I remember when one lawyer was trying to sell his GTown law degree on craigslist.


Too much debt.

No control over the supply of lawyers, unlike medicine.

Greedy, money grubbing schools who pump out law degrees like candy.


It all coalesces into huge debt loads for students, not enough jobs, and crappy outlooks for the field.

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the LinkedIn version of my career, I have nothing to complain about. Top school (but I paid full freight in loans), clerkship, good firm, hard-to-get government job. So I know I don't have it as bad as those who were suckered into crap schools in a recession and couldn't find anything remotely compelling work-wise.

But I still regret it. Mostly I regret that my eyes weren't more open to the range of careers and jobs out there. That's more a fault of my undergrad's useless career advising and my striving immigrant parents ("so, doctor, lawyer, or management consultant?") than anything.

What kind of immigrant parents did you have that consultant was the third option and not engineer?!

I have no regrets. I had a scholarship to a T14 where I met my husband and some great friends. Loved clerking, toughed it out a few years in Biglaw, stressful but manageable and I saved up some $. Transitioned to government and now I have good work-life balance and make >$200k doing interesting work.

I think the trick is to only go if you can go to a top school. Otherwise it's too risky.

If you look at the LinkedIn version of my career, I have nothing to complain about. Top school (but I paid full freight in loans), clerkship, good firm, hard-to-get government job. So I know I don't have it as bad as those who were suckered into crap schools in a recession and couldn't find anything remotely compelling work-wise.

But I still regret it. Mostly I regret that my eyes weren't more open to the range of careers and jobs out there. That's more a fault of my undergrad's useless career advising and my striving immigrant parents ("so, doctor, lawyer, or management consultant?") than anything.

Every single day, and twice on Sunday. Met my wife in law school, which was great, but otherwise yes. It's a dreadful profession, truly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My undergrad is in English. I graduated in 1990. I saw the movie The Paper Chase. I thought law school would be tough but interesting. I taught at a Catholic school, and I temped as a secretary (we were called secretaries back then) for a few different law practices in my hometown Midwestern city. One of the lawyers trusted me to make his weekly bank deposit. His two-lawyer criminal law firm made about $20K a week. I knew criminal law was lucrative. Another law firm was more traditional and established for more than half century. I am not sure if it was big law or old money law. The office was beautiful. Ultimately I decided not to pursue law. I went to graduate school in another field. I dated one of the single never married law partners after my summer temp job was over.

Cool story, but what does it have to do with this thread since you NEVER WENT TO LAW SCHOOL?

And my answer is no, I don't regret going to law school. I never went.

I didn’t enjoy law school. There were times I hated it. I was privileged that my parents being the Asian immigrant parents they are paid for my all law school expenses. I wasn’t at the top of my class, bur I won a few awards and did well enough to land a clerkship after graduation and a federal government job after that. My federal job is not a legal one although they like to hire attorneys for it because of the skills we bring to the table. I love my job. I have eight more years before I am retirement eligible. I certainly don’t make Big Law money and never have, but that wasn’t my dream anyway. I wanted to work for a non-profit, but after working at one as a 2L, I realized it was too emotionally draining. Theres nothing emotionally draining about my work now. Each project is complex and different enough to keep me on my toes. Had I not gone to law school, I doubt they would have hired me, so going to law school benefitted me.

Don’t regret it at all. I’m having an interesting, varied career. There are lots of interesting jobs in law!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not at all. Attorney-adviser at a federal agency, GS-14. I have good work-life balance. My DH is a litigator and we have great conversations.

Great conversations? LOL. Lawyer conversations are boring with a capital B.

I dunno, I too have great convos with my lawyer DH. He does really interesting work and I love talking to him about it. I thought all two-lawyer couples were like this?

Anonymous wrote:Not at all. Attorney-adviser at a federal agency, GS-14. I have good work-life balance. My DH is a litigator and we have great conversations.

Great conversations? LOL. Lawyer conversations are boring with a capital B.

One of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. Hated law school but liked practicing for a while. After about 20 years, practicing became a soul-sucking, miserable endeavor that made me physically ill. Walked away at 59 when the new psycho CEO came in and set about getting rid of everyone on the senior team of our medium-sized nonprofit.
Everyone tells me that they’ve never seen me so relaxed and happy. That’s what happens when you don’t report for a beating every day. I’m embarrassed to admit that I worked as a lawyer for 30 very long years. Don’t miss it one bit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I regret it, absolutely. I took out about $200k in loans at 8% interest and graduated right into the recession. I had to work for the sheistiest personal injury firms and compete against T14 grads also doing what they could to stay out of doc review. My last day as a lawyer was spent in a screaming match with the firm owner over settling a case of a tomato can "slip and fall" for only $20k. He ended the argument by telling me the GS 9 non-attorney fed gov job I managed to land was less than one year's tuition at my crap law school. As soon as I get PSLF I will consider letting my license expire.

I can’t even get interviews for gs7 contract specialist jobs. Let alone any federal attorney job. I spent $140k on law school loans .

What are you doing now, PP?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not even BVA or SSA appeals? They're sweatshops, sure but can open doors.

BVA opens the door to SSA, but SSA isn't currently hiring due to a significant decrease in disability claims.

and people leave the SSA for BVA to get to gs14

That's true. But, having worked at BVA, I know that the reverse is not uncommon. I have seen a number of BVA attorneys transfer to SSA for better quality of life.

Not at all. Attorney-adviser at a federal agency, GS-14. I have good work-life balance. My DH is a litigator and we have great conversations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you enjoy being a lawyer, I mean really enjoy it, then you probably have a personality disorder . Possibly a sociopath too

You know thr vast majority of lawyers aren't personal injury lawyers or whatever you think it is we do that makes us sociopaths. I'm in public interest and I help people navigate systems and anticipate problems they might have and solutions for those problems. I get personally thanked multiple times a week. It’s a great job.

I help people build buildings. Including affordable housing. It takes a lot of legal work (as well as design, engineeeing, construction work too, of course) to build a building. What's sociopathic about any of that?

The sociopathic part is, if I am reading correctly, that you were able to do the job you were hired for, could adapt to changing requirements, and were both reliable and dependable for the product you produced.

Obviously, this makes you a sociopath.