Do you think law school is a good option for me?
Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 6:40 pm
New here, been lurking intermittently for years. Please let me know if this post is in the wrong place or I violate any rules (are there rules, somewhere?)
This isn't a true "should I go to law school?" post, but I guess it's close. If you can make it through this post, please provide your opinions on my rough plans. And let me know if I sound like I'm missing something or am just plain insane/naive. TLDR at the end.
I don't want to want the J.D. But I want it. I know it's a massive commitment of time and money, that it can be excruciatingly hard, that there's less demand for lawyers now. But I want to work in law- if law is a lot of reading and writing and legal research and editing and paperwork as it seems. I could see myself doing well in a courtroom, but I think my goal would be corporate counsel and I think I might have the networking skills and maybe even the connections to make that a reality. I would aim to focus on corporate and environmental law.
I am 24 and have been very "successful" in my career. I graduated with a B.S. degree and a *cringe* 2.8 GPA. I struggled with anxiety and class attendance until junior year when I had some kind of lightning bolt wake-up call about my future. Through determination and some luck, I bagged a nicely paying job just 3 months out of college with a very large industrial company. No student debt. I work in environmental compliance on large-scale projects with enough government or client environmental oversight to justify my salary. I was promoted recently and moved to a new, smaller project where I have more of a leadership role.
I am becoming increasingly unhappy because while this is okay now, and the money is great, I know with 100% certainty that I don't want to do it forever. All roads "up" in my field lead to places I DEFINITELY don't want to go. I've done informational interviews to confirm. I don't want the lateral jobs either- consulting, government compliance... Law has been floating in my brain for 6 years, but I have put it off because of shame over my poor GPA and the self-imposed requirement to have a clear picture of what I want to do before any graduate program. I have researched M.S. programs and certificates related to my degree obsessively and I don't want those jobs. I know it would probably be much easier if I wanted those jobs.
I want a career of reading, writing, editing, legal research, and communication. Those are the aspects of my job that I enjoy the most. I like going through contracts and the CFR and memorandums. I've learned a little bit about how to argue and how to be diplomatic in this industry and I like that too. I think I'm pretty decent at it. I'm already working extremely high-pressure male-dominated 84-hour weeks, but in crappy towns and with moving god knows where (another crappy industrial town) every 2-ish years and the WORST part of it is I have no path UP that I'm interested in. Even the articles lawyers write who hate their jobs and discourage others from pursuing law sound good to me.
I have recently come to terms with the fact that I want this badly enough to start working towards it. Am I sounding totally off-base here?
I'm gearing up to work on logic games and I have 3-4 resources for doing informational interviews with corporate counsel from two large corporations as well as a few later-in-life law school grads.
My basic plan is to use this 2-year project to get finances sparkling, shove some extra cash in a 529 account, conquer my fear of logic games as well as sharpen up on reading comp and logical reasoning, (although I am much stronger on those sections), and make a list of schools within reach in the state of Texas. Texas because I would like to live there and all of my connections are there.
TLDR; Currently in compliance / don't see a future there / drawn to law / corporate counsel / am I a crazy person?
This isn't a true "should I go to law school?" post, but I guess it's close. If you can make it through this post, please provide your opinions on my rough plans. And let me know if I sound like I'm missing something or am just plain insane/naive. TLDR at the end.
I don't want to want the J.D. But I want it. I know it's a massive commitment of time and money, that it can be excruciatingly hard, that there's less demand for lawyers now. But I want to work in law- if law is a lot of reading and writing and legal research and editing and paperwork as it seems. I could see myself doing well in a courtroom, but I think my goal would be corporate counsel and I think I might have the networking skills and maybe even the connections to make that a reality. I would aim to focus on corporate and environmental law.
I am 24 and have been very "successful" in my career. I graduated with a B.S. degree and a *cringe* 2.8 GPA. I struggled with anxiety and class attendance until junior year when I had some kind of lightning bolt wake-up call about my future. Through determination and some luck, I bagged a nicely paying job just 3 months out of college with a very large industrial company. No student debt. I work in environmental compliance on large-scale projects with enough government or client environmental oversight to justify my salary. I was promoted recently and moved to a new, smaller project where I have more of a leadership role.
I am becoming increasingly unhappy because while this is okay now, and the money is great, I know with 100% certainty that I don't want to do it forever. All roads "up" in my field lead to places I DEFINITELY don't want to go. I've done informational interviews to confirm. I don't want the lateral jobs either- consulting, government compliance... Law has been floating in my brain for 6 years, but I have put it off because of shame over my poor GPA and the self-imposed requirement to have a clear picture of what I want to do before any graduate program. I have researched M.S. programs and certificates related to my degree obsessively and I don't want those jobs. I know it would probably be much easier if I wanted those jobs.
I want a career of reading, writing, editing, legal research, and communication. Those are the aspects of my job that I enjoy the most. I like going through contracts and the CFR and memorandums. I've learned a little bit about how to argue and how to be diplomatic in this industry and I like that too. I think I'm pretty decent at it. I'm already working extremely high-pressure male-dominated 84-hour weeks, but in crappy towns and with moving god knows where (another crappy industrial town) every 2-ish years and the WORST part of it is I have no path UP that I'm interested in. Even the articles lawyers write who hate their jobs and discourage others from pursuing law sound good to me.
I have recently come to terms with the fact that I want this badly enough to start working towards it. Am I sounding totally off-base here?
I'm gearing up to work on logic games and I have 3-4 resources for doing informational interviews with corporate counsel from two large corporations as well as a few later-in-life law school grads.
My basic plan is to use this 2-year project to get finances sparkling, shove some extra cash in a 529 account, conquer my fear of logic games as well as sharpen up on reading comp and logical reasoning, (although I am much stronger on those sections), and make a list of schools within reach in the state of Texas. Texas because I would like to live there and all of my connections are there.
TLDR; Currently in compliance / don't see a future there / drawn to law / corporate counsel / am I a crazy person?