ALT-2 Choosing a Law Career Reasons to Reconsider
Boy, how I wish being a lawyer were like a Grisham novel, even a bad Grisham novel. If you think it is, here's the top 10 reasons to reconsider that law school application.
1. $100,000 in student loan debt at 8% interest.
Yep, law school is expensive. Just your tuition and fees are going to set you back $100,000 or more over three years, plus interest, which is rising at a rapid rate. Then, after law school, there's the $1,000 to $4,000 you'll spend taking the bar exam and the 6 months you'll be unemployed or unemployable after law school while you study for the exam and wait for your results. Nutshell, law school is a financial gamble.
2. Law school itself.
First you've got to get in, which means taking the LSAT and preparing all of the applications. Then, you have to make it through your first year, where a significant percentage quit or fail. The old saying about law school is true: "In the first year the scare you to death, the second year they work you to death, and the third year they bore you to death."
3. The Bar Exam
Not only do you have to get through law school successfully, you've got to pass a three day exam in order to get your license. The exam is tough (although you can read my Helium article on tips to help you through it). If you fail, you can take it again, but it cost more money and you have to wait six months. Meanwhile, you're pretty much unemployable.
4. The hours suck
If you get a good paying job, kiss your wife and your kids goodbye, or any hope of having a wife and kids, because your butt is owned for the foreseeable future. You're going to be worked to death both because that is what is expected of young associates and because you're going to realize that you didn't learn anything you need to know to be a lawyer in law school (that's a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one). You're going to be working early and late just to get your work done and to make sure your idea of "done" is accurate.
5. The pay is mediocre at best
I don't want to think about what my hourly rate would be, if I added all the hours I worked into it. People hear that lawyers make $100, $200, $300 and more an hour. But, if you added all the time they don't or shouldn't bill for, that number falls precipitously. If you persevere, you might get to a point where you know enough and are efficient enough to bill half the time you work.
6. Your life is about other people's problems
Most of the time, when people go to a lawyer, they've got a problem. You deal with problems all day every day. Problems, problems, problems. It can get overwhelming and depressing to deal with other people's problems all day, then have to go home and face your own. If you don't have a strong constitution, this is not the profession for you.
7. Even when your client wins, your client loses
The legal system is a zero sum game. When your client has been wronged and is forced to use the legal system, they will incur costs and expenses and waste time and energy, none of which is recoverable. They might get their $5,000 to fix their car, but the $5,000 it costs to pay the attorney to get it is lost. And, so far, nobody has found a way to recover the blood, sweat and tears lost in the process.
8. You've got a friend for life
Take on a new client? There yours for life. Even if they don't pay you, or you never see them again, you're stuck with the documents you prepared for them and the documents they provided you. You can't risk throwing them away, as you never know what or when something may be needed. You've got to keep all this crap organized and safe for ever.
9. Sue and be sued.
Not only do you get to sue people for a living, but you get to be sued to. God forbid you screw something up during your long, busy, hectic career (and screwups are inevitable). Then, out of nowhere, you can get hit with a multi-million dollar malpractice lawsuit because you forgot to put little bobby in the will.
10. But I was going on vacation...
Oh yeah, and forget about planning anything in your personal life. Whenever you do, a client's emergency will inevitably surface either making you postpone your plans or make it a working vacation. Moreover, you are at the judge's and the court's mercy, meaning that your calendar must bow before theirs'. If you hate being late and never want to tell your mom your sorry you missed her birthday party, then the law is not for you.
