What is your reason to become a lawyer?

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>My friend just what’s to become rich and have everything?
He went to U of Mich (undergrad) and NYU law school </p>

<p>I am sure that is not your reason, hopefully.
If you are wondering about me I want to be an engineer (Google)
I am in Princeton (undergrad)</p>

<p>It frustrates me when people wants to goes into a field just for the money, not for the joy of waking up in the morning knowing that you are there for the RIGHT reason.</p>

<p>That is maybe why plenty of angry people in the world.</p>

2

<p>I am guessing no one wants to talk about it...</p>

3

<p>I agree with you, but honestly most people (not me) would rather make more money than the joy of waking up in the morning.</p>

<p>Also, jobs with such joy either have fierce competition or very low pay.</p>

4

<p>Did I offend anyone?</p>

5

<p>It is a mistake to go into a field simply because you think you will make money in that field. It is not a mistake to think about a range of jobs that you might like and then choose the job that makes the most money among the jobs you like.</p>

<p>The problem with making money as a lawyer is that it is a very crowded profession. This means there are a lot of lawyers who are not working at full capacity. An attorney's compensation is usually limited by the number of hours he or she can work in a day. There are a lot of jobs where compensation is not limited by the number of hours you work.</p>

<p>Google is consistently ranked as one of the best employers in the world. If you can get a job there, I wouldn't waste my time being a lawyer.</p>

6

<p>This is how I foresee my life as a biglaw lawyer:</p>

<p>A beautiful day in June. I wake up in the morning, and as I prepare for work, I envision the course of my day, dreading the stresses and annoyances that I will surely have to endure during the day. </p>

<p>As I dress for work, I think about how, like I did yesterday, I will have to deal with a demanding and unappreciative boss. I'll present a brief to him today, and he'll scoff at my work, demanding that I re-write the brief by tomorrow or, otherwise, he will say, he will re-write it himself. So I'll work late into the night, on this Friday in June, in order to re-do this assignment. Once it's done, I'll swiftly return to my apartment, but by this time it's midnight and, having no energy, I'll fall asleep moments later on the couch, not far from where I stand right now.</p>

<p>So, by the time I leave for work in the morning, I'm downtrodden by my thoughts of what awaits me, and somewhat ashamed of how I wallow in self-pity. I try to remind myself of how my suffering pails in comparison to that of African children who are starving, crack-whores who roam around in my city, and families who lost their son to the Iraq war. I realize, for a moment, how blessed I am and that, surely, I should not stress over work when, in the bigger picture, it's rather quite trivial. </p>

<p>Such enlightened thinking vanishes, though, as I walk into work and sit down at my desk. The reality of my job overtakes me. Stress begins to run through my veins, fueling me to work diligently on the assignments at hand. Stress, stress, stress. Grind, grind, grind. </p>

<p>What a pathetic life I have. A slave of the corporate world.. a little minion whose sanity is sacrificed for the the greater good of the firm.. a well-educated person whose aptitude for handling the theoretical is made of little use..</p>

<p>I can afford a nice car though, and my apartment is a two-bedroom with a washer and a dryer. And, when my mom goes to weddings, she feels proud when she meets others and tells them that her son is a lawyer, which makes me feel good. When I go to a bar, girls are attracted to me when I tell them of my profession. And when I go to McDonald's, I can take solace in the fact that I'm a high-roller who makes so much more than this poor sap who is serving me.</p>

7

<p>lol nice one</p>

8

<p>What if money is what brings joy to your friend?</p>

9

<p>It is making him happy but I am worried that when he goes for an interview and they ask him "What is your reason to become a lawyer?" What will his answer be...? </p>

<p>I just dont want him get hurt in then end.</p>

10

<p>Can some current lawyers weigh in? What drove you to want to become a lawyer?</p>

11

<p>yes please...</p>

12

<p>Very few law schools mandate interviews.</p>

13

<p>No job interview, he is in NYU law school already.</p>

14

<p>I'm sure he'll be able to come up with a good reason other than wanting to make lots of money.</p>

15

<p>Also, do firms usually ask, "Why do you want to be a lawyer?" at interviews? It seems like a strange question at that point.</p>

16

<p>Cash money, homes. How else am I supposed to parlay my confrontational personality into a $100k a year job by age 26? In all seriousness, though, two of my favorite things to do are read and argue so it seems like the perfect job for me.</p>

17

<p>I applied to law school a year after I got out of college. I was living overseas, working afternoons for a law firm, and playing music professionally seven nights a week. </p>

<p>I had already taken the LSAT, so I was heading in that direction anyway. I was having a blast playing music. What sealed the deal for me, though, was meeting a few middle aged musicians who were still hustling to get and keep gigs, bringing less enthusiasm and energy to the task, and facing younger and younger competition, with each passing year. </p>

<p>In my day job, the middle-aged lawyers I was meeting were in their professional prime, and seemed much more comfortable in their own skins than did the middle-aged musicians.</p>

<p>It ultimately came down to a question of deciding to put some of my eggs in a basket that was better designed for the long haul.</p>

<p>There were other career options, of course. But being a person who finds it tedious to perform quantitative analysis, who is drawn to textual analysis, and prefers persuading people to managing them, it was (and remains for me) the obvious career choice.</p>

<p>Financially, as a person who has neither lusted after great wealth, nor harbored any romantic delusions about the nobility of poverty, it seemed a safe choice.</p>

18

<p>greybeard, thanks for the post. As someone who is considering law as a prospective career, I appreciate you distinguishing why you wanted to be a lawyer:</p>

<p>"But being a person who finds it tedious to perform quantitative analysis, who is drawn to textual analysis, and prefers persuading people to managing them, it was (and remains for me) the obvious career choice."</p>

<p>I was wondering if you could explain that more in depth, specifically the following: "tedious to perform quantitative analysis, who is drawn to textual analysis, "</p>

<p>Thanks for the help. I'm currently deciding whether I want to go into law or business and have difficulty deciding whether I want to persuade people or manage them.</p>

19

<p>Sure, I'll elaborate. </p>

<p>I always performed well on math aptitude tests, but never particularly enjoyed working on math problems. Any joy I experienced in solving a math problem arose by virtue of being one problem closer to finishing the expercise, so that I could get back to whatever I was reading at the time. Math for me was like folding laundry - a chore. </p>

<p>I've long had a different reaction to words. I like taking them apart, studying their histories, and playing with them - making puns, palindromes, anagrams, epigrams, quips, making them dance in poetry and song.</p>

<p>I even like arranging them into contracts, where they joyously command those tedious numbers to do their will, those same numbers that robbed me of so many opportunities for pleasure in the afternoons of my youth. Vengence is mine, sayeth the wordsmith.</p>

<p>The best managers are great persuaders of people, or course. But business school focused too much on quantitative methods of analysis and persuation for my taste.</p>

20

<p>I wanted to post a respond to your initial post because its actually an issue that I have battled with constantly throughout my life especially these past few years. Going to one of the top LACs in the country I often run into people who care little if at all about wealth or the amount of money they will make in the professions they choose.(Getting jobs in non-profit organizations or for Teach For America is incredibly popular at my institution). In fact, in comparison to some of these people,there are times when I felt completely consumed by monetary gains. I would think I must get a good gpa because if I don't I won't have a good job and a bad job means very little money and very little money....and on and on and on.
I felt rather guilty when I'd run into someone who said they were choosing their professions because it was something they were "passionate about." I too wanted to be as free and whimsical as these individuals and choose my major solely based on whatever pleased me. I thought about why finances had consumed me so much especially when speaking to one girl who said she " didn't really care about making money after college."She later admitted to me that "Money has never been much of an issue for me. I've never valued it much because I've always had it. A new car is as easy as running to my dad and asking for one." It was from this conversation that I had a moment of clarity. I had become so consumed with money because of the culture of the home I was raised in. My parents were often concerned about their finances and frequently voiced concerns about paying off debts or high credit card bills. I had placed such a high value on money because I had never had much of it...and frankly if I don't get a good, high-paying job after college, mommy and daddy can't save me.
It may seem vain but I look at it this way. I want to find a high-paying job so that I can stop placing so much value on money. If I had a abundance of money, I wouldn't place so much value on it. When you don't have something, it seems like the world to you.I want to stop giving money that much power over my life. Things like having to budget like crazy and analyzing EVERY decision I make in my life from a financial perspective ( Hey do you want to go so and so's birthday party? **** do I even have money to take the train to go to this girl's birthday party?) isn't fun. It can actually be quite depressing...even more so than getting up everyday to a job you hate. But sometimes it's a choice that people are forced to make.I have chosen a balance between something I like and making money. I hope you can respect that.</p>