How did you know you wanted to do public service instead of private practice? Forum

[Anonymous User]

For those who are pursuing government/nonprofit work straight out of law school without putting in time in private practice, how did you know you wanted to go into the public sector from the beginning? I ultimately want to do public service, but I'm trying to decide if I should get experience at a firm before I pursue that. I'd rather go straight into public service than spend years at a firm doing work I'm not interested in and then having to pivot, but it seems like many people think it's best to get experience (and money) in private practice first. How did you decide?

[logical seasoning]

when I realized money does not motivate me nor give me happiness. I would much rather get a middle-upper class paycheck in gov while working a 9-5, with my loans forgiven in 10 years than grind for even 2-3 years in private practice.

I knew this about myself going in to law school, so I never did OCI or anything like that

[istan]

I would much rather get a middle-upper class paycheck in gov while working a 9-5, with my loans forgiven in 10 years than grind for even 2-3 years in private practice.

Retweet. If you don't have the financial need or desire for a big firm salary and you value work-life balance, there's no reason to put in time being overworked by a firm when you know you'd rather be doing a different kind of work.

[nixy]

I think it depends in part of what kind of public service you want to do. Some jobs are very hard to get out of law school and want experience (often in big law) before they hire you laterally. Some jobs are less so. If you want to be, say, a public defender or work for legal aid, they will be much more interested in seeing dedication to the cause and work in that actual area - pivoting from biglaw isn't so much a thing. More important will be if you have additional skills that would be relevant, like being fluent in Spanish to work with migrant workers. If you want to work for DOJ or the SEC, a stint at biglaw can help you get there and is often necessary. If you want to do something like impact lit with the ACLU, some people seem to go straight through from law school (often starting on a fellowship), some people seem to go to biglaw first to get some experience.

So when you say "public service," what do you actually mean?

[Anonymous User]

So when you say "public service," what do you actually mean?

Mainly interested in state or local government (like a state agency or city law department); also open to federal agencies (but want to be in a city other than DC, so unlikely to go after the biggest federal jobs). Would potentially work for a legal aid organization, but most of their salaries seem too low to be comfortable for me (obviously government salaries are relatively low too, but at least they're a step up).