Going To Law School

Not necessarily; it's a decent living, but there is no guarantee of richness--plenty of other careers will bring salaries as high as attorney salaries. Also, in order to make the big bucks, you need to bill upwards of 2000 hours/year, and in order to do this generally must work around 70 hours per week. When you break it down, the time/money ratio can really suck.

I will be joining a City firm as a trainee soon. I feel apprehensive to say the least...

On the other hand, if you are willing to work your ass off to make something work and starve for a few years after law school, there are good jobs as a lawyer to be had.

x-post: all of the smartest, most interesting paralegals I ever worked with who took the job as a taste test all decided to do something else with their lives.

everyone asks me if i want to go to law school, and I always tell them no. once you work at a big firm, the luster runs off real quick. its like 'do you want to work 12 hours a day every day, have nice clothes and a nice car but absolutely no time whatsoever to enjoy them?' also, if i ever get into the situation of having a family or whatever, work would totally dominate all of your time you could be spending with them.

ive heard theres some decent firms out there that let you leave at 530, but i would assume that theyre the exception rather than the rule.

paralegaling isnt a bad gig tho. The money isnt that bad, there's tons of overtime opportunities if youre into that sort of thing, and the hours arent too heinous most of the time.

in california at least.. you can go to school for it, but its a colossal waste of time and money. All you really need is a bachelors (and its one of the few fields where having an arts/humanity degree is helpful. mine is in history) and a legal employment agency. almost all law firms use legal recruiting/temp agencies because they dont want to screen the employees themselves and they tend to get decent people as a result. i got my start by answering a legal recruiter ad looking for someone with a BA, an 'attention for detail and organizational skills.'

once you actually get your foot in the door all you need to do is work in a law firm for a year, get some good experience and then have someone who passed the bar to sign a form that basically cites some stuff from the california business practices codes and statutes and BAM. youre a paralegal. no certificate, no school, none of that.

So yes, I second the idea of working in the area of law in which you are interested before doing anything drastic.

Also, to quote some lawyer friends of mine: "law school is basically trade school. Do not go to law school unless you really want to be a lawyer." So yes, if you think you'd like to be something other than a lawyer, there is probably a better way of getting there.

amen, and so MFOTM that it coulda been me who said that :-)

theres a grip of legal placement agencies. i used kelly legal. they seem to place alot of people with big firms. or at least my own firm. which is big.

if youre up north in the bay area, try landmark legal. nice people.

thats the beauty of the legal profession. you dont have to do half the work you would trying to find other kinds of work. i got my job here after being unemployed for 5 weeks a year and a half ago when the economy was SHIT-TAY. paralegaling is kind alike nursing in that respect. quite recession-proof.

others that'll get you far: michigan, vanderbilt, georgetown.

And Ivy Leaguers have gotten laid off from BIGLAW in the last few years, and I am informed that positions are much harder to come by.

Pick up one of those books about what you can do with a legal degree besides practice law, and you'll see very quickly that most of those things involve having some other type of experience that you can supplement with a law degree--or else they are even more mind-numbing than being an attorney (employee benefits coordinator, for example). Are there people with law degrees who went on to other fun, exciting non-legal careers? Sure. Same with MBAs, MAs, PhDs, or any other graduate degree. John Grisham was an attorney--but getting a law degree doesn't qualify you to become a best-selling author unless you already have the requisite talent and discipline.

What are you doing now, Colin? Did you cash out of some NY Biglaw firm and move on to calmer, smaller pastures, or did you leave law in general?

theres one lawyer at our firm whose making it work for him tho. this past year he's billed something like 700 hours, all the while raking in 6 figure salary. he'll be politely let go in a couple more months and then he can probably ease into something else that suits him.

Try not to be assholes.

Thanks,
adam.

Oh, but I think you should both totally go to law school. Why not?

I have decided against for now, will consider again in a few months. A friend of a friend heard I was considering it and messaged me, saying: Look, do what you have to, but I was in your same position a year and half ago and was told to really just push hard at what I was already doing, switched up some language in my resume and CV, and now I have a good fulltime job that allows me to read and write, too.

I am going to see how that works.

I appreciate all of the lawyerly advice, tho. I should mention my dad is a smalltown lawyer who has been working for nearly fifty years and doesn’t show any signs of stopping because he loves his job.

carl! agatha!!!!!

table is your dad going to say good-naturedly grumpy things like "well you could've done that 20 years ago but better late than never here's a new pair of suspenders"

Good luck, table! Hi, silby!

I can’t imagine a more anxiety inducing profession but ymmv

I stayed as union-adjacent as I could for awhile, hoping I could get back into it, working as a steward for my union and doing pro bono worker rights stuff and got too close to how that particular sausage is made. I’m not anti-union, but I’m real glad I didn’t end up in labor law after all.

thanks carl, and silby, my dad has always said “you’d be a great lawyer but i never wanted to pressure you to do anything,” which frankly, thanks dad. obviously he wishes i made more money, but he also understands the unique position i’ve been in— graduated college in 07, got downsized from my first job after the crash, went to get my MFA, could only find weird gigs for years, etc.

I can’t imagine a more anxiety inducing profession but ymmv

Dentistry

Anyway, my general advice is the same, which is only go to law school if you want to practice law. I’d refine it a little to say only go to law school if you can do it without incurring any debt or if you’re willing to work a less than ideal job for a decade or so while you pay off debts/get your career sorted out.

― carl agatha, Thursday, December 8, 2022 2:47 PM (two hours ago)

yeah, I am basically thinking in terms of whether/how much debt it would lead to and what lifestyle changes I'd have to make in order to carry that debt burden. Currently I have no kids, no spouse, no debt .... but am a renter, so, I might just not do law school and buy a house instead. My Great Great Uncle was a lawyer who never went to law school, but there were ways to, I guess work and test out of the academic requirements? He ended up a judge so, I'm assuming he was a pretty good lawyer?

my dad has always said “you’d be a great lawyer but i never wanted to pressure you to do anything,” which frankly, thanks dad. obviously he wishes i made more money,

my mom says the same thing to me, tbh, she will also say, "Sarah, three words, estates and trusts."

I forget which season of Better Call Saul it was where he went into elder law but ... when I watched that, I could hear my mom saying "estates and trusts" and also my grandmother periodically updating her will to change which relative she is going to leave her best china to based on recent behavior

Yeah, I would explore what actually practicing law looks like. I mean, there is huge variety, but I would focus less on "law school" and more on "what my life would be like if I were a lawyer." It's been a great profession for me, but it's not for everyone. Again, I would talk to as many practitioners as you can.

As far as specifically being a tax lawyer goes, I think the biggest difference is that your role is much more as planner and advocate than preparing returns and working in compliance. As someone said upthread, if you are at a big firm you will spend your time working on huge transactions to minimize the economic hit of taxes, or possibly defending very large taxpayers against the IRS (or FTB, NY DOR, etc.). I spend most of my time helping individuals and families plan for wealth transfer. However, I know plenty of practitioners at small shops or solo firms who do quite well for themselves. The guy who does my taxes is a CPA and attorney whose practice is divided between return preparation and representation of clients before the IRS. He has a small staff and an excellent reputation; I don't think he's hurting for work.

]my mom says the same thing to me, tbh, she will also say, "Sarah, three words, estates and trusts."

+1

California probate work is quite abundant and profitable.

Prop 19 that recently passed is probably a gold rush for the profession

It's a gigantic pain in the ass, is what it is.

Welp, paid my fee and I’m taking the LSAT in October

Good luck, table.

yay!!! meanwhile, me and my coworker recently discussed both of us going to law school and being "study partners" ... i don't think this will happen tbh ... i will probably be posting to this thread about considering going to law school until ilx dies or I die haha