I've never met a lawyer who likes his job. I've met lawyers who tolerate their job, and I know a bro who is the president of his small, family law firm who likes his job, but anybody who actually practices law hates it--including my brother. The funny thing is, he's embarrassed to admit, for some reason, that he hates his job. The work is boring, the people he works with are ruthless, awful humans, and the pay is actually relatively crappy.
I went to a top 10 law school, OP and am considered the converse (going back to school for a PhD). Maybe the grass is always greener.
1) As other(s) have noted here law school is very expensive. Any of the top school will costs $70-$90k a year. IIRC the top 3 schools (YHS) don't give out merit aid and need based aid is rarely generous. The other top schools are Columbia and Chicago (but NYU is comparable so it is really more like the top 6) are only going to give you a significant merit scholarship if you have very high (3.9) UG grades and a 99th percentile LSAT.
2) The law can be interesting in school, but most of it is boring in practice. For the first 3-5 Corporate legal practice is just reviewing documents and copying and pasting and creating checklists and drafting documents from precedents with minor changes. Litigation is more interesting, but you will have close to zero chance of making partner at a big firm and making lots of money like your sister. That is a rare case. Litigators at the top firms go to work for the government and smaller firms.
3) you have not control over your time or what you do. The client or senior partner determines what you do and when you have to do it. That means working until past midnight frequently and on weekends. When they saw jump, you ask how high?
4) in corporate law everything is a fire drill. you will get a mindless, boring assignment that involves reviewing thousands of pages of documents and creating voluminous, perfectly polished work product in the matter of several hours. all the while you will a senior associate breathing down your neck to get it done because they promised it tot he partner or client that day for no explicable reason.
5) most of the people you work with either be incredibly boring and uninspired, broken human beings, sleep deprived zombies, or sociopathic assholes that will abuse you because they can.
6) most of the jobs with big firms are in new york. so i hope you like manhattan. your large salary will go almost entirely to your rent and servicing debt.
7) when you leave your big firm job it will likely be to something that pays much less, is still boring, but has better work life balance.
This was hyperbolic at times without question. However, this is my life. And it is the life of my friends at my firm and other firms in the city that graduated from a top 10. maybe you will be lucky, but most people aren't.
I seriously HTH. Fire away with any questions and i will get to them when i can.
7746 here from a different computer. I have met very few lawyers that like their jobs.
My dad is the head of litigation at a big firm and likes his job, but no one here will ever make it to that point. He came of a age during a time when it was much easier to be successful as a lawyer. He would never make partner today.
I work with a couple of legit psychopaths with no emotions that like the job because of the layman prestige of working on stuff in the WSJ.
Everyone else merely tolerates it at best. Many more (like me) hate it.
So what did you do, OP?
I think it's because he was actually very interested in law. And still is!
9 months ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !
Become a tax accountant. Lower entry costs, decent outcomes, potential to run your own business. Boring, sure, but no more than being a lawyer.
Getting a CPA is tricky. Most states have strict coursework requirements. He can become a tax return preparer, but that won't do a lot for him. But if he did a MAcc, yeah, that might work.