PI people, I need your help! Forum

[Marshmallow]

How/why did you choose law school over nonprofit management or a different public service/social sector/gov't route? What was your thought process/career like before ultimately deciding on law school?

I applied this cycle, but withdrew from all of the schools I was admitted to, largely because I just can't get my career goals straight. I've been a paralegal for about 2.5 years, so I do feel I have a sense of what the legal world is about, and also think I could make law school work for me. Still, I withdrew because I didn't want to close off other options too early. After withdrawing, I began looking for work in the nonprofit sector (consulting, admin., mostly assistant positions,) without much luck to date. I plan to continue the job search, but in the mean time, I wanted to get some thoughts from all the PI people on here re: the above questions. You all usually come up with some great stuff to think about.

[TTH]

People go to law school for two reasons: (1) they want to practice law; or (2) the wrong reasons.

It doesn't sound like you want to be a lawyer. Find other ways to burnish your resume and go do non-profit.

[twenty]

Go to law school for PI if:

1) You want to be an attorney more than anything else.
2) You can go for free, or a top school with a superior LRAP (which is definitely riskier and usually not worth it for most people's goals)
3) You're okay with the idea of volunworking for possibly even a year after graduating law school before being hired.
4) You can clearly articulate exactly what you want to do as a PI/Govt attorney.
5) You have 4+ years to burn being unemployed and accumulating cost of living expenses at the very least.

If all you want to do is work in PI and you don't care about being an attorney, do yourself a huge favor and keep doing what you're doing. Stay a paralegal, volunteer on the side, try and wiggle your way into a non-profit.

[everything_bagel]

I'm a newbie and a 0L and disagree with TLS conventional wisdom on some of this stuff so please take the below with a grain of salt. I don't want to be accused of advising you to wreck your future, but I think the advice so far has been a little dismissive. Here's my take as someone who's worked in the PI legal world and admittedly has those connections to rely upon.

1. If you don't know for sure whether you want to be a lawyer, definitely don't be convinced you need a law degree just because everyone in your field has one if they aren't using it. Find some contacts in the PI legal world (not PI practitioners with a law degree, but actual practicing lawyers) and talk to them about what they do. Ask yourself if you would find it engaging. I think one thing that it can be tough for PI-minded people to come to terms with is that PI law is very much legal practice, with the hours of pouring over documents that that usually comes with (and minus the ludicrous resources). If you like that stuff, maybe this is for you. If you don't, consider teaching or social work (or nonprofit, I guess, but speaking of hard to find a job).

2. As you do this, be realistic about your options for PI work that don't involve a graduate degree. I think the previous two posters are a little bit too sanguine about "wiggling your way into a nonprofit." PI work in this country requires a ton of hustle whether you are working in law or not. If you're going to take on debt to do PI (and honestly you'll have to most of the time--public policy degrees and MBAs aren't free) you need to be prepared to be very good at hustling.

So I'd talk to PI practitioners who aren't lawyers at all, especially outside of professional work (teaching/social work)--like policy or nonprofits. Focus on figuring out whether they have unicorn jobs or jobs you could realistically aim for. Be as risk averse in this context as TLS-ers will advise you to be in the law world.

3. If this still sounds like your thing, it's really important to come up with a solid financial plan to make it possible. This doesn't mean you have to go for free--it means you need to go for free or have a debt repayment plan. Personally, I find TLS LRAP hate kind of uninformed/irritating/overly risk averse. HYS (and Cornell, I think?) have really great LRAP programs that don't rely on tenuous gov't funding. Even though gov't support for loan forgiveness is a huge ? going forward, some other schools have good programs too. LRAP is definitely a risk--but so is working in PI without a grad degree and competing with overqualified peers.

Second, you need to figure out what you want now. A lot of PI-minded friends of mine who went to law school got scared by all of the people in law school who are super debt averse (remind you of anywhere?) and wound up going into biglaw jobs they hated because they were afraid of carrying debt, even debt they knew would be discharged. Don't go to law school (except possibly for free) if you think you might be one of these people. If you care about PI you will hate a lot of the biglaw jobs that are available to you.

Just my $0.02.


Edit: Sorry, that was a lot more than $0.02 (in length if not necessarily usefulness). Please defer to actual PI law students' opinions about this (or better yet PI lawyers). I just wanted to get across that (a) you're doing the right thing really trying to think this through; (b) here are some of the ways I've processed it; and (c) life involves a lot of risks, only one set of which we really talk about here.

[Marshmallow]

Wow did you all deliver. Twenty, I've read some of your other PI threads and they're always awesome. Thanks. Everything_bagel, I really do appreciate your insights. The comments you make about non law related PI and nonprofit gigs in the real world really hit home and have given me some ideas and things to think about. For now, I'm going to continue with my job, volunteering, and hustling for nonprofit. Goodnight TLS!