Law v. Other Professions Forum

[NYSprague]

This is a question that comes up a lot on TLS, but I've never thought about it because I don't know anything about other professions.
I was responding to the idea that law is the same as other similar professions (though I am not sure what those are) but I would compare any other job here.

I feel that law has unique characteristics that get lost in the focus on the endless debt v. employment calculation.
I posted this in another thread yesterday but it got no response and I wanted more input regarding other professions.

One question I had was do other profession have a mandatory curve to effectively rank people solely on exam performance? I think medical school has a minimum, but I don't think there is a mandatory curve.

dwil770 wrote:

daryldixon wrote:
This is the worst thread ever. It is pointless to try to argue with fools. We have two types of people in this thread. Those that have gone to law school, taken out debt, and experienced the job market for themselves and those who have not. Honestly, unless you go through it yourself you are never going to believe everyone else. So I say go. Get into debt and let the job market and the law school curve beat the "special snowflake syndrome" out of you. That is what happened to me and I am much better off for it.

I think you are missing the point. It isn't about denying that big law sucks. It is about the suggestion that big law isn't necessarily worse than other "similar" (in terms of prestige, money, and education I suppose) professions. For whatever reason people in big law take offense to this notion, I guess because they feel under attack (but I do see their complaints as legitimate). I would suggest that it is those people who have the special snowflake syndrome if they are unwilling to consider that other professions are similarly shit.

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I don't know about other professions, so I can't address them. I would point out some major flaws in assuming they are the same:

The bimodal salary distribution - either very high or pretty much you are making around $50,000 or less. Or you never even get to practice law.

The lack of job mobility if you don't get biglaw from school, it is difficult to work your way in

Many people make their highest salaries in the beginning of their careers

The lack of PI hiring due lack of funding, which forecloses a back up option.

The fundamental shift in biglaw post-crash: revenue basically flat and not predicted to improve much. The shift in client's willingness to pay.

Law requires an additional 3 years of education and a huge amount of tuition, whether you borrow the money or not. And then you need to pass the bar.

You don't leave law school with the skill to practice law without additional training.

Hiring is fickle. Grades and stats don't guarantee anything, unlike getting accepted to law school. The best you can do is hedge your bets.

Law is incredibly oversaturated. The competition for jobs is intense. edit to add: a very high number of lawyers are out of law within a 10 years or so, do other people leave their professions in DROVES?

Edit to add: the forced curve meaning there will only be a handful of A grades.(Do other professions have this?)
.....
I'm sure there are more but these are characteristics of law as it is now.

[PrideandGlory1776]

Bottomline the top professions all require insane commitment - Med School residency though its been scaled back in recent years still requires 70+ hour work weeks as a "right of passage" - "big law" for lawyers functions in a similar fashion - hard science PhD often take 7 years getting paid like 25k/yr - want to go into politics? long road of grinding for that too - everything in life requires 10 years of grinding before getting to do what you want it's just the way society is - even Steve Jobs/Bill Gates/Mark Z. worked like crazy and had no lives before creating their brain-childs - thus is life.

[A. Nony Mouse]

But the actual work of each of those professions is extremely different, leaving aside the "grind" factor.

[twenty]

It's expected outcome vs. actual outcome. Anyone who goes to med school knows they'll be working a miserable residency of four to eight years, and won't have a ton of great non-medical exit options if they want to leave. JD prospects think they'll be in white house counsel after a quick and painless biglaw tour and can run for congress when they're done with being an attorney. This isn't unique to a small subgroup of law prospects either -- I have friends going to UCLA and Harvard alike that want to do "entertainment law" and "international security law" and both feel like that's a pretty realistic outcome.

The inevitable disappointment of being in a big law firm (if you're lucky) doing fairly menial tasks and sending half of your paycheck to student loans is less romantic.

[lecsa]

Bottomline the top professions all require insane commitment - Med School residency though its been scaled back in recent years still requires 70+ hour work weeks as a "right of passage" - "big law" for lawyers functions in a similar fashion - hard science PhD often take 7 years getting paid like 25k/yr - want to go into politics? long road of grinding for that too - everything in life requires 10 years of grinding before getting to do what you want it's just the way society is - even Steve Jobs/Bill Gates/Mark Z. worked like crazy and had no lives before creating their brain-childs - thus is life.

Are all residencies 70+ hour weeks though? Thought it was just the tougher ones like surgery.

Hard science PhDs - requires brains, but not a lot of work. Getting a PhD is like being on vacation for 5 to 7 years if you're smart.

One question I had was do other profession have a mandatory curve to effectively rank people solely on exam performance? I think medical school has a minimum, but I don't think there is a mandatory curve.

I was curved in undergrad and ranked based solely on exam performance. I didn't major in English or anything like that. Our curve was harder than law school curves.

I think most med schools are pass/fail for classes but you are essentially "curved" on the Step 1 that you take after your first 2 years of med school. You need to get certain scores on Step 1 to have a shot at the best specialties. So your Step 1 pretty much determines your future unless you're an MD/PhD or have some other special factor. If you don't do well on the Step 1, you end up as a family medicine doctor, pediatrician, psychiatrist, etc.

[09042014]

Engineering > all

[Nomo]

The combination of debt and lack of job security seems to take a mental and emotional toll on people that they don't expect, and really wouldn't understand until its their own reality. I think that mental and emotional toll makes the negative aspects of biglaw less bearable than it otherwise would be.

The atmosphere and hours might be similar in med school and consulting; but it seems like doctors have job security and management consultants don't have the same kind of debt.

The expectation difference could also be a factor. People really do hope to leave their firms to become AUSA's, and on this forum that is often taken as a serious exit option. But, its so so rare.

[muskies970]

Serious question, does law have the advantage that one can major in anything in undergrad whereas for med school/engineering you're required to put up with a fairly rigorous undergrad curriculum in your area?

[fra]

Hard science PhDs - requires brains, but not a lot of work. Getting a PhD is like being on vacation for 5 to 7 years if you're smart.

Are you on drugs right now?
This is absolutely not correct.

edit: I feel bad for not adding anything to the conversation. A PhD in Engineering is 4-6 years of work, at an average pay of 25K per year, with no better job prospects than someone with a Bachelor's in Engineering once you get out. You will get paid a slightly higher average starting salary than a starting Bachelors, however you've now missed out of 4-6 years of industry experience. You want to go into academia? Tack on 2-4 years of Post-doctoral positions and then you still probably won't be able to find a tenure track position at a university.
The average work week is 60+ hours. Unless you find your research project incredibly interesting you will burn out. The only thing that gets people through PhDs is love for the science.

Basically unless you have a passion for research there is no reason to get your PhD in a hard science. Its something that you do because you love it - not something that you do for a paycheck or even for a job. Yes, the academy requires PhDs, but, again, going into academia is something that you do for passion.

[aboutmydaylight]

The vast majority of people don't have the brains to get a hard science PhD from a school worth going to anyway. I realized that much pretty quickly at least.

[lecsa]

Hard science PhDs - requires brains, but not a lot of work. Getting a PhD is like being on vacation for 5 to 7 years if you're smart.

Are you on drugs right now?
This is absolutely not correct.

edit: I feel bad for not adding anything to the conversation. A PhD in Engineering is 4-6 years of work, at an average pay of 25K per year, with no better job prospects than someone with a Bachelor's in Engineering once you get out. You will get paid a slightly higher average starting salary than a starting Bachelors, however you've now missed out of 4-6 years of industry experience. You want to go into academia? Tack on 2-4 years of Post-doctoral positions and then you still probably won't be able to find a tenure track position at a university.
The average work week is 60+ hours. Unless you find your research project incredibly interesting you will burn out. The only thing that gets people through PhDs is love for the science.

Basically unless you have a passion for research there is no reason to get your PhD in a hard science. Its something that you do because you love it - not something that you do for a paycheck or even for a job. Yes, the academy requires PhDs, but, again, going into academia is something that you do for passion.

Half my friends have PhDs in engineering or physics or math from MIT or something similar. They probably screwed around for 3 years and then did some work the rest of it. Maybe they are geniuses (they are the smartest people I know) but they spent more than half of it screwing around. I guess the lab work requires a lot of hours but for some hard sciences there's isn't that much typical lab work or maybe they are just geniuses who do things quickly.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Hard science PhDs - requires brains, but not a lot of work. Getting a PhD is like being on vacation for 5 to 7 years if you're smart.

Are you on drugs right now?
This is absolutely not correct.

edit: I feel bad for not adding anything to the conversation. A PhD in Engineering is 4-6 years of work, at an average pay of 25K per year, with no better job prospects than someone with a Bachelor's in Engineering once you get out. You will get paid a slightly higher average starting salary than a starting Bachelors, however you've now missed out of 4-6 years of industry experience. You want to go into academia? Tack on 2-4 years of Post-doctoral positions and then you still probably won't be able to find a tenure track position at a university.
The average work week is 60+ hours. Unless you find your research project incredibly interesting you will burn out. The only thing that gets people through PhDs is love for the science.

Basically unless you have a passion for research there is no reason to get your PhD in a hard science. Its something that you do because you love it - not something that you do for a paycheck or even for a job. Yes, the academy requires PhDs, but, again, going into academia is something that you do for passion.

Half my friends have PhDs in engineering or physics or math from MIT or something similar. They probably screwed around for 3 years and then did some work the rest of it. Maybe they are geniuses (they are the smartest people I know) but they spent more than half of it screwing around. I guess the lab work requires a lot of hours but for some hard sciences there's isn't that much typical lab work or maybe they are just geniuses who do things quickly.

If you're not the one actually doing the degree I'm not sure how you can evaluate how much work they're doing. Getting through a hard science in PhD in 4 years isn't uncommon, but that's not a measure of how much work goes into it.

[NYSprague]

No other options? What about finance, etc?

[Theopliske8711]

A girl I know was a math major at MIT. She now gets paid low 6 figures to create complex algorithms at a high frequency trading firm. It sounds like a TCR career. She works regular hours also and only has a BA. Although, from MIT.

That said, I don't think you can generalize from her since she has a brain that can easily count cards.

[UVAIce]

I don't think law school is that tough, and certainly not "tough" enough to compare it to any course of study that requires actual empirical research. When you take the grade component out of it, the material in law school is not all that bad. What makes law school "shitty" for a lot of people is that they want to be employed afterwards and to do so requires good (generally at least better than half the class) grades. The curve in law school only really matters because the grades you receive have a remarkable impact on your job opportunities. I'm willing to bet that if I were a computer science major or electrical engineer that my Bs would get me a job somewhere in my field. I just don't know many people who are heartbroken when they only get a B+ or B in O chem, etc.

Here is a simple example, would you feel comfortable going into a comprehensive calculus based physics final with nothing but a couple of days study and some notes?

Another difference, in my opinion, is the flat nature of law school studies rather than the vertical structure in most STEM fields. There are very few classes in law school that really require you to have taken a previous course other than the ones given to you as a 1L. That just doesn't work in the sciences.

[fra]

Half my friends have PhDs in engineering or physics or math from MIT or something similar. They probably screwed around for 3 years and then did some work the rest of it.

Maybe this is why they took 7 years instead of 4-5 to graduate.
In any career it's going to be noticed if you dick around instead of working hard. The sciences are incredibly competitive with almost your entire reputation resting on publishing. If you don't work hard it will show in the quality of your published research, or you could get scooped and not get to publish at all.
You absolutely can't skate by on intelligence alone if you want to be successful. Once you've reached PhD level you are surrounded by people who are much smarter, and much more experienced than you in your field.

[fra]

No other options? What about finance, etc?

There are lots of jobs, such as finance, that you can get with a STEM Major. From what I've seen most of them you could get with a Bachelors. The only career that requires a research PhD is in academia, or a similar research based field (working at a national lab, heading a R&D department).

A Bachelors in STEM is a GREAT idea. Tons of career options where you can get paid a reasonable high salary. A PhD, however, offers minimal returns.

[BmoreOrLess]

I always love the "just do finance bro" advise from TLS, as if it is even remotely easy to get legitimate finance jobs.

[UVAIce]

I always love the "just do finance bro" advise from TLS, as if it is even remotely easy to get legitimate finance jobs.

Come on, anyone with average intelligence can get a 170 on the LSAT and get a banging job at Goldman Sachs.

[yossarian]

It's so weird to me how the topic of career choice is always so divorced from personal satisfaction on TLS. Weighing careers based on education-required, starting pay, and relative ease is such a limited scope.

I certainly think personal satisfaction can be overstated. That is one of the problems with the undergrad system (I wanna study the environment cuz I like polar bears!). But different people feel more or less satisfied/energized through different types of work in different types of content.

Pay is relative factor. You basically need a little more than your parents (over your career) to feel satisfied if you're an average American.

Careers would probably be more productively discussed relative to personal satisfaction/contentedness/happiness (terrible word) priorities. Then, subsidiarily compared against similar careers on more specific criterion such as education and pay only as they relate to your personal contentedness goals.

Or do y'all view that as just hippie bullshit?

[cotiger]

It's so weird to me how the topic of career choice is always so divorced from personal satisfaction on TLS. Weighing careers based on education-required, starting pay, and relative ease is such a limited scope.

I certainly think personal satisfaction can be overstated. That is one of the problems with the undergrad system (I wanna study the environment cuz I like polar bears!). But different people feel more or less satisfied/energized through different types of work in different types of content.

Pay is relative factor. You basically need a little more than your parents (over your career) to feel satisfied if you're an average American.

Careers would probably be more productively discussed relative to personal satisfaction/contentedness/happiness (terrible word) priorities. Then, subsidiarily compared against similar careers on more specific criterion such as education and pay only as they relate to your personal contentedness goals.

Or do y'all view that as just hippie bullshit?

Agreed. It's also weird how the list of possible careers is so narrow. Finance, accounting, consulting, and "STEM" seem to be the only careers that exist outside of law on TLS. I think it might be bc law is such a prescribed route that people on here tend to think like this, but most of my friends do random shit without such a defined career path.

[UVAIce]

"STEM" is kind of an insanely large category. It seems a bit silly to think of that category as narrow.

[cotiger]

"STEM" is kind of an insanely large category. It seems a bit silly to think of that category as narrow.

I know, but included it like that because mostly people don't know what they're talking about and just say STEM as if it's a thing.

They also don't typically see that as a possible category for the but just throw it out there bc there must be good jobs there. You can ignore the inclusion if you like.

[anyriotgirl]

"STEM" is kind of an insanely large category. It seems a bit silly to think of that category as narrow.

I know, but included it like that because mostly people don't know what they're talking about and just say STEM as if it's a thing.

They also don't typically see that as a possible category for the but just throw it out there bc there must be good jobs there. You can ignore the inclusion if you like.

STEM is flame anyway

[BmoreOrLess]

It's so weird to me how the topic of career choice is always so divorced from personal satisfaction on TLS. Weighing careers based on education-required, starting pay, and relative ease is such a limited scope.

I certainly think personal satisfaction can be overstated. That is one of the problems with the undergrad system (I wanna study the environment cuz I like polar bears!). But different people feel more or less satisfied/energized through different types of work in different types of content.

Pay is relative factor. You basically need a little more than your parents (over your career) to feel satisfied if you're an average American.

Careers would probably be more productively discussed relative to personal satisfaction/contentedness/happiness (terrible word) priorities. Then, subsidiarily compared against similar careers on more specific criterion such as education and pay only as they relate to your personal contentedness goals.

Or do y'all view that as just hippie bullshit?

Agreed. It's also weird how the list of possible careers is so narrow. Finance, accounting, consulting, and "STEM" seem to be the only careers that exist outside of law on TLS. I think it might be bc law is such a prescribed route that people on here tend to think like this, but most of my friends do random shit without such a defined career path.

Throw in Sales and Management, and that encompasses everything I can think of for corporate type jobs.