Was law your first choice? Forum

Sarahamelia · Post by **Sarahamelia** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 4:02 pm

I have spoken to some law students and some lawyers. Half of the lawyers like what they do the other half don't and they said they originally wanted to do something else but just ended up going to law school. How many lawyers/law students actually enjoy law or want to be a lawyer? Was studying law your first choice? Does anyone wish they would have done something different?

Edit: can you elaborate on how law school is different from being a lawyer?

zot1 · Post by **zot1** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 4:49 pm

I went to college wanting to study engineering. I got bad advice and family problems that led to studying social sciences instead.

While in social sciences, I decided to go to law school.

Shortly before undergrad graduation, I had a mini freak out and tried to figure out if I could get a second degree, but this time in science.

I realized I was being stupid and went to law school anyways.

Towards the last year of law school I had a second mini freak out mostly because I was so disillusioned with the legal profession (and had been since end of 1L).

But I got the job I wanted, so I kept going.

Loved the job when I started, and still love it now.

If I could go back, not entirely sure that I would do things differently. I am the happiest I've ever been and things can honestly just get better for me at this point because of my salary potential.

WhiteCollarBlueShirt · Post by **WhiteCollarBlueShirt** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 5:02 pm

Law was by default my first choice.

If I could go back, I would not do law (at a minimum I would have taken a scholarship at a lower T10). I like my job okay, but I would prefer to be debt free and not working as a lawyer.

Sarahamelia · Post by **Sarahamelia** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 7:09 pm

WhiteCollarBlueShirt wrote:Law was by default my first choice.

If I could go back, I would not do law (at a minimum I would have taken a scholarship at a lower T10). I like my job okay, but I would prefer to be debt free and not working as a lawyer.

If you don't mind me asking, what would you prefer to do?

twenty · Post by **twenty** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 8:31 pm

Law school and by association the practice of law is very different than what most people expect coming in. Weirdly, there are also a fair number of people that probably should be attorneys, but are scared off by horror stories and pervasive cynicism. The fear mongering, particularly on TLS (but ubiquitous in the industry) certainly doesn't help.

The biggest downside to law school is the three years it takes. In that three years, you could presumably be doing pretty much anything else with your life - and seeing as most of a given class is between 23-28, those are fairly critical years for a budding career. If you don't find law interesting but you can't help but be drawn in to the wheel-spinning competitive environment, it will be a long three years. Personally, I've enjoyed law school, and I've enjoyed what minimal legal work I've done as a student. There were times I considered dropping out, but most of those were directly correlated to LRW due dates.

goodoldmacintosh · Post by **goodoldmacintosh** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 8:58 pm

Delete

Aeon · Post by **Aeon** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:22 am

I was more or less certain that I wanted to go to law school from around the time I was in high school, so it was the first choice for me. In law school, I enjoyed studying the law, and it was one of the most intellectually fulfilling times in my life. Practicing law is considerably different from studying it. The biggest negative in my mind is that the profession tends to attract certain types of people, who are, as one might say, an acquired taste.

Sometimes I do wonder about how I might have done things differently, perhaps going into the sciences (I really enjoyed chemistry and physics in high school and college). But the grass is always greener, etc. I am generally pleased with where I am now.

encore1101 · Post by **encore1101** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:34 am

Went to undergrad wanting to do computer programming or graphic design for video games. Realized I sucked at both of those things.

In the meanwhile, I developed a yearning for adventure and excitement, and the prospect of sitting at a desk all day in an office scared me, so I wanted to join law enforcement or fire department.

Found out that I couldn't join until a few years after I graduated because I had smoked weed a few times my junior year. Decided to join the Marines in the meantime. This was shortly after 9/11, so I was caught up in the patriotism and (naive) desire to experience combat.

During my first deployment, at around 3-4 AM, I stumbled out of our platoon's tent into the port-o-johns. Even though it was night time, it was still really warm (90s+), and even moreso in the shitter. The port-o-john hadn't been cleaned in awhile, so the heat made it smell really bad.

So there I was, sitting in Bumfuck, Iraq, 7,000 miles away from home, at 3 AM in a 100-degree port-o-john that smelled like the Golgathan Shit Demon. I'm not claiming to be super smart or a genius, but I wanted a profession that was more suited to my abilities, but still in law enforcement. I debated going back to my law enforcement path, but I didn't like the prospect of starting over at the lowest rank again. I might as well stayed in the military, since I was a E-5/Sergeant when I EAS'ed. Still wanted to do law enforcement though, so I went to law school and became a prosecutor.

Edit: I love my job now. There's that three-circle venn diagram on the internetz of: 1) what you enjoy doing; 2) what you're good at; and 3) what someone will pay you to do. At the middle is your "dream job." 90% of the time while working, I feel like I'm in the middle.

I sometimes wish I stayed in the military. You can't replicate some of the things you go through, for better or for worse, and I definitely miss certain aspects of it.

eagle2a · Post by **eagle2a** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:35 am

Started out wanting to do a a medical profession (doctor, dentist, optometrist, anything really). Probably should have gone that route. Basically any medical professional has a guaranteed job/good salary/ job security.

WhiteCollarBlueShirt · Post by **WhiteCollarBlueShirt** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 1:11 pm

Sarahamelia wrote: If you don't mind me asking, what would you prefer to do?

I would prefer to be farther along on the path to doing nothing or pursuing less financially-motivated interests.

I had plenty of opportunity to start out in S&T, IBD, consulting etc., etc.... I do/did not have the patience or passion for medicine, the typing cs skills for programming or the academic intrigue for a PhD... so I wish I had spent those 3 years earning money at a bank, fund, firm, whatever and gaining business experience before exiting to whatever I actually could see myself doing for 30+ years (like many of my former high school teachers).

Nothing innately bad about being a lawyer (maybe working at law firms), but I basically ended up setting myself back a decade or more to work in an industry where I see little value and a lot of paternalism and protectionism.

Budfox55 · Post by **Budfox55** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:01 pm

WhiteCollarBlueShirt wrote:
Sarahamelia wrote: If you don't mind me asking, what would you prefer to do?
I would prefer to be farther along on the path to doing nothing or pursuing less financially-motivated interests.

I had plenty of opportunity to start out in S&T, IBD, consulting etc., etc.... I do/did not have the patience or passion for medicine, the typing cs skills for programming or the academic intrigue for a PhD... so I wish I had spent those 3 years earning money at a bank, fund, firm, whatever and gaining business experience before exiting to whatever I actually could see myself doing for 30+ years (like many of my former high school teachers).

Nothing innately bad about being a lawyer (maybe working at law firms), but I basically ended up setting myself back a decade or more to work in an industry where I see little value and a lot of paternalism and protectionism.

Where the fuck did you go to school that you had ex traders/bankers/consultants as teachers? lol. Im gonna guess ny private school? My teachers growing up were definitely not that competent. Applying to law school now so obviously a huge caveat, but i'm about to make a grass is greener on the other side comment concerning the finance bit. I graduated from college and went into one of the two fields you mentioned and fucking hate it. I would also disagree with the "building business skills" thing unless its consulting. Finance sucks and its literally 100% about money as opposed to say working at a start-up where you're actually trying to build something.The only skills you learn from banking are excel/ppt and from trading are knowing how to build stat models and well...trading. I would say the only positive is that it makes you into a savage of a worker. If you had the opportunity to go into s&t/IBD then you also had the opportunity to get a more exciting business job with more interesting work and in a much better culture, which is what I wish I did. Had the chance to do biz dev/strategy at some cool tech firms and startups and instead chose finance. I think that unless you know you want to do PE or if the only thing that you care about is $$$, then you're better off starting in another business role. Even if you aren't sure its the right industry, you can always go back and get your MBA. This could also be due to the fact that you're older than me. Finance is exponentially getting roasted. I did recruitment for a little bit and apparently theres a huge brain drain going on which started in the last 2-3 years and most investment banks are having serious issues getting and retaining top talent as most smart kids now are going to start-ups or tech.

Finance bashing aside, I 100% agree that some sort of real job experience is definitely the move. Im so glad I worked at a real job before law school. I though law school was probably what I wanted to do my senior year of college, but I knew that I would've always wondered "what if" had I gone straight through. Especially when I would've been a poor law school student while all of my friends were making $$$ in NY lol.

FluidMosaic · Post by **FluidMosaic** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 5:22 pm

No. Trying to get out of it as quickly as possible.

WhiteCollarBlueShirt · Post by **WhiteCollarBlueShirt** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 5:48 pm

Budfox55 wrote:
Where the fuck did you go to school that you had ex traders/bankers/consultants as teachers? lol. Im gonna guess ny private school? My teachers growing up were definitely not that competent. Applying to law school now so obviously a huge caveat, but i'm about to make a grass is greener on the other side comment concerning the finance bit. I graduated from college and went into one of the two fields you mentioned and fucking hate it. I would also disagree with the "building business skills" thing unless its consulting. Finance sucks and its literally 100% about money as opposed to say working at a start-up where you're actually trying to build something.The only skills you learn from banking are excel/ppt and from trading are knowing how to build stat models and well...trading. I would say the only positive is that it makes you into a savage of a worker. If you had the opportunity to go into s&t/IBD then you also had the opportunity to get a more exciting business job with more interesting work and in a much better culture, which is what I wish I did. Had the chance to do biz dev/strategy at some cool tech firms and startups and instead chose finance. I think that unless you know you want to do PE or if the only thing that you care about is $$$, then you're better off starting in another business role. Even if you aren't sure its the right industry, you can always go back and get your MBA. This could also be due to the fact that you're older than me. Finance is exponentially getting roasted. I did recruitment for a little bit and apparently theres a huge brain drain going on which started in the last 2-3 years and most investment banks are having serious issues getting and retaining top talent as most smart kids now are going to start-ups or tech.

Finance bashing aside, I 100% agree that some sort of real job experience is definitely the move. Im so glad I worked at a real job before law school. I though law school was probably what I wanted to do my senior year of college, but I knew that I would've always wondered "what if" had I gone straight through. Especially when I would've been a poor law school student while all of my friends were making $$$ in NY lol.

I went to a public school, not in or near NY, but a type of location where NY people would like to and often do have families and retire. Faculty was approx. 1/2 extremely well qualified and 1/2 local townies for honors classes.

I agree it's relatively easy to get a job in finance these days, particularly on the sell side where there is a huge dearth of talent. But I'm not advocating finance (or trying to leave law myself), I'm just saying law school only makes sense (interests and all else equal) if you do not have the opportunity out of undergrad to get a highly paid job. It's simply not worth the tuition paid, salary foregone and years spent learning to "think like a lawyer" in order to get a biglaw job that is actually directly comparable to the pre-MBA finance world of 2 years here, 2 years there.

You made up your mind and I'm sure you're going to a great school, so you'll be fine (just as I am), but personally, I'd rather have saved a couple hundred thousand and not been a lawyer, because the billable hour life is no fun and my debt was hilariously unnecessary. Also, even if I had taken an available full ride, I would say it's still not worth the 3 years spent just to delay jumping on the attrition boulevard.

Budfox55 · Post by **Budfox55** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:10 pm

WhiteCollarBlueShirt wrote:
Budfox55 wrote:
Where the fuck did you go to school that you had ex traders/bankers/consultants as teachers? lol. Im gonna guess ny private school? My teachers growing up were definitely not that competent. Applying to law school now so obviously a huge caveat, but i'm about to make a grass is greener on the other side comment concerning the finance bit. I graduated from college and went into one of the two fields you mentioned and fucking hate it. I would also disagree with the "building business skills" thing unless its consulting. Finance sucks and its literally 100% about money as opposed to say working at a start-up where you're actually trying to build something.The only skills you learn from banking are excel/ppt and from trading are knowing how to build stat models and well...trading. I would say the only positive is that it makes you into a savage of a worker. If you had the opportunity to go into s&t/IBD then you also had the opportunity to get a more exciting business job with more interesting work and in a much better culture, which is what I wish I did. Had the chance to do biz dev/strategy at some cool tech firms and startups and instead chose finance. I think that unless you know you want to do PE or if the only thing that you care about is $$$, then you're better off starting in another business role. Even if you aren't sure its the right industry, you can always go back and get your MBA. This could also be due to the fact that you're older than me. Finance is exponentially getting roasted. I did recruitment for a little bit and apparently theres a huge brain drain going on which started in the last 2-3 years and most investment banks are having serious issues getting and retaining top talent as most smart kids now are going to start-ups or tech.

Finance bashing aside, I 100% agree that some sort of real job experience is definitely the move. Im so glad I worked at a real job before law school. I though law school was probably what I wanted to do my senior year of college, but I knew that I would've always wondered "what if" had I gone straight through. Especially when I would've been a poor law school student while all of my friends were making $$$ in NY lol.
I went to a public school, not in or near NY, but a type of location where NY people would like to and often do have families and retire. Faculty was approx. 1/2 extremely well qualified and 1/2 local townies for honors classes.

I agree it's relatively easy to get a job in finance these days, particularly on the sell side where there is a huge dearth of talent. But I'm not advocating finance (or trying to leave law myself), I'm just saying law school only makes sense (interests and all else equal) if you do not have the opportunity out of undergrad to get a highly paid job. It's simply not worth the tuition paid, salary foregone and years spent learning to "think like a lawyer" in order to get a biglaw job that is actually directly comparable to the pre-MBA finance world of 2 years here, 2 years there.

You made up your mind and I'm sure you're going to a great school, so you'll be fine (just as I am), but personally, I'd rather have saved a couple hundred thousand and not been a lawyer, because the billable hour life is no fun and my debt was hilariously unnecessary. Also, even if I had taken an available full ride, I would say it's still not worth the 3 years spent just to delay jumping on the attrition boulevard.

Got it. And yea when I've spoken to people who weren't too happy being lawyers/going to law school, their reasons always lead me to think why not finance/consulting/business strategy from the beginning unless they couldn't get a similar job beforehand. That or they just had no clue what they wanted to do and so went straight into law. I'm planning to get into a different area so hopefully it will be worth it for me, but i'm also 100% cognizant of the fact that most people think the same thing. So fingers crossed.

trebekismyhero · Post by **trebekismyhero** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:25 pm

First year so take it with a grain of salt. Will see how I like it at the end of the year, but happy so far. I took several years off in between undergrad and law school. I really enjoyed my job, but it had a ceiling. I tried going into consulting, but that was hard to crack without an MBA. I eventually decided to go to law school.

I lucked out and got a good scholarship and big law to pay off the debt. If I had not gotten it and ended up with a salary lower than when I went to law school I would probably have regretted it. Things worked out, but as others have said, law school and the practice of law are very different than what people think. And I knew a bunch of people that went to law school and still didn't fully get it going in.

So while I am happy with how things turned out, I would recommend people take their time and really figure out what law school, the practice of law and especially debt really means before going to school.

WhiteCollarBlueShirt · Post by **WhiteCollarBlueShirt** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:45 pm

Budfox55 wrote:
Got it. And yea when I've spoken to people who weren't too happy being lawyers/going to law school, their reasons always lead me to think why not finance/consulting/business strategy from the beginning unless they couldn't get a similar job beforehand. That or they just had no clue what they wanted to do and so went straight into law. I'm planning to get into a different area so hopefully it will be worth it for me, but i'm also 100% cognizant of the fact that most people think the same thing. So fingers crossed.

[/quote][/quote]

Your plan sounds legit then. I fell into the category of (i) more financial security before law than post in terms of parental support; and (ii) not knowing what I wanted to do, but being pretty sure my end goal was a quick NYC exit.

As long as corporate biglaw is not your plan, then you should be golden. As for corporate, hours were significantly worse (even if more consistent) than my peers in other industries, exit options were a push and I couldn't care less if I was moving spreadsheets or word docs, but I think that I have more of an interest in the actual business side of things than papering agreements and negotiating afterthoughts.

Sarahamelia · Post by **Sarahamelia** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 8:44 am

FluidMosaic wrote:No. Trying to get out of it as quickly as possible.

What was your first choice and why don't you enjoy being a lawyer?

Sarahamelia · Post by **Sarahamelia** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 8:48 am

What's the difference between being in law school and being a lawyer?

zot1 · Post by **zot1** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 10:07 am

That's a loaded question with somewhat obvious answers.

Law school: you read cases and then discuss them in class to learn how to think like a lawyer. Maybe you have papers. Maybe you have a hands-on experience. There's a lot of stress from not knowing what's going to happen to you since you're applying for jobs all of law school (unless you're on the BigLaw route on got an offer after 2L summer). You're also worried about grades because they can help you with a job. You are actively going into more debt.

Practice (at least mine): you have real clients you represent. You're not graded per se. Yeah, there are performance evaluations, but it's a lot harder to get a "bad grade" than it is in law school. You're a professional and treated like one. You're no longer worrying about your work or what you're doing next. You can actually just plan for your life. You're getting paid and that feels really nice.

I'm sure there's more to say about the difference, but I'll just let other people chime in.

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 10:08 am

Sarahamelia wrote:What's the difference between being in law school and being a lawyer?

As a lawyer you don't have professors; you're not being graded; you're getting paid; you work 40+ hours a week instead of just going to class (when you feel like it); you have real clients and facts to deal with, not just cases in a textbook; you're doing a job rather than reading about it; you have actual responsibilities; you have bosses; your work is frequently more routine/nitty gritty than high falutin discussions of how law should work; your practice will be more specialized; you generally have to dress like a grownup; stuff doesn't end at the end of a semester when you start new stuff. It's totally different.

zot1 · Post by **zot1** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 10:21 am

Dressing like a grownup depends on the job. I've definitely shown up for work wearing some questionable t-shirts.*

*Don't try this at home.

jbagelboy · Post by **jbagelboy** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 4:58 pm

Law school was always my first choice, but I was delusional.

Sarahamelia · Post by **Sarahamelia** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 3:41 pm

@ everyone that replied to this post: what area of law do you practice? Do you work for a law firm? BigLaw?

Also, thanks for responding. I'm still in undergrad and I'm interested in law school but I don't want to make a big mistake so, I'm trying to figure out if I should continue to pursue this or move onto something else.....

Sarahamelia · Post by **Sarahamelia** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 3:41 pm

jbagelboy wrote:Law school was always my first choice, but I was delusional.

Why? Lol

zot1 · Post by **zot1** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 10:18 pm

Federal government attorney practicing in more than one area of law.

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