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I graduated a T25 law school right below the median and am barred. I decided not to practice after law school, but continued in my profession in a management role at a local government. It’s my first time actually managing people. I’m great at the job. We are doing exciting things and have a great management team. I’m just about to hit a year. However, during my year there we have had serious personnel issues, which make the work environment toxic. I don’t want to manage employees in an environment like this forever (the employees have a long history of repeating this pattern - absent them retiring it won’t change soon). However, I love what I do.

Recently, an opportunity opened up to move to an in-house role (county attorney). I’d also be great at this job and it’s the same employer. I’d be advising my old department and prosecuting some of their cases. They were able to match my current salary even though I have very little “legal” experience. However, it is a 2-year term position. I live near a big city but it’s a 2-hour commute. Not a lot of other great jobs around. Just bought a house here too.

I eventually want to practice in my current field at a small firm, maybe in 5-10 years. Has anyone else ever been in a similar position? Is it better to make the JD Advantage to attorney switch earlier in your career? Will I be frozen out of most attorney positions if I keep going down my professional, non-lawyer path?

Get some attorney experience under your belt.

I am nearly ten years into "JD advantage" work and have applied over the last two years for every interesting attorney job I could find, from A to Z, and have gotten nowhere.

You can always go back to "JD advantage" work, but the wider the distance between becoming licensed and getting licensed attorney experience under your belt, the worse off you will be.