Reply to is being a lawyer losing its appeal compared to tech or finance for high achieving students?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "is being a lawyer losing its appeal compared to tech or finance for high achieving students?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a super-happy lawyer in my 50s, but I actively discouraged my kids who were interested in law for various reasons (one loved Government class in high school, and the second loved watching Suits and debate).  I think there are better professions for working women. It's really hard to find work-life balance in law.  The jobs that have balance are increasingly hard to find (i.e., federal government) and even then you still have a client who could be horrible.  I was at a law firm where all the smart women left.  The bros who stayed behind and seemed just mediocre all became partners because they have stay-at-home wives who can handle all the household stuff and enable them to work 24-7 when that is needed and be a slave to billable hours.

Medicine is a grind too and requires longer schooling, but I know a lot of women physicians who have shift work and can leave it when they leave.  There's not as much of a penalty for having a family, as there is in private practice law.  Pediatricians, radiologists, ER physicans. They can work full time or almost full-time and happily maintain their careers for decades.  And while medicine is increasingly a business, blah-blah, I still think a bunch of doctors running an organization are going to be better to work for, and more humane, frankly, then lawyers whose professional livelihoods depend on servicing corporate clients who face a ton of business pressures and thus can be whimsical and arbitrary and difficult to please.

Plus, our current administration has reduced a lot of government positions, and the next time Democrats come in, they will politicize the civil service attorney corps in their own way.  I don't think being a lawyer for the federal government is what it used to be and am actively discouraging my kids from pursuing a career in law.[/quote]

+1 from another female attorney[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics