Overrated Career: Attorney

December 11, 2008 RSS Feed Print

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The Appeal: Many college students decide to go to law school by default. After all, a legal career promises prestige, money, and the chance to use the law to make a difference in society. Some aspiring attorneys also picture themselves as the lawyers on TV, making scintillating closing arguments in an expensive suit before a rapt jury.

The Reality: Most lawyers' lives bear little resemblance to those on Law & Order. Even litigators spend lots of time drafting or poring over sheaves of detailed information and negotiating with other lawyers prone to contentiousness and chicanery. And most lawyers rarely go to trials, working instead as transactional attorneys who need to bill 2,000 hours a year or more to meet the firm's targets. That can mean long evenings drafting lengthy, airtight contracts or other documents. In the corporate world, many lawyers find less fulfillment and more burnout than the public imagines.

An Alternative: Mediation, or a less contentious niche within the law, such as adoption law or, alas, the burgeoning bankruptcy law, which a 2008 survey by Robert Half Legal found to be the fastest-growing specialty within the law.

Learn More: Mediate.com.

Tags:: law,; careers

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I've been a Canadian lawyer for 24 years, four years with a big firm and 19 years as a sole practioner, mostly doing small deals.
There are many reasons why being a lawyer is generally unsatisfying, but I think the main reasons are as follows:
1. You are typically up to your elbows in human stress, pain and/or greed. Most of what we do involves either people who have fallen into the soup, or people who regularly like to cause trouble. No one is really happy that they have to go to the lawyer.
2, At the end of your career, there is not much to show for your work but a warehouse/hard drive full of documents, which if you are lucky, no one will ever want to look at again. Typically, the only reason you go back is because something got screwed up. After thirty years, you won't be able to point to a building, farm, invention, novel, movie or company you built although you might brag that the person who did was a client. We are only facilitators, we don't actually DO anything. And consequently, at the end of the day, we don't matter much. QUICK: name five famous lawyers from history...
3. Your clients, with whom you spend most of your time, and whom you need to live, ultimately don't like you much. You cost them money. They may wield you like a gun in certain situations, but typically, the prefer to have as little to do with you as possible. In the event you screw up, they will sue you with their new lawyer. If they do become friends, that's a problem too, because then they want you to work for free, or they expect to own you (see in house counsel).
4. Everything is a competition with lawyers. Every interaction is a game of one-up-man-ship. They have to show they are smarter and better than you are. They will not cooperate, they will not yield a point, they will not admit you are right. To do so would be to yield some advantage and that must not happen. If you belong to a law firm, everybody else is a competitor for work and income or someone to get good work from or give crap work to. No one really trusts anyone. There is never a common goal.
5. There is absolutely no certainty in the law, yet clear answers are expected. Every law is by definition arbitrary and therefore subject to change, and they do change and get reinterpreted and so forth. So good luck ever staying completely current and expect to spend a lot of time either flying by the seat of your pants or endlessly researching things. And worrying about what you missed.
6. Once you are in, its really really hard to leave, because typically, you aren't qualified to do anything else.
7. Even for the top of the legal profession, the income is modest compared to your typical investment banker. But lawyers hang with those guys, and have to play the part, and live the lifestyle and that's why a lot of big firm partners die broke, with nice leased cars and huge lines of credit. The rest of the profession just get by for the most part.

Dave 4:04PM January 18, 2012

I went to a fourth tier law school and graduated at the 50th percentile. I was 75k in debt and set out on a legal career. I went to work for a big city District Attorneys office and I couldn't be happier. I'm not a bad lawyer and am gaining a fairly good reputation among the criminal law community. Once I decide I've had enough, I'll quit the DA's office and do defense work - most competent Defense Lawyers make 250k or better. I'll be honest, with all the doom and gloom on this board - I'm really glad I picked law and am genuinely happy as an attorney.

James of TX 10:58PM September 27, 2011

Being a lawyer entails endless boring work, constant deadlines, unpleasant people and an unjust system. I would not recommend the profession to anyone.

Dave of NY 11:11PM April 16, 2011