<p>To the OP -
There are few "average" experiences from which to draw to answer your question. As lskinner pointed out (and as you chose to disregard), one's experiences as a lawyer are dependent upon a tremendous number of factors. Factors can include geographical location, client base (in other words, to whose drum beat are you marching?), type of law, willingness to work long hours, willingness to take less pay, public vs. private (though there are hundreds, if not thousands, of possible descriptions for each type), background and skills, intelligence, experience, variability in the economy as a whole, variability in the economy in a particular sector . . . do you see the completely random picture emerging here? Anyone who pretends that they can sum things up for you about work hours, salary and "fulfillingness" while practicing law in a paragraph or two is either oversimplifying or knows little of what they speak.</p>
<p>In addition, rating areas of law by their "fulfillingness", without knowing what criteria would make a job fulfilling to a particular person is also quite impossible. What would make you feel fulfilled? Do you want to work for the government, working on changing the world through tough new environmental standards? Do you want to make oodles of money so that you can then give back to the community through the charitable foundation you will set up? Do you want to come home from work every day feeling like the day went quickly because you were so busy and challenged? What matters to you?</p>
<p>In fact, there is even more variability in hours and pay among small and medium sized firms (based upon your later post) than among bigger firms, generally. The one thing that will always be true is that your day-to-day experience at work, no matter the setting, will always be affected to some degree by to whom you report (boss, CEO, Attorney General, partner, etc.) and for whom you are getting the work done (your clients, whether internal or external). To the extent that any one or more of them makes unreasonable demands, you will suffer for it. By the same token, this bad situation can change from week to week, or month to month, as you change clients or report to someone new. </p>
<p>There are practicing lawyers on this board who can speak to the specific work they have done and are doing, but experiences vary. Even if I wrote a detailed description here of what it was like for me to work for my big Wall Street law firm right out of law school and for several years thereafter, someone else's experience at that same law firm doing the same work that I did might differ if they worked for different partners or different clients. Their experience might also differ as the economy changes over time. </p>
<p>So what exactly do you want to know? What is it like to be a personal injury lawyer in Atlanta with five years of legal experience under your belt? I'm fairly confident that there is not a single answer to even that detailed question.</p>