Positives of working as a lawyer Forum

[AreJay711]

It's legitimate, but it's still funny nonetheless. You couldn't be getting paid to take a dump in a lot of other jobs.

Not true. Time for body functions, even when not thinking about work, is covered in many jobs. I'll be damned if a mechanic doesn't bill you while he is taking a piss break or the mover or most other per hour service.

Um.... you guys should come to work with me sometime. When I work, I WORK! 12 hours hard physical labor under life threatening conditions, or 45 minutes of a heart pounding adrenalin and PTSD filled code- followed by an hour of paperwork. On the other hand, I am also paid to be ready to throw my ass on the line, any time of the day or night. Which means that some days I get paid to sleep, or paid to play Black Ops, or paid to watch a movie. Also paid to shower, brush my teeth, take a dump, or shave. I also got paid to write papers when I was finishing my BA.

I'll miss parts of this, I must admit.

Hahaha fucking professionals.

[crazycanuck]

Personally, I don't believe in stories of 80+ hours a week of work. I have been part of an organization where everyone promised that type of environment; those promises never materialized in the end. IMO, nobody can work 80+ hours a week for more than few month and not burn out and still be productive.

My dad has been doing it for about 30 years. You get used to it.

The 9-11 number isn't that unbelievable if you think about it. That's about 14 hours. Subtract at least 2 for lunch and dinner, and 1 for goofing off during the day. That's 11 hours. Say 70% of your time is billable. That's 7-8 hours per day. Then let's say you get into the office at 10 on a weekend day and leave at 4. That's 6 hours, but you take an hour for lunch and an hour goofing off and you're at 4 hours. Say on average you work 75% of weekend days - that leaves you with about 6 hours worked each weekend, or about 4 hours billed. Adding it up, that's about 42-44 hours a week billed or about 2200-2300 hours a year.

If it seems unrealistic that you'd spend hours a day eating and goofing off, you've never worked an intense, intellectually-demanding job. You'd think that 42 hours a week billed with 70% efficiency = 60 hours a week worked means 9-9 5 days a week with the weekends off. You'll never manage that! You can't sit with your head down and work for 12 hours a day, every day. You need to talk to your office mate, zone out, check reddit.com, etc. That time quickly adds up and you have to factor it in.

Jesus christ you're doing it wrong. I work in a professional services firm and I don't spend anywhere near 3 hours+ day goofing off and doing stuff that's unproductive unless I have no work to do. If I have meetings that aren't chargeable to the client (usually they are) there's almost always a charge code it can go that doesn't effect my utilization.

When I have to work to do, it's 30 mins for lunch (if I don't work through lunch, if I do I shave off a bit of time since i wont be as productive while eating) and I can easily pound through 10-12 hours billed while only wasting one hour or so (usually not even that).

[firemed]

Washing your truck before you have a spaghetti dinner and slumber party with a bunch of other doods and is neither hard labor not life threatening.

You have worked in or closely with the fire service I see.

[Rooney]

Note: I am not a lawyer, but have been a Paralegal for a few years.

Not all lawyers hate their jobs. Believe it or not, some of them really really love it. The problem is, 1. many people go to law school for the wrong reasons (models and bottles) and 2. because it is so unlike any other job or profession, it's difficult for people to know whether or not they'll like it, or if they'll be good at it, until they're waist-deep in LS debt.

If you're unsure whether or not this is what you want to do, it may be advisable to try and score a job in the legal field, (file clerk, paralegal, or whatever) for a year or two to get a better idea of what its all about.

+1
Same here. I've been a legal assistant since college for about 2 1/2 years and they attorneys I work with love it. Sure, they don't love the Federal e-filing midnight deadlines but overall enjoy the job/rewards. All depends on your definition of the top tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I guess...

[Anonymous User]

I like working with litigators. The ones that have text to speech programs on their computers literally get paid 100-200k just to talk all day long.