Advice for a career switch from teacher to lawyer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sister did it at 55 yo, after she took early retirement from her school system. She was an English teacher and did well on LSAT. She paid cash for her tuition at state school. Got a job in her Midwest home town for $40,000 per year and a million hours expected every week .... she hated it and quit after 1 year. She did wills, estates, trusts.

Now she takes a few projects from home, but is mostly retired.

Her biggest gain was settling our parents estate/trust for which she charged (at a discount) $150,000, which for me as co-trustee, I charged nothing and had to take several weeks off at work, fly to her town, after I had cared for my sick mom the last three years of her life, and had already consolidated most of her finances for ease of management and disposition at the time of her death.

Who gets paid 150,000$ to settle an estate? Are you a Rockefeller? You would need to be to have an estate so large its 150,00$ charge to settle. Odd she was an English teacher and then worked for 40k per year...

An A-hole member of your family takes $150,000 because that’s the max amount that the trust stipulated, and she said she was using her professional expertise (after 1 year out of school). She took the $40,000 job to get her foot in the door and learn the ropes, and there weren’t a lot of opportunities in her Midwest small town. She was burnt out teaching and had stayed on teaching specifically to get the retirement pension and healthcare benefits. I think maybe she thought she would develop a private practice? I’m not sure. I was aghast at doing as much work to settle the estate plus personally taking off weeks of work to finalize paperwork as co-trustee, plus take care of my sick mom for three years, but she thought she was entitled to more. Oh well. What can you do? Anyway she discovered she hated being a lawyer too. She is now 65 and uses her law degree mostly to threaten and intimidate people by threatening law suits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sister did it at 55 yo, after she took early retirement from her school system. She was an English teacher and did well on LSAT. She paid cash for her tuition at state school. Got a job in her Midwest home town for $40,000 per year and a million hours expected every week .... she hated it and quit after 1 year. She did wills, estates, trusts.

Now she takes a few projects from home, but is mostly retired.

Her biggest gain was settling our parents estate/trust for which she charged (at a discount) $150,000, which for me as co-trustee, I charged nothing and had to take several weeks off at work, fly to her town, after I had cared for my sick mom the last three years of her life, and had already consolidated most of her finances for ease of management and disposition at the time of her death.

Who gets paid 150,000$ to settle an estate? Are you a Rockefeller? You would need to be to have an estate so large its 150,00$ charge to settle. Odd she was an English teacher and then worked for 40k per year...

An A-hole member of your family takes $150,000 because that’s the max amount that the trust stipulated, and she said she was using her professional expertise (after 1 year out of school). She took the $40,000 job to get her foot in the door and learn the ropes, and there weren’t a lot of opportunities in her Midwest small town. She was burnt out teaching and had stayed on teaching specifically to get the retirement pension and healthcare benefits. I think maybe she thought she would develop a private practice? I’m not sure. I was aghast at doing as much work to settle the estate plus personally taking off weeks of work to finalize paperwork as co-trustee, plus take care of my sick mom for three years, but she thought she was entitled to more. Oh well. What can you do? Anyway she discovered she hated being a lawyer too. She is now 65 and uses her law degree mostly to threaten and intimidate people by threatening law suits.

How does this make any sense whatsoever...