<p>Helix-
I'm glad you've had a chance to read a thread like this - not because I think you should be "talked out" of wanting to be a lawyer, but because I think it extremely important that anyone's decision to become a lawyer be well informed.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I think many students decide they want to be lawyers without really understanding what that means in terms of what types of practices there really are out there and also in terms of what lifestyles go along with those practices. It's better, I think, to realize what the issues are ahead of time and to take that in to account in deciding if law school is in fact for you, than to be hit with some of these realitites in law school or in your first job.</p>
<p>Many of the people posting here, myself included, were probably in the same position you are - for some of us a career as a lawyer was not what we'd thought it would be, but for others it clearly was a satisfying career choice. We are looking at this with be benefit of many years of experience and hindsight -- a view point that you as a high school student simply don't have to help you decide which group you would end up in if you do choose law school. The best you can do is be as informed as you can be and have as clear a sense of what it is you really want so that your own self-awareness can guide you, whether it be through law school or into another career.</p>
<p>It's all in the choices you make. If you choose a high-pressure private firm that has the atmosphere unbelievalbem describes (where you cannot turn away work when you're already working hard), you're letting yourself in for a very tough grind. But private firms are only one sector, and even within private firms there are many that are reasonable about attorney lifestyle. I've been very fortunate; I've worked at three law firms in my 25 work-years, all large and well-paying, yet never felt the pressure to work around the clock.</p>
<p>So be careful. Listen to what the grapevine has to say about different employers ... be wary of law firms with high billable hour requirements ... be realistic about your own tolerance for long hours and deadlines ... be alert for entrepreneurial opportunities where you report only to yourself. If you choose the right spots for yourself it's a great profession. But if you choose a job with more hours and stress than you can handle, it can be torture, even if you're making major bank.</p>
<p>just one more comment about being careful where you end up --</p>
<p>both of the firms i worked at presented themselves as NOT being the type of large, hours driven firms that i knew i wanted to avoid. and especially the second one (a small suburban practice), kept reminding the associates of that "fact" if we ever commented on work load. let's just say, however, that their idea of what was a reasonable workload and that of those of us who didn't stick around, differed -- the partners were incredibly driven and thought nothing of working the hours they worked so they just expected it of the associates as well -- they never said there was a certain number of hours they expected us to bill (and they would often say, "it's not like we're one of those big firms that requires X hours") - they just expected us to get the work done when it needed to be done and that required awfully long hours -- and when i interviewed there, they had told me they had time for their family lives. i didn't ask the follow-up questions i would now know to ask as to what they actually meant by that.</p>
<p>Audiophile: I may be the one whose comment you saw, since I recently posted something about not knowing why anyone would want to be a lawyer. Oddly, I myself love what I do, since I work for myself and do corporate work for a wonderful list of clients. I only have this luxury, however, because I paid my dues on the large law firm circuit and my clients stayed with me when I left after 15 or so years. I would never, ever have been able to hang out a shingle and end up with my wonderful clients. In addition, e-mail and pdf have given me a freedom that I never dreamed I could have 20 years ago when working for a sub-department head of a department head of a large law firm.
My comment, and the reason that I really don't want my children to be lawyers, arises more from what I hear from other attorneys, especially those who do trial work. Getting cases is extremely difficult. In many cases, the corporate clients have very regulated fees and billing arrangements. The judges can be extremely inflexible. And on top of this lawyers seem to continually threaten other lawyers with sanctions and disciplinary proceedings. The overpopulation of the profession has, unfortunately, led in many cases to a survive at any cost mentality, and it is not always "the fittest" who survives. The fittest may just find something else to do.</p>
<p>A little hint: When the firm interviewing you schedules a flyback interview for a Saturday because "everybody will be there, but it won't be as hectic as a weekday" it's fair to say that having a personal life isn't high on the list of priorities. Of course, this was also the firm that very blatantly asked my religious denomination, and then took me to lunch with the local minister from that denomination . . . :)</p>
<p>The public hates you. Politicans run against you. Everyone thinks you're a dolt at best or a criminal at worse. The mid-level salaries are ok, but general pay raises are based on the whims of the President and the mean-spirited idiots in Congress. Reporters haven't a clue as to what you do, but insist on writing misleading or simply wrong stories about it anyway. Every four years (or eight years) a new group comes in running against the old group and everything changes. We're always being reorganized because we're allegedly ineffective but more likely because the new folks want to put their stamp on everything. Political appointees keep you at arms length you or are scared of you and wouldn't work with you or respect your expertise and experience. Some of the jobs are dangerous. Political appointees refuse to make the hard decisions when it comes to bad managers. You are never given enough resources to do your work, which a large part of the public really doesn't want you do do anyway. The security in DC is mind-numbing.</p>
<p>I have no regrets about going to law school. My judicial clerkship was just about the best job I can imagine: 9-5 hours, decent pay, great benefits, friendly atmosphere, fascinating work. I'm about to start a second clerkship after a year at a big firm. Firm life has been demanding and exhausting at times, but also very interesting, rewarding and educational (not to mention lucrative). All in all, a very good experience.</p>
<p>Most of the down sides mentioned here need not be universal, especially for highly competitive law school candidates. The very top schools have quite generous loan repayment programs for students who choose low-paying public interest work. It's also not unusual for strong candidates admitted to school XYZ to be offered substantial merit money -- even full rides -- from schools a few rungs lower on the totem pole than XYZ. I had a number of friends who paid for law school via JAG, as well as friends who did financial or consulting work for several years after college and saved enough money to cut their debt load substantially. Taking on $120,000 in debt is not the only way.</p>
<p>I knew there had to be a reason for me staying addicted to this site long after April college decisions! This site truly is gold...</p>
<p>I have been flirting with the idea of law school for a few years now. My field of interest is child advocacy. My experiences are limited to pro-bono/law school clinics that have helped my family with extensive special ed issues. I also have a small internship stint at a kiddie law clinic in Wash. D.C. - not worth much on paper, as 18 year-old, pre-undergrads can't do much legal work, but useful for prospecting career opportunities and checking out office atmosphere/politics.</p>
<p>I would love any additional specific advice y'all can give - schools to watch, equally satisfying alternative careers, and the like. Having read this thread, I feel pretty naive and having just finished undergrad app processes, I really do fear getting into the nitty gritty of law school reputations, fits, diversity numbers, etc. again.</p>
<p>Thanks, tsdad for the 'fed background'! I'm sorry it wasn't a more positive experience for you. At the same time, I've known lawyers who worked for a few years at DOJ, the IRS or SEC and were highly sought after (& made big bucks) when they later went into private practice. Maybe they shared some of the same frustrations, though (& I didn't hear about it!).</p>
<p>Helix--I was in journalism before law school. I'll say that it's much harder (in my experience) to get ahead and make a decent salary in journalism than in law. Even mid to lower tier lawyers make much more than the average journalist. There are exceptions (NY Times, TV journalism, etc.) but getting ahead is a lot more unpredictable in journalism than law. </p>
<p>Plus, I did not find it as intellectually rewarding as law, at all. Additionally, you are more of spectator than a participant in the action. Some people love it, though... :-)</p>
<p>gphoenix---good for you! That's an area of law I would <em>love</em> to pursue someday! (specifically, preventing international child exploitation).</p>
<p>i think child advocacy can be a great, worthwhile field. during my career i had the chance to work on a few cases where those types of issues were involved, and they were among the most satisfying cases i worked on - didn't mean the work was any less pressure or hours, but i never lay awake wondering if i was doing the "right thing" or if the time i was putting in was "worth it" for the case.</p>
<p>the only word of caution i would have, from the little experience i have and more so from that of a couple of friends i know in the field, the thing to look out for is burn-out and stress. child advocacy can include dealing with some issues involving some pretty horrendous things that happen to kids - the types of things most of us don't even want to think about. if those are the predominant type of case you regularly handle, it can be very stressful. </p>
<p>if you have already made contacts in the field, those would be the best people for you to speak with to help you learn the potential ups and downs, and how people deal with the downs.</p>
<p>A couple of people in this thread have mentioned the tedium of being a lawyer. Normally, I wouldn't give this description a second thought--doesn't every job comes with a certain amount of drudgery?--but it caught my eye because I've heard several lawyer friends say the same thing, even those who seem content with their careers. Just what is tedious about the job? Is this the general malaise that eventually comes with any kind of job, or is there something in the nature of an attorney's work that lends itself to this description?</p>
<p>"I have been flirting with the idea of law school for a few years now. My field of interest is child advocacy."</p>
<p>There's a lot of money in child advocacy/child abuse law, but most of it is to be made defending the abusers and family. The last entry level assistant attorney general dealing with such cases in our state was hired last year, with a salary of $41k - there were more than 400 applicants for the job.</p>
<p>Yet another non-practicing lawyer weighing in--I practiced for 20 years and retired when my kids were in elementary and high school. I would not discourage anyone from going to law school--it is a wonderful personal and intellectual challenge and a spectacular learning experience. I had 3 different permanent jobs during my 20 years of practice--the first one was miserable but the others were, on balance, extremely positive experiences from the standpoint of work and of collegiality. There are as many types of law to practice as there are personalities; I was primarily a transactional lawyer and enjoyed being in situations where I could help clients achieve a desired goal. Yes, the thought of going to court always gave me a stomach ache--so if you are similarly inclined, you can STILL be a good lawyer!</p>
<p>dg5052 brings up a good point: the type of law you end up practicing can be vastly different from what you envision when you start out. I did a brief stint at a smaller, trial-oriented firm during the summer when I was in law school. When I noted that the head attorney never even saw his family during the week - he left for the office before they woke up, ate his meals at restaurants and at the office with colleagues, and returned home after his family was in bed - I knew <strong>that</strong> wasn't for me. When I started practicing I worked as a transactional lawyer in partnership with another neophyte who was supposed to be the litigator. Within a couple of years our roles had reversed, as we both realized we were more suited for the type of practice we had initially shied away from. I've been doing trial and appellate work now for close to thirty years -- during which my focus has shifted between various aspects of those fields. So a positive aspect of becoming a "lawyer" is that that title covers a lot of very different types of jobs.</p>
<p>I'm not a lawyer, but I'm wondering if the apparently high rate of dissatisfation in the profession stems from the fact that many students entered for the prestige or the money rather than an actual interest in the law. (Same goes for doctors, I suppose.)</p>
<p>I will add that there are as many ways to practice law as there are people doing it. I've been an attorney for 21 years, and am managing to do so while mothering three children and surviving middle age. I practice on the non-profit side, after a brief and very unhappy fling with large firm practice. Unlike many attorneys, my work involves both my heart and my head, and I am grateful for having wise, funny, smart colleagues. Law school won't show anyone what the actual practice of law is like, and the jobs that are easy to find are not often those that people end up happy in. My career path has been very different from any of my law school classmates, but has been one that has kept me in the profession, despite all of the reasons that could have kept me at home. If any of my daughters thought about becoming an attorney, I'd tell them to work hard to be accepted at the best school they could, to get very good grades while there so that the choice of jobs was their own, to take any opportunity to try internships, judicial clerkships-- and then to listen to what their instincts told them about what kind of professional life they wanted. There's a law job out there for almost anyone's needs. It may not show up at the campus placement center, or at recruiting season, or it may not materialize for a few years. But it exists.</p>
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<p>I'm not a lawyer, but I'm wondering if the apparently high rate of dissatisfation in the profession stems from the fact that many students entered for the prestige or the money rather than an actual interest in the law. (Same goes for doctors, I suppose.)<<</p>
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<p>I think that part of the dissatisfaction also comes from how much time being a lawyer can take up in your life. . . The analogy that comes to mind is of a person who like to drink water, but ends up drinking from a fire hose. Even in small firm life, the demands on your time and energy can be overwhelming at times.</p>