Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Look into doing law with the us government. There are still programs out there where they will for give up to $5000 for every year that you work with them. I think the max is $60K.
The work may not be as exciting, but at least you can gain experience.
IMO if you have an offer on the table and it's something you think you would enjoy more, you should "strike while the iron is hot."
You never know what the future has in store, and down the road in your career your law degree could come in handy again, so you've lost nothing at this point.
As long as you can afford your loan payments, follow your intuition either way!
You can go in-house or get out of law altogether later in your career. If you do it now, you basically spend tons of money and study hours and lost social time etc. and tossed it out the window as you will be perceived as someone who failed in law should you ever want to try working for a law firm again. I suggest you stay put. You have a lot to learn. You are not a real lawyer yet as you don't have enough experience in just 18 months. The work might get more interesting if you learn to appreciate it. If was interesting enough for you to study for 3 years why is it suddenly mundane?
You can go in-house or get out of law altogether later in your career. If you do it now, you basically spend tons of money and study hours and lost social time etc. and tossed it out the window as you will be perceived as someone who failed in law should you ever want to try working for a law firm again. I suggest you stay put. You have a lot to learn. You are not a real lawyer yet as you don't have enough experience in just 18 months. The work might get more interesting if you learn to appreciate it. If was interesting enough for you to study for 3 years why is it suddenly mundane?
Thanks for your response. To answer your last question - what you learn in law school is almost nothing like the actual practice of law. I use very little of what I learned in law school as an actual attorney.
Haha appreciate your advice FeelinLow - and I know! I can't help it - I've been trained to think that way (for better or worse)!
No. You were trained to think! Think independently, there are options out there. I was set to go to law school in my mid thirties when an unplanned second child got in the way. I had already selected a probable career path based on existing interests in a somewhat rare field - you just need to find the one that meshes with interests you already have instead of being so predictable.
Hey all - I'm currently an attorney working at a boutique litigation law firm. I've been a lawyer for about 18 months (graduated law school in 2013) and am now facing a difficult decision. For a while now I've been considering transitioning out of the law. While I'm at a good firm and like the work environment (at least compared to other law firms), I don't find the majority of the work I'm doing to be engaging or interesting (not much legal work is). I make decent money, but live in a high COL area, which doesn't help. I'm in my late-20s and while I think I could continue to do what I'm doing/slowly transition to better law firms/make more money as I get more experience, I'm very afraid of "coasting" like that. I have doubts as to whether or not I want to do this for an entire 20 or 30 year career, I'm worried about what type of long-term exit options there are (or how it will become more and more difficult to change careers the older I get) and I worry about the long-term state of the legal market which has already been hammered in the past 10 years.
I have an opportunity to take a lower level business development/tech sales job in a tech company that is currently experiencing a lot of growth (about 300 employees now). The total pay would be slightly less than what I make now. I think that the company and the company's product are both interesting and there's (at least for the first several years) a track to move into more senior roles at the company.
I'm seriously considering making a career change but worry about a few things. Leaving would be a one-way street: it would be extremely difficult for me to find another legal job if I took a non-law job for a period of time (assuming I'd even want to go back). While I think that I don't enjoy the practice of law now and can see what my bosses do, I worry that 18 months isn't enough time to really get a feel for the work (even though I've worked at several law firms at this point). I have significant student loan debt, so I have to be careful about how I proceed financially. I also think that while a career track with the new job opportunity might have more long-term variability, it's also less certain/a lot more ambiguous than the traditional legal career track (work as an associate for X years, make partner at a firm or open your own firm).
I know that ultimately this is a decision I'll have to make, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
Do you have enough experience and would you be interested in taking a job with a company where you joined the staff as their legal advisor? I was thinking it might give you the chance to work in a business you found interesting to see how you like it and while there it might be easier for you to transition to another job entirely. And if you didn't like it, you could still say you were doing legal work.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
