<p>Thanks everyone for your responses thus far.</p>
<p>My feeling is that most unhappiness is found in Big Law because of the “selling your life” aspect of it.</p>
<p>I’m more interested of doing trial work/litigation, either at the DA of a major city, and more along the way, at the DOJ, or at a mid-sized firm which on their website explicitly says:</p>
<p>"Is your firm a “sweat shop” which requires that young attorneys perform an inordinate amount of billable hours as a condition of their employment?</p>
<p>While attorneys at our firm generally work hard and have a deep commitment to professional excellence, we have not set absurdly high minimum billable hour requirements for either our associate or member attorneys. We normally expect that our associates will bill a minimum of 1,900 hours annually and that members of the firm will bill a minimum of 1,800 hours annually. While many of our attorneys routinely exceed these minimum levels, and exceptional associate performance (in terms of either hours worked or clients originated) is rewarded through a bonus program, our firm culture does not foster cutthroat competition with respect to hours worked. We encourage our attorneys to develop well-rounded personal and professional lives, believing that happy, well-balanced individuals generally are better and more effective attorneys than unhappy, one-dimensional drones. In summary, we believe that our firm has fair and rational expectations in terms of the commitment of time and effort it expects from attorneys at the firm."</p>
<p>That said, if I were to go the DA route, I wonder if it would be plausible to be an adjunct at a local college/university a few classes per year as teaching is my other “calling” and I am considering pursuing a JD/PhD program after undergrad, possibly in political science.</p>
<p>Ultimately, politics is “where it’s at” and after reading the bios of several prominent politicians both at the state and federal level, it seems a greater majority of them came out of Big Law, which makes me wonder if that would be a reason to sell oneself for a few years.</p>
<p>The lawyers I have known have been pretty happy with their profession. None of them are litigators.</p>
<p>They are:</p>
<p>My uncle who was a tax lawyer for businesses. He loved his work and delighted in finding legal ways to reduce his clients taxes. It was all a big game to him.</p>
<p>My brother-in-law who had a hard time trying to decide what to be when he grew up. He spent a couple of years working on a PhD. before (or was it in the middle of?) going to law school. His first job was working to rewrite the laws to clean up the savings and loan crisis. He worked for a credit card company (not so fun) and is now a lawyer at Google and seems quite happy.</p>
<p>I also know lawyers who have bread and butter practices doing wills and real estate closings. They seem to enjoy it. It’s not too stressful, they have steady incomes.</p>
<p>nick,
Well, I guess I’ll jump in at this point. H and I are both lawyers, although I am technically now “retired.” We went in very different directions post-law school. He went into “big law,” at major firms in a major metro area and I went into the DA’s office in that same major metro area. I must say that I mostly loved my time there-great camaraderie with my fellow assistant DA’s, but trial work is really stressful (for me)and the courthouses were h*ll holes. Being on trial was very frustrating because in the metro area I was working, it was excruciatingly difficult to get guilty verdicts. Many, many ADA’s burn out after about four years. From there I went to work in a county attorney’s office-those offices handle civil litigation and administrative hearings of many varieties. I think if you asked my husband, he would say that he has been fairly successful financially, but that it’s come at a price. Long, long hours for years, not spending enough time with his kids when they were younger, never knowing if he could actually get away on a family vacation until he actually stepped onto the plane, constantly being “bothered” on vacation by faxes, cell phones, PDA’s-all work related. He has said on numerous occasions that if he could. he would not be doing what he is doing.</p>
<p>Also, in re-reading your post quoting from the firm which is talking about 1,900 hours at a minimum, remember that a bunch of your time will not be billable, and they are talking billable hours. That really is quite a bit, although I think my husband got up to well over 2,000 hours in several years. As for being an adjunct while you are an assistant DA, I’m not sure I would count on that as being feasible, because my experience was that if you are on trial, it’s almost a 24 hour a day proposition to be well-prepared.</p>
<p>A number of adjunct profs at my law school previously worked for the DA or PD (public defender). They had excellent courtroom skills and made very useful and informative teachers.</p>
<p>Three yrs out of law school – have clerked and am in biglaw litigation and am loving it. I probably have a different perspective than most others replying, but from what I’ve seen so far, those of my friends and classmates who are the unhappiest generally:</p>
<p>(1) Fell into law because they didn’t know what else to do/could get into a top 10 school/thought it would be useful for other professions etc.; and</p>
<p>(2) Have no interest in business whatsoever. While litigation is different from corporate and does not involve setting up companies etc, biglaw litigation in large cities typically involves insurance, securities, white collar/financial fraud etc. If you have no interest in any of those types of business subjects and were more interested in history, English, philosophy etc., you’ll find law firm life boring because you’ll ultimately be writing briefs about subjects that really don’t matter to you; add to that the fact that the hours are long, and people end up being unhappy.</p>
<p>(3) Didn’t realize that any firm paying you over six figures right out of law school is going to expect you to work hard for that money. It’s hard to really understand this until you start working – it’s one thing to be ok with the idea of working 60-80 hrs a week because you theoretically have a lot of time left over, but when you actually start working those hours, you realize there isn’t a whole lot of free time because you’re either working, managing family/friend commitments as much as possible, or simply exhausted.</p>
<p>That said – I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life and I’m already worrying about how to stay in the profession at this same level once the associate years are over (because making partner at any of these huge firms can be a shot in the dark sometimes.)</p>
<p>While there have been, not surprisingly, a wide range of experiences given voice in this thread, one pretty consistent theme seems to be this: If you’re not excited about going to law school in the first place (and are simply backing into it because, well, medical school takes too long, an academic career seems iffy, etc.), you’re not likely to be excited by life as a lawyer. (No surprise there.)</p>
<p>i know people with law degrees who work in state government or for non-profits. some work as paid lobbyists and may also serve as exec. directors for the non-profits. in state government, some work as staff for state agencies, the legislature, etc.
some do go into politics and seek elected office…at the local and state levels.</p>
<p>If you have to work for a living, being a lawyer is a great job. I work indoors, in a lovely, climate controlled environment in a corner office with a nice view of the city, with art and furniture of my choosing. All the coffee and juice I can drink. I have highly intelligent coworkers. (You will find this to be very important.) </p>
<p>I work late when needed. I worked when I needed to be packing for spring break and I ironed out the last points of a deal from a pool chair in my bathing suit while on spring break. But tomorrow afternoon I will leave at 3 to help my son get ready for prom. </p>
<p>I get paid to think. As you get more experienced, the problems you handle become more complex…you can pass down the boring, rote stuff to younger lawyers for whom it is not boring and rote.</p>
<p>Getting older is a benefit in the profession-not a liablity. </p>
<p>But caution: If you decide to go to one of the major big city firms that require that you sign over your entire life, DO NOT make financial commitments based on that salary. Those kind of firms are great for gaining experiece when you are young, but you want to be able to step off of that treadmill when it starts to affect your health or your family life. Don’t marry another lawyer at the same firm and get a mortage based on both of your large incomes.</p>
<p>H is an attorney, and has worked as in-house counsel for a large telecommunications company for the past 25 years. I think he would agree with everything missypie wrote. His hours have been fairly reasonable compared to private practice (particularly early on), and while he does do plenty of work at night and on the weekends, it’s mostly from home. For the most part he enjoys the work, as new technology has meant that he’s had to keep learning new aspects of the law, and that has kept the job interesting. He has certainly had periods of time when he’s felt overworked and (somewhat, compared to private practice) underpaid, but for the most part he’s satisfied with his career. He’s been able to have a pretty good work/family balance, and I’m grateful for that!</p>
<p>My dad was a social worker. My first year out of law school I made more money than he did. I had been a teacher before and law school and close to quadrupled my teacher’s salary 1st year out. With that said, I would be considered low paid for a large law firm lawyer. Our attorneys make a decent living, but not millions a year. It’s a trade off and I like where I am. </p>
<p>When it comes time to deciding the area of law to go into, look at your personality type. Litigators - of both genders! - have a higher testostorone level than transactional lawyers. Litigators have high highs and low lows-they win or lose. Transactional lawyers tend to like a more even keel.</p>
Well, Epistrophy, I’ll be a contrarian, then. 35+ years ago, after changing my major from physics to poli. sci. I was faced with the prospect of graduation from college. My choices were (a) get a real job <shudder> or (b) go to some kind of graduate school. I wasn’t qualified for any kind of graduate school which required any form of real undergraduate level knowledge, so took the LSAT on the theory that law school was one thing I could do after graduation that didn’t really require any undergraduate prerequisites.</shudder></p>
<p>Once in law school I avoided law review and other optional “honors” on the basis that the last thing I wanted to do after graduation was to work for a big law firm; I figured I’d work for “regular people.” (This was back in the 70’s when state law school tuition was <$1000 per year, so I wasn’t saddled with debt.) But I really had no idea what I would do after graduation.</p>
<p>Once out of law school I just sort of drifted into whatever work came along - advising small businesses (with all of the wisdom a 25 year old has to offer :rolleyes: ) then small case litigation, then real estate work, then bigger case litigation, with appellate work creeping in over the years. What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t have a single, life-long passion for any one thing. Law has been a good profession for me because it has allowed me to transition from one “job” to another - gradually - every 5 to 8 years. I get bored doing any one thing longer than that. </p>
<p>So for a person like me, law has provided that opportunity - to change jobs every few years without ever actually changing my “job”. I’ve also been self-employed, with the benefits and pitfalls that go with that. When my sons were younger I took the time away from work to coach their Little League teams. I never missed any of my daughter’s soccer games; I was the morning car-pool guy for years. My particular career path has allowed me to enjoy lots of different aspects of the life we Americans are lucky to be able to live. </p>
<p>But none of it happened by design, for me, anyway. Just serendipity.</p>
<p>missypie,
I love this! “Litigators have high highs and low lows-they win or lose. Transactional lawyers tend to like a more even keel.” This so describes my H and I within the profession. (I was the former.)</p>
<p>If you go to a firm that allows you to try out a few areas, you can generally drift into the practice that best suits your personality. If you go a a highly structured, regimented firm, however, you may have to change jobs to change practice areas. </p>
<p>Sometimes folks who claim to hate the profession later find out that they were just in the wrong area of law. I had a friend who was a bankruptcy lawyer in a very large firm. She hated it so badly that she left to take a much lower paying job as a prosecutor in municipal court. She hated that, too, and went to work as a legal recruiter. That wasn’t her niche, either. She finally went to work in a small estate planning practice and loves it.</p>
<p>(Of course, if she had undertaken large financial obligations based on her intiial large firm salary, she would not have been able to readily make the moves necessary toi find her place in the profession.)</p>
<p>Law is a very crowded profession in most areas of the nation (and apparently on CC as well). If you don’t become a lawyer, no one will miss you.</p>
<p>It is a very stressful profession.</p>
<p>For every person you get to “work with”, there is another person you get to fight.</p>
<p>You don’t make anything or build anything. It is sometimes difficult to see what you have accomplished for a lifetime of work.</p>
<p>Most lawyers are essentially running small businesses. If you cannot attract clients, you won’t make much money. If you get sick or injured for lengthy periods of time, your business and life can collapse.</p>
<p>Too many liberal arts majors go to law school because they don’t know what else to do with their degrees. That is the absolute worst reason to go to law school.</p>
<p>Does our society really need its “best and brightest” focused on whether a divorcing spouse gets his or her share of a limited marital estate? In other words, there are many aspects of law for which a lawyer’s work are insignificant to our society even though it may be significant to the parties.</p>
<p>Some of the happiest lawyers I know work for a non-profit constitutional law firm that defends the right to homeschool. They don’t make a lot of money, but they are doing what they love, supporting something they feel passionate about (they are all homeschool parents themselves). In the course of a day, they might advise families regarding the law in their state, talk to a school superintendant, write a brief for an appelate court, or speak at a conference. They all live in the same area, but do work all over the nation. Pretty good if you can get it :-)</p>
<p>“You don’t make anything or build anything. It is sometimes difficult to see what you have accomplished for a lifetime of work.”</p>
<p>That’s why I like real estate work. I can look out my window and see buildings I’ve bought and sold for clients…a building currently under construction for which I am negotiating leases.</p>
<p>I’ve always thought that tax work would be the most unrewarding-working night and day at year end so that some rich person won’t have to pay the goverment so much money. (Or, depending on your personal views, it could be the most rewarding!)</p>
<p>Depends on the wisdom of the management, though this might be especially an issue for in-house firms. I know of multiple cases where older, far more experienced attorneys were let go so they could be replaced by cheap young blood. (Then the firm would lose lots more cases, or screw up court administrative procedures, and end up losing more money than they’d saved by getting rid of the old expensive attorneys.)</p>
<p>You’re the best kind of “contrarian” - one for whom life seems to have worked out very well in ways that might not have been foreseen.</p>
<hr>
<p>razorsharp,</p>
<p>Re: “You don’t make anything or build anything. It is sometimes difficult to see what you have accomplished for a lifetime of work.”</p>
<p>In criminal defense, the results are usually very, very tangible - for good or ill.</p>
<p>I have one client, for instance, who will be getting out of prison next year after serving 30 years for a murder committed when he was 19. The good news? Before I began representing him, he had spent over 15 years on Death Row.</p>
<p>And I have another client whose conviction for murder was overturned on appeal by the State Supreme Court, after he’d served 3 years in prison. On the eve of his scheduled retrial, he was cleared by DNA evidence (using new technology that hadn’t been available at the time of his original trial) and the charges were dropped.</p>
<p>Successes of this sort are, of course, the exception and not the rule in criminal defense. But it is a field where you can have an enormous impact on clients and their families, which is part of why I went into it in the first place.</p>
<p>The thing is, all of us have to do something with ourselves. Even the fantastically wealthy have to do something all day. Most of us have to work to support ourselves and our families. Law is a profession where you use your brain and don’t get bored out of your skull. Where you’re working with fellow smart people (instead of the Michael Scotts of the world.)</p>