ALT-1 Choosing a Law Career Reasons to Reconsider
You may not want to be a lawyer if ...
If you think its anything like lawyering as depicted on TV, forget it. If you want to be a lawyer because you think lawyers make a lot of money, you might want to reconsider.
If, however, you want to work long, long hours doing excruciatingly boring reading and writing, and if you want to abandon your family and friends for the badge of elitism that you get to believe you deserve because you're a lawyer, then go for it, but ... If you are looking for cushy hours, glamorous work and a fat salary to make the Joneses want to keep up with you, a career as lawyer probably isn't the easiest way.
Bottom line is - talk to some people who actually practice law to find out what it is really like, and what it really pays. Some lawyers make a lot of money and love what they do, many don't, and many more despise the practice so much they quit and change careers. Make sure you're listening to be sure that it is the right thing for you. Law school is a lot of work and you will sink a lot of money into that tuition. You can do a lot of great things without a law degree. ...then, there's the prospect of not passing the bar - so you've got the degree, you've got the debt, and you still can't practice. That's a real kick in the head.
I'll just relate a little bit of what I know about it from this side of the bar.
Here are the important statistics in my area that I've seen - good numbers to think about if you want to be a lawyer for the wrong reasons.
I came out of law school, having worked full-time to support my family while going to school, with just under $100K in new debt for tuition loans. It is not unusual to see yourself as much as 200 Gs in the hole upon graduation.
I met all living expenses by working full-time, and even had some tuition help in the form of "bonus" reimbursements from my employer. Still, $100K in the hole.
Jobs in my area start at an average pay of $48,000/yr.DA positions are regularly advertised at $42K/yr.
I was recently sitting in an interview talking numbers to a guy who had been with the firm I was interviewing with for 8 years and still had not made partner. After a few indiscreet disclosures on his part, I was feeling pretty good about being where I was. I still had not secured a legal position, but I was in a lot better spot than that guy! The firm indicated that they could not offer me more than $45K, a sweat shop atmosphere "churning" low dollar collections cases, and after 8 years of hard work I could look forward to maybe, maybe, another $12K on my salary. (I politely wished them good luck in filling the position)
Now, take those numbers and start doing some math. You've got rent/mortgage, food, transportation, insurance, law school debt, and whatever other regular expenses, all coming out of a pretty measly income. Its no easy to balance that and maintain a glamorous lifestyle.
So, what are the alternatives? Well, if ma or pa or an uncle run a firm, or you are one of the top 15-20 academic performers, you could get one of those higher paying gigs at the "big firms." Here in Milwaukee they are starting int he $75-$110K range, depending on practice area and just how elite the firm is. This pay comes with "billable hours" requirements, which are typically around 2000 hours per year.
Now, be clear that "billable hours" is not the same as "hours worked." You track your time on 6 minute or ten minute intervals. If you daydream for 16 minutes, you just lost .3 billable hours. Then there's "time editing." That's where a billing partner decides how long a particular task "should" have taken. And guess what? The excess time you put in? Right, more lost billables. Again, start doing some math. Hmmmmmmm... 2000 billable hours in 52 weeks. I'll give you a hint - its a long work week -every week.
While I was going to law school nights I worked as an insurance adjuster. I worked an average of 30 hours a week for a decent salary, had a company car, great benefits, etc. So, if its a fair living you're looking for and decent hours, consider an insurance adjusting career. You can save the additional $100K school debt, work in a quasi-legal (some adjusters are lawyers who couldn't get legal gigs), and still have afternoons to yourself.
You're going to work hard no matter what you do, right? If you could take the mental energy and time spent pursuing a law degree and devote that to learning a business and executing a business plan, and you take out a start-up loan of, oh, say ... $100,000. Well, now you are probably going to be a lot more successful than more than 50% of the kids in law school.
What some lawyers do:
I'm a litigator in a specialty area. My practice area is complex commercial litigation in the area of insurance coverage and insurance defense. It pays well above the average in my area, but I'm not an academic scholar, so I couldn't demand six figures out of gate. Litigation attorneys are the ones that go to court and "argue" cases. Usually, when you see lawyers on TV, they are litigators. (Prosecutors are the litigators for the State in criminal cases) But, real life is not quite what you see on TV. Most of what I do as a defense litigator is analysis, pre-trial practice and motion practice, almost all of which takes place before getting to a courtroom.
Analysis - this is the long, long hours of sometimes excruciatingly boring reading and writing. My cases come to me after someone else (the Plaintiff, etc.) has filed a lawsuit, a company who has somehow been named in the suit sends the summons and complaint to their insurer, and the insurer turns it over to another lawyer and to me (the first lawyer is hired to defend the company under the policy, and I'm hired to determine if they should pay for the other lawyer and how to get out of the lawsuit altogether), along with copies of any insurance policies in place and any other information they may have. I read the summons and complaint and produce an outline. I read the policies and refine the outline, identifying legal issues. Then, I research all of the legal issues relevant to the case, the pleadings and the policies. Once the research is reasonably complete, I then write a case evaluation, synthesizing all of the above into a report and recommendations for the client insurer. Then another case comes in, and another, and another, and on and on and on and on and on, read, analyze, write, read analyze write. That's about 80% of it. Pretty glamorous stuff.
It's not physically demanding, though, like manual labor. I pretty much sit on my ass 12 hours or more every day. You have to shift your weight around every once and a while to avoid "bed-sores." And it's not dirty work ... well, maybe a different kind of dirty work.
If you are looking for cushy hours, glamorous work and a fat salary... law might not be the easiest route there. Just make sure you are aware of what you are getting into before you invest the time and money in law school.
The statistics for practicing lawyers' job satisfaction are pretty low, and the number of lawyers who quit practice to pursue alternative careers is pretty high. (In fact, these folks often refer to themselves as "reformed lawyers" implying that being a lawyer is not unlike bad religion!)
