What can I do with my JD/MSW degree?
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Anonymous
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My career has been one failure after another. Please, no judgment, would just like some advice or suggestions. I majored in history in college, a pretty useless major. I then went and got a joint degree: JD/MSW. I worked for 2 years in very boring, low paying paralegal type jobs because I couldn't get an actual lawyer job. I did not take the bar exam. Then I switched to social work. My first job in social work was at a community mental health agency. I enjoyed some parts of the job (therapy with individuals and groups) but for various reasons found the work environment very stressful. I was only there for 3 years. Then I got pregnant with twins, resigned, and have been a SAHM for 5 years. Now I'm thinking about going back to work. I have very limited experience with my JD/MSW degree. But I'd like to use one or both of these degrees. The problem is I found law school to be very boring, and never really found any area of the law I enjoyed. I also don't have the personality to be a lawyer. Social work seems to suit my personality better, but I didn't like doing therapy, though I know there are many other things I could do with my MSW. Any advice/suggestions for me?
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Anonymous
| Social work sucks, I'd go to law. Why don't you try being a legal advocate for kids? |
Anonymous
OP here. That's a good suggestion. The problem is, I don't think I would be a very good lawyer. I honestly didn't understand much of the material in law school, though I got almost all A's just through memorizing a bunch of stuff and being able to regurgitate on exams. But the law honestly never made sense to me. I'm more of a creative thinker. I'm not a very rational thinker, to be honest. Plus I've been out of law school now so long that I do not remember anything. I don't remember anything from legal research classes, either. |
Anonymous
Most lawyers I have dealt with don't remember much either. Same with social work - its all learning by doing. You are going to have a tuff time getting a job that pays reasonably well in social work. I've been out the same amount of time and if I went back, I'd have to start over making significantly less than what I started with. There is not as much creativity in social work. It is one of those professions where it sounds better than it is and there are so many barriers and obstacles in the public sector, more times than not, the help can be more harmful than helpful. Except for the unhappy people who thrive on chaos, almost every social worker I know has left to be a SAHM and if they return to work it is in a different profession such as HR. |
Anonymous
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OP here. I really enjoyed my social work job--the work itself. It was the work environment and my co-workers who made the job stressful. But I was able to use a lot of creativity on the job (I did more than just therapy), and I felt that I was good at it. I never felt I was good at law or even understood it, though I am willing to explore this option if I can find something that might be a good fit.
My main legal interests were in transactional law and definitely not litigation. I would be a terrible litigator. Mediation is something I have been thinking about. I'm not a very confident person, though, so I don't think I'd make a very good lawyer. I was thinking about doing some professional volunteer work a few days a week for a year or two in whatever field I'd like to pursue, to get some current skills/experience on my resume. |
Anonymous
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I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I think you need to just accept that your degree is worthless, and consider it a sunk cost, and think about what you want to be doing.
Having a JD without being a lawyer is just not worth anything. Now- if you want to sit for the bar exam (and pass it), you could always open your own practice and try to do primarily GAL work. But from your post it doesn't sound like you want to be a lawyer. Do you want to be in social work? |
Anonymous
Are you in DC? Do you speak Spanish? I dont know what salary level you're interested in, but right now a lot of NGOs are hiring advocates for the recent influx in unaccompanied immigrant children. You dont need to be a legal expert to be a child advocate. You just have to be persuasive and know how to make recommendations that are in the best interest of the child, which you should know from your SW background. |
Anonymous
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OP here. When I pursued the JD/MSW degree, my main interests were in social work, but I thought I'd get the JD as well to have more options. Part of the issue is that I found most legal stuff I studied/dealt with to be incredibly boring and hard to understand. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I have a hard time understanding really boring, complicated material, which made up most of my legal studies.
Social work appealed to me more, and I liked feeling like I was really making a difference in my job. I can see going back to social work, though it took me almost a year to find my social work job, so it's not an easy job market for someone without the LCSW. I always had difficulty choosing a career. There was nothing I felt I was especially good at/leaned toward in college, and ever since graduating with my JD/MSW I have had a lot of career indecision. Like I said in my original post, my career has been one failure after another. I am hoping to turn over a new leaf and pursue something I'm both interested in and good at. If I was able to go back to college and start over, I would probably have chosen something in the health professions: become a physical therapist, speech pathologist, optometrist, occupational therapist or nurse. I always gravitated more toward the health professions but I was always terrible at math and science, so I discouraged myself from pursuing them, though in college I was on the pre-med track for awhile. It's probably too late now to go back for a third degree, and I'd feel ridiculous in doing so while my first two degrees sit there gathering dust. |
Anonymous
I'm a lawyer who sort of likes things that are boring and complicated, but I don't think it is reasonable to characterize all law as consisting of such matters. There are lots of practice areas (family law etc.) that are more interesting and understandable, if less lucrative. |
Anonymous
OP here. Thanks for your insight about this. Am I just dumb? I graduated with honors from high school and went to an Ivy League college and graduated with honors from there. But honestly I have an incredibly difficult time understanding things that are boring and complicated. What do you like about boring or complicated things? I can't concentrate and zone out when I am reading such things. For instance, health insurance. I cannot seem to understand my health insurance policy or how the benefits work, and whenever I call the health insurance company to ask a question I don't understand what they are telling me. So my husband handles this. Investments are another area that I don't understand, and I also find it boring and complicated. I'm a fully functioning person otherwise, but boring or complicated things are very hard for me to understand. Do I have some sort of learning disability? FWIW, I took organic chemistry in college and got an A, so I am capable of understanding some boring and complicated material. |
Anonymous
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I'm a MSW (no JD) but know lots of people who have duel degrees. They are advocates/community organizers/lobbyists/program managers/executive directors of non profits/NGOs...
What population do you want to work with? What interests you? You mentioned healthcare....what about an association geared to a health related issue? |
Anonymous
| Pass the bar. Become a mediator of some sort. |
Anonymous
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This is so sad. Wow. Surely you can find a way to use those degrees!
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Anonymous
I agree with this PP. My first thought was to look at NGOs/non profits/associations. Lots of folks with JDs that never sat for the bar exam. |
Anonymous
Not true. OP there are tons of policy positions around here. Legislative analyst, policy analyst, etc. I have a law degree and work in this field. I am not rich, but I make figures, and have great leave to spend more time with family. And if you get in an area you enjoy, you can actually make positive change for people. |