Career Paths

Lately Mr. Cob and I have been talking a bit about law school and lawyering and careers in general.  We have a few friends who are having a rough time in their attorney lives right now and at least one who is considering quitting the practice of law and pursuing an entirely new career path.  Mr. Cob also has a law student interning at his firm for the summer, so he's been telling me about her and how its going.  And my brother, as you know, just recently quit his job as a physical therapist and moved across the country to pursue his dream of working in the field of Ayurveda on a full time level.  And part of keeping this blog, is my desire to be a writer and the only way to do that is, well, to write.

So I've been thinking about how people end up in their chosen careers.  Did you pick your career or did it happen to you?  What caused you to choose this line of work?  Would you do it again if given the opportunity?

All I can offer is from my personal experience of choosing to become an attorney and the path that lead me to this profession.  It was a conscious decision.  I had to take all the required steps in the process (undergraduate degree, LSAT, applications, picking a school, etc.), so I fully knew what I was doing - as in, I knew I was taking all the necessary steps to become a lawyer.  But I was very blind in the process.  Looking back, deciding to be a lawyer feels more like something that happened to me, rather than a choice I made.  It was not, but I wish I had been more informed about law school and what it would be like after law school. 

So here are the top ten things I wish someone had told me before I decided to go to law school (not that it would have necessarily changed my ultimate decision to go had I known these things, but more information is better than less, in my opinion):

1. Unless you go to a top-ranked (as in top 10-15) law school in the nation, you must finish within the top 25% of your class (if not higher) to have a shot at getting a good job. And by good job, I mean one that makes the cost of attending law school worth while and gives you some freedom to practice the type of law you want.  We could debate endlessly whether or not these jobs are actually "good".  My one friend, without a doubt, would at this moment argue that these jobs are not good, as they tend to consume your life and you don't have any time to actually enjoy the money you are making.  But I digress.

2. You should try to get on a law journal, or an advocacy program (moot court and/or mock trail). These hold more weight than any other law school related activity and some employers won't even interview you unless you have one or more of these activities behind you.

3. Law school will not necessarily teach you how to be a lawyer. It will teach you to think critically, but as far as the day to day side of lawyering, there are very few classes that will prepare you, especially if you become a transactional attorney.   If you have a desire to litigate, you should seek out trial prep type courses.  My husband took some of these and while I thought they sounded horrible (and he would have agreed in the midst of a few), they are the classes that do offer practical skills.  You can also take a clinic (or clinical program) which helps you with interviewing, case appraisal and planning, negotiation, dispute resolution, and persuasive oral and written advocacy through hands-on experience and community service.  (However, I didn't even know what a clinic was while I was in law school.  These were never, in my opinion, widely touted or encouraged, although I think they would have be extremely helpful).

4. Law school offers very little in the way of positive reinforcement. It comes in the form of good grades, and you only get those (i.e. grades) once a semester and they aren't always good (at least not for everyone).  This can be very hard for someone (like yours truly) who thrives on positive reinforcement.  I found the entire experience quite self deprecating, but other people (eh hem, Mr. Cob) quite enjoyed law school and all aspects thereof.

5. You are competing against your fellow students. No way around this. In order for you to do well, others must do worse and vice versa.  The outward perception of this competitiveness varies by school.  I was lucky enough to go to a school where people did not hid books or purposely try to make others do bad.

6. Supply far exceeds demand in the legal field. 

7. You will not likely get to choose what type of law you practice (unless you are in the very top of your class, in which case you will probably have your choice of firm, but not necessarily control over what practice group you end up in). So people who go to law school dead set on being an environmental lawyer or entertainment lawyer, will end up stuck as a medical mal practice defense attorney or M&A transactional attorney.

8. Once you have a few years of practice in one area of the law, its not easy to switch to an entirely different area. So #7 is reinforced and you may never practice the type of law you always thought you wanted to.  (For example, a general litigation firm is going to be hesitant to hire someone who has been doing real estate deals for three years.  While you have experience as an attorney, you don't have the experience they're expecting when hiring a fourth year associate.)

9. There is very little way of knowing what type of law you will/would like, as law school doesn't prepare you for actual legal work (see #3). And it's not like you can try workers comp for a few weeks and then have a shot at family law for another few weeks and then decide.  Some summer programs will offer you the opportunity to work in a few different practice groups and this is a great time to learn about various practices.  Also, you can take continuing legal education classes on any type of law to help try to sort this out and the various law school classes will give you a flavor of what you might like, but per #8, it's not always a piece of cake to get hired in these particular fields.

10. Some people really do love law school and being an attorney. I happen to be married to one of them and am friends with others. But I have plenty of friends, myself included, who loved law school for the friendships we made, but had a very difficult time with the actual school part. But whatever group you fall into, there are others who feel like you do. The problem is often finding people to be honest about their feelings. 

So would I do it again?  Probably.  Even with knowing all of the above.  I just may have approached it differently.  Luckily I ended up in a great firm and I met some amazing friends in the process, so the three years was definitely not a waste.  I also met my husband at law school.  So if all else fails, you can try for your MRS along with your JD - I think of it as two for the price of one.