Crazy?? Leaving FAANG Engineering for Law Forum

[wjz3by]

2021 graduate here. Graduated near the top of my ABET accredited computer science program at a top 10 engineering school in the country with a 3.87 GPA, and have since worked for one of the prestigious big tech companies (google/facebook/apple/amazon). Though, while the work has been intellectually stimulating and I work with a great team and manager along with reasonable hours (40-50) average, decent compensation (200k), I sometimes feel as though I am seeking a little more.

I've always been a big politico follower and want to leverage my relevant experience in the legal field, so what practice areas allow me to do so and how lucrative/in demand are they? Given my strong existing academic credentials could I simply just enroll part time in a mediocre/part time law program cheaply and expect a decent gig afterwards or would it make more sense to shoot my shot at the t13 even with a somewhat below median GPA? Is this a major case of grass is greener? Could doing this ever expect a financial break even point?

For LSAT I have a mid to high 160s on record. I am getting near perfects each time I do LG and LR but RC has been hard for this english as a second language speaker.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

If you already make 200K and don’t have parents who will completely bankroll your tuition and living costs during law school, stick with your current job

[LBJ's Hair]

If you want to do something completely different than what you're doing now -- work at the Department of Justice let's say -- save for a year or two and go for it. Important to do work that's fulfilling, not just lucrative.

Now, what would make less sense to me is leaving a low-stress FAANG engineering job to do "be a lawyer for/at FAANG" -- unless you're very confident that you'll find patent or IP or w/e substantially more interesting and lucrative than what you're doing now.

You really do not want to leave your $200K a year job at FAANG to go to law school for 3 years (missing out on ~$120K+ a year post-tax, plus cost of attendance, etc -- that's a shitload of money), start in BigLaw, and then discover "I feel the same way about this as I did my FAANG job, only I lost a shitload of money, am 3 years older, I'm the lowest man on the totem pole instead of a 3+ year experience SWE, and the job is more stressful"

This isn't to say "no one should ever leave a lucrative, professional-track job for law school" -- I did that, have coworkers who did that, don't regret it. But for you law school will very much not be a no-brainer step up in terms of compensation + career mobility, as it will be for many of your classmates.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I knew someone who transitioned from SWE to law and then became a SCOTUS clerk. I thought that was pretty cool. The person also already had enough $ to retire before starting law school.

[CanadianWolf]

What does it mean to have an LSAT score "on record" ?

If I understand your situation correctly, you have one year of post undergraduate work experience as an engineer at a FAANG. Is this correct ?

The opportunity cost for you to attend law school is substantial.

[wjz3by]

What does it mean to have an LSAT score "on record" ?

If I understand your situation correctly, you have one year of post undergraduate work experience as an engineer at a FAANG. Is this correct ?

The opportunity cost for you to attend law school is substantial.

That is an actual LSAT I took administered by lsac on offical record, not simply an old released practice exam. I understand the cost is big, but is there a large demand for partner level work in tech ip for biglaw for someone like me?

[wjz3by]

FWIW, I knew someone who transitioned from SWE to law and then became a SCOTUS clerk. I thought that was pretty cool. The person also already had enough $ to retire before starting law school.

I just did a quick search of a guy who matches your profile. He joined Google in the early stages when they offered a bunch of near worthless stock to employees that has since appreciated 30,000%. lucky man.

[CanadianWolf]

OP: Your GPA is not below median for all T-13 law schools., but your LSAT score may be.

If you decide to go to law school, go to a T-13 school full time.

Asking about partner-level work at this very early stage is unrealistic. Most leave biglaw within 4 years.

[Anonymous User]

You say that you want to go to law school because you read politico, so I assume DC regulatory of some kind is the end goal. I would say SWE have an advantage in three areas: IP, privacy, and national security.

There are some challenges to keep in mind. First, English is your second language, which will be a huge disadvantage. DC law firms are the hardest to break into because you need top 1L grades from a top school. This will be very difficult because all 1L classes are exam based, which means you will need to speed write in a language you are naturally slower in. You won’t get a chance to take seminars to bolster your grades until 2L and 3L - after most DC hiring is done.

Second, are you a US citizen? If not, that limits your options for federal govt hiring. In DC law, working at an agency for a few years is often an important step in advancing your career. Also, it will be more difficult to practice some areas like national security law. Clients may need an export license before they even discuss their product with you.

Third, the incentive structure of biglaw makes it an inherently toxic place, even if everyone on your team is wonderful. You will work more hours for less reward than if you were at a unicorn or FAANG.

I left SV for DC and don’t regret it, but I absolutely love my specific area of policy. I’m willing to put up with a lot of bullshit and worked hard to find a position. I had good grades from great schools and I still networked my ass off for years to get my foot in the door in DC. If you do decide to go to law school, make sure you fully understand the risk you are taking on.

[Anonymous User]

Very very few people manage to have a legal career that satisfies their ideological/political goals. The typical biglaw path is silly for you since you already make that money. Are you going to be happy making 50k as a public defender or something?

If you get into Yale, maybe you can be the next Lina Khan or JD Vance, depending on your ideological leanings. But you're not getting into Yale with a sub 175. And even if you do, the majority of yalies still have relatively boring careers.

[wjz3by]

OP: Your GPA is not below median for all T-13 law schools., but your LSAT score may be.

If you decide to go to law school, go to a T-13 school full time.

Asking about partner-level work at this very early stage is unrealistic. Most leave biglaw within 4 years.

Hmmmm. So it looks like even with solid academic and professional credentials that law school ranking is still that important. I inquire about biglaw partner level work, because I really want to make the best use of my unique skillset on the biggest cases in an area that truly lacks stakeholders who understand the technical backgrounds of software engineering. What jobs out there can I make the biggest difference in the legal field?

[wjz3by]

Very very few people manage to have a legal career that satisfies their ideological/political goals. The typical biglaw path is silly for you since you already make that money. Are you going to be happy making 50k as a public defender or something?

If you get into Yale, maybe you can be the next Lina Khan or JD Vance, depending on your ideological leanings. But you're not getting into Yale with a sub 175. And even if you do, the majority of yalies still have relatively boring careers.

Like many here I do like making money, but I derive the majority of self happiness in according to how much praise I receive. At work when there is a successful feature launch made by me, and my manager and other co workers and customers praise me, is when I feel the happiest. If I go down the law path, I would try to do the most high impact and prestige cases with the biggest impacts on peoples' lives as possible.
Unfortunately, my partisan leanings are very similar to Joe Manchin. In this age of hyper partisanship there really isn't a place for me in either major political party as I have a mix of conservative/liberal leanings, and am pretty much dead on the water for any political office/nomiantion.

[Anonymous User]

OP: Your GPA is not below median for all T-13 law schools., but your LSAT score may be.

If you decide to go to law school, go to a T-13 school full time.

Asking about partner-level work at this very early stage is unrealistic. Most leave biglaw within 4 years.

Hmmmm. So it looks like even with solid academic and professional credentials that law school ranking is still that important. I inquire about biglaw partner level work, because I really want to make the best use of my unique skillset on the biggest cases in an area that truly lacks stakeholders who understand the technical backgrounds of software engineering. What jobs out there can I make the biggest difference in the legal field?

Patents. For everything else, by the time you make partner, your engineering skills will be out of date and you won’t have a significant advantage over other partners whose technical training is limited to discussions with clients’ engineers over the past 10 years. You don’t need to know how to code to represent tech clients; you need to know how to simplify the issue so a judge who has even less technical experience than you can follow your argument. Getting too in the weeds can be a disadvantage.

[Anonymous User]

Very very few people manage to have a legal career that satisfies their ideological/political goals. The typical biglaw path is silly for you since you already make that money. Are you going to be happy making 50k as a public defender or something?

If you get into Yale, maybe you can be the next Lina Khan or JD Vance, depending on your ideological leanings. But you're not getting into Yale with a sub 175. And even if you do, the majority of yalies still have relatively boring careers.

Like many here I do like making money, but I derive the majority of self happiness in according to how much praise I receive. At work when there is a successful feature launch made by me, and my manager and other co workers and customers praise me, is when I feel the happiest. If I go down the law path, I would try to do the most high impact and prestige cases with the biggest impacts on peoples' lives as possible.
Unfortunately, my partisan leanings are very similar to Joe Manchin. In this age of hyper partisanship there really isn't a place for me in either major political party as I have a mix of conservative/liberal leanings, and am pretty much dead on the water for any political office/nomiantion.

Yeah I'd advise you to stay in your current career. There's just not that much "high impact" stuff to gain satisfaction from. The actual practice of law is far more boring than TV lawyers. Which is fine, I enjoy my work and make decent money. But it sounds like you already have that so why change?

[Anonymous User]

One question to consider is how likely you can get back to a well paid SWE role after 3+ years of little to no coding. No sarcasm intended.

[Anonymous User]

One question to consider is how likely you can get back to a well paid SWE role after 3+ years of little to no coding. No sarcasm intended.

Probably three months or so. Mind that my command of programming languages is a lot better than my command of the English language. Good for engineering bad for LSAT reading comprehension. woops accidentally anonymous.

[Anonymous User]

If you already have a job that you don't hate where you make $200K a year, then do not go to law school. Even if you get into Harvard, Yale or Stanford and/or get a full scholarship to another T14 school. The vast majority of lawyers (especially those who are highly paid) only sort of tolerate their jobs. It'll most likely be a lot of work, time, and energy to achieve a professional situation that will probably be at best equal and honestly probably worse than what you're experiencing now.

[Anonymous User]

Not really relevant to the discussion here, but OP do you have any advice to someone trying to do the opposite? Currently thinking about getting a mscs and go into tech.

[Anonymous User]

OP, a legal field can likely get you much closer to policy type work than engineering. The hard part is getting paid well to do it. My recommendation is to find specific jobs you want to do in the future and then see how those folks got there. You will have a major leg up if you can enter law school knowing what you want to do and how you can get there. It’s worth it to wait. You can bump up the LSAT in the process.

[nixy]

Very very few people manage to have a legal career that satisfies their ideological/political goals. The typical biglaw path is silly for you since you already make that money. Are you going to be happy making 50k as a public defender or something?

If you get into Yale, maybe you can be the next Lina Khan or JD Vance, depending on your ideological leanings. But you're not getting into Yale with a sub 175. And even if you do, the majority of yalies still have relatively boring careers.

Like many here I do like making money, but I derive the majority of self happiness in according to how much praise I receive. At work when there is a successful feature launch made by me, and my manager and other co workers and customers praise me, is when I feel the happiest. If I go down the law path, I would try to do the most high impact and prestige cases with the biggest impacts on peoples' lives as possible.
Unfortunately, my partisan leanings are very similar to Joe Manchin. In this age of hyper partisanship there really isn't a place for me in either major political party as I have a mix of conservative/liberal leanings, and am pretty much dead on the water for any political office/nomiantion.

If your biggest motivator/source of satisfaction is receiving praise, I wouldn’t go into biglaw. Probably not law at all, but definitely not biglaw. Also, high impact/prestige cases with significant effect on people’s lives sounds much more like, well, impact litigation than anything else, which tends to be in public interest and not pay as well.

One of the problems with law that I think you’re not considering is that as a service industry, you’re generally working on what your clients bring you. The potential for receiving praise/clients being happy with you is often determined not by your ability, but by whatever facts they bring to you - doing the absolute best that you can with what they bring you means you’ve done good work, but still may not make your clients happy depending on what they wanted to start with.

(Impact litigation is probably the biggest exception to this, since it involves a lot more cherry-picking of the perfect client/case to achieve your goals.)

Finally, I feel obligated to add that you should work on cultivating satisfaction in something besides other people’s praise, because that’s not something you can control and guarantee receiving. Full points for self-awareness, though.

[Anonymous User]

I just don't know that your background makes you that special. Working for a year or two at a major tech company might set you apart for admissions purposes and give you something different to talk about at OCI, but it's not really substantive experience. Many of the patent/IP people I know have tech or science backgrounds that include advanced degrees (often a PhD), so your BS + a few years experience is not nothing, but it's also not so unusual that your path would look markedly different from your average T14 grad.

ETA: The engineers and scientists I know who did well in law were those who, in addition to their talents in engineering/science, also had strong communication skills (written and spoken) and so who were able to translate complex technical ideas into language non-specialists could readily understand.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

I think it’s also worth a strong warning to OP that the quality of people at a FAANG engineering job is going to be much better than the people at law school.

Most of the people at law school, even at a T14, are lowlives who had no other career prospects. They will relish dragging you down to their level. Imagine a bunch of (bitter, emotionally stunted) zombies chanting “one of us, one of us” or perhaps crabs in a bucket. At Y/S the people are smart, but are also insufferable to the max, ready to stab you in the back with an ethically sourced fair-trade knife.

Given where you already are in life, you should stay far far away from law school. But if you do go, at least you won’t be able to say that no one warned you.

[thisismytlsuername]

This would be a very big mistake.

[danishblue]

maybe not so crazy
Facebook just reported much less engagement with younger people

[Lacepiece23]

Very very few people manage to have a legal career that satisfies their ideological/political goals. The typical biglaw path is silly for you since you already make that money. Are you going to be happy making 50k as a public defender or something?

If you get into Yale, maybe you can be the next Lina Khan or JD Vance, depending on your ideological leanings. But you're not getting into Yale with a sub 175. And even if you do, the majority of yalies still have relatively boring careers.

Like many here I do like making money, but I derive the majority of self happiness in according to how much praise I receive. At work when there is a successful feature launch made by me, and my manager and other co workers and customers praise me, is when I feel the happiest. If I go down the law path, I would try to do the most high impact and prestige cases with the biggest impacts on peoples' lives as possible.
Unfortunately, my partisan leanings are very similar to Joe Manchin. In this age of hyper partisanship there really isn't a place for me in either major political party as I have a mix of conservative/liberal leanings, and am pretty much dead on the water for any political office/nomiantion.

If your biggest motivator/source of satisfaction is receiving praise, I wouldn’t go into biglaw. Probably not law at all, but definitely not biglaw. Also, high impact/prestige cases with significant effect on people’s lives sounds much more like, well, impact litigation than anything else, which tends to be in public interest and not pay as well.

One of the problems with law that I think you’re not considering is that as a service industry, you’re generally working on what your clients bring you. The potential for receiving praise/clients being happy with you is often determined not by your ability, but by whatever facts they bring to you - doing the absolute best that you can with what they bring you means you’ve done good work, but still may not make your clients happy depending on what they wanted to start with.

(Impact litigation is probably the biggest exception to this, since it involves a lot more cherry-picking of the perfect client/case to achieve your goals.)

Finally, I feel obligated to add that you should work on cultivating satisfaction in something besides other people’s praise, because that’s not something you can control and guarantee receiving. Full points for self-awareness, though.

Being a plaintiffs lawyer is awesome for praise. My clients are so grateful that they burst into tears. I do employment law. I’ve heard that PI is less but still grateful and crim law is the least on the small law side.