<p>ive heard that ppl pursue law for the intellectual challenge.</p>
<p>please explain this to me.</p>
<p>i wouldn’t say its composed entirely of Intellectual Challenge…there are many varying facets of why an individual would want to become a Lawyer</p>
<p>the life-long pursuit of wanting to help people in general, wanting to make a difference of an unjust legal system (whatever aspect this may be), etc. etc.</p>
<p>why i want to become a lawyer may be totally different from the next qualified applicant</p>
<p>This is what a lot of people say when they’re uncomfortable about admitting that they’re doing it for the money.</p>
<p>I think that one possible reason to go into law is the intellecual challenge. However, I imagine that this is probably a better reason for starting on the path, or going to law school than practicing law itself. I’ve heard that many things one does while practicing law are routine, standard and very unchallenging.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with money being an underlying motive. I am pursuing my JD because I have a passion for politics, and the philosophies on which our countrys foundation rests. I have a particular affinity for the Social Contract theorist. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Jacque Rosseau, all played a vital role in the establishment of American political thought. This being said, if it were not for the money, I would pursue a PhD in Political Science.</p>
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excellent point, drab – which is something i think many prospective law students do not understand!!</p>
<p>It’s similar to other high-profile jobs in this respect. Investment bankers also often say they are doing it for the intellectual challenge.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you want to “pursue intellectualism,” don’t do a job that requires you to serve clients! I hate to split hairs, but I think an “intellectual challenge” and “intellectualism” are two separate things.</p>
<p>From what I’ve read about what being a lawyer is like, its really a grind. Your first 3 to 7 years will be trying to make partner at a firm where you work 80+ hours a week on about 60-100k. After you make partner your workload decreases since you have more knowledge stored up, but you still have to meet deadlines for clients.</p>
<p>So no, being a lawyer is for the most part not intellectually stimulating depending on you field of expertise. Being a justice or a lawmaker or consultant would probably bring more variety and intellectual stimulation than the average law job.</p>
<p>I don’t know about the Investment Bankers liking the intellectual challenge thing. A lot of my friends think its a long, boring grind.</p>
<p>one of the biggest things i think prospectice lawyers don’t realize is how client driven the practice of law is - and that is true if you work for the gov’t or in-house at a corporation, as well as at a private practice, though in those two situations you don’t have to worry about client retention. :)</p>
<p>in law school, you deal with a lot of theoretical issues in the abstract. in a legal practice - the client wants an answer when they want it – and they don’t always like the answer you find. there are a lot of mundane chores that go into servicing a client’s needs. and then when there is a really interesting legal issue - often pragmatic financial, business, real world concerns often affect what the client chooses to let the lawyer do about it.</p>
<p>In my experience , admittedly a while back, those students who started Law School thinking it was going to be a great intellectual mind expanding experience hit the first few code-driven or practice-driven courses and bailed out for grad school or in at least two instances , the seminary. YMMV.</p>
<p>curmudgeon - to tie back into another thread here in the law forum – i think that law students at the top law schools are less likely to come to that realization until they are actually out in the real world of legal practice.</p>
<p>If that is true, and I don’t deny that it may be, then I would heartily suggest “clerking” early. ;)</p>
<p>Practicing law (like practicing any other profession, I imagine) involves a mixture of intellectual challenge and drudgery. One of the challenges that faces anyone who does anything for a significant period of time is now to remain tolerably interested in what you do for a living. </p>
<p>I have a cousin who’s a law professor; like most law professors, he teaches the same handful of courses year after year. He’s published a couple of books, and numerous articles over the years, and confessed to me the last time I saw him that even that aspect of his work has become somewhat routine over the years. </p>
<p>I was thinking about that phenomenon today, when I accompanied my son on a visit to an ENT who peered at my son’s tonsils while consulting with us regarding their possible removal. I’d guess that a typical work day for him includes many such examinations and consultations.</p>
<p>Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book “Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience,” talks about how people feel most engaged when they’re doing something that’s neither so difficult for them that they’re frustrated, nor so easy for them that they’re bored. People are happiest when they manage to stay in that “flow” state as much as possible, he says. (I highly recommend the book, by the way.)</p>
<p>There’s an attorney I know whose entire practice consists of handling one kind of case exclusively - shareholder litigation, always on the side of corporate defendants. He commands a higher billing rate than anyone I’ve ever known. One reason for his success in this area, it seems to me, is that he has figured out a way to remain interested what is ultimately a fairly narrow specialty. </p>
<p>My own solution to the problem of how to keep intellectually challenged by my work has consisted of changing fields within the law a number of times. If I were making decisions solely based on money, I would have chosen a more focused path. But this solution continues to work for me, so far.</p>