Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers Forum

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krads153

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by krads153 » Wed Aug 05, 2015 4:00 pm

Desert Fox wrote:
thesealocust wrote:Yep - plus, I think the most common move for juniors I saw was big firm X to big firm Y.
That's really only a stopgap. Sure, it means that the 50% attrition by year three is misleading (since they lateral to another firm), but the number of senior associate jobs are way lower than junior.

Also, I think there might such a thing as staying in biglaw too long. I don't think I want to be the 7th year who never did a deposition, wrote a substantial brief, or argued a motion.

But I have no idea when too long occurs.
I think the general consensus for "too long" is anything past year 5, at least for in house jobs for a transactional associate.

Litigation associates generally can't go in house unless they are 10+ years in biglaw and can manage trials, etc. There's not a lot of non firm exit opps for litigation associates.
thesealocust wrote:
tbird12345 wrote:
There are exceptions on an individual level, exceptions for firms that hit financial difficulties, etc. - but the high attrition rate in biglaw is by and large (a) voluntary and (b) comes with a good to great job change for whoever is leaving the firm. A lot of employers simply don't hire fresh law school grads because they know there will be so many refuges coming out of biglaw - there are lots of places to go after your first firm gig.

In my experience (i'm a few years out of law school), the high attrition rate is largely voluntary, and a good portion (maybe 1/4 to 1/3) leave law entirely. Of the people who leave law entirely, many leave for no job, while trying to figure out what they want to do with their life.


arturobelano

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by arturobelano » Wed Aug 05, 2015 4:15 pm

You need to specify your undergrad major/chosen field for us to get an accurate read on your comparative outcomes. There are a lot of different subfields within healthcare, not all of which would be more lucrative/stable than law, and it's certainly no guarantee that you'd pass all the actuarial exams - a grade in real analysis or differential equations might be a solid indicator of how you'd do, but you can't just be decent at math and be assured of passing all of them.

Now, for my perspective - I chose to enter a STEM field (particularly stats) over applying with likely similar outcomes. My reasoning was personal, but there were a few generalizable ideas: I wanted to work in a field where there were new problems, where my skills were reasonably adaptable to different markets, and where I had some meaningful choice in both where I work and my workplace conditions. The law isn't great on any of these, but my motivations are radically different from yours. For you, I would probably actually recommend law school.

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by Hornet2011 » Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:49 pm

Hornet2011 wrote:I am not implying that the poster "owes" anything to the school, thus the quotation marks, but since deposits have already been paid and given the significant amount of merit aid allotted to this student that could have gone to others earlier and helped secure a stronger class for this school, I believe having a respectful and polite conversation regarding the reasons for withdrawing is the most likely way for this poster to mitigate being looked negatively upon In future cycles.
What reasons should I give for withdrawing? I don't think the school would like this reason where I say I'm unsure about whether law school is for me after I applied and they bought what I wrote in my personal statement.[/quote]

if you chose to withdraw I would suggest thinking of some strong qualitative and quantitative reasons but specific ideas are hard to come up with as I don't know enough about your situation. Feel free to PM if you want. If you don't, let me give you a quick anecdote. I should mention I am a sales manager at a F500 company who is on this blog because i considered law school strongly out of undergrad and will be applying this cycle / future cycles to do a JD / MBA (or maybe just a MBA)

A year ago, after seeking out a different company and being offered a position with a higher salary, I felt very uneasy after the interview and the vibe I got from the corporate culture. So after making my final decision I called up the hiring manager and said that I appreciated their very competitive offer and its high valuation of me and what I could do at the company. However after learning more about the role and seeing the day to day of my peers I felt that this particular experience was lacking in the intensive, direct, and personal client relations that I thought was critical in the next step in my career progression. Obviously the conversation continued on from there.

My point is I wouldn't go out and say "I am unsure about being a lawyer" but come up with some other very solid reasons why you are considering other options for a year.

I don't have enough information to say whether you should or should not go to law school. However i would give this decision serious thought. I don't know if you could do a ton better than this deal. Maybe you can.

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Desert Fox

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star fox

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by star fox » Thu Aug 06, 2015 12:22 pm

I know in most industries 3-5 is generally credited. You have shown you can handle the work, aren't flaky, and weren't shit-can worthy but also that you voluntarily chose to leave and weren't pushed out cuz you weren't getting any further.

tbird12345

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by tbird12345 » Thu Aug 06, 2015 2:53 pm

arturobelano wrote:You need to specify your undergrad major/chosen field for us to get an accurate read on your comparative outcomes. There are a lot of different subfields within healthcare, not all of which would be more lucrative/stable than law, and it's certainly no guarantee that you'd pass all the actuarial exams - a grade in real analysis or differential equations might be a solid indicator of how you'd do, but you can't just be decent at math and be assured of passing all of them.

Now, for my perspective - I chose to enter a STEM field (particularly stats) over applying with likely similar outcomes. My reasoning was personal, but there were a few generalizable ideas: I wanted to work in a field where there were new problems, where my skills were reasonably adaptable to different markets, and where I had some meaningful choice in both where I work and my workplace conditions. The law isn't great on any of these, but my motivations are radically different from yours. For you, I would probably actually recommend law school.
I was an econ major. My courses were not very quantitative and I would not get into a PhD econ program. I was pre-health the first 2 years and have done most of the prerequisites with competitive grades for the health profession schools.

arturobelano

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by arturobelano » Thu Aug 06, 2015 3:55 pm

unless you went to a top tier school where a financial rotation program is a real possibility I would 100% stick with the bird in hand here

your best case scenario otherwise is an MHSA which is in itself a financial crapshoot, plus it's not like you can't apply to jobs while in law school

krads153

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by krads153 » Fri Aug 07, 2015 10:38 am

arturobelano wrote:unless you went to a top tier school where a financial rotation program is a real possibility I would 100% stick with the bird in hand here

your best case scenario otherwise is an MHSA which is in itself a financial crapshoot, plus it's not like you can't apply to jobs while in law school
Free law school is not a bad deal (if anything, law school was a ton of fun and school is always better than working), but there's still other stuff OP can do. Maybe a MACC? Two year engineering degree? Random business job and work your way up? HR? Teach English abroad and then see if they like teaching? Go work for a university?

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crumb cake

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by crumb cake » Fri Aug 07, 2015 11:54 am

Desert Fox wrote:
thesealocust wrote:See, e.g., http://quitlawandcode.com/
Oh god I want to go to there.
Ch. 1: Just Quit

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Desert Fox

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bearsfan23

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by bearsfan23 » Fri Aug 07, 2015 8:21 pm

Desert Fox wrote:
crumb cake wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:
thesealocust wrote:See, e.g., http://quitlawandcode.com/
Oh god I want to go to there.
Ch. 1: Just Quit
Ch. 1: just stop working and wait til you get fired while doing a coding bootcamp and still getting PAID
(knows nothing about coding)

(thinks he can make $200k working 25 hours a week doing coding)

But seriously DF, quit your job already. You complain more about being a lawyer than every other poster here combined

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Desert Fox

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by sublime » Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:02 pm

..

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Re: Not going to T6 law school with scholarship to pursue other careers

Post by Hutz_and_Goodman » Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:16 pm

Law school for free is a great option if you want to be a lawyer. Otherwise it would be a waste of 3years

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