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Becoming a Lawyer.
Prot3us
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First off, I'd like to say I view myself as a creative person and I could honestly see myself writing for shows like Robot Chicken and or stuff like Heroes/Firefly, I would really enjoy doing this. BUT, I also know I would make a great lawyer but I honestly don't know if I would enjoy it. What I would like to know is: What is law school like? What happens after? Whats an average mock trial/real case like? And if you have any experience do you enjoy your job as a lawyer?
Most of you might be thinking, "Well if you think you're creative why not just go for it?" Well I would also like to add that I'm really not sure about what I want to do in the future, although being my own boss sounds really good, hence why I'm thinking about being a lawyer.
Most of you might be thinking, "Well if you think you're creative why not just go for it?" Well I would also like to add that I'm really not sure about what I want to do in the future, although being my own boss sounds really good, hence why I'm thinking about being a lawyer.
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Uh...almost no lawyers are their own bosses. Most lawyers work for firms. All lawyers have bosses: their clients. You're always doing somebody else's work and are ethically required to do what they want when it comes to sufficiently broad issues of litigation strategy. Most lawyers hate their job. Lawyering is more or less the opposite of artistic creativity - it is detail-oriented, focused on making distinctions between similar situations and case holdings, and thoroughness. The mind and skillset that orients itself around creative writing does not enjoy the law, and rarely does well at it - I have a friend working for the sci-fi channel now who is in law school with me and the only thing keeping him in is the desire to not have wasted that last year. He took on oodles of debt for an educational track that will not get him where he wants to go.
Law school is one year of misery and two years of boredom. Your first year, you are graded on a curve with all of your peers - your GPA and class rank determines if you can get a good job, a federal judicial clerkship, or academia. Firms then come onto campus in fall of your second year to do hiring for summer jobs. Those are pretty much sinecure positions - as long as you aren't a complete freak during the event you then get a job with them after graduation. So firms will never see those later grades. if they do, they don't care as long as they aren't at the bottom of the barrel. At the top 10 or so schools, you can do really cool things regardless of grades. For the next 10 or so, you need to be in the top half to succeed. From there it dwindles to the top 1/3rd for the rest of the first tier to the top 10% for most of the rest. Many people are tricked into going to law school based on misleading career services statistics.
If you don't get above a 165 on the LSAT and have a GPA above 3.6, it is very likely you will attend a school that is going to prove more of a financial liability than an asset to your career or earning potential. if you decide to be serious about this, take easy classes in college as much as possible (admissions committees really don't care what your GPA is in) and pay for a testmasters, blueprint, kaplan, whatever prep course to ace the LSAT.
Some useful links on lawyer satisfaction:
http://seoulover.blogs.com/westlaw/files/being_a_happy_lawyer.pdf
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=958053&high=%20zaring
http://www.law.harvard.edu/alumni/bulletin/2006/fall/feature_1-side.php
Everyone's different, but I think you should aim to place your job/life happiness as a higher priority than "lots of money". All the money in the world isn't gonna make you feel good at night if you've had a highly stressful or shitty day.
Not to say that is the existence of every lawyer however, but you seem to think it would be stressful/unfun work for you.
Oh ho ho, that last sentence was written by someone who has never actually had a proper job. Money isn't much good when you don't have any free time to spend it.
You seem to be under some misconceptions about being a lawyer. The vast majority are not self-employed. You may be thinking of barristers, who are self-employed, not sure about court lawyers in the US. It's very hard to be a barrister. And you work even more hours than corporate lawyers. Who work pretty much all the hours as it is. And most of the corporate (ie big law company lawyers as 90% of the profession is employed) is mind numbingly dull, even when you're partner and above. Finally, if paperwork turns you off, stop now and walk away - the law is paperwork.
Good for you, have a cookie. Honestly, stop watching the TV shows and disabuse yourself of most of what you seem to think about being a lawyer. Qualities which will help do not much include creativity, but may include: enjoy arguing / debate for its own sake, analytical mind (particularly for arguments, logic etc), ability to absorb & retain huge amounts of information, ability to work long hours, ability to focus & find interest in any work no matter how dull, good research capabilities.
Most lawyers only see the inside of a courtroom for their DUI, and if doing paperwork came as a surprise, you need to learn more about the job.
You don't have to take the above route. I have a friend who graduated then decided to make far less working for the gov't. She gets every other Friday off and works the usual 8-5 job. Not bad.
Having a JD is a good thing. You make yourself highly competitive in the workforce and you can always practise law if you choose.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Isn't that what he's trying to do? Stop being a dick.
To speak to some of these other points... Out of all of her law school friends (all intelligent, top 10 law school, etc), they ALL are looking to switch professions within the next few years. Her hour requirements are fairly modest as firm jobs go. I believe it basically means she needs to bill about 8 hours per day, which means doing billable work for a client for 8 hours out of the day (meaning you will be at the office a few more hours on top of that). You can't argue with the six-figure pay, though you have to be ok with doing one and a half to two jobs worth of work to earn it.
Wow.
Having worked in a law office (I am not a lawyer, IANAL) for quite some time I can very quickly disabuse you of this notion. Some very vocal lawyers might, and perhaps there are statistics out there that I am not privy to, but nearly every lawyer I have met has loved their job.
However, even in litigation-heavy fields, there is tons of research and correspondence/argumentation that comprises nearly 98% of the job, and very little time is actually spent in court. I love it, even though I prefer hearing/court time--but I recognize it just isn't the right job for everyone.
If you enjoy using creativity in a high-dollar field, but you don't like channeling that creativity into drafting motions and objections, maybe you should look into lobbying.
I was pointing out that a lot of the things he seems to think he knows already may be wrong. Stop being vicariously offended.
Also I can't vouch for lawyers hating their job, but I can back up what Hlubocky said about the large percentage of those I know who want to switch professions.
Hey, I said most lawyers, not all lawyers - i'm glad your anecdotal experience is positive, though. It bears mentioning that there are happy lawyers. You also are privy to statistics - check out the links I put in my post. Most lawyers don't like their jobs.
Vis a vis proteus' "I am not embarassed to say I like money" - yeah, i don't think anybody is in post-reagan america. The point is that no amount of money can drain the misery stemming from having to do an awful job for 80 hours a week
Law school- the first year is tough; they essentially beat down and reshape the way you approach problems- they don't teach you how to be a lawyer, they teach you how to think like one. Seems like the process is easier or harder for people depending on how logically they thought before law school but few find the first year to be extremely easy. Second year is when you really get into the nuts and bolts of the education. You will take the most classes the second year and they will be on the densest material you've yet to encounter. (CP II sucks but is absolutely necessary). By the third year most people have jobs lined up and no one worries too much. This is the year that you try to focus on the type of law you'll be practicing and taking classes that will help you specialize. You also work on your golf game.
All in all, it's a fun time. Doesn't always seem fun while your in it but looking back, it's great.
Work as a lawyer- I don't know where the other commentators work but I find it to be extremely fulfilling in a creative way. Every day you are presented with new problems and new things to learn about. Not only are you required to become well-versed with the situation you are dealing with very quickly; you are expected find a solution to the problem that is both cost-effective and satisfactory to the client. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of paperwork but is not like you are putting a little number in a little box over and over and over. It's more like each document is building block that gets you a little closer to the desired result.
Billable hours suck but that's a whole different issue.
As far as court goes, it totally depends on what area of law you are in. I've got friends who work for the district attorney's office and spend 20+ hours every week in front of a judge. I've got other friends in the transactional field that have never and will never set foot inside the courtroom (except perhaps to deal with the afore-mentioned DUI). Most of us split the difference and attend hearings and such a few times per month. Trials are rare (except for DA's) but that's a good thing.
Quality of life- Yep, the hours are pretty long and, if you hate the work, they seem a lot longer. At the same time most people don't hate the work- they like it. Nearly all of my friends are attorneys and I don't think any of us are looking to get out of the profession or dreading coming to work. That said, in my opinion, it is essential to work for as many law firms as you can during law school in different areas of the law. Different areas appeal to different personalities and it's not always obvious where you will be happy.
In summary a career in the law can be pretty fun and even if fun is not the right word for it- it's certainly not as bad as some others here have made it sound. If you've got the chops to write professionally and that's what'll make you happy, go for it. YMMV but lawyering is far from the hellish profession some here make it seem.
Your advice is very uplifting. I'm looking at corporate law, how is it?
That said, it's not easy to get into; study hard, get good grades, and either go to a law school in the top ten/twenty or go to one that is located where you want to work.
Er. Where do you work?
Oh, you're canadian? Generally if you want a US-style job you'll have to go to UoT, UBC or McGill. York is still great but you'll have get good marks to go to a US city, and you'd be doing commercial/transactional work for a big firm.
That said, the canadian associate lifestyle is less hours for less pay. You're probably working 50-70 hrs/wk instead of 60-80, with the total billed hours probably being around 1600-1800 than 2000-2200. You start I think around 90k canadian, instead of 160k american. Different trade-offs, but the well-paying work is still eye-gougingly boring.
I am still going to go the route for a while because I need the money. I'm not happy about it, though; I can't think of another subset of a profession where people cry themselves to sleep on Sundays at the thought of returning to work the next day.
Wow if it wasn't for this post I would have shit a ton of bricks. Here's a question, would it be wise to take up Criminal Justice or Justice Studies prior to heading into law school? I'm currently on that route but I have some time to make adjustments.
Most people I know (including me) didn't have much exposure to law related classes before law school. I think I had one business law class required in undergrad and I don't really remember anything about it except that the professor was really funny. Your law school will assume you know nothing and to be honest there's not much you'll learn in a semester of undergrad pre-law type class that you won't learn in about a month of law school.
IMHO the best prep for success in law school (grade wise) is writing classes. Learn to write very quickly and learn to keep your writing very well organized. If you can't touch-type, learning to would be extremely useful as well. The reason for this is exams. In law school, most of the classes will base your entire grade on one 3-4 hour exam. During that exam, you'll be presented with a problem that will have far more to write about than you could possibly cover in the time allotted. The people who do really well are those who can spot the issues very quickly and thoroughly cover them (in an organized manner) equally quickly.
If you can get an engineering or biology degree, that is a great path to take.
Frankly, I have a better intellect than a lot of people and enjoy the idea of being able to put it at people's service.
I'll keep this in mind.
Having majored in criminal justice for undergrad before heading off to law school, I'd say a definite no to that; you're not going to learn much, if anything, that you'll find useful, and you'll actually end up having to unlearn some material once you get to law school. Getting what amounts to a layperson's knowledge of the legal system isn't going to serve you well once you get into professional school.
Classes that teach you how to read, analyze, and write will be the most helpful. My personal take on law school is that, at least for the first year, the actual content of the classes is secondary to them teaching you how to be analytical, so any classes that give you a running start on that task will be useful.
I highly, highly second Thanatos' recommendation on joint JD/MBA programs if your school offers it. I wish I had taken that path, and nearly everybody I know from law school who passed up on it regrets it now. Law school is 3 years, but most JD/MBA programs get you both a JD and an MBA in four years, which is just awesome.
I don't know where you heard that, but it's totally wrong. Some people get their MBA after going into the business world, but all you actually need for it is a BA or BS. Like Peeps Chicken said, you can get both degrees in 4 years (it would normally be 2 for an MBA, and 3 for a JD), and it'll really help your credentials as far as corporate law goes.
You should also take some undergrad business/accounting courses, to get a feel for that, as well.
If it's patent law or real estate law, you want an engineering degree. If its environmental law, you want a hard science degree of some sort, preferably along the lines of geology, chemistry, or toxicology. If its most other types of law, the best thing you can do is learn to write, so philosophy, political science, and English are all good. Personally, I went with political science because it's infinitely more interesting than English or philosophy, and gave me a decent background as far as the basics of the law goes. Mostly, in law school, they'll teach you about working with laws, whereas in political science, they'll teach you why there are laws.
I'm barely sure what field I'd like to enter although I have already met a lot of criteria for a philosophy degree so that is very appealing. Although if I didn't end up in law for some reason i'm pretty sure that degree would be relatively worthless. I think I have much more planning ahead of me before I decide to steer myself in any direction.
Really, there's nothing that says you can't be a prosecutor with an undergrad math or physics degree; most law schools don't care what your undergrad degree was. So, do what you want to do. Poli sci just happens to be good for getting a small taste of the kind of things you'll be studying in law school.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck