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I worked in PEG/VC, IBanking, and Startups prior to law school and I always seem to get this question - "Why walk away from such a good paying/exciting/etc life for law?"

My gut response: "Well i really don't know, Law school seemed interesting, I wanted to do it before life got in the way, and I was bored with everything else." Somehow I don't think that will go over too well so I talk about how my family is full of lawyers, i always found it interesting and an intellectually stimulating profession, etc etc. But a few seem to think this is too fake - kinda is i guess.

What have been your ways to respond to this question?

Anonymous User wrote:I worked in PEG/VC, IBanking, and Startups prior to law school and I always seem to get this question - "Why walk away from such a good paying/exciting/etc life for law?"

My gut response: "Well i really don't know, Law school seemed interesting, I wanted to do it before life got in the way, and I was bored with everything else." Somehow I don't think that will go over too well so I talk about how my family is full of lawyers, i always found it interesting and an intellectually stimulating profession, etc etc. But a few seem to think this is too fake - kinda is i guess.

What have been your ways to respond to this question?

That is a terrible answer

Why law? "My dong is too short for porn."

smallfirmassociate wrote:Why law? "My dong is too short for porn."

TCR

baal hadad wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I worked in PEG/VC, IBanking, and Startups prior to law school and I always seem to get this question - "Why walk away from such a good paying/exciting/etc life for law?"

My gut response: "Well i really don't know, Law school seemed interesting, I wanted to do it before life got in the way, and I was bored with everything else." Somehow I don't think that will go over too well so I talk about how my family is full of lawyers, i always found it interesting and an intellectually stimulating profession, etc etc. But a few seem to think this is too fake - kinda is i guess.

What have been your ways to respond to this question?

That is a terrible answer

hence why the question was asked.

The goal has always been to be a lawyer but I wanted to save some money and get practical experience that could help my career as a lawyer. I want to be a lawyer because I'm analytical person.

Is there something you can identify that you didn't get in your past work that law provides? You don't want to say, "I went into law because I got bored" because you don't want to trash your former field (being negative in an interview is bad). But maybe you can say, "I enjoyed x about my previous job [where x is something similar to law], but I really wanted to get more experience with y [where y is a legal thing], so law seemed to offer the best of both worlds."

Anonymous User wrote:I worked in PEG/VC, IBanking, and Startups prior to law school and I always seem to get this question - "Why walk away from such a good paying/exciting/etc life for law?"

My gut response: "Well i really don't know, Law school seemed interesting, I wanted to do it before life got in the way, and I was bored with everything else." Somehow I don't think that will go over too well so I talk about how my family is full of lawyers, i always found it interesting and an intellectually stimulating profession, etc etc. But a few seem to think this is too fake - kinda is i guess.

What have been your ways to respond to this question?

I think this post just confirms that law is probably not what you are looking for.

Is that really why you went to law school? You must have something more concrete than that.

You enjoyed the financial and business aspects of your previous jobs, but realized that you prefer writing and qualitative analysis to quantitative and operational analysis.

Because most people who are on the outside of the industry thinks it pays well so it looks impressive.

Lay prestige

Anonymous User wrote:I worked in PEG/VC, IBanking, and Startups prior to law school and I always seem to get this question - "Why walk away from such a good paying/exciting/etc life for law?"

My gut response: "Well i really don't know, Law school seemed interesting, I wanted to do it before life got in the way, and I was bored with everything else." Somehow I don't think that will go over too well so I talk about how my family is full of lawyers, i always found it interesting and an intellectually stimulating profession, etc etc. But a few seem to think this is too fake - kinda is i guess.

What have been your ways to respond to this question?

This is a shitty question and interviewers that ask it are lazy.

But the best advice I got wrt this question was that you should make every event in your life seem like it was leading up to this final moment with this particular firm.

Why law is part of that. Tell a story about how you ended up in the position you're currently in.