Out of every 10 lawyers, seven hate their jobs and two are ambivalent.
This may or may not be true, but the guy who told me that was a senior partner at a 80-person law firm, one of the top three firms in a large metro area. He was the "Cheatham" in Dewey, Cheatham and Howe.
I'm not a lawyer, and that's pretty much why.
The string's already broken, and he doesn't really care.
I enjoyed law school, but it is a lot of work. I am a practicing tax attorney - although it affords me a comfortable life, it is a grind and not something to go into on a whim. It is also costly. I am in my 14th and next-to-last year of paying off the loans. Also, if you plan to hang out your own shingle, you will be working 80 hours a week at first. I also think that, unless you know someone in your small town, it might be very slow going at first. However, there other things you can do with a law degree rather than practice law. Good luck with your decision.
Fixed.Originally Posted by hurleyfor3
Kevin Lomax didn't seem to mind working for the Devil. But then he realized it was going to cost him his soul.
If you're insinuating the precentages are the same across all careers, I strongly disagree. My experience is quite a high percentage of people in science/research/engineering/IT fields enjoy their jobs, for example.
Anyway, if you're right, your still proving my point (thanks!) in that you're no likelier to find self-actualiztion there than anywhere else.
The string's already broken, and he doesn't really care.
That is not the sense I get from talking to people in a lot of engineering and IT jobs. I don't know enough about science and research, but I have certainly talked to my fair share of people who ditched those careers for others.
At any rate, my point is that job dissatisfaction is pretty high across the board. I'd guess that the lower down the autonomy rung you go, the higher the dissatisfaction. That might support your point regarding science and research jobs, I suppose.
Ultimately, you are correct in that I was generally supporting your point that lawyers are a disgruntled bunch.
I always liked that one.
That's my experience as well; and if there is substantial job dissatisfaction, it's not with the work that they're doing on a day to day basis, but things like managerial issues.
Also found a high level of satisfaction within the news organization that I worked for -- a bunch of news junkies who truly felt they were performing a public service, hanging out with like-minded news junkies. Of course, several of the more 'cub' reporters went on to law school; I wonder if they're substantially less happy these days.
I don't know anything about this, but this here's entertaining reading:
http://lawandletters.blogspot.com/20...aw-school.html
A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
---Roger Ebert
Some questions cannot be answered
Who’s gonna bury who
We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
---Over the Rhine
Law school is a good experience if you're not gunning for law review and clerkships, and it's a very useful intellectual discipline to be exposed to. My sense is that being an associate in a large or medium size firm is a hellish experience generally to be avoided, and I can tell you from experience that a criminal defense practice has plenty of frustrations. But if you're aiming at a small town general practice, then I think there is a good chance of keeping reasonable hours and having a reasonably satisfactory working experience. Choose the community judiciously to make sure you can break in. Sometimes you'll find an older lawyer getting ready to retire who wants to turn over his practice to someone.
Awww, so you guys are telling me this isn't the magic bullet to solve each and every career woe? Darn it!!
As an aside, I am never, ever going to tell my son, "Son, just do what makes you happy." You don't want to do that. You want to go into a field that makes money. I know this is ridiculously materialistic and probably against my religion as well, but I am just so sick of struggling to make ends meet, worrying about our children's college, blah, blah, blah. Obviously, no job is going to completely free you from that (I mean, unless you're Miley Cyrus or something... or own an oil field, I guess), but there's got to be a better way.
GDT: Wow, sounds like we should talk, brother!
Hi blublood,
IMO, you'll end up making more money, over your career, doing something you enjoy than something you do not. And, in the end, you'll have a much better life along the way. After all, we only take this ride once.
I suspect Bill Gates truly loves technology and Warren Buffett truly enjoys a finance career. I doubt either would be as wealthy as they are, if they had gone into a career they did not enjoy.
Best regards,
Jeffrey
This is entirely accurate. In particular, see the quote from Cameron Stracher (who wrote the excellent book Double Billing, where this WSJ quote comes from):
I've struggled on how to express that, because I'm fortunate enough to be on the "elite" side of the spectrum and don't want to come across as terribly pompous in pointing out that it is a tiny fraction of the entire population of JDs. Even if you do get "the job", many of the criticisms in the article are accurate.The legal profession is really two professions: the elite lawyers and everyone else. Most of the former start out at big law firms. Many of the latter never find gainful legal employment. Instead, they work at jobs that might be characterized as "quasi-legal": paralegals, clerks, administrators, doing work for which they probably never needed a J.D.
Oddly, I find the practice to be very unlike that article. But I don't work for MEGALAW. I have a comfortable practice with comfortable partners in a fairly congenial local bar. True, I don't practice in NYC, DC, ATL, or such. But I am home every weekend except when I have a trial, and work normal hours. So while I'm sure there is truth to the description of the three categories listed, that is not exclusive by a long shot.
To answer the original question: law has many applications and there are all types of legal settings in which to practice or ply your trade. Law school teaches more than just legal principles -- it teaches a mental approach and discipline to the application of facts to some overarching construct.
And I also agree with someone above who said, in effect, that you shouldn't go to law school if you're not committed to it. The old saying is true: the first year they scare you to death, the second year they work you to death, and the third year they bore you to death.
You know, reading that article, I think almost all of that would apply to doctors as well. (minus maybe the high rates of major depressive disorder) Working with jerks? Check. Debt that you'll never get out from under? Check. Jerks as "clients"? Check. Jobs that suck? Sure, ask any surgical resident or intern at an inner-city clinic. Makes you into a bad person? I've heard this repeatedly from med school pals. Sucks away years and years of your life? Check, check, and check - notoriously so.
And somewhere in there the moral neutering takes place. Don't worry, it's painless. You won't even know you're having a procedure done. But every once in a while you may look down and cry out in terror: "Where's the rest of me? Where's my sense of right and wrong?"
And don't worry either about that "work you to death" stuff. Law school is a breeze unless you're competing for top grades, which you would need only if you want to work for a good size firm or get a judicial clerkship or be a law professor. In that case you would be going up against some major league "iron butts," as Dick Nixon was referred to at Duke Law. If you're not playing that game though, passing law school courses is simple.
My experience leads me to fall in line with OldPhiKap and Jeffrey. For me, going from a big firm to a small firm was immediately more personally rewarding than working in a big firm. After a few years being in a small firm was also more financially rewarding compared to my peers who stayed in their big firm jobs in big cities. Like OPK I don't live in a major metropolitan area. I am also not a corporate atty and can understand why it would be hard to distinguish yourself as a corp. atty in a small firm.
Like Jeffrey I tend to think that if you do not like what you do you will probably not be great at it. That said, everyone can probably think of something they like to do but are not good at or could not make a living doing.
As for law school, I had a great time but did not worry too much about grades. I met a lot of fantastic people that I keep up with to this day. Law school did teach me to apply myself and to structure my thinking.
In my experience, the biggest knock on being a lawyer is that you will take other people's problems on as your own and you will spend an unbelievable amount of time worrying about / ruminating over your clients' concerns even when you are not at work. It is, however, a great discipline and even in small towns there is always plenty of work out there for good attys.
Residential real estate is a relatively family friendly practice area (not mine) where you can make a decent to great living in a small town without having to deal with late hours.
Truer words have not been spoken.
Especially with respect to pro bono clients.
Oh, I worry about the paying ones too . . . .
But you are correct that. often, the folks with the biggest problems are those who can least afford to have big problems. When you can't pay your rent, EVERYTHING is a big problem too.
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