How should I make sure I want to be a lawyer?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>I'll be a college freshman this fall and I've been thinking about going to law school for a long time now, but I don't want to be one of those people who go into law just b/c it's a clear career path. I've begun reading Mountauk's How to Get into the Top Law Schools and he includes a brief section about this but I found his suggestions to be too vague and abstract. </p>

<p>For example, he says stuff like "Investigate legal specialties" and "understand what employment possibilities there are in the field" but I want more specific, concrete steps. Can CC help me? </p>

<p>Note: I did see that he includes a list of some books with titles that sound like they could help me a lot, such as "Guide to Legal Specialties" by Lisa L. Abrams, and "My First Year as a Lawyer". Anyone here read them? What did you think? The latter book has some negative reviews at Amazon.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

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<p>Do an internship at a law firm. If you can see yourself doing their work for the rest of your life, then you’re ready to be a lawyer.</p>

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<p>Also, since you have basically 0 higher education, you can find a family friend/local professional/professor with a JD and ask them what law school is like, and how they have used the JD degree.</p>

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<p>@hollyert: Amazingly, I don’t know a single person with a JD. I’m sure I can find out about law school b/c my school (UChicago) lets me take some classes in the law school with law students, but I’m more concerned with life after law school.</p>

<p>@futurenyustudent: I read about that, but I’m concerned that I will learn much more about the clerical aspect of internships than what lawyers actually do…</p>

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<p>And paperwork is a large part of the job.</p>

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<p>I think a lot of people are attracted to lschool only for the prestige. However, I think it’s good that you are questioning if lschool is right for you. </p>

<p>I was in your position years ago and I decided against lschool. My reasons were:

  1. I like a work/life balance. New lawyers work crazy amount of hours and are under high stress to make partner. I’ve heard big law firms have beds for the new hires to sleep in.
  2. While law is immensely interesting to me, I do not find the lawyer work of sifting through paperwork rewarding and interesting work.
  3. I felt there were other alternatives that were more interesting.
  4. I do not like the cut-throat competitive atmosphere in lschool in which students fight for rankings (I think Yale might be different).</p>
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<p>I suppose really trying to understand what it’s like to be a lawyer (or anything) without actually being one is a little like trying to appreciate skydiving by jumping on the bed. That said, there are a few ways you can help yourself out.</p>

<p>First, refine your question. What kind of lawyer do you want to be?</p>

<p>Lawyers who practice different kinds of law in different cities at different size firms face a wide variety of professional and personal challenges with practice. The difference between transactional law and litigation, for example, is so night and day it would be absurd to apply the lessons of one to the other.</p>

<p>Even within a particular role, there is a lot of variation depending upon your particular view of work/life balance. I hate to say this, but that’s going to change a lot as you mature. I was a shiftless undergrad until I found a passion, then a workaholic until I found a wonderful woman I’d rather spend my time with. I would be naive to think that I, or the shape of my career, will be stable now.</p>

<p>To determine if you want to be a lawyer (and then what kind), I can think of a couple basic questions you have to ask yourself:</p>

<p>1) Do you like the material? Take a law class. Join a moot court. Find other ways to test your appetite for the things that legal practice requires. Be in a theatre production to see how you feel in front of an audience. Take a course that requires insane, detailed reading and see how you feel about focussing for hours and hours on minutiae for hours on end. Remember that the life of a junior associate at a BigLaw firm is more about doc review and bluebooking memos than about thundering speeches and martini lunches with clients.</p>

<p>2) How do you respond to long work hours and pressure? All attorneys, particularly litigators, face a lot of stress and performance anxiety. When I litigated, I woke up a hundred times a night for WEEKS before trial; sweating and panting, panicked that I’d missed some deadline or another and my client will end up in prison. </p>

<p>Spend a summer working insane hours. Put yourself in positions where you feel intense pressure to succeed; especially in situations where other people’s success depends on your performance. Feel what it’s like to have another person’s future in your hands, because in practice, your client’s freedom, his right to see his kids, his financial future, is fully in your hands.</p>

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<p>A UChicago student is probably interested in “BigLaw”. </p>

<p>That being said, there is more to legal practice than “BigLaw”. You don’t have to work outrageous hours if you are willing to accept less compensation.</p>

<p>You can practice in a small town, help people with wills, immigration issues , bankruptcies, the occasional drug or racketeering charge etc. </p>

<p>You can even ramp up a small town practice to big bucks if your priorities change and you do the work.</p>

<p>But whether you are greaseing for partner at a tippy top firm or spending afternoons playing golf with old college buddies after a hard morning of providing competent legal representation to the scum, pardon make that “salt”, of the earth, you need to spend time with lawyers to see if you can stand them and the work.</p>

<p>I am an engineer with several close friends who are lawyers and I occassionally testify in court regarding technical matters.</p>

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<p>I think GopherGrad’s advice was spot-on. Thanks a lot! One clarification though; can you give a few examples of courses that require a lot of detailed reading? I’m interested in history and philosophy and would imagine that both of them, especially the latter, often demands very detailed reading and analysis. Also, what are some examples for that crazy intense summer position? I can’t imagine many of those that are open for recently graduated HS seniors or an undergrad. Like being a EMT or something? I’ve always been interested in being a volunteer firefighter…but that’s not really pulling insane hours.</p>

<p>@BigG: Why do you say a UChicago student is probably interested in BigLaw? Not saying you’re wrong, but just curious. I’m interested in perhaps being a corporate counsel? What’s that like?</p>

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<p>Well your best ideal is to take pre-law classes. Also there are many different types of lawyers, and you have tons of other job opportunties available if you went to law school… you do not have to be a lawyer for the rest of your life as some cc users was implying.</p>

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<p>^ I had always thought that too, especially since I’ve read a lot of non-profit executive positions that accept either a PhD or a JD, but Montauk insists that legal training is very specific and employers know this, and they know that the skills don’t transfer well. He suggests an MBA instead if you’re looking for a flexible, general purpose degree. </p>

<p>I don’t know who to believe…</p>

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<p>I think the broader “legal” skills are very transferrable to other disciplines. The research, writing, and analytical rigor that you develop as a law student and, later, as a lawyer are valued in many other professions.</p>

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<p>you really should talk to lots of lawyers who are at various points in their careers and who work in varied typed of legal jobs. Most lawyers I know wish they had gone into something else (and I am one of them!)</p>

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<p>Citizen,</p>

<p>to address your diret question, you have to find ways to appraise your attention span to two different kinds of rigour. One is high minded concept. High level, demanding pre-law, history or philosophy courses will challenge you that way. It would be really helpful to force your way into a graduate class that really force you to parse arguments carefully.</p>

<p>The second is tedious doc review stuff. I don’t know if a class can provide this, but it will seriously help your cause if you can find a way to sit yourself in from of spreadsheets (or anything else that makes your eyes blur) for hours at a time looking for details. Especially if you go Big, this kind of review will be a big part of your life for awhile. Maybe look at jobs or volunteer opportunities.</p>

<p>To address a couple of the other concerns raised:</p>

<p>-In my opinion, the problem solving and analysis skills lawyers learn are useful in lots of fields, but there are practical problems in transferring a JD into an “outside” industry. For starters, lots of people presume that they teach lawyers to litigate and nothing else. For another, law school is a rigorous program that teaches a defined set of skills. Law school grads have a tendency, at first, at least, to over-rely on these methods and exclude others. Making your law degree “flexible” in practice takes work and awareness of these issues.</p>

<p>-BigG maybe presumes you want a big firm career because lots of top school grads aspire to work at white shoe joints for lots of money and prestige. Chicago, in law and in general, has a slightly more corporatist rep. than, say, Columbia. Plenty of people graduate from all those programs into public and non-profits jobs, but most law students at the top will be tempted by the money at some point.</p>

<p>-I’m another lawyer that became disenchanted with practicing and I know a bunch of others. I also have a lot of friends who, after a difficult adjustment period, love life and wouldn’t do anything else. I think law inspires some extreme reactions. Law school also rarely pays great scholarships, so going is clearly a gamble. “Do I want to be a lawyer” is a question not enough student ask early enough on.</p>