<p>What do people think of this description? [I actually thought some of it sounded like whinning or maybe just a bad fit for the author, but other parts did worry me like broken personal relationships.]</p>
<p>Why</a> You Shouldn’t Go To Law School | It's Up to You
“I have worked as a paralegal in some form of legal (family, bond, litigation) for 14 years now. I have yet to meet an attorney who is satisfied with his lot in life. I am not saying everyone non-esquire is thrilled with theirs, just that on a whole, these are some of the saddest, most down-trodden people I have known in my life. Most of my best friends are attorneys so I hear first hand about the student loans they are STILL paying off at 38; the huge houses and Mercedes’ they purchased well beyond their means to “keep up with the Joneses” (aka every other attorney in the firm); the misery that is their ongoing marriages; the ridiculous hours; ice cold dinners; the utter lack of originality in their conversations; etc., etc., etc. Listening to these woes sucks the energy out of me everytime they come up. The most common nugget I hear: “Why, God WHY did I choose this profession?”"</p>
<p>“Nobody ever told me that I would be keeping time sheets that require me to divide my days into six-minute increments. Nobody told me I would have to choose between doing it right and doing it on a budget. The words “the client is cost-sensitive” burn my ears. But the marketing **** is the worst. The push to bring in business and schmooze potential clients and “cross-sell” within the firm. It’s worse at some firms than others, but it is absolute misery to me no matter how much or how little marketing I may be doing. I’ve been practicing for 10 years, most of that time in big firms, and I have yet to get used to the business side of things. So I suppose that would be my take on things: even if you are going to law school for all of the “right reasons,” odds are you will spend a significant portion of your day as the used-car salesman from Hell whose boss is nickle and diming you to an early grave.”</p>
<p>“As I write this, it is 85 degrees, sunny, with a slight, cooling breeze coming from the West. The only reason I know this is that I took twenty minutes to run to get a sandwich to eat at my desk. I am sitting in a basement office which houses three of us, putting off research on state law fair debt collection vs. the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the definition of a creditor to write this post. If that paragraph alone doesn’t deter someone from law school, then I don’t know what will.”"</p>
<p>The most straightforward, beaten, and obvious path that most people feel the need to follow despite everything that has been said about the profession by those who have been through it. </p>
<p>I could do a find/replace to replace “engineer” with “attorney” in those three quotes and it would exactly apply to the engineering corporation I work for. Every engineer I talk to here says “don’t go into engineering” or “get out of engineering”. They are all miserable because of all the exact same reasons mentioned. </p>
<p>My first thesis is that people are generally miserable. No matter what career you choose, most of the people in that career will say “don’t go into (insert career)” or “get out of (insert career)” or "there’s no job prospects in “(insert career)”. </p>
<p>My second thesis is that lawyers, because of their extensive training and experience in writing and advocating, are just simply better at voicing their dissatisfaction (i.e., *****ing) with their lives than everyone else. </p>
<p>Truth is, most people won’t actually be happy until they can get paid to sit on their couch drinking a bud light while they manage their fantasy football team. </p>
<p>P.S., you lawyers think you have it bad competing in an over-saturated job market? Try competing in an over-saturated job market with added competition from engineers in India, China, Russia, Japan, and a handful of other countries. China and India alone probably graduate more engineers every year than the US does in every degree combined. All while Mr. Fresh-out-of-school MBA is tasked with finding any way possible to eliminate your job.</p>
<p>My dad is a general contractor. His dad was. His dad’s dad was. If you want to talk about ‘hard’ work, then go no farther than waking up at 530 so you can get your ass out to the job site so it can be humming along when the city’s noise policies let up at 7. Try to move pieces of drywall, or sit through the ass-numbing process of bringing the site’s electrical up to the appropriate standards. Lawyers, current and former, like to make big hay out of some rather laughable problems they experience. You have to click a mouse every six minutes? Poor them. Here we have a guy complaining that after taxes he only made a few grand more than the median salary of a metropolitan police officer. Only a few more grand than the pretax income of someone who puts their life on the line every day? Poor little pumpkin. Maybe you can wipe your tears with your impeccable medical insurance.</p>
<p>Then we have some complaints that the job market for potential lawyers isn’t doing so hot. Really? Tens of millions of Americans are out of work, and legal “professionals” (and I use the word in the loosest possible sense) have the audacity to act surprised, even outraged, that their employment prospects aren’t as rosy as pre-2008? </p>
<p>These articles would be funny if they weren’t so tragically self-absorbed.</p>
<p>I’m a litigation partner in a major law firm and I love my job. It’s challenging and demanding, but it is also intellectually stimulating and absorbing. Many days, it is actually fun.</p>
<p>So two non-lawyers show up, offer incredibly uninformed opinions which have nothing to do with OP’s original question-because both have ZERO knowledge of the topic-but their utter lack of knowledge doesn’t stop them from offering opinions. Both then gloat about the poor prospects for lawyers.
Hmmm…deriving pleasure from another’s problems.
Classy.</p>