<p>I saw a similar thread at a different discussion forum (high school instead of undergrad) and thought it would be great if some of you more experienced law students, grads, lawyers, etc. could share your thoughts with us. It could be anything that crosses your mind as you think back to your undergraduate days when you thought about applying to law school, and what you discovered once you actually got there and/or once you actually started practicing law. It would be nice to hear some of your experiences...Thanks!</p>
<p>bump............</p>
<p>bump . . .</p>
<p>lol, thanks guys...</p>
<p>Haha, I am HIGHLY interested in what people have to say on this topic! I wish it was filled with pages of "shoulda, coulda, and woulda" posts.</p>
<p>Practicing law is not about protecting freedom, justice and the American way. </p>
<p>Having an interest in political science and/or doing well in political science has no bearing on whether you will like law or do well in law.</p>
<p>The little people who are being trampled on can't afford to pay you. </p>
<p>The people for whom you are trying to protect their procedural due process (e.g. criminals) don't deserve to have their rights protected.</p>
<p>You can't tell whether your clients are lying to you any better than anyone else can.</p>
<p>The general public has a negative view of lawyers; but individual clients may worship you if you save the day, but hate you if you don't win their case.</p>
<p>Most lawyers don't like each other initially.</p>
<p>Most clients lack common sense.</p>
<p>Very few criminal court judges presume defendants are innocent until proven guilty.</p>
<p>Judges take the words of an untruthful police officer over the truthful statements of anyone else.</p>
<p>Decisions of minority jurors often involve an undue consideration of the parties' races as well as the race of the lawyers involved.</p>
<p>Decisions of white jurors often involve an undue consideration of the parties' perceived socio-economic status.</p>
<p>With your skills and work ethic, you could have made more money in another profession.</p>
<p>A lot of tasks in the legal field are very boring. </p>
<p>It is easy to become emotionally involved in cases involving children, such as child custody cases.</p>
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With your skills and work ethic, you could have made more money in another profession.
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and i thought some lawyers make tons of money.</p>
<p>what do you mean by other professions? which professions exactly are you talking about? lawyers make more money than people in most other professions.</p>
<p>hmm, this is just a guess, but maybe something along the lines of... finance? I just remember reading something about a corporate lawyer turned investment banker making tons more as the latter. Or maybe I read it in a book... blah, I don't even remember anymore. Great question...</p>
<p>"The people for whom you are trying to protect their procedural due process (e.g. criminals) don't deserve to have their rights protected."</p>
<p>Hmmm, prosecutor, judge and jury?</p>
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what do you mean by other professions? which professions exactly are you talking about? lawyers make more money than people in most other professions.
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<p>lawyers do make a lot more than people working in most of the other professions out there. doctor is probably the only other professional job where salaries are regularly higher. </p>
<p>but business is the tricky one. sure, there's tons of businessmen out there who are making decent salaries, and probably lower salaries than lawyers. but at the high end, there's also a good group of businessmen who are making salaries that dwarf the vast majority of the lawyers' salaries.</p>
<p>Most lawyers bill by the hour. That means their compensation is limited by the number of hours they can work/bill and their rate per hour. Compensation for business executives is often based on their impact. Certainly there is a correlation between how many hour you work and your impact on the success of a medium to large corporation, but compensation is not limited to the number of hours you work for the corporation. For example, bonuses are primarily based on an employee's value, not the amount of time he devotes to the business. Stock options, etc. - both the number given and the ultimate value - are based on the employee's and the corporation's performance which may be completely independent of time.</p>
<p>Most lawyers are very smart and very hardworking. Take people with that work ethic and put them into business and you will see the opportunity for substantially higher levels of compensation than would otherwise be found in law. </p>
<p>If you take some guy with an undergraduate business degree and compare him to a lawyer and then conclude that lawyer's make more money than business people, is that really an appropriate comparison? I don't think so because you are not comparing the same type of people. In this example, lawyers would be on average smarter and harder working.</p>
<p>Salutations (for the first time in a while - missed y'all!)....</p>
<p>First of all, I'll dispense with the easy things. If y'all want to discuss law v. other career options, make another thread. Also, it cracks me up when people complain about the salaries that lawyers make - really! The median household income in the US is $50,000/year. Granted, a lot of that includes uneducated work, manual labour, etc - but anyone with an iota of fiscal responsibility can have quite a nice life on a lawyer's salary. </p>
<p>Second, a picky point: not all lawyers bill by the hour. Heard of contingency fees? The Big Tobacco plaintiff's attorneys are incredibly wealthy right now. Also, partners in law firms don't just get their own money (what, $300/hour or something insane?) but also get a share of their associates billable salaries. It's enough to have quite a nice life. If you need more than that, you have more problems than a college forum can help you with. :)</p>
<p>To get back to the point of the thread... what I wish I knew as an undergrad:
*How much GPA matters and how little it matters what you did to get those grades. As an undergrad who wanted to later (not immediately after graduation) do grad work in engineering, I really didn't care what my grades were, especially when things got tough. Heck, making it out in four years with an engineering degree, all things considered, was, IMO, quite an accomplishment. I only realized, upon applying to law schools, how very important high grades are and how very unimportant course difficulty is. </p>
<p>*How neurotic academia is. Offline, I've discussed this with some posters - feel free to add, but I will not "out" you here. My own take is that, until you've been out of school, you don't realize how weird it all is. It is really easy to obsess, get stressed, and to let things rattle you that shouldn't get to you at all. Once you've done something besides school, you can get perspective on the experience - which ultimately makes you a stronger student. You realize that the work is just that - stuff that should be done and not something that will eat you in the night. It's just there. </p>
<p>*How much plans can change (and - know thyself). I always knew that I would never be happy as a lab researcher. Just gut level cringing at the thought - and it was brought up a lot, because everyone under the sun told me to go into science research - "you have the personality for it! You would be good at it!". I went into engineering (hey! math and science, my two favourites, all in one!) and did research because... everyone said I would be good at it. I was. I just didn't love it enough to want to do it for the rest of my life... and gradually started to dislike it, once the intellectual challenge because less of a challenge. It was then time to backtrack and figure out what would make me happy - something that I love not just because the work is neat, but because I like the actual mechanics of what I'm doing. Lab work is one of the many things that I can excel at but not enjoy. Sooo... for me, that meant a career switch to law school. </p>
<p>*Regardless of what profession you go into, you will do grunt work, you will have some boring moments (or days or weeks or months), and you will have people telling you that you could make more money or have a better lifestyle in another profession (which often correlates to lower pay for more free time!). See above comments re: business v. law. </p>
<p>*As much as you can think, "I"ll go into law school to be a lobbyist" or "I'll go into business school so I can run off to undeveloped countries and establish agribusiness," it's really hard to do that. Most everyone ends up wanting to do what their peers are doing - and let's face it, law school is set up for those who want to be lawyers in big firms. It isn't set up for lobbyists, politicians, or people who want pro bono capital defense. The resources aren't directed that way, and the "aura" of law school is designed to beat you up - and it's really hard to go through that and be all altruistic at the end. If you are thinking of doing something really outside the mainstream, think again - most likely, you'll change your mind or be miserable. </p>
<p>I'll try to come up with more cliches later. :)</p>
<p>lawyers that bill by the hour can have a hard time. For example, your client doesn't have a lot of money and you're working to help them through a very difficult divorce. After many hours of hard work the client tells you they can't pay you. Tough luck.</p>
<p>lawyers that get their percentage (33%?) have it better in my opinion. You can have a lower-middle class construction worker get injured on the job. You work hard for hours and win him/her enough money to live a happy life. You also get your percentage even though that person doesn't have a lot of money in their bank account before the trial. That person doesn't suffer and neither do you.</p>
<p>Hopefully none of you are trying to become lawyers for the money, but that's a simplified version of how it can work sometimes in some cases.</p>
<p>"lawyers that bill by the hour can have a hard time. For example, your client doesn't have a lot of money and you're working to help them through a very difficult divorce. After many hours of hard work the client tells you they can't pay you. Tough luck."</p>
<p>Hmmm...Collections anyone? That's why you sign a contract. It is also a matter of knowing how to charge and/or pick your clients; not tough luck.</p>
<p>"lawyers that get their percentage (33%?) have it better in my opinion. You can have a lower-middle class construction worker get injured on the job. You work hard for hours and win him/her enough money to live a happy life. You also get your percentage even though that person doesn't have a lot of money in their bank account before the trial. That person doesn't suffer and neither do you."</p>
<p>Then again, it all depends on who your clientele is and who you market to.</p>
<p>"Hopefully none of you are trying to become lawyers for the money, but that's a simplified version of how it can work sometimes in some cases."</p>
<p>Right...so you have gathered all of that information from your extensive experience of living 16 long and arduous years on this earth?</p>
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Right...so you have gathered all of that information from your extensive experience of living 16 long and arduous years on this earth?
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<p>Perhaps actually objecting to her argument, and not her, will be sufficient for your next posting.</p>
<p>Perhaps. Or, perhaps people may refrain from arguing in an authoritative manner about subjects beyond their expertise.</p>
<p>Having said that, I thought the name of the thread was "Things I wish I knew as an Undergrad", not "Things I wish I knew in high school" (or middle school?)</p>
<p>What kind of law are you looking to practice again, nspeds?</p>
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Perhaps. Or, perhaps people may refrain from arguing in an authoritative manner about subjects beyond their expertise.
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<p>You could have suggested it in a nicer manner.</p>
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What kind of law are you looking to practice again, nspeds?
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<p>I want to teach.</p>
<p>well, my parents are lawyers. i have no interest in it whatsoever. but the contract doesnt help if the person doesnt have any money to pay you with. so i was just saying what my parents tell me/complain to me. personally i want to be a doctor.
wildflower, you dont have to be such a *****.</p>
<p>razorsharp said "If you take some guy with an undergraduate business degree and compare him to a lawyer and then conclude that lawyer's make more money than business people, is that really an appropriate comparison? I don't think so because you are not comparing the same type of people. In this example, lawyers would be on average smarter and harder working."</p>
<p>Frankly, I have met a lot of lawyers, and some were smart and others were stupid. I have met a lot of business people. Some were smart and some were stupid. A lot of them are just average. I have no idea what the average is, but I would be very careful making such assumptions when the facts are not in evidence.</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with Rachel. Very strongly.</p>
<p>Contingency fees could be great - you win some, you lose some. If you lose, you don't have to hand your client a $25,000 bill. If you win, your client didn't have to advance money, but still gets cash. Sounds good, right?</p>
<p>Reality is far, far different. The best lawyers are able to get the highest-paying cases and the ones which are most likely to win - things like malpractice suits (solvent defendant covered by insurance) that results in long-term disability (high payoff). The other lawyers are stuck with cases that might not pay the bill from that case alone, let alone cover the costs for the losing cases. For example, if a case takes about 50 hours to get through (not unreasonable) and results in a $9,000 settlement, that's good, right? Well, no - you get $3,000 for 50 hours of work, or $60/hour. Sounds good - until you realize that a) the national average for lawyers is about $100/hour, and that b) $60/hour is also covering for the two similar cases that were lost - so effectively, you've put in a few weeks of work for not much money. </p>
<p>Situation #2. You're one of those great lawyers who can pick and choose from the cases. You only take ones that have a high probability of winning big bucks (sure, that denies people who have been harmed access to the legal system, but who cares?). Your newest client is a woman who gave birth to a deformed child and is suing her doctor. Jury comes back for compensatory damages for life and no punitive damages. Compensatory damages is enough to care for the child, based on current medical costs, until she is 65. Sounds great, right? Your client didn't have to front the money for the litigation and got enough to support her child. Problems (not even going into tort reform issues): the compensatory damages, by definition, don't include your fee. So you might make a few million on this - yay for you! Problem is, years down the road, even with excellent money-managing, your client isn't going to have enough money to care for her kid - in part becuase you just took 1/3 of it. It might actually cost $6 million or whatever to care for someone with long-term disabilities, but, well, no joy in Mudville, because your client has to make due with $4 million. Assuming the compensatory damages were a reasonably good estimate of what it will cost to care for this kid, your client is going to be $2 million short. Can you sleep at night? How does it feel to take money from people who need it? </p>
<p>The lawyers can add to/correct all of this, by the way.</p>
<p>Now we have the professional responsibilty issue. Lawyers are prohibited from acting in their own financial interests once they have accepted a case. For example:
You take on a case. The defendants approach you and ask if your client would like to settle for one of two things: $30,000 cash with no admission of wrongdoing or $9,000 and non-monetary relief that would be important to her (for example, to keep with the medical liability, let's say that she was disfigured in a car accident, and a plastic surgeon is at fault. He offers her the smaller amount of cash plus his services to repair the facial abrasions). Your client wants some of the cash and the non-monetary settlement: it's exactly what she's trying to get from this mess and she doesn't have to worry that $21k won't cover it. Professional ethics dictates that you advise her to take the option which is best for her, even though it's a significant monetary loss for you. Straight-up hourly payments don't give you that problem!</p>
<p>Isn't there Legal Aid for people who make less than about $40,000/year? Law school clinics? Large firms with pro bono departments? Don't mean to sound like a jerk, but if your clients aren't paying the bills (which you really need!), then maybe there's a different tactic to be used.</p>
<p>Contingency fees leave the lawyer with no guarantee of being paid for his work. He's paid if he wins; he makes money if he wins enough (and enough money!) to cover all of his costs. If he loses, he just worked for free - and, rationally speaking, that's just as bad as a client who can't pay.</p>
<p>As a social policy, are contingency fees the best? They certainly allow even poor clients access to the legal system, in theory. In reality, the people who have access are the ones with the cases which are not only most likely to win (which often excludes things like very valid, but very difficult, civil rights cases) but have the highest pay-off at the end. </p>
<p>There are a lot of civil suits which don't necessarily generate monetary rewards. Sometimes, as in civil rights cases, the monetary rewards might be quite low. THe person might have a very valid complaint, but it might stretch the bounds of the law in a direction which hasn't been litigated before. Obviously, there are similar problems with pay-by-the-hour systems - there are simply problems without remedies in our legal system. IMO, contingency fees aren't the perfect solution to this.</p>
<p>Consider the following (actual case): A man bought a fur coat for his wife. Nowhere visible to him did it say that merchandise cannot be returned but only exchanged. Wife hates the coat and can't find anything else she likes in the store. Man tries to return the coat and is told that he cannot. Clerk moves a rack aside on a far wall (away from the registers) and shows the man a small sign which states the store's policy. Clerk says that there is a posted sign; ergo, no returns. Man said that no reasonable person would have seen that sign and it was the only notification; ergo, allow the return. They litigate. Cost of coat: $3,000. Cost of litigation: $18,000. Total loss for man: $15,000. Good thing that wasn't paid for via contingency fee, huh? </p>
<p>Contingency fees are good for top lawyers, and, IMO, that's about it. Just trying to point out that there are real downsides to them.</p>