Has anyone read "Quit Law and Code"? Thoughts? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Here is an article I found off of ATL:
http://www.williamha.com/economics-of-s ... ough-look/

Interested in your thoughts re viability of just dropping the law and pursuing a coding career. This guy just trying to get people to buy his book or is this legit?

[Anonymous User]

I wouldn't buy the guy's book, but I often think about going to a legit coding bootcamp to get out of the misery that is corporate law. Whether or not it's a good option seems dependent on whether you like to code. Luckily, that's easy to figure out through online resources these days. It's certainly a viable option other lawyers have pursued. Just make sure you like it and are good at it.

[kellyfrost]

How much more fun, enjoyable, lucrative, and less stressful is being a coder versus an attorney?

[dixiecupdrinking]

I'm sure somewhere there is a forum for coders where someone is saying "I need to get out of this job, anyone ever think about law school?"

[Mockingbird42]

I know 0L are not normally allowed to post in legal employment forum but considering I've worked for about 5 years in SV, I think my experience could be useful for this discussion.

It's not that the tech industry needs more coders, it needs more good coders. Unless you already have a background of coding from growing up or a CS degree, you will not be a good coder for years. Also, to be competent you need to have taken math up to at least linear algebra. The only people I've met who have good jobs without CS degrees all come from math or physics backgrounds.

There are a lot of coders out there without jobs. Bootcamps with high employment data do so well by accepting women and URM and then funneling them into tech diversity hiring initiatives. The rest never really find jobs.

Also, any day now there is going to be a market correction. VC money has dried up so there are fewer new start ups and most of the unicorns aren't hiring much anymore. The people who will be laid off first when the bubble pops are the people who don't have CS degrees.

Unless you have a job lined up, don't do this. There is this pervasive myth that if you learn the basics you will have a wealth of opportunities. But I've seen enough people crash and fail trying to transition into coding to know that it is not a viable option, especially if you have any debt whatsoever. Tech cities are expensive.

[elendinel]

I think knowledge of the basics of how computers work is a someone that everyone these days should have. But that doesn't translate to, "anyone can code!" much like the fact that anyone literate can read a SCOTUS opinion doesn't mean that all literate persons should be qualified to be a SCOTUS judge.

I think people have this rosy view of coding where six hours of Coursera will have them on the right track to earn 90k at a stable start-up, but that's not really realistic. I also think software development, moreso than law, is one of those fields you don't go into purely to earn lots of money. If you want to be a career startup entrepreneur, then you'd probably be fine, but if you want to be working at Facebook or Google until retirement, money alone isn't going to make it palpable to someone who didn't already want to code.

[kellyfrost]

I know 0L are not normally allowed to post in legal employment forum but considering I've worked for about 5 years in SV, I think my experience could be useful for this discussion.

It's not that the tech industry needs more coders, it needs more good coders. Unless you already have a background of coding from growing up or a CS degree, you will not be a good coder for years. Also, to be competent you need to have taken math up to at least linear algebra. The only people I've met who have good jobs without CS degrees all come from math or physics backgrounds.

There are a lot of coders out there without jobs. Bootcamps with high employment data do so well by accepting women and URM and then funneling them into tech diversity hiring initiatives. The rest never really find jobs.

Also, any day now there is going to be a market correction. VC money has dried up so there are fewer new start ups and most of the unicorns aren't hiring much anymore. The people who will be laid off first when the bubble pops are the people who don't have CS degrees.

Unless you have a job lined up, don't do this. There is this pervasive myth that if you learn the basics you will have a wealth of opportunities. But I've seen enough people crash and fail trying to transition into coding to know that it is not a viable option, especially if you have any debt whatsoever. Tech cities are expensive.

Thank you for posting this. This is very insightful and frankly, an eye opener for many people. I have heard similar things from other people in the tech industry, but I wasn't 100% certain on it because I thought a lot of these people's troubles were that they were not living/working in tech cities and they did not have CS degrees or much background beyond learning how to code. A market correction seems to surely be on the horizon.

Unfortunately, despite how helpful and insightful this information is, because you are a 0L the mods will likely delete your post or, at minimum, lock this thread. I hate to see it happen this way, but that is how it goes sometimes.

[A. Nony Mouse]

No, we won't do that, because it was a very helpful post based in that person's experience and 0Ls with specific experience related to a question are allowed to post. Don't take cheap shots for no reason.

[elendinel]

How much more fun, enjoyable, lucrative, and less stressful is being a coder versus an attorney?

It's really a factor of how much you like to code, to make products, to tinker with things, etc., just like your enjoyment of being an attorney depends largely on whether you like to craft arguments, or work directly with clients, or write, etc.

Google is only offering to do your laundry and cook you dinner because they want you to spend as much time as possible in the office; it's not like these companies give you perks just to be nice. In many ways it's as bad as biglaw in terms of hours you're expected to work (not just for Google, but for startups, too), but you get "perks" instead of "a high salary," and instead of billable hours, you're going to be told you're not a team player/you don't take initiative if you're not putting as much in as they'd like you to put in.

Also the 90k average does not apply to someone with a Bachelor's alone, nation-wide, last I checked. http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/ ... 89c17296a2 So if you're looking for that 90k straight out of school, you're probably going to want a Master's, or you're going to need to be in an area with a high CoL that "cancels out" how lucrative that 90k job really is (like SF/NYC).

I do think coding can be a rewarding career (if you can snag one), and I personally still love to code. But it's not magic.

[Anonymous User]

I'm sure somewhere there is a forum for coders where someone is saying "I need to get out of this job, anyone ever think about law school?"

I'm sure someone can find anecdotes proving otherwise, but I more often hear other white collar professionals say things like "at least we're not lawyers" than show interest in law school. It seems like you can barely make it a week without seeing some survey on unhappiness, misery, or depression absolutely dominated by lawyers. Not sure I've ever seen software developer up there.

[Anonymous User]

I know 0L are not normally allowed to post in legal employment forum but considering I've worked for about 5 years in SV, I think my experience could be useful for this discussion.

It's not that the tech industry needs more coders, it needs more good coders. Unless you already have a background of coding from growing up or a CS degree, you will not be a good coder for years. Also, to be competent you need to have taken math up to at least linear algebra. The only people I've met who have good jobs without CS degrees all come from math or physics backgrounds.

There are a lot of coders out there without jobs. Bootcamps with high employment data do so well by accepting women and URM and then funneling them into tech diversity hiring initiatives. The rest never really find jobs.

Also, any day now there is going to be a market correction. VC money has dried up so there are fewer new start ups and most of the unicorns aren't hiring much anymore. The people who will be laid off first when the bubble pops are the people who don't have CS degrees.

Unless you have a job lined up, don't do this. There is this pervasive myth that if you learn the basics you will have a wealth of opportunities. But I've seen enough people crash and fail trying to transition into coding to know that it is not a viable option, especially if you have any debt whatsoever. Tech cities are expensive.

Appreciate the info. Do you know of people from a legit bootcamp like hack reactor or app academy that are struggling? It seems like their model is vetting applicants to amake sure they have smart students often from top schools, and then placement rates seem solid. Obviously they aren't producing top tier coders after only 6 months, but I thought the idea was they're hireable and can learn on the job.

[rdawkins28]

As a person who started out as a coder who moved to law, coding got pretty old. Even though I was in R&D, which is much more fun than someone who's in operations and just maintain existing code, I got bored after a while.

In my experience, which may not be representative of the industry, most shops (except for some startups or places like Google) have a few talents and the remaining majority are just mediocre coders who's only in it to earn a paycheck. Their work is probably closer to a paralegal's or an accountant's work, which is fine, that's pretty much all they want to do.

Of these people, there are the people who are passionate about coding (many of the talents are), and then there are many who are lukewarm.

If you want to jump to coding, just make sure you're honest with yourself. Do I have the passion for it? Do I have the capacity for it? If no and no, then will I be happy treating it as just another job?

With coding, I had the capacity to be pretty good but not the passion (a slight passion of coding as a hobby). So I got tired of it after 15 years. Luckily, I was able to pay off house and pay for law school with money from coding. So now I'm in law, which I have a little more passion for, but not the capacity to be great.

The bottom line - I'm pretty much in the same spot in terms of happiness - I like law more, but I'm getting paid less than before.

[Mockingbird42]

Appreciate the info. Do you know of people from a legit bootcamp like hack reactor or app academy that are struggling? It seems like their model is vetting applicants to amake sure they have smart students often from top schools, and then placement rates seem solid. Obviously they aren't producing top tier coders after only 6 months, but I thought the idea was they're hireable and can learn on the job.

Yes, I'm talking about app academy, general assembly, dev bootcamp, etc. You can't learn all you need to know to be a good coder in a few weeks, especially if you don't have a background in math. Bootcamps make money from your tuition and a recruitment fee they get from employers with pre-established relationships. These jobs are just code monkeys who burn out quickly. They require little individual thought and as a result rarely provide room for advancements. They don't exist to help you find your dream job.

Bootcamps are valuable if you are looking for a career in tech and need to know more basics of coding. For example, I knew one woman who had several years of experience in product marketing (and a degree from an Ivy) and wanted to move into product management. I know another woman with a stats background who wanted to be a data scientist. These are probably the only kinds of situations where bootcamps make sense.

I also want to reiterate that there is a market correction coming soon. If the industry was still seeing growth like it was when I got into it, then it might make sense to code jockey for a few years and build up enough experience to overcome a lack of degree. But you are going to see very soon that there will be not enough jobs for entry level coders, even with CS degrees. The industry is just not growing fast enough.