For those in BL, would you have gone into coding? Forum

[laanngo]

Agreed generally. But to add to that, there are significant sociopolitical considerations related to the practice of law that simply don't exist for coding and other technical professions.

If you negligently represent a murder defendant, an innocent could go to prison for life (or worse), if you code negligently, the software doesn't work. If someone's app rollout gets delayed, it's not of much concern to society as a whole. I get that the software could be for flying a passenger aircraft, but there's (at least supposed to be) separate regulatory oversight for such things. Think of mechanical engineering: you don't need a license to design a car, but you do need a license to sign off on a bridge design. Why? Because if your car is no good, it simply won't work or won't sell (assuming the design gets past other regulatory oversight hurdles). If your bridge falls down, a lot of people are going to die. We (as a society) tend to demand licenses for jobs where poor work could have massive consequences and for which the buyer of the service may be ill-equipped to evaluate quality.

On the historical front, law used to be one of the few accepted occupations for nobility (who, in feudal times were not supposed to work). This meant that in the past, lawyers were mostly from the upper classes. At a minimum, lawyers were better educated than average (given that until the mid- 19th century and even beyond, most of the poor and working classes were functionally illiterate). As such, they had the political power to control access to their profession. Coding has no such historical baggage.

This century, lower-middle people are going to law school to seem fancy to their friends, but most people don't view lawyers with the same respect as firefighters or teachers.

As a practical matter, one could probably teach an intelligent person who could otherwise excel in law school to be a lawyer in a "lawyering boot camp." Tack on another couple months of intensive bar prep and they could probably pass the bar as it exists today too. In fact, within a few years such a person would probably be more or less indistinguishable professionally from someone who went to law school, other than probably knowing less about legal issues outside their practice area. You already have something almost like this in the form of online California-accredited schools (albeit without the speed). But such programs just don't attract the type of person would get into a T14 law school, and I expect neither would a lawyering boot camp.

From an economic perspecive, the existence of coding boot camps was largely spurred by a huge increase in demand for people who could code. There just weren't enough comp sci majors out there to fill all the demand. But to the extent there is unmet demand in law, it's mostly coming from people who couldn't afford to pay even a "boot camp" lawyer charging much lower rates (i.e. indigent criminal defendants).

I meant in theory. Obviously the market conditions aren't there like they are for cs and teaching. I feel a good legal reasoning guide could get a smart person past the bar.

[nealric]

Agreed generally. But to add to that, there are significant sociopolitical considerations related to the practice of law that simply don't exist for coding and other technical professions.

If you negligently represent a murder defendant, an innocent could go to prison for life (or worse), if you code negligently, the software doesn't work. If someone's app rollout gets delayed, it's not of much concern to society as a whole. I get that the software could be for flying a passenger aircraft, but there's (at least supposed to be) separate regulatory oversight for such things. Think of mechanical engineering: you don't need a license to design a car, but you do need a license to sign off on a bridge design. Why? Because if your car is no good, it simply won't work or won't sell (assuming the design gets past other regulatory oversight hurdles). If your bridge falls down, a lot of people are going to die. We (as a society) tend to demand licenses for jobs where poor work could have massive consequences and for which the buyer of the service may be ill-equipped to evaluate quality.

On the historical front, law used to be one of the few accepted occupations for nobility (who, in feudal times were not supposed to work). This meant that in the past, lawyers were mostly from the upper classes. At a minimum, lawyers were better educated than average (given that until the mid- 19th century and even beyond, most of the poor and working classes were functionally illiterate). As such, they had the political power to control access to their profession. Coding has no such historical baggage.

This century, lower-middle people are going to law school to seem fancy to their friends, but most people don't view lawyers with the same respect as firefighters or teachers.

As a practical matter, one could probably teach an intelligent person who could otherwise excel in law school to be a lawyer in a "lawyering boot camp." Tack on another couple months of intensive bar prep and they could probably pass the bar as it exists today too. In fact, within a few years such a person would probably be more or less indistinguishable professionally from someone who went to law school, other than probably knowing less about legal issues outside their practice area. You already have something almost like this in the form of online California-accredited schools (albeit without the speed). But such programs just don't attract the type of person would get into a T14 law school, and I expect neither would a lawyering boot camp.

From an economic perspecive, the existence of coding boot camps was largely spurred by a huge increase in demand for people who could code. There just weren't enough comp sci majors out there to fill all the demand. But to the extent there is unmet demand in law, it's mostly coming from people who couldn't afford to pay even a "boot camp" lawyer charging much lower rates (i.e. indigent criminal defendants).

I meant in theory. Obviously the market conditions aren't there like they are for cs and teaching. I feel a good legal reasoning guide could get a smart person past the bar.

I'm not sure what "respect" has to do with it. Plenty of highly respected roles in society (i.e. firefighters) correspond to working class socioeconomic status. If you want to impress someone, become a Navy Seal- not a white collar professional of any sort.

At the end of the day, most people are just looking to earn a living in a way that corresponds to their natural and learned skillsets. I know brilliant engineers who would make terrible lawyers and vise versa.

[laanngo]

I'm not sure what "respect" has to do with it. Plenty of highly respected roles in society (i.e. firefighters) correspond to working class socioeconomic status. If you want to impress someone, become a Navy Seal- not a white collar professional of any sort.

At the end of the day, most people are just looking to earn a living in a way that corresponds to their natural and learned skillsets. I know brilliant engineers who would make terrible lawyers and vise versa.

A certain personality feels annointed by going to law school. Many lower to middle class don't think lawyering is a highly impressive position, but a slimy way to make money. They don't design like an engineer or build like construction, or raise kids like librarians.

[nixy]

I'm not sure what "respect" has to do with it. Plenty of highly respected roles in society (i.e. firefighters) correspond to working class socioeconomic status. If you want to impress someone, become a Navy Seal- not a white collar professional of any sort.

At the end of the day, most people are just looking to earn a living in a way that corresponds to their natural and learned skillsets. I know brilliant engineers who would make terrible lawyers and vise versa.

A certain personality feels annointed by going to law school. Many lower to middle class don't think lawyering is a highly impressive position, but a slimy way to make money. They don't design like an engineer or build like construction, or raise kids like librarians.

What does this have to do with coding?

[nealric]

I'm not sure what "respect" has to do with it. Plenty of highly respected roles in society (i.e. firefighters) correspond to working class socioeconomic status. If you want to impress someone, become a Navy Seal- not a white collar professional of any sort.

At the end of the day, most people are just looking to earn a living in a way that corresponds to their natural and learned skillsets. I know brilliant engineers who would make terrible lawyers and vise versa.

A certain personality feels annointed by going to law school. Many lower to middle class don't think lawyering is a highly impressive position, but a slimy way to make money. They don't design like an engineer or build like construction, or raise kids like librarians.

A certain personality feels anointed no matter what they do in life. I think there's considerable overlap. Again, I think we all agree that simply becoming a lawyer is not a great way to impress people. That said, most of the general public mostly thinks of criminal, personal injury, or family law when they think of lawyers. And even then, they may only have a vague or incorrect notion of what the actual work is like.

[laanngo]

What does this have to do with coding?

Coding doesn't suffer the same insufferables, so it has supply shortfalls filled by bootcamps.

I think we all agree that simply becoming a lawyer is not a great way to impress people.

You might be surprised what I've heard some people say.

[nixy]

What does this have to do with coding?

Coding doesn't suffer the same insufferables, so it has supply shortfalls filled by bootcamps.

...what?

[Anonymous User]

I’m the poor AF anon that switched to BL from tech. I can confirm that outside of the Asian population, being a lawyer isn’t impressive to working class people.

[objctnyrhnr]

The underlying supposition from many (but not all) in this thread — that the vent diagram overlap between bros that excel at coding, and bros that excelled at school and are now at least keeping their jobs in Biglaw — is WILD to me.

These two subsets have always struck me as two very different types of bros. As such, in my mind, it’s not like you choose the high level white collar profession as much as it sort of chooses you. But maybe I’m way off here.

[Anonymous User]

This century, lower-middle people are going to law school to seem fancy to their friends, but most people don't view lawyers with the same respect as firefighters or teachers.

Bold of you to imply teachers (or firefighters--really? They do interesting stuff but AFAIK aren't viewed with particular reverence) actually get that much respect. I was one before law school and holy hell was it not considered a respectable profession by the members of the public I interacted with. Law, on the other hand, has pretty universally been seen as a thing that people in the UMC/UC do and has a cache as a result (personal injury, etc, aside).

Edit: also if you're in biglaw (especially NYC/DC biglaw), you're not interacting with the general public. Your social circles will know what you do. If some rando in Orlando thinks all lawyers are ambulance chasers, that's not really an issue to a V10 associate in midtown

[Anonymous User]

This century, lower-middle people are going to law school to seem fancy to their friends, but most people don't view lawyers with the same respect as firefighters or teachers.

Bold of you to imply teachers (or firefighters--really? They do interesting stuff but AFAIK aren't viewed with particular reverence) actually get that much respect. I was one before law school and holy hell was it not considered a respectable profession by the members of the public I interacted with. Law, on the other hand, has pretty universally been seen as a thing that people in the UMC/UC do and has a cache as a result (personal injury, etc, aside).

Edit: also if you're in biglaw (especially NYC/DC biglaw), you're not interacting with the general public. Your social circles will know what you do. If some rando in Orlando thinks all lawyers are ambulance chasers, that's not really an issue to a V10 associate in midtown

In my ‘hood, people respected firefighters because they made a good living, and it was generally seen as an obtainable professional path. The only lawyers people encountered were ambulance chasers, divorce lawyers, criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors. Never a good experience affiliated with any encounter with lawyers.

[Anonymous User]

What does this have to do with coding?

Coding doesn't suffer the same insufferables, so it has supply shortfalls filled by bootcamps.

Have you met FAANG coders/PMs? They're often as--if not more--insufferable than biglawyers. Spend a day hanging out in Palo Alto bars and you'll know the exact type (I was next to one yesterday who was trying to pay a wine bar in crypto--completely hilarious). A number came from banking/top MBA programs after all, they're pretty comparable (I actually think tech PM is a job ex-biglawyers could probably do, especially if you leave as a midlevel/senior; the technical skills are much lighter than the actual coders and it's more about owning your feature and getting it to completion more than it is solving the particularly intricate technical problems, at least for many features).

The underlying supposition from many (but not all) in this thread — that the vent diagram overlap between bros that excel at coding, and bros that excelled at school and are now at least keeping their jobs in Biglaw — is WILD to me.

These two subsets have always struck me as two very different types of bros. As such, in my mind, it’s not like you choose the high level white collar profession as much as it sort of chooses you. But maybe I’m way off here.

They're fairly different, I'll agree. My law school class was mostly UMC/UC people from the coasts who were really just looking to be at the same level of success as their parents (nice suburban house, 2 kids, mid-luxury car, etc). Coders seem to be much more willing to take on risk to get past that level. That said, I think that most of my law school class had the raw intelligence to be a coder at a decent level, it just didn't fit with their psyche.

This century, lower-middle people are going to law school to seem fancy to their friends, but most people don't view lawyers with the same respect as firefighters or teachers.

Bold of you to imply teachers (or firefighters--really? They do interesting stuff but AFAIK aren't viewed with particular reverence) actually get that much respect. I was one before law school and holy hell was it not considered a respectable profession by the members of the public I interacted with. Law, on the other hand, has pretty universally been seen as a thing that people in the UMC/UC do and has a cache as a result (personal injury, etc, aside).

Edit: also if you're in biglaw (especially NYC/DC biglaw), you're not interacting with the general public. Your social circles will know what you do. If some rando in Orlando thinks all lawyers are ambulance chasers, that's not really an issue to a V10 associate in midtown

In my ‘hood, people respected firefighters because they made a good living, and it was generally seen as an obtainable professional path. The only lawyers people encountered were ambulance chasers, divorce lawyers, criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors. Never a good experience affiliated with any encounter with lawyers.

I guess I'm just confused why we care? Like my undergrad is completely unknown to the general public but people who know schools know it's good. If you're a biglawyer that's an accomplishment and does impress a certain crowd of people to a certain extent. People who don't know... just don't know.

[laanngo]

Coding doesn't suffer the same insufferables, so it has supply shortfalls filled by bootcamps.
[/quote]
...what?
[/quote]
A disproportionate amount of annoyingly pretentious people go to law school. That's much of why it is saturated — it's become the default grad school.

I’m the poor AF anon that switched to BL from tech. I can confirm that outside of the Asian population, being a lawyer isn’t impressive to working class people.

And I would argue that's due to the lower divorce rate.

Have you met FAANG coders/PMs? They're often as--if not more--insufferable than biglawyers. Spend a day hanging out in Palo Alto bars and you'll know the exact type (I was next to one yesterday who was trying to pay a wine bar in crypto--completely hilarious). A number came from banking/top MBA programs after all, they're pretty comparable (I actually think tech PM is a job ex-biglawyers could probably do, especially if you leave as a midlevel/senior; the technical skills are much lighter than the actual coders and it's more about owning your feature and getting it to completion more than it is solving the particularly intricate technical problems, at least for many features).

Big tech is a smaller share of IT than Biglaw is of law. Also, they tend to be less pretentious on average. Instead of bragging about their degrees, salary, and job, they'll only brag about the latter 2. Many of those jobs are such household names that "I work at facebook" or "I work at Netflix" might as well be taken as a joke about internet addiction. Many lawyers have a quest to be in charge — officially.

I guess I'm just confused why we care? Like my undergrad is completely unknown to the general public but people who know schools know it's good. If you're a biglawyer that's an accomplishment and does impress a certain crowd of people to a certain extent. People who don't know... just don't know.

Mines?

[Anonymous User]

Have you met FAANG coders/PMs? They're often as--if not more--insufferable than biglawyers. Spend a day hanging out in Palo Alto bars and you'll know the exact type (I was next to one yesterday who was trying to pay a wine bar in crypto--completely hilarious). A number came from banking/top MBA programs after all, they're pretty comparable (I actually think tech PM is a job ex-biglawyers could probably do, especially if you leave as a midlevel/senior; the technical skills are much lighter than the actual coders and it's more about owning your feature and getting it to completion more than it is solving the particularly intricate technical problems, at least for many features).

Big tech is a smaller share of IT than Biglaw is of law. Also, they tend to be less pretentious on average. Instead of bragging about their degrees, salary, and job, they'll only brag about the latter 2. Many of those jobs are such household names that "I work at facebook" or "I work at Netflix" might as well be taken as a joke about internet addiction. Many lawyers have a quest to be in charge — officially.

Still the most comparable, given the sheer size of the IT industry compared to biglaw. If you want to be pedantic, you can compare it to V20s or whatever to get your share, but the comparison still holds. Re degrees, maybe? I don't see that as a making them notably less insufferable. If I hear one more guy around here try and flirt with a girl by stating his TC, I might go insane.

Also they definitely have a "quest to be in charge"--the entire point of being a PM is owning a feature and engaging in feudal politicking to increase your mandate and have more/more important features under you. It's one area where tech has not gotten away from corporate America--you still have the managers fighting over turf. Lawyers are just more open about this given the combative nature of our profession.

I guess I'm just confused why we care? Like my undergrad is completely unknown to the general public but people who know schools know it's good. If you're a biglawyer that's an accomplishment and does impress a certain crowd of people to a certain extent. People who don't know... just don't know.

Mines?

No, one of the Claremonts. But Mines is also a pretty good example of this (as is Chicago, Penn, etc--people don't know them outside of the UMC/UC).

[nixy]

Coding doesn't suffer the same insufferables, so it has supply shortfalls filled by bootcamps.

...what?

A disproportionate amount of annoyingly pretentious people go to law school. That's much of why it is saturated — it's become the default grad school.

I think this is a weirdly anecdotal take that’s also wrong.

[Anonymous User]

Coding doesn't suffer the same insufferables, so it has supply shortfalls filled by bootcamps.

...what?

A disproportionate amount of annoyingly pretentious people go to law school. That's much of why it is saturated — it's become the default grad school.

I think this is a weirdly anecdotal take that’s also wrong.

As someone with both tech and BL experience--you will encounter some next level pretentiousness in BT, specifically from the MIT tech bro crowd. I haven't encountered much of this sort of thing in BL (I've been at T10 firms pretty much exclusively). I think that, similar to top B-school grads, people who self-select into top law schools (and then filter into BL) generally have better EQ than those who self-select into tech. Not to say I haven't encountered the odd duck in BL, but really guys--MIT tech bros are some next level BS. Next in line are the non-MIT tech bros (but from top schools). +1 to that if they're founders (as any BL lawyer in tech trans / IP-related practices can tell you). They think they're at least an order of magnitude smarter than you (even when they're not) and don't have the filters to hide it (or don't care to hide it).

[laanngo]

As someone with both tech and BL experience--you will encounter some next level pretentiousness in BT, specifically from the MIT tech bro crowd. I haven't encountered much of this sort of thing in BL (I've been at T10 firms pretty much exclusively). I think that, similar to top B-school grads, people who self-select into top law schools (and then filter into BL) generally have better EQ than those who self-select into tech. Not to say I haven't encountered the odd duck in BL, but really guys--MIT tech bros are some next level BS. Next in line are the non-MIT tech bros (but from top schools). +1 to that if they're founders (as any BL lawyer in tech trans / IP-related practices can tell you). They think they're at least an order of magnitude smarter than you (even when they're not) and don't have the filters to hide it (or don't care to hide it).

Lawyers might have more EQ. That doesn't mean they think any less of themselves. My initial statement is probably wrong — the most pretentious career of all is academia.

[nixy]

As someone with both tech and BL experience--you will encounter some next level pretentiousness in BT, specifically from the MIT tech bro crowd. I haven't encountered much of this sort of thing in BL (I've been at T10 firms pretty much exclusively). I think that, similar to top B-school grads, people who self-select into top law schools (and then filter into BL) generally have better EQ than those who self-select into tech. Not to say I haven't encountered the odd duck in BL, but really guys--MIT tech bros are some next level BS. Next in line are the non-MIT tech bros (but from top schools). +1 to that if they're founders (as any BL lawyer in tech trans / IP-related practices can tell you). They think they're at least an order of magnitude smarter than you (even when they're not) and don't have the filters to hide it (or don't care to hide it).

Lawyers might have more EQ. That doesn't mean they think any less of themselves. My initial statement is probably wrong — the most pretentious career of all is academia.

What careers have you actually worked in?

[laanngo]

As someone with both tech and BL experience--you will encounter some next level pretentiousness in BT, specifically from the MIT tech bro crowd. I haven't encountered much of this sort of thing in BL (I've been at T10 firms pretty much exclusively). I think that, similar to top B-school grads, people who self-select into top law schools (and then filter into BL) generally have better EQ than those who self-select into tech. Not to say I haven't encountered the odd duck in BL, but really guys--MIT tech bros are some next level BS. Next in line are the non-MIT tech bros (but from top schools). +1 to that if they're founders (as any BL lawyer in tech trans / IP-related practices can tell you). They think they're at least an order of magnitude smarter than you (even when they're not) and don't have the filters to hide it (or don't care to hide it).

Lawyers might have more EQ. That doesn't mean they think any less of themselves. My initial statement is probably wrong — the most pretentious career of all is academia.

What careers have you actually worked in?

Desktop support

[Anonymous User]

The underlying supposition from many (but not all) in this thread — that the vent diagram overlap between bros that excel at coding, and bros that excelled at school and are now at least keeping their jobs in Biglaw — is WILD to me.

These two subsets have always struck me as two very different types of bros. As such, in my mind, it’s not like you choose the high level white collar profession as much as it sort of chooses you. But maybe I’m way off here.

Made some earlier points that you're probably referencing here. Just to clarify, I agree with what you're saying. Nonetheless, I'm still inclined to think that if an associate billing 2000-2200 hours annually were to put those hours learning how to code/grinding leetcode, they could probably do just as well in big tech and exit with higher TC than post-biglaw in-house lawyers.

(And this is with the repeat disclaimer that this isn't to say that one shouldn't prioritize doing something they actually enjoy. Purely talking ROI/WLB, but maybe the latter is less important if you actually like working in law).

[axiomaticapiary]

As someone with both tech and BL experience--you will encounter some next level pretentiousness in BT, specifically from the MIT tech bro crowd. I haven't encountered much of this sort of thing in BL (I've been at T10 firms pretty much exclusively). I think that, similar to top B-school grads, people who self-select into top law schools (and then filter into BL) generally have better EQ than those who self-select into tech. Not to say I haven't encountered the odd duck in BL, but really guys--MIT tech bros are some next level BS. Next in line are the non-MIT tech bros (but from top schools). +1 to that if they're founders (as any BL lawyer in tech trans / IP-related practices can tell you). They think they're at least an order of magnitude smarter than you (even when they're not) and don't have the filters to hide it (or don't care to hide it).

Lawyers might have more EQ. That doesn't mean they think any less of themselves. My initial statement is probably wrong — the most pretentious career of all is academia.

Funny conversation. In my experience, there are a few incredibly pretentious people in tech, law, AND academia. Hard to generalize across the entire profession. But for what it's worth, I think the most annoying are the kind of INTJ, aspie, Mark Zuckerberg in Social Network-style "MIT tech bros" you're describing. They are complete nerds who under normal evolutionary conditions should have been eaten by sabertooth tigers, but the weird conditions of our society have made them incredibly valuable and powerful and they have reacted by developing this insufferable smugness.

[Anonymous User]

Actually this conversation has made me interested in picking up coding again--especially since the AI revolution is coming and it's past time to get ready for it. Anyone have recs on what the best service is? I was going to hop into Codeacademy's python 3 course and work from there, but unsure what the best path is. Not really looking for SWE roles, more interested in coding well enough to start my own thing soon.

[nealric]

Actually this conversation has made me interested in picking up coding again--especially since the AI revolution is coming and it's past time to get ready for it. Anyone have recs on what the best service is? I was going to hop into Codeacademy's python 3 course and work from there, but unsure what the best path is. Not really looking for SWE roles, more interested in coding well enough to start my own thing soon.

AI can code as well.

[rockstarlawyer]

Actually this conversation has made me interested in picking up coding again--especially since the AI revolution is coming and it's past time to get ready for it. Anyone have recs on what the best service is? I was going to hop into Codeacademy's python 3 course and work from there, but unsure what the best path is. Not really looking for SWE roles, more interested in coding well enough to start my own thing soon.

Different approaches will probably work for different people, the below is just my experience:

I worked through Codecademy's data science, computer science, and web dev paths awhile back and thought I was becoming a very strong coder. Then I did Harvard's CS50 class (one of the best courses I've ever taken, online or in person) and realized how much further I had to go. From there, I did Harvard's CS51 class using materials I found online; didn't really enjoy it, but learned a decent amount about writing code that is efficient and readable vs just focusing on writing something that will run. I've now transitioned to working through MIT's CS track via MIT OCW and feel like I'm getting a much deeper and more comprehensive understanding of CS and how programming languages work in general. Wish I had just skipped the Codecademy stuff and just taken this approach from the beginning.

IME Codecademy is great if you just want a quick intro to the syntax of a new language but doesn't do a very good job of teaching the deeper concepts of CS. That said, working through the Harvard/MIT track is taking me a lot longer and some of the things I'm learning (like circuit design and analysis) probably aren't that useful for someone who just wants to code, so I guess maybe that's the downside to this kind of approach.

I'd also be interested in hearing from others, especially some of the people ITT who have worked in tech, any advice they have for people who want to self-study programming, particularly people who have some programming experience and understand the basics but are looking to take it to the next level. Does working through MIT OCW make sense or are there more efficient approaches?

[melgibsonfan]

All of this back and forth is annoying.