One of my clients told me last week he went to law school because he “didn’t want to do an MBA.” Apparently he’d only considered those two options.
Another client told me he’d decided between a PhD in History and a JD, and went with the JD because he “didn’t think there would be jobs for academics.” Fair enough. Unfortunately, there weren’t many jobs for lawyers, either, and at least with a PhD, as opposed to law school, he might have received some sort of “stipend” ( i.e., a meagre handout), or adjunct faculty position (i.e. cafeteria work.) That way, he might not have ended up both unemployed and in hock up to his eyebrows.
Going to graduate school has become a popular substitute for finding a job, especially in this recession. Grad school sounds easy – basically a few extra years of college – but it only puts off a lot of tough decisions that have to be made sooner or later.
The problem here is proverbial and involves carts and horses. In a perfect world, you would explore a career and make sure it is right for you first, then head off to get a degree.
Instead, we have the situation I see every day in my office: young people in their mid-twenties, who grind through law school, then face not only a moribund job market, but the deeper horror of realizing they don’t enjoy the work. They end up fighting to find a job in a profession they don’t like simply because they have to pay off debts.
It would be great if the law schools seemed to care – if they insisted that prospective students work as paralegals for a while and make sure they know what they’re getting into. But law schools are money-making concerns and they’re raking in cash the way things are. They’re not about to start telling the truth about their massive profits on law student tuition or the feeble job market. As they see it, that’s not their problem.
What sent you off to law school, more than any other factor? Probably fear – specifically fear of being a disappointment to mom and dad. When you decided to go to law school, you saw only two options – graduate school or loser-dom. In law school, you would be doing what you’d done your entire life – going to school, which always kept your parents happy in the past. It seemed like a no-brainer. And in your early 20’s, things that happen a few years from now (like paying off student loans) seem far away – they take place in another universe with another person cleaning up. Hey, plenty of people go to law school and they do whatever, and it works out, right?
Now, in many senses of the word, your loans are being called in.
One of my patients says he wishes he’d gone the burn-out route, stayed home and smoked weed. He has buddies from college who drifted after graduation. Some are working retail jobs, or in restaurants. Some have office or sales jobs. Mostly, they’re blowing off work and playing in bands and part-timing as ski instructors during the winter or hanging out and talking about that back-packing trip to Bhutan they really want to do some day.
From where he’s at – an unemployed quasi-lawyer waiting to hear whether he passed the bar exam while he processes the reality that he doesn’t like law – being a burn-out sounds pretty good. As a burn-out, he wouldn’t have loans, so he could afford to spend the whole day studying the lyrics to “Paranoid Android.”
I’d like to suggest a “third path” – an alternative both to the mindless lemming-march towards graduate school and complete burn-out.
It’s called “finding your way on your own” and it’s how people (back in some mythical, golden, halcyon olden days) used to figure out what they wanted to be when they grew up.
First, relax and don’t worry if you’re not making a lot of money. You’re young – there’s time for that.
Second, don’t rush into grad school. If there’s something you’re dying to be when you grow up, and you absolutely have to go to grad school to get some letters after your name in order to do it – then fine, go. But wait until you know where you’re going before you board the train.
Third, take a look at the world around you, and get some real-life experience. Instead of borrowing money to go to grad school, you might try living cheaply at a low-paid starting position in some industry that catches your eye.
Low-paid starting positions – or internships – aren’t much different from grad school. You get exploited financially, in hopes that further down the line it will help you win a job. With a starting position, instead of some useless degree, you get practical experience and a line on your resume.
While I was in law school, feeling superior, two of my friends from college struggled through lowly internships.
One was a temp, answering the phone for a clothing company.
She now runs the place, reporting to the owner. Last year, when I ran into her at a party, she was heading off to Milan and Paris to hit the fashion shows.
The other friend took one of those humiliating barely-paid starting positions at a publishing house.
She’s now a senior editor, hobnobbing with famous authors.
Those two put the horse before the cart, and got somewhere.
Meanwhile, I put the cart before the horse, and I’m not even a lawyer anymore.
If you just graduated from law school and are sitting in a law firm right now struggling to pay off debt – or unemployed and wondering what you’re going to do – this advice might be coming a little late.
But it might also explain how you ended up in this pickle – and give you some ideas for how to get out of it.
I know plenty of lawyers who realized law school was a mistake, managed eventually to pay down debts, then brushed themselves off and went off in a new direction – and found happiness and success, too.
There’s always a Plan B – a way to have some fun and get yourself someplace you actually want to be – if you calm down, stop worrying about what other people think, and remember that enjoying your life is a primary goal, not just an option.
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This piece is part of a series of columns presented by The People’s Therapist in cooperation with AboveTheLaw.com. My thanks to ATL for their help with the creation of this series.
If you enjoy these columns, please check out The People’s Therapist’s new book, Way Worse Than Being A Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning
I also heartily recommend my first book, an introduction to the concepts behind psychotherapy, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy
(Both books are also available on bn.com and the Apple iBookstore.)
The People's Therapist 
I don’t feel a lot of sympathy for people who went to law school because they didn’t know what else to do with themselves. Sorry, I just don’t. To my mind the tragedy of modern law practice is that hard work and decency and skill do not guarantee success. A lot of lawyers are really struggling with this right now. The poster child for modern practice is Mark Levy. It doesn’t matter how fine a practitioner you are, it matters how much you billed this week. If you didn’t bill enough you get dumped. If you get dumped you get basically blackballed and then your career is done. Since your student loans aren’t dischargeable in bankruptcy your next step is suicide, to be blunt. No profession should operate this way, and yet ours does, with impunity.
Hey Will,
I stumbled on your column awhile back via Above the Law, and have enjoyed reading it since then. I like that your lawyer-focused posts acknowledge the typical nihilistic viewpoint of our biglaw-trained cohort while offering a better alternative to it. I find your advice both comforting and practical.
Unlike the undirected strawman of most ATL posts, I actually wanted to be a corporate lawyer and knew more or less what I was getting into before I started at my first lawfirm job. My law school offended me greatly when our graduation speaker suggested that we ought to do something more “worthwhile and challenging” than practice law for profit at a firm, although it was ok to do so for “a couple years”. My firm treated me fairly, I received invaluable training, their paychecks cleared on time, and I had good health insurance–in other words, I did not feel like I had any legitimate complaints, although I was nevertheless unfulfilled by my life there, and I saw many unhappy yet talented folks around me.
I ended up ditching the biglaw shop after a few years. At least economically, I now have to admit that the JD was not cost-justified. In other respects, I do value having a trade that I can practice somewhat independently — much as a plumber, dentist, or indeed a psychotherapist can — to meet interesting people, accomplish something of value, and pay the rent.
The reason I think so many people want a JD (and/or MD and/or MBA), even absent a clear idea of its instrumentality, and then feel trapped in unhappy work situations, is that we have a need to be taken seriously by others. Those of us who feel this most strongly are often the same who jump into perceived “difficult” and “serious” careers, and it is why the same person might feel that being a lawyer is somehow functionally equivalent to being a doctor or business executive — perceived prestige positions. This is apart from the JD’s dubious cost-benefit, and apart from the reality of lawyering on a day-to-day basis. And while I understood the substance of practicing law before my JD, what I didn’t fully realize until later was that people decide whether to take a guy seriously based on his demeanor and demonstrable skills and accomplishments, not credentials.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Zeke
Force-feeding is never a pretty sight; the result is never neat. Ask any parent. However subtle we think we are, we force feed our children with expectations until sometimes they take our expectations as their own. We parents still consider them too young to — name it: backpack through Europe, work on the Alaska pipeline, marry? you have your whole life ahead of you!). Yet we consider them old enough to set a career goal to guide them through college and grad school. Yet we who planned our lives around immature expectations often become the midlife crises who walk out on a good BigLaw job to become, I don’t know, MSW therapists or some other outlandish thing.
I’m all for high school graduates using their next two years for some kind of service, to gain life experience, learn the value of money and time, learn a bit about balance, figure out what might interest them in the long term. Then go to college if it will enhance their professional path, or go because they want to learn geology or human psychology or math.
I went to school later in life, graduated with a BSW and plans for an MSW in Washington state. Best laid plans. Moving wasn’t possible when I needed it to be. I took and didn’t totally suck at the LSat, spent my law school years in a study cubicle with three 22 year old college grads, a daily confirmation that I didn’t belong here. Graduated (still haven’t seen my grades), immediately opened a solo family law practice. While I still sometimes wonder what I’d be doing with the MSW, the BSW serves a solo family law attorney very well.
Even as an older student, I felt unsure about just about everything. Then how could I demand that my 16 year old kids chart out their next nine years of school so they could apply to schools that would satisfy their (my) career choices? Especially in light of our ever extending life span, the rush seems pointless.
I think you’re missing the reason a big chunk of people go to law school: coming to the conclusion that you wouldn’t hate anything else any less.
Some of us watched our parents struggle through professional careers that they hated, but that they started because they did “what they loved” in college. (Computer science, teaching, social work seem to be among those types of professions that I’ve noted in particular create burnouts). My parents ended up not making a whole lot of money AND hating what they did. It seems to me that if i’m going to hate what I do, I want to make a lot of money doing it.
I’m sure there are people out there who love their jobs and are very fulfilled by them. Some of us, though, for some reason, DON’T LIKE TO WORK. AT ALL. We like to drink on the beach and read novels and garden. Stop acting like there’s some career out there that I would LOVE to do if I weren’t doing the law. There isn’t!! For many of us, the “fulfilling job” is just a myth! It simply does not exist, and it’s pointless looking for it. So yes, I might be miserable in my job, and I might need a therapist at some point, but don’t make me think that the law was a mistake. I saw the end from the beginning and knew what I was doing. Some of us weren’t born rich and just have to pay with the hours of our lives for it, and that’s life.
Exactly exactly exactly. I like to work…but not generally at things that make me money, I hate hate hate “business” (meaning, kiss rich(er) peoples’ ass until the cows come home) I like to write (that great american novel will pop out of my scribblings any day now, I’m sure) I like to travel, I like to lay on the beach and drink beer and read novels and maybe not garden, I kill plants, and play pool and darts and sleep till 10am.
I’m an attorney.
I’m not miserable, but I can’t wait to pay off my loans, take my max vacation each year to see the world (right now vacation money is going to student loans, so what’s the point) and some days (today) sitting at my desk staring at this computer and billing clients in 6 minute increments feels like actual torture. Some days it feels like frantic torture, because there’s no way I can get it all done, and most days I hate my clients to the point I toss pennys in a wishing well hoping they all get hit by busses.
I don’t love it. I don’t hate it (really) and there are worse things out there. Plus, I found a job within 6 months of graduation from law school and when I graduated college (2004) I couldn’t find a job for 18 months except the one that my parents (bless them) gave me.
Having some skill/education is better than none, even if it came at a $100k price tag.
Yeah, people expect a lot from their jobs, and this is a relatively new phenomenon. I doubt that 100 years ago very many people hoped to be spiritually fulfilled from working. They wanted the money for food and shelter.
I don’t love being a lawyer, but it’s better than a lot of things. Right now, I want to pay off my debts, bank some money, and figure out what to do next.
I’m 44, been practicing since 1991.
I went to law school because I knew that I figured I to make a significant amount of money (in the top 1% of wealth, if not the top 0.1%, or preferably the top 0.01%) in order to do anything meaningful in life.
I had destroyed by GPA in undergrad because I had no interest in the subject matter (I basically skipped class and didn’t do the work), and I had a free ride (chemical engineering), so I figured that the only way to save my financial future was to go to law school. I could ace the LSAT and still get into a top law school.
It worked.
So, anyway, I went to Duke, got them to pay for a year’s tuition. I still didn’t like the subject matter, but at least I wouldn’t be working in a chemical plant. I didn’t study and crammed for exams (again skipping class and not doing the work).
Even though I graduated in the bottom half of my class, I was still able to use the Duke law degree to get a job. I basically sent a letter to a firm and they gave me an interview (and a job) because I went to Duke.
So that worked, too.
I have no interest in practicing law, but I get a decent salary with a decade of experience, and I save 50% of my salary (with a wife and two children). I have no debt at all.
This would not work in today’s economy.
In hindsight, I should have gone to medical school and become a neurosurgeon like my uncle.
Will says:
“And in your early 20′s, things that happen a few years from now (like paying off student loans) seem far away – they take place in another universe with another person cleaning up.”
Actually, part of my problem is that I had been attempting to strategically plan my life.
I tried to figure out what benchmarks I wanted to hit at certain phases of my life, specifically financial and social/political benchmarks.
I always figured that I would start to live life when I hit 55 or so and had accumulated a significant amount of money. Until that point, I figured I would simply tolerate what I had to tolerate, and function on autopilot as best I could.
And like the above poster, I didn’t actually want to work (particularly in a law firm). It actually made me angry that I had to do it. Probably because life until I was 26 was incredibly easy. All you had to do was be more intelligent than most everyone else and you kept moving forward. And because few people I encountered were more intelligent than I was to any significant extent, that was pretty easy (you have to love state schools). I wasn’t in school to learn anything; I was in school to win (graduate valedictorian, get a 4.0), collect scholarships, and get my ticket punched.
Note: I’ve noticed that this is not a good way to try to live life. But that was my thinking at the time I went to law school.
I think waiting until you’re older and financially more secure to live well is a mistake.
That’s not to say that you can’t live a good life starting at age 55 or 60 or whatever. And planning ahead is a good thing. But you never know what will happen in this life. A family member developed ALS and passed away in her 50s. She had always wanted to visit New Zealand. Didn’t happen. I think the trick is to find a way to live as well as you possibly can in the present, while being mindful of the future.
This is easier said than done. Life is hard (especially in a deep recession) and most of us need to earn a living. But I’m always amazed at how putting energy into things you care about – even a modest amount – can gradually change the course of your life, whereas copious time spent doing things that are boring and meaningless (even if lucrative and sanctioned by society, your parents, classmates, etc) ultimately leaves you high and dry. In order to live well, people need a sense of meaning or purpose. They may *think* they can get by without this – lawyers try all the time – but I have yet to see it work out.
Oh, I absolutely need some sort of meaning or purpose in my life. However, first I would need to find something I actually care about. That’s the tough part.
I don’t actually have much of my personal identity tied up in being a lawyer. However, if I had the vaguest interest in practicing law, I’m certain that would help me deal with day to day life.
I also deal with the same people who Will deals with, being that I handle disability claims. Half of them are in therapy.
I much prefer that to my time spent representing global megacorporations. I prefer speaking with people about their hallucinations and suicidal ideation more than I enjjoy writing a legal brief. Not that I really enjoy speaking to them, but I truly despise legal writing.
If I had to do it over again, I honestly would probably go into medicine.
I caught a huge break a while back when I landed a legal job with an NGO that was a great match for my skills and interests. It’s still not perfect (I will always have issues with law, which seems to waste a ton of resources – human resources especially – and more often than not is dry and unfulfilling, or worse, pernicious to others). But at my current job my hours are normal, my colleagues are decent people, I generally feel as though I’m making a contribution (even if it’s somewhat limited in scope), and the work can be quite interesting. I’m a lot happier than I was in the past and am pursuing a creative avocation on the side – amazingly, with some success.
But I also know what it’s like to be miserable in a legal job, the seemingly never-ending cycle of long days and exhausting work, surrounded by morons, sycophants, bullies, bottom-feeders, and all the rest of it. I’m determined never to go back to that world if I can help it.
I suppose there are much worse things I could be doing professionally than getting people onto Medicare and getting them money so they can pay their mortgage.
It also helps to not have to bill hours. Not billing hours makes any job about 50% better in my mind, automatically.
Although it is very odd to now ask people on a regular basis “How often do you think about suicide?” and “How many times have you been in a psychiatric hospital?”
I ended up on this blog from Above the Law. I was somewhat curious as to what therapy was all about given that half the clients I have are in therapy. Although I’m certain that Will’s clients are generally more highly functional than mine.
[…] Meyerhofer, in his blog The People’s Therapist, urges those considering law school to take a step back. While grad school may be the easy thing to […]
“What sent you off to law school, more than any other factor? Probably fear – specifically fear of being a disappointment to mom and dad. When you decided to go to law school, you saw only two options – graduate school or loser-dom.”
Good Lord, you know me. That is EXACTLY why I went – I was “too *^%% brilliant to be anything but a JD, MD or CEO” and if I did what I wanted to do, I’d be a “nobody, nothing, failure and loser.” 10 years of all out screaming battles with my parents (Mom screaming about me being a nothing and loser, me screaming that lawyers were even more boring than accountants (I WAS RIGHT)) wore me down, and when the PhD I really wanted was revealed to have some imperfections, I let them break my will and I went to law school.
I’ve been out for a while, and am employed, and let’s just say that my resolution for this month is not allowing myself to dwell on misery or how badly I want to slit my wrists every morning so I never have to go in again.
But hey, my parents are still VERY impressed with me (which makes me dislike them even more)!