How badly do you regret having gone to law school ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not regret it at all - but I went to law school knowing I did not want to be a lawyer. I have always worked in leg affairs/lobbying, make good money, have a ton of flexibility, and my degree gives me a little cache in my field. I do have loans, but I would if I had gone for an MA as well.

So lobbying pays more than lawyer? Did you work while in law school?

It depends on the field - lobbying can pay way more than being a traditional lawyer, even at a big firm. I do not make insane money by any stretch, but much more than I would as a Fed, on the Hill, or in a non-profit. I did not work for pay during school, but I went to a school that really encouraged public affairs careers and I interned (mostly on the Hill) every semester. That really padded my resume to land a good Fed leg affairs job after law school.

[Anonymous]

No regret.

I am a patent attorney working at an IP Boutique that pays Cavarth scale. The most junior associate who is 26 years old made approximately 255k in 2021 with bonuses. I used to work as an Electrical Engineer prior to going to law school and made 130k. I went to a Tier 2 school on a scholarship and make around 400k working 60 hours a week. We can't find enough electrical and computer engineers with JD and now offer a 15k referral bonus to anyone able to find us one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a toughie.

I came from nothing and went to law school because I didn't know what else to do with a liberal arts degree. I had a terrible LSAT score (being too unsophisticated and poor to even know about the existence of prep courses) but very high grades from a decent but not great college. I got into a school at the bottom of the top 20-25 at a time when tuition wasn't as crazy as it is now, so I went. I somehow ended up at the very top of the class, got a great clerkship, and from there landed a job with a top firm in Biglaw. It took a while, but eventually I made equity partner, made a lot of money (low by Biglaw partner standards but still very good), -- and walked away completely in my early 50s.

I hated every minute of my time with Biglaw. My colleagues were zero fun at their best and total a$$holes at their worst. The clients were only slightly better, and of course mostly evil. The hours themselves weren't always killer, but you never really could be comfortably off the clock and that brings a lot of stress even when you're not working. You constantly felt yourself being "evaluated" in one way or another, and it didn't stop once you made partner.

I remember having lunch with other partners in the firm cafeteria and listening to them talk proudly of how their kids were at T-14 law schools and joinging biglaw - and feeling really sorry both for them and the kids.

I stayed in the law for one reason alone: money. I had a big family and big families require money. It's also very hard to walk away from that kind of money when you come from none, especially when you have a famiiy. You feel like it's crazy or even selfish to give it up. But give it up I did, almost the second my youngest graduated college.

So, to sum it all of, the law gave me a real leg up on providing very well for a great family and enabling me to retire very early and very comfortably, and I'm grateful for all of that. But it sure sucked the whole time I was doing it.

+1. Great answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public interest lawyers don’t regret it since their work is meaningful.

Not necessarily true. Public interest doesn't way well and the people you may represent aren't always the nicest of people even though they may be underserved or indigent.

I’ve been a public interest lawyer for 20 years. I literally know hundreds of public interest lawyers across the USA, and nobody regrets their career path.

Hint: we aren’t in it for the money. (Nonetheless, I currently make just under $200k.)

The trick is to go to school in state. Minimize or avoid student debt.

I’ve been a public interest lawyer over 20 years and I regret it. I was so smart—went to top schools and did really well. I choose this profession thinking I could help improve people’s lives. Meanwhile, in the last 20+ years, the world seems like it’s gotten worse in so many different ways, and I’ve been putting little pieces of puddy into tiny holes in a dam that’s cracking and over-flowing. And the clients are generally fine, and my colleagues are great, but dealing with other lawyers is so draining. Almost every day I have several calls with people who are just argumentative, derisive, accusatory, and often wrong. And at least some of the work is really boring and repetitive or inane.
In retrospect, I should have gone into science, some kind of data analysis, or maybe worked for someplace like PBS. I think any of those fields would have had more real impact on improving people’s lives. The days when the court system was a good venue to do that are long gone.

Your experience is so different from all the PI lawyers I know.

What field?

You aren’t a legal aid lawyer, correct?

I used to be a legal aid lawyer, and am now in a different type of public interest job. I think as a legal aid lawyer, you deal less with awful other lawyers, because, if you're litigating, you're often litigating against government attorneys or more small time lawyers (like those that represent landlords in landlord-tenant disputes). Legal aid work is hard because it tends to be very repetitive, not very intellectually stimulating, many of your clients have massive problems that you just can't fix (and a certain percentage of them will blame you for those problems), and you basically know that all you are doing is providing little stop-gap measures for a system that is fundamentally flawed.

The government public interest lawyers that do more policy oriented work (e.g., regulations that change food safety or environmental protection) may feel like their work is more meaningful on a large scale, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a toughie.

I came from nothing and went to law school because I didn't know what else to do with a liberal arts degree. I had a terrible LSAT score (being too unsophisticated and poor to even know about the existence of prep courses) but very high grades from a decent but not great college. I got into a school at the bottom of the top 20-25 at a time when tuition wasn't as crazy as it is now, so I went. I somehow ended up at the very top of the class, got a great clerkship, and from there landed a job with a top firm in Biglaw. It took a while, but eventually I made equity partner, made a lot of money (low by Biglaw partner standards but still very good), -- and walked away completely in my early 50s.

I hated every minute of my time with Biglaw. My colleagues were zero fun at their best and total a$$holes at their worst. The clients were only slightly better, and of course mostly evil. The hours themselves weren't always killer, but you never really could be comfortably off the clock and that brings a lot of stress even when you're not working. You constantly felt yourself being "evaluated" in one way or another, and it didn't stop once you made partner.

I remember having lunch with other partners in the firm cafeteria and listening to them talk proudly of how their kids were at T-14 law schools and joinging biglaw - and feeling really sorry both for them and the kids.

I stayed in the law for one reason alone: money. I had a big family and big families require money. It's also very hard to walk away from that kind of money when you come from none, especially when you have a famiiy. You feel like it's crazy or even selfish to give it up. But give it up I did, almost the second my youngest graduated college.

So, to sum it all of, the law gave me a real leg up on providing very well for a great family and enabling me to retire very early and very comfortably, and I'm grateful for all of that. But it sure sucked the whole time I was doing it.

+1. Great answer.

I'm curious what sort of fields your kids went into. My spouse and I have a big divide about whether to discourage/encourage our kids from the law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not regret it at all - but I went to law school knowing I did not want to be a lawyer. I have always worked in leg affairs/lobbying, make good money, have a ton of flexibility, and my degree gives me a little cache in my field. I do have loans, but I would if I had gone for an MA as well.

So lobbying pays more than lawyer? Did you work while in law school?

How much you make working for a lobbying firm?

[Anonymous]

No regret at all. I make far more than I would otherwise and generally like the work. I look around at the engineers I work with, who are generally much smarter than I am, and they are stuck making half what I make and hate their lives.