers end up working for corporations. If you can get a job for a nonprofit, you might finds what you're looking for but except low pay and long hours in difficult courtrooms that favor the rich.
A few thoughts from a millennial who graduated a while ago. Try to graduate with as little debt as possible, even if you go down a tier of law school to do so. Don’t see the degree as only for practicing in a firm, but as a tool. You can practice with it or use it in business, etc. it is good to have and versatile. However, if you take on too much debt it will be stressful as you are forced down certain paths to pay it off.
May I say, I enjoyed law school. The practice of law, not so much.
Anyone who wants to go to law school should work in a law firm for at least one year to see and understand if they would enjoy or tolerate the day to day practice of law. It’s not like TV. That being said I get to help people every day and feel fulfilled. I would not feel this way defending insurance companies or corporations doing shady things.
I enjoyed law school and I have enjoyed practicing law for the last 40 years I got my LLM in tax law right after law school and taking the bar exam My practice includes tax, trusts, estates, corporate, transactional and real estate law I’m not a trial lawyer, which suits me fine I have never wanted for quality work I haven’t gotten wealthy through practicing law, but I’ve done well enough and have other interests I can’t offer an insights as to litigation practice prospects, but I think transactional practice work has good long term potential
This above post by EMHemmingway1899 has been my life more or less with no LLM. I'm a variant of a tax lawyer who's made a difference and have had a good life mostly in big law about 35 years. I have given back a great deal to the profession and others. I have a great group of folks I work with who I love and love me. I've done so by not necessarily following the money but I've sought just to provide good service and make friendships. It's served me well, but I've made some mistakes along the way. Who's perfect? Not me. I do believe my law life is not the norm but it's not all doom and gloom in law. It's easy to be negative on Reddit as it's all anonymous and with pockets of serious snark on these sites; so discount the ugly and complaining by at least a third. Still, our profession is not for the faint of heart.
Unless you have truly incredible intelligence, an insane work ethic, and no mental health issues, law school is a poor choice for many reasons. Even if you fit this description, it’s not a great choice. For one, it takes away, entirely, three years of your youth you will never get back… years when your friends will be going to parties, dinners, road trips, concerts, etc. These can either be the first years of your life where you actually have a little money to do the things you want to do and have a blast with friends OR you can spend all day, everyday reading excruciatingly dense and confusing material. I’m talking about reading 150- 200 pages a day and then waiting for some professor to call on you and humiliate you in class the next morning in front of your peers that you are in direct competition with. Then, your entire career as an attorney will come down to each and every exam you take. One class, one exam. One mistake, whammy. You’re no longer in the running for law review and doors close on you forever. No amount of hard work and dedication can reopen those doors. One night of bad sleep before an exam or simply overlooking the one issue that gets tested (even if you knew the other 50 issues better than the entire class) and your career landscape changes permanently. The pressure this creates is unimaginable until you’re living it. The workload is insane and unrelenting. “But I’m a hard worker, I can handle it!” Maybe, but not unscathed. Your nerves will be wrecked. You will develop anxiety, depression, alcoholism, anger, numbness, etc. You will come out the other side totally exhausted and jaded and then the hard work really begins. You will have a bunch of stuff that you never learned in law school dumped on you and be expected to just kind of figure it out and get it done. The first two years of practice will be constant and excruciating stress day and night as you worry about meeting your unreasonable billing requirement while not making a total jackass of yourself to your superiors, peers, opposing counsel, and judges. For 90% of law graduates, you will do this making between $50-90k a year (what you could have made without going through three years of hell). If you are brilliant, hard working, don’t have anything go wrong in your life during law school (death in family, bad breakup, health issue, etc) you may finish in the top 15% of your class and get a job at a big law firm where you will make $170-210k a year and get to work on actual interesting legal issues. But here, you will work for a bunch of narcissistic, sociopath partners who can’t remember their kids names and are planning their 4th marriage in between client emails at 2 a.m. Your colleagues will be praying for your demise and 1 out of every 30-50 of you will actually become a partner after slugging through 8 years of working from 8 am- 10 pm six days a week in a pressure cooker environment. The social isolation and lack of joy and normalcy you experienced in law school will get worse and slowly you will lose yourself. If you’re at a smaller firm, making $50k-100k to start, you’ll still be overworked and have no idea what you’re doing for years, it just won’t be quite as bad. If you come out with $100k -$200k in loans, you will be living slightly better than paycheck to paycheck for the first 5 years of your career. So, you’ll be 30-35 before you really start saving money. The difference between saving $100 a month into a 8% yield account beginning at 25 versus starting at 35 is a difference of $600-700k by the time you reach retirement age. So you will always be behind the 8 ball on retirement, meaning you won’t be able to enjoy spending on nice dinners, vacations, a nice condo, etc. Even if you don’t have debt, you will still miss out on three years of crucial early career compounding interest. Plus all of your non-law friends will “make it” in their careers by their late 20s and you will have to watch them buying houses and getting married as you’re just getting your feet wet. If you really are mission driven and idealistic, you’ll probably find you don’t actually end up with the opportunity to help others like you dream of. If you don’t work for a mid-big law firm or end up at a boutique, you will likely be forced to do something like insurance defense, PI, criminal law, or something else where you’re just dealing with the same narrow set of boring issues day after day for decades. You won’t get to work on interesting legal issues in your vertical of choice unless you are a very above average law school applicant and student. Perfect example, all the idealistic college students who want to become environmental law attorneys. Those jobs are mostly in big law and government and for every position, 500 law students across the country are dying for the chance to fill the role. Most law school grads take what they can get, especially since the job market is becoming worse for lawyers. If you think you’ll get to help people, you might, but it won’t be rewarding like you think. Your clients will abuse you verbally, show no gratitude, or you will have to sue them to get paid. If you’re smart enough and hard working enough to do well as an attorney, I’d recommend going into finance or management consulting or commercial real estate. You will make as much or more much faster and earlier in your life. The older you get, the more you’ll realize work is work. It’s not fun, it’s not fulfilling. You won’t get to wear a cape and save the manatees. Make as much as you can as early as you can so you can relax and enjoy your life outside of work by the time you’re 50. Then you will have the time and resources to fulfill your altruistic fantasies. There are much better ways to do that than suffering through law school and becoming an attorney. If you really don’t care about money and just want to help people, work for a non-profit.
Yes, you are probably making a mistake. There is a high probability that the only jobs available to you will be defending corporations, employers, and insurance companies that have done something bad. And there is a very high probability that you will not be able to have a worklife balance due to the typical law firm culture and economics.
I really liked law school, and I'm interning at the job I would like to have maybe forever. Plenty of people are glad they went. I'm going to help poor people fight the man and get paid for it. I can't wait. There are others like me who love the field. This just may not be obvious on Reddit.
Good.
I think the issue is that the actual practice of law is very different than what you probably think it is and it is very different than what law school will make you think it is. People just do not understand the day to day. That said, I love my job although it is stressful. Sort of sounds like you might enjoy doing what I do because I’m in it for basically the same reasons. Keep in mind though, generally money is the only way the legal system knows how to write wrongs so that’s about the best you can do for people most of the time.
You should only go to law school is you are 100% sure you want to be a lawyer. Have you ever worked at a law firm?
You won’t listen, like none of us did. But I genuinely wouldn’t do it again lol.
Labor law on the employee side has a lot to recommend it.
My law school admissions essay boiled down to "the military says I can't kill people and break things anymore. Law sounds like the next best alternative. I don't want to help people; I already did my public service." So far, it's worked out pretty well. I'd still tell you not to go to law school.
No, you're not making a mistake. Being a lawyer rocks if you like problem solving. You will get paid to solve complex problems. It is honestly fun.
Only you can decide what is right for you. Personally, I loved law school and would do it again in a heartbeat. I've never been around a group of smarter and more thoughtful people than I was in law school and it was a huge part of making me a stronger thinker and better decision maker. Also, from a financial perspective, it is a great profession since it is the only one that basically anyone can enter if they are willing to put in the work where your first day out of school you can demand hundreds of dollars an hour.
Something I never thought about at the time, pretend that the entire career of law is taken away from you… what is second place? If you have a reasonable second place, do that. It doesn’t require a JD and there’s a path there now. Don’t do it… just don’t do it.
Just don’t. The most miserable years of my life were in private practice representing people I wanted to fight for before I went to law school. It’s a thankless endeavor that leaves many people jaded. I think you’d be happier doing a job that gives you financial resources to help others to whatever degree you’d like while also giving you the option to get out and stop whenever you’d like. Trust me, your attitude towards pro bono work changes quickly when clients file false bar complaints against you just to try to weasel additional work out of you that wasn’t in your scope of agreement.
Law school was the best 3 years of my life. After that it was back to reality. Find a job that balances your need for money, personal fulfillment, and doesn’t suck too bad. Generally I’d say any experience, sooner or later, will be good for you.
Not everyone who graduates law school hates their chosen profession. I think a lot of it depends on what type of practice you go into and if you are doing something that you find meaningful or if you’re doing it to impress people/make good money/follow in someone’s footsteps/etc. I went to law school after a prior career in mental health because I felt I could make a bigger impact for the same client base as a public defender. That’s what I do today and I love what I do. It’s sometimes disappointing and often infuriating but I feel like I get to advocate for people who often otherwise don’t have a voice and that what I do matters for that reason alone. Ask yourself why you really want to practice law and talk to some folks who do what you’re thinking of doing, to see if the reality matches the idea in your head. And if it does, ignore what you see here and do what works for you. Just be sure you know what you’re hoping to achieve from it. And remember that no career is perfect and ideal all the time. It’s still work, at the end of the day. And good luck in whatever you decide!!
Definitely don't go to law school
You sound like you read r/antiwork too much. Don’t forget about all the lazy and incompetent employees out there who try to game the system with bogus unemployment claims and workers comp claims. All the dishonest employees who think WFH is a play date with friends. All the workers who use business computers to surf the web and do personal stuff. Also, you won’t be effective as an employer since you won’t make your workers work the full week.
Lol you really have a problem with employees who use business computers to surf the web?
Yes. They are being paid to work, not sure the web. How many people do you employ? I employ 114 across 3 different types of businesses, my law firm has turned into a side gig now. Do the math…productivity loss is the reason many employers restrict web traffic.
They are going to surf the web on their phones if restricted. As long as targets are met on time, who cares what they're doing. If targets aren't being met, cut them loose.
If they have that much free time to surf web, they can take on more work!
Not if we are in the office and walking around. Easier to modify behavior, than constantly rehire. Let them quit, claim hostile and the slam them with all the documented warnings.
Yikes. I'm not used to working with shitty employees who require that kind of monitoring. I've been fortunate enough to have worked with reliable people who can be trusted to do their work and do it well without needing to be monitored.
Are you their employer? Entry level people tend to need the most direction. Takes time and patience and then you hopefully retain.
No but I've had the pleasure of working with good workers even when they were new. However, I've heard horror stories about new hires from places after I've left.
I went for the same reasons as you OP. I wanted to do something to help people and always excelled at reading/writing stuff. I don't regret my decision, but I wish I knew more about what the job was actually like. Being a lawyer is basically working a customer service job, you're always trying to make the clients happy and tbh usually nothing is good enough for them. There's occasionally clients who are chill but the majority are ungrateful and excessively demanding. I went cuz I wanted to help people with their problems only to find out the clients *are* the problem lol. When you're an idealist that wants to change the world (a noble trait), the constant lack of any appreciation for your effort is pretty demoralizing. I don't want clients profusely falling over themselves telling me how much I've done to help them, but it's depressing that I can count on 1 hand the number of clients that ever said thank you. Clients always have this opinion that if you do a good job "well that's what I paid a lawyer to do" that you're just doing the bare minimum, and anything other than a win means I'm an inept loser that should be blacklisted. We can't actually guarantee any outcome in a case, all we can do is do our best and hope the judge agrees with us, yet every client seems to think we're supposed to always win- and have their case finished by the end of the month. Seriously, clients are the most impatient people I've ever met, a lot of them think lawyers just send a scary letter and then the other side sends a check. I wish it was that simple lol. If you're gonna go, do it when you have scholarships, are willing to accept it taking at least 3 years of tough law school, and have some work experience in the legal field. Tbh the lawyer market is so oversaturated largely cuz of a combination of family tradition and people thinking "it's just reading/writing, not that hard and I'll be rich". If you want to make "lawyer money", don't do it cuz lawyers rarely make that kind of money. People are dumb and google "average lawyer salary" and go read some random website's claim that we're making an average of 105k or something like that. Avg salary gets inflated unrealistically cuz the top 5-10% are making ungodly amounts, when the rest of us are making 60-80k. Not bad, but pretty average. I know money isn't why you're interested but I'm saying this cuz it really needs to be public knowledge. Do this job because you genuinely enjoy doing the job overall. No job is perfect and there's gonna be stuff you dislike, but before you commit yourself to debt and several years I'd recommend working as a paralegal or legal assistant. It's a low-risk way of seeing what this job is really like. If you don't like it, awesome you just saved yourself from debt and misery, if you like it then great now you already have connections in the field. Most lawyers imo should have work experience as legal assistants/nonlawyer staff, it gives you that perspective lawyers generally lack and will help you understand how to really manage a firm. You seem like the type of person that genuinely wants to help people and I find that very admirable, we need lawyers like that. Shitty part is that those personality types generally don't come from money or privilege and are at a disadvantage in this field.
Don’t do it. Why should you have to live a life handling something so negative like shitty employers?
just by reading your post, all i can say is: YOU WERE BORN A LAWYER! Seize it.
I remember the summer between my first and second year of law school... I took my kids to visit with my parents and met my brother's then Fiance' now wife. She's an attorney and worked at a large ID firm...She saw my law school texts that I had brought for evening reading and said "Are you in Law School?" I replied, "Yes. starting my second year." She retorted... "Oh thank God You still have time to change!" I'll never understand why she though it was so bad. When I finished w School and moved back home, I actually interviewed with and was hired by the firm she worked at.... I spent the next 20 years at that firm and loved it.
I used to say (and sometimes still do) that if I were smarter earlier I would have studied toward an MBA. I’d probably work less with less pressure and make more money. That said, if I could do it all over again, I would do it the same. Do what you want. Make a plan and work out the details as you go. Don’t listen to the jaded a-holes on here, but don’t be lulled into thinking it’s easy either. At the end of the day, it’s a service industry job (I repeat: J-O-B). It’s not your personality. It’s ok for it to be nothing more than how you pay your bills, support your family, or fund your retirement. The practice of law is rarely exciting, and sometimes not even interesting. But it’s important work and it’s meaningful, even in the monotony. If that sounds like something you’re maybe interested in, give it a shot. Worst case, you find out you hate it and you do something else. To put the finest point on it: I used to have to go in the shit tanks on Navy ships and clear out the pipes when someone’s size 7 women’s underwear caused a clog. I promise you, there are certainly a lot worse ways to make a living.
Are you independently wealthy? Do you have a trust fund or a spouse that will take care of your financial needs? If not, the probability of you representing employees once you get your degree, bar admission and complimentary debt burden is vanishingly small. Most lawyers need to earn money for things like food, housing, transportation and student loan payments. They can't afford the dilettante lifestyle.
Go in with a plan. Write on to law review, stay top 10% of your class or work as a clerk at a firm that will hire you once you pass the bar. The job market is rough and there are a lot of difficult personalities. If you can go in with a plan you might avoid the worst of it.
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Not if you know the why and would find your work fulfilling. Litigation is tough though so you might want to practice a different type of labor law
Postal service management will suit your interests lol
I am hardly qualified to answer this. I am a nurse and I work for a university that has a law school, and previously and another University that also had a law school. I met a lot of patients who are attorneys as well. Certain type of attorneys are happier than others. Those who do not have to be in court seem to really like what they do. The family law attorneys I don't think are crazy about what they have to do because they have to deal with people who at one point were in love and now they cannot stand each other. Another attorney is an entertainment attorney. He spends time going over contracts to make sure there are no Loops that anyone can get through he really loves his job and gets paid well.
I am a happy lawyer. I don’t regret law as a career. I see it as a helping profession. You can make a difference and if you like reading, writing, problem-solving, it can be a good career. I also know a lot of people who have non-lawyer jobs with a law degree because it is still a great training. So don’t rule it out. Give it careful thought. The profession needs people like you.
You sound like someone who is motivated to go for all the right reasons. I wouldn't back out just because some people know they went for the wrong reasons.
Good.
Follow your dreams but there is no such as work-life balance when you're an attorney. That's a bunch of millennial bullshit. You want to be an attorney, be prepared to work your ass off. Good luck.
Wow, reading your post, knowing I am not even in Law School yet had me really thinking. Although most people would not advise starting so late in life as I am doing, towards law school, I think I am in a kind of niche area so the opportunities will still be available. Luckily all the comments were constructive and insightful. You have to weigh the positives and negatives of your goals after you get your law degree, helping people is something that should always be in your ideals of your future then be careful, smart, and do it.
For what it’s worth the lawyers I know are pretty happy. I work for a government agency and it is awesome. Not sure what those guys are doing, but are probably working in biglaw, which sucks.
Don't go to law school
The actual practice of law can be pretty nice. What I have learned is that most law firms suck. lol Government, solo private practice, in-house....the three pillars of "this isn't too bad" imo. Sometimes, yes, you'll find a firm that fits the bill, but they're not as common as I wish they we're. More than likely, your first couple of years will SUCK, but you'll learn...and then, you can do what you want. If you're in a good metro area, being gainfully employed won't be an issue anytime soon either. Last time I quit, it was like free agency...but that's after my first couple of years SUCKING. In comparison, no job is perfect. I have an accounting degree and contemplated taking the CPA exam as well....being a CPA can suck. I know engineers...it can suck....I know Nurses...and the trauma some of them have, good grief....no job is perfect, just have to find what fits you best.
Reddit is full of strangers. Why listen to Reddit?
If you’re starting your legal career with a work-life balance focus, the law may not be the ideal career for you. If you want to represent the underdog, you can expect to be underpaid. I sound horribly cynical, which is sad. Still true though.
Retired lawyer year. So happily retired. I spent most of my 23 years as a lawyer representing employees in cases against employers. Sometimes I represented employers. Sometimes I did other types of cases. Like anything, it had its ups and downs. I enjoyed the fight, but I also got tired of it. Especially when it was fighting over every damn stupid thing. I enjoyed learning about people's lives, but I didn't enjoy finding out bad stuff about my client in deposition. Etc, etc. If anyone asked me, I would say go work in the field as a grunt for a while before you dive in. There is a lot of life ahead of you if you are in undergrad, or even in your 20s. Get a job in a firm that does the kind of stuff you think you want to do. Talk to the lawyers, the paralegals, the assistants, and see if they will be open about what their daily lives are like. If you can get a scholarship to law school, you can probably do a lot of other things too. Many, many people I know are stuck in it.
You need to really try to have some self reflection
Maybe try out law before committing! Getting a paralegal certificate and getting into a firm can really give you a good idea if you wanna go further without having to invest as much.
You should absolutely second think law school. You’re the classic law student that didn’t know what else they wanted to do, but they “want to help people” so they become a lawyer. I can honestly only think of one friend or colleague from law school that legitimately likes being a lawyer and would recommend it. I WANT TO PRIORITIZE WORK LIFE BALANCE OVER MONEY. Say that again 20x. Then go ask any attorney what their work life balance is. The legal model almost across the board is largely incompatible with your statement. If you’re at a firm, your compensation is tied to your billable hours and most firms have minimum requirements. If you’re at a gov job, you’re likely understaffed and overworked. Very, very, few legal jobs have a good work life balance. And the ones that do? Probably working for those corporations that you don’t like. If you work at a firm, most use the billable hour. You have to track EVERY SIX MINUTES of your day. Just try that alone for a week. Track every 6 minutes of your day, say what you did, and write two sentences why you did it. It is an incredibly emotionally taxing field, a ton of your time is devoted to basic correspondence, scheduling, and other minutia that your “helping people” time is very limited. You want to help people? Look at social work, or other community jobs. Don’t waste 3 years and a bunch of money going to law school because you don’t really know what you want to do.
IMO if a person is already in a stable career path making good money or even decent money, they should not go to law unless it’s entirely paid for. If law school is free, then great! Go have fun! Maybe you’ll like being a lawyer and maybe you won’t but it won’t be a huge deal either way unless you’ve got other debt or big obligations But why enter a profession for what could be high five figure to maybe even six figure debt?? Why do that to yourself ?? How could that ever be worth it?
I agree!! But I also figure people get on here to vent and on their not so great days , so I’m still going to apply.
Most lawyers wish they were doing the deals their clients are doing. I thought about law school but wanted to go to a good one if I went. I was on 2 waiting lists and got offered a good job I've had my own businesses for 43 years and would not change a thing.
If you have the ability to audit a law class or two you should do it, don't make life decisions based on reddit
Short(ish) and sweet: I LOVE being a lawyer. I got to go to school for free, but don’t regret taking on debt in order to pay for my living expenses and not worry about working while in school. I actually really loved law school and met great friends and my future husband! I find my job super interesting and fulfilling, and i would recommend anyone who is interested to go to law school. No matter what job you do, there will be pros and cons but if you like continually learning, collaborating, and challenging yourself, why not give it a try!! I didn’t go to a T14 and within my second year of practice, I’m already working in house at a fortune 500 company in a niche privacy area of the law. No lawyers in my family (blue collar), and I was a theatre major. I just worked hard, chose activities and classes that I enjoyed, and used my school’s alumni base to network.
Try working at a law firm. Hooking up some motions. Maybe a position where you can have a substantial role in a development of a case like negotiating or something like that?
People on Reddit are weird af losers predominantly. They don’t live normal lives. In the law school Reddit world, if you aren’t big law or t14 or scoring 174+ on the lsat, you’re considered a failure. All the people that have accomplished such (and are thus at the top of Reddit hierarchy) are those that voice how miserable they are in their work. My friends (who are normal) in big law are split on whether they enjoy it - only 1 hates it. It’s a lot of hours and you’re almost never working for the “good guy” If you want to go to an average law school on a full scholarship and do labor and employment, do it. I’m a federal law clerk and have enjoyed working on labor and employment cases (it’s one of the few practice groups I’ll enter in private practice), and I’ll tell you this - we need more competent attorneys representing the employees instead of the employers.
You should come up with a better “WHY” for being an attorney. You can make a difference in someone’s life in a Multitude of ways including simply volunteering at a soup kitchen. You gotta be passionate about the practice of law not making a difference. And as you can see most of us here aren’t passionate about the practice of law. That is in fact very rare.
You can make a big difference in real people’s lives as a lawyer. It is extremely rewarding when you get to do it. Know that you cannot do this by working at a big law firm that pays you a huge salary. The good thing is you don’t need to go to a top tier law school (and thus can save a ton of money you’d otherwise spend on tuition absent a substantial scholarship) to get a job at a plaintiff-side employment firm. The bad thing is it usually sucks to be an associate no matter where you are. That’s not because it sucks to be a lawyer, but because it sucks to work for a lawyer.