<p>^^^^^^title. Although I do think I want to become a lawyer, I've heard of people becoming agents, politicans among other things with their law degree.</p>
<p>You can work as a law clerk for federal judges (even moving up to the Supreme Court justices’ clerks if you graduate out of the top law schools such as Yale, Harvard, Chicago, etc); and then, a lot of firms will be clawing each other to get you.</p>
<p>Also, you can then move onto working in the political arena and then you can split off into business or lobbyist firms (as a lobbyist you will have had connections from when you were working at either the White House or the Congress etc) You can also teach as well. </p>
<p>You don’t need an MBA to be a successful businessman. You can do it with a law degree.</p>
<p>
Or just a college degree. Or no degree at all.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>that should definitely be qualified. someone without a college degree can start a flower shop, used car store, etc. but they will find significant barriers in many business fields. although those people can definitely be very successful. we have all seen the guy that owns like 50 car dealerships and pulls in millions per year.</p>
<p>however, some job options are limited without prestigious graduate and undergraduate degrees.</p>
<p>banking and consulting both seek out top pedigree, and promotion often requires an advanced degree from a top school.</p>
<p>even within entrepreneurship there are big differences in opportunity. the team that recently won the harvard b-school business plan competition got 2 million dollars of venture funding for their idea. i can guarantee that was in large part because they were harvard mba students that won that competition. </p>
<p>if you go knocking on VC’s door with a mediocre u-grad degree, your business plan will probably be tossed out immediately.</p>
<p>Here is an interesting article </p>
<p>[Billionaire</a> College Dropouts](<a href=“http://www.twincommas.com/billionaire-college-dropouts]Billionaire”>http://www.twincommas.com/billionaire-college-dropouts)</p>
<p>Several of the wealthiest, and smartest, people I know never finished college. It’s not something I recommend, but I don’t think getting a college degree necessarily correlates with intellect or success, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. I am speaking of true wealth, not just big salaries like you find in consulting, law or banking.</p>
<p>Well, let me ask this a different way perhaps. If you don’t like working in Biglaw or whatever, and you go to a decent law school, what else can you do? I know that investment bankers, for example, tend to exit to greener pastures (pun intended) or move to less stressful positions even if it doesn’t pay as much. What do lawyers do if they don’t like Biglaw (either for stress or are looking to make more money)?</p>
<p>CISCO CEO has a law degree.
[John</a> Chambers (CEO) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chambers_(CEO)]John”>John T. Chambers - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>The Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, Rich Ross, has a law degree.</p>
<p>Well you could always go inhouse. Or try becoming a state court judge…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Lawyers who don’t like Biglaw (and there are quite a number of those) have many options. Anecdotally, I know former Biglaw attorneys who are novelists, columnists at magazines, screenwriters, actors, CEOs, investment bankers, private equity, venture capital and hedge fund executives, investment managers, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home moms and dads, teachers, professors, chefs, doctors, officers in the military, real estate brokers, and, of course, lawyers at smaller firms, lawyers who have hung out their shingles for themselves, in house counsel and Biglaw lawyers (yes, many who don’t like it stay anyway). I’m sure that there are other Biglaw recoverees that I know who I have forgotten to list. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Often, less stressful jobs actually pay less. That’s just how things seem to work – generally, you get paid the big bucks for jobs that require you to make a lot of personal sacrifices and to live with a lot of job-related stress.</p>
<p>^Yeah I totally understand about the long hours = high pay deal. I mean, no one is going to pay you to smell the roses, right? I was just wondering if there are less stressful options out there, even if there is a pay cut. Although I’m looking at BigLaw right out of law school, I don’t think I could live that life for that long, and even becoming a partner wouldn’t be that appealing to me since that’ll mean more stress.</p>
<p>What does in-house mean, and how much less do those people make?</p>
<p>In house means you’re working “in house” at a corporation as the corporation’s lawyer as opposed to a bunch of different people’s lawyer at a law firm as “outside counsel”. So you’re on the company payroll and you only have to worry about the corporation and its employees. The corporation is your only client.</p>
<p>And for most public corporations, I think the inhouse counsel’s pay is public record. It’s probably in the mid $100k range for a Fortune 500 for a deputy inhouse counsel. And if you get to chief inhouse counsel, I KNOW their compensation is public record (check the companies’ proxy statements-you can get them on SEC’s EDGAR system).</p>
<p>I found it. The average inhouse lawyer at a large company makes $236,000. <a href=“Average Pay is Up for In-House Lawyers, as Their Numbers Dwindle”>http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/average_pay_is_up_in_house_lawyers_as_their_numbers_dwindle/</a> But remember that this is the aggregate average of ALL inhosue lawyers, from the deputy chief counsel that has 40 years experience to the 25 year old fresh out of law school (if they’re even lucky enough to get one of those jobs).</p>
<p>I think the trend at biglaw is to to have partner track and non partner track associates rather than ALL associates being on partner track and getting considered for partner. I remember reading about this somewhere but some firm out there is setting up a “senior associate” track where you don’t get considered for partner but you’ll probably end up working less.</p>
<p>Some cautionary notes for those hoping to make $236K a year as in-house counsel: beware the difference between average compensation and median compensation. Median annual cash compensation for in-house attorneys is probably a lot lower than $236K.</p>
<p>First of all, the study from Hildebrandt International is looking at a fairly rarified group of companies (223 companies with median revenue of $9 billion a year, 20,000 employees, and “nearly 30 lawyers”).</p>
<p>The median company in this survey would rank in the 290s in this year’s Fortune 500. </p>
<p>The Chief Legal Officer of the median company in that survey had total compensation of nearly $2 million.
In a department of “nearly 30 lawyers,” one salary of “nearly $2 million” distorts the average compensation considerably. (Two million divided by 30 equals $66,666.67.)</p>
<p>Generally, in house counsel positions are quite competitive and difficult to get, and are available only to those who already have significant law firm experience under their belts (companies have neither the bandwidth nor the desire to train new attorneys). Furthermore, in house counsel positions can be as stressful as law firm positions, requiring many hours on the job and much travel, particularly when companies are managing to increase profits by reducing costs (i.e. lawyers) rather than increasing volumes/sales.</p>