<p>Intelligent people are rarely happy.</p>
<p>I feel you guys might be stereotyping lawyers a bit. I come into contact with many lawyers in the area where I live and none of them have negative connotations associated with their field. Like all jobs, some lawyers make good livings, some do not. Some lawyers are happy, some are not. If you want to be a lawyer you should not care what other people think about it. Just keep in mind there are so many facets to law, not everybody is a criminal attorney.</p>
<p>"working with a whole firm of people who approach everything like that? any supposedly simple conclusion you make being challenged and argued about -- not because they think you're wrong, just because that's how lawyers approach things. it can be very wearing to have to deal with other lawyers."</p>
<p>While this is true of some lawyers, I've also worked with attorneys who are easy-going, helpful, generous and friendly -- as well as being smart/successful.</p>
<p>Also in my experience, people think it's kind of cool that you are a lawyer or used to practice law (maybe in my case, they are surprised because they think I don't 'look like' one...but overall, it's positive).</p>
<p>A lot of people have negative feelings about the legal profession in general, but ask them about their own lawyer and there usually is an extremely positive feeling. Quoting the above, usually one's own lawyer is "easy-going, helpful, generous and friendly -- as well as being smart/successful."</p>
<p>The reason, I think, looking back on 28 years an an attorney, is that attorneys are hired advocates in serious, competitive situations, and it's the other guy's attorney that always seems to be cruel and unscrupulous. There are more other guys than yourself, so that becomes your impression of the legal profession.</p>
<p>When I go for medical care, I put down "consulting engineer" as my profession, which is also true. Doctors resent attorneys because the government and insurance companies have taken over their profession, while attorneys continue to be self-regulated. Doctors did that to themselves by failing to adequately do their own quality control the way bar associations do.</p>
<p>i'll just note, to put my own comments in context, i am a former attorney.
the comments i've made both here and in other threads are based on both my personal experiences and those of friends and former colleagues. but as is typical of the profession, you will never get a group of lawyers to all agree on anything. ;)</p>
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While this is true of some lawyers, I've also worked with attorneys who are easy-going, helpful, generous and friendly -- as well as being smart/successful.
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<p>nothing i said implies that the individuals might not also be friendly, generous, etc -- just that they can grill and question things to death -- in fact many of the attorneys i worked with actually considered this a friendly banter. but the truth is that it can still make the practice of law enormously stressful. </p>
<p>i'm not talking about lawyers being obnoxious (though there were plenty of those also) -- i'm talking about an approach to issues that is just simply inherently demanding and stressful.</p>
<p>i worked with one attorney who was so calm and "laid back" you'd wanted to check for a pulse periodically -- he was also a nice kind human being who expressed genuine concern for other attorney's personal lives-- BUT he had a meticulous attention to detail and had to be satisfied of every detail that could possibly arise. no matter how thorough a job you'd thought you'd done, you knew he was going to find something to send you back to re-research -- again, not because he had concluded that you were wrong, but because he felt it could be further explored. many times that further exploration turned up nothing additional, but he felt it had to be done. other attorneys were less calm when questioning things, but it doesn't require someone yelling at you for this type of constant questioning to simply be stressful.</p>
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Doctors resent attorneys because the government and insurance companies have taken over their profession, while attorneys continue to be self-regulated. Doctors did that to themselves by failing to adequately do their own quality control the way bar associations do.
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<p>That may be the funniest statement I've ever read on this forum!! Thanks for the laugh.</p>
<p>I would be thrilled.
All those years, and years, of plea bargaining, stating her case and arguing about rights would have paid off. She'd make a great attorney.</p>
<p>Jimmy, have you ever seen the movie "The Paper Chase"? Professor Kingsfield, "Mr. Hart," and all that? Well worth the effort and it might help you focus your thoughts. They turned the movie into a great TV series, too, using the two main characters from the movie.</p>
<p>unbelievablemom--I've met lawyers who do not "grill and question things to death." </p>
<p>However, the fact that we are debating this issue perhaps proves your point to a certain extent. lol. :-) My husband will say I like to 'argue' (I call it 'discussion').</p>
<p>So what is difficult for your child to be interested in an challenging profession? A lawyer is someone with good skills for listening and applying a logical process to come to a desirable outcome. Lawyers are really a professional salespeople, Don't you find that to be true?</p>
<p>I'm not a lawyer but have worked with them for more than 25 years and I can say with only a very few exceptions, they have been the most idealistic, generous, interesting, fun people anyone could be blessed to work with. People who spend countless hours on pro bono work that would rip your heart out.</p>
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My husband will say I like to 'argue' (I call it 'discussion').
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<p>ah!! my point exactly!! :) i think people who like such "discussion" are very prevalent in the career!! (and i would never assume this otherwise indicates anything about your personality!!)</p>
<p>in general, personally, i don't think anyone who has not worked as a lawyer can really understand what it is like to be a lawyer. and lawyers will differ as to their view of the profession -- what some lawyers thrive on, will send others running from the profession -- but lawyers are the ones who can really tell you what its like on an every day, in the trenches basis. what you see within the firm, is not necessarily what clients, friends, or business colleagues get to see. eg - some of the partners i knew that associates found the most difficult to work with were generally found to be the most charming by the clients; i'm sure they would have a very different view of them than someone who worked for them.</p>
<p>i think a prospective lawyer just really needs to hear from as many lawyers (and former lawyers) as possible, not just hear if they are happy, but why, and what they do, so they try to judge whether their temperament is suited to the career. personally, i think too many prospective lawyers are attracted by either a) the money and prestige or b) the intellectual challenge without understanding what the daily grind of being a lawyer is actually like. i give the op a lot of credit for investigating these issues.</p>
<p>Thanks, unbelievablem. I was hoping to get opinions from some actual lawyers, and the responses have been nothing short of wonderful.</p>
<p>unbelievablem also brings up a good point. I should be also be asking what makes lawyers happy along with what makes lawyers unhappy.</p>
<p>Re: intellectual challenge vs. 'everyday grind' -- there are fields w/in law (don't want to be too identifyingly specific!) in which you spend all day making and responding to complex legal arguments and researching interesting issues. Some people might find this fun (others--in fact, many other types of lawyers---would find it painful, lol).</p>
<p>many aspects of practicing law can be intellectually challenging -- but there is a lot else that goes into the actual practice of law beyond that (especially as opposed to the study of law in law school) -- dealing with clients, dealing with other attorneys, dealing with the hours, dealing with the stress, dealing with time sheets, dealing with support staff, dealing with a hundred other things that most non-lawyers can't even imagine -- and if a prospective attorney doesn't understand everything else that comes along with it (ie, what i referred to as the "grind" -- not necessarily implying anything about the actual nature of the practice) i think they are likely to be in for a rude surprise.</p>
<p>What is it that makes law (specifically corporate law) different from similar jobs, such as i-banking?</p>
<p>unbelievablem--if you work for the gov't, you don't have 'clients,' per se, and you don't have billables, time sheets and there is often much less cutthroat competition between lawyers because you aren't competing for most billables/limited partnership slots (of course, sometimes there's little-to-no support staff, but that's another issue, lol).</p>
<p>^^ Same with working in-house. Varied work, no time sheets, get to be a continuing part of the business operations and decisions.....</p>
<p>i have friends who work for the gov't -- they have a "client" in the sense that their agenda is set by the gov't agency they work for and that agenda can change with political changes. several of my friends have been quite happy and satisfied in gov't practice. but, i've known several former gov't attorneys who were extremely disappointed at how little control they had over the course of their work's agenda -- most of those who were so disappointed went into gov't work with very idealistic (and unrealistic) notions of how gov't work would enable them to "make a difference" in terms of what their personal agendas were. [which is not to say gov't lawyers don't make a difference, just that their expectations and reality simply didn't mesh]</p>
<p>i don't presume that these friends' experiences are universal -- there is an incredible variety of gov't jobs at all levels of gov't -- but once again, the practice of law comes with a whole litany of issues beyond the legal ones and the potential "intellectual challenge" of the legal work that a prospective lawyer needs to understand. someone considering a gov't job has to consider who will be their "client" -- who sets the agenda and how, and just how subject to political change that may or may not be (and these issues may vary with the type of gov't position).</p>
<p>unbelievablem--true, there are varied experiences in every profession.</p>
<p>I just wanted the OP to know that while the rap on law might be that it's got killer hours, tons of stress and cutthroat competition -- there are many opportunities in law in which that is not the norm.</p>