Deciding what you (may) want to practice? Forum

[brinicolec]

I know this is a very broad question and there's no way to KNOW completely, but for those of you who were ever contemplating biglaw vs. PI (either before or during LS), how did you decide? Do you think it was the right decision and why/why not?

I feel like this is one of those things that is better to know before picking a law school but I'm not sure particularly sure about how to go about it. Currently, I'm wondering about corporate litigation vs. work as a public defender or something of the like, and maybe eventually being a criminal defense attorney.

Any insight would be helpful.

[kalvano]

A significant portion of people will change their minds during law school, so I don't think picking a school based on what you want to practice a very good idea. Most law schools have the same curriculum anyway. Also, what you end up practicing may largely be determined by your job offers. I wanted to do litigation heading into law school, and I do corporate telecom/real estate now. And what experience I have with litigation has been awful, so I'm glad I don't do it.

[zot1]

Pick a school because you want to go to it and it gives you the best odds to succeed at any area with the least amount of debt.

People who come to school wanting to do biglaw generally don't care about the practice itself but rather about the prestige and money that comes from the position. Although this is a simplistic way to put it, no one goes to law school because they can't wait to spend hours doing doc review.

People who want to do public interest want that because they want a career of fulfillment or whatever. Those who've done the research and understand pay and career progression likely stay in that path the entire time. Those who barely figure it out in school will likely change their minds. It is really hard to live in LA making 40k dealing with clients who are not always thankful or appreciative of your time.

Edit: for me, public interest is all non-government, non-firm work. Public service is government work at any level. You could make more than 40k/yr in government.

[mjb447]

Yeah, this isn't something you need to know before picking a law school (unless you include in 'PI' unicorn public interest jobs uniquely available out of Yale). Curricula are very similar at most law schools, and most of them also don't teach you much about practicing law.

[tomwatts]

I know this is a very broad question and there's no way to KNOW completely, but for those of you who were ever contemplating biglaw vs. PI (either before or during LS), how did you decide? Do you think it was the right decision and why/why not?

I feel like this is one of those things that is better to know before picking a law school but I'm not sure particularly sure about how to go about it. Currently, I'm wondering about corporate litigation vs. work as a public defender or something of the like, and maybe eventually being a criminal defense attorney.

Broadly speaking, a law school with good employment prospects places well into any category of employment, and a law school with bad employment prospects places poorly into any category of employment. There may be a few that do better putting people into PI than biglaw (Northeastern, maybe?) or vice-versa, but those are pretty unusual. So this is not a thing that you have to decide before choosing a law school. Employment prospects and location (and scholarship money) are significantly more important.

This is probably a thing you should decide after choosing a law school, though. Basically, biglaw pays more, but people tend to like the work/lifestyle in PI more. Even so, there's a lot of variation and complexity within that. Talk to different people doing different things, get different types of internships, talk to career services, and get good information so you can make a well-informed decision.

Also, most people intern in PI for their first summer in law school (because biglaw 1L SAs are hard to come by), so you can try out something, such as working for a public defender's office, and see how you like it.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, the schools that place you best for corporate litigation are also going to place you best in pretty much everything else, so it's not like you're going to end up at the "wrong" school for one or the other.

This isn't going to be very encouraging, but I think it's very hard to decide what kind of law you want to practice without getting legal experience. I came to law school intending *not* to work in the area of law I'm in now, but it turns out that the kind of law I find conceptually interesting and like to learn about is not the same as the kind of law I enjoy practicing. For instance, I thought for a long time that I wanted to do plaintiff-side employment law, or civil rights law. But there are a lot of truly terrible plaintiffs out there, and a lot of firms simply trying to get entities to settle a conflict for a decent sum. I'm sure, say, the ACLU is different, but civil rights firms can start to look a bit like personal injury, dependent on volume and settlements, and it just makes for a kind of practice that I wouldn't enjoy. (Note: there are also really great plaintiff-side employment/civil rights firms doing important work. It's more that for me, the nitty gritty of practice is way different from analyzing which way the law should go, like you do in school.) I only figured out what I wanted to do once I was clerking and started to see a wide range of practice areas (admittedly from a limited perspective).

So basically, do as many different kinds of internships as you can in school, to get a sense of what you'd like to do.

(Treating PI as non-government non-firm work, I agree it's not common to go PI --> biglaw, because usually the skills and experience you get in PI aren't usually that interesting to biglaw. You can go biglaw --> PI, but it depends on what kind of PI and what you do to get there - like elite biglaw to some kind of elite impact litigation, if you lay the groundwork while in biglaw, maybe. Going biglaw --> criminal defense, except I suppose maybe to an elite federal public defender office, is kind of unusual because it's likely to be hard to convince a PD office that you really want to leave biglaw for a job with frequently crushing workloads for 1/4-1/3 the pay, plus you won't quite be entry level but won't really have relevant experience... they're just really different tracks. Which isn't to say that people never jump back and forth between these areas, because people do move around and change jobs more than I think TLS sometimes realizes, but it's not a standard path.)

[CanadianWolf]

If you want biglaw, then aim for the T-14 law schools. The T-14 place a higher percentage & number of grads in biglaw, than regional law schools. If you want to become a public defender/criminal defense attorney, then just be sure that each law school you consider has an active clinic that matches your interests.

Of course, even the best laid plans are subject to change.

[tomwatts]

This isn't going to be very encouraging, but I think it's very hard to decide what kind of law you want to practice without getting legal experience.

Seconded. I did six internships during law school to figure out what I wanted to do. When I arrived as a 1L, I intended to do anything but be a litigator. I am now going to be a litigator.

[brinicolec]

Thanks for all the responses!

I think the money involved in BL makes it appealing, but not much else, and think the PD/DA route might be more appealing to me, especially since I was drawn to law because of criminal cases/death penalty stuff. I think the main thing I'm wondering about is, if being a public defender or DA (I'm adding the "or" because I'm trying to decide which one seems easier to stomach to me regarding the cases) is what I intend to do straight out of law school (hopefully I will be able to) but perhaps at some point down the line want to be able to go into white collar crime or something (because as someone mentioned, PD/DA is rewarding work, but also very taxing), would it be better to take out more debt at a T14 (and of course, rely on LRAP saving me) or take out less debt at say... a T25?

[zot1]

This isn't going to be very encouraging, but I think it's very hard to decide what kind of law you want to practice without getting legal experience.

Seconded. I did six internships during law school to figure out what I wanted to do. When I arrived as a 1L, I intended to do anything but be a litigator. I am now going to be a litigator.

Or you can spend three semesters at the DAs office and realize you would never want to be a prosecutor. Ha!

[brinicolec]

This isn't going to be very encouraging, but I think it's very hard to decide what kind of law you want to practice without getting legal experience.

Seconded. I did six internships during law school to figure out what I wanted to do. When I arrived as a 1L, I intended to do anything but be a litigator. I am now going to be a litigator.

Or you can spend three semesters at the DAs office and realize you would never want to be a prosecutor. Ha!

What made you come to that decision/did you decide you'd be more interested in PD instead or did you go a completely different direction?

[zot1]

This isn't going to be very encouraging, but I think it's very hard to decide what kind of law you want to practice without getting legal experience.

Seconded. I did six internships during law school to figure out what I wanted to do. When I arrived as a 1L, I intended to do anything but be a litigator. I am now going to be a litigator.

Or you can spend three semesters at the DAs office and realize you would never want to be a prosecutor. Ha!

What made you come to that decision/did you decide you'd be more interested in PD instead or did you go a completely different direction?

PMed you.