Help Me Pick a New Career

[Anonymous]

I'm a lawyer (I know I know) and am seeking a career change. I have already left Big Law and am at a smaller firm but am still unhappy.

My main strengths are that I write well, am detail-oriented, think very logically and clearly, am willing to work very hard to get a job done, and work well with little or no supervision.

My main weaknesses are that I am not a particularly creative thinker, have a lot of self-doubt, am not particularly great at speaking (tend to be long-winded and get flustered), and get defensive really easily (nothing rolls off of my back).

In other words, if you put me in a room with a spreadsheet and a hard problem, I would figure it out and get it done and be happy. If I knew science, I would love to be a researcher alone in my lab all day but thinking deeply.

Any thoughts on an alternative career path?

[Anonymous]

Can you tell us what sort of law you practiced, at least generally?

[Anonymous]

Corporate Accounting/Finance

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of professional associations in the area that hire lawyers as researchers and writers on public policy issues.

[Anonymous]

Researcher.
Actuary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you tell us what sort of law you practiced, at least generally?

Communications

[Anonymous]

You might check out BNA, which publishes a lot of legal manuals on compliance with things like the ADA, or competitors like Thompson Information Services. You can use legal research & writing but aren't practicing law.

[Anonymous]

I know someone who left big law to work as a compliance person at some kind of trade association. Do not recall the specific details, but she was always a lot better at case management than legal thinking. You might consider some sort of financial compliance work. I know another guy who does healthcare compliance advising. He's had a lot more work to do since the ACA passed.

[Anonymous]

Our big, local fortune 500 company has a "reporting & analysis" dept. There are groups like this in finance and in sales. They analyze data and problem solve for companies. They are always in demand, but mainly because they have quant skills or a finance background. You could do some sort of mergers and acquisitions. Also the problem solving thing your talking about sort of sounds like management consulting, so consider places like Booz Allen, Deloitte, Accenture, etc.