Sunday, April 14, 2013

Red Light from an Attorney

Congratulations on the scholarship offers.
As I mentioned before, I have no doubt you would be an excellent international trade attorney. But I voted for you not to go in the poll, and found I was with the majority. Unless you feel like you can’t survive without being a lawyer, like it is your destiny to do so, your heart is not going to be in it. When your heart is not in it, you likely won’t be happy or satisfied with the result. Yes, you’d have a shiny new JD on the wall and likely a license to practice law from at least one jurisdiction to frame next to that JD, and given your intelligence, you’d probably have a “great” job at a large firm paying a good starting salary. But, you’d be working 80-100 hours per week, starting from the bottom, and trying to claw your way up. That would be your reality for years to come. Then you’d make partner and you’d be in the back-stabbing business of trying to wrangle in clients and keep your partners and colleagues from stealing them, still working 80-100 hours per week. You’ll be making a ton of money and have what most lawyers call “golden handcuffs.” But you’ll have very limited time outside of work for friends, family, children, etc.

 I know, I’m making this sound better and better all the time, right? If you want to challenge yourself, you don’t necessarily have to go to law school. Save up some money and start your own consulting firm or your own business; that’s challenging. Find something you love and do that. You’re obviously smart enough to be a lawyer, but if you can’t even convince yourself that you want to go, you certainly can’t convince me (or anyone else) that you should.

Ultimately, it is your decision. It’s your life. How do you want to spend it?

Response:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my conundrum. As you can imagine, I have done a lot of research on law school. You're correct in saying that I don't have a strong desire to be a lawyer. However, I also don't have a strong desire to keep my current job. I am interviewing at other places but I've been through enough companies by now to know that a job is really just a job. This is not the right thing for me to do and right place to be at this point in my life. I would like to get into consulting someday but I have a hard time seeing that happening without a JD. With law school, the opportunities for me to intern with USTR, BIS, DOJ, USTIC and other government agencies are endless. I can also clerk with CIT, just down the street from Cardozo. Maybe with a few more years of industry experience after law school I'll be more ready for my own consulting firm.

While it would be nice to have time, energy and resource to enjoy life outside of work, I find myself extremely lonely most of the time here. I have a difficult time meeting people and not to mention a potential mate to settle down with. I'm a very assertive person and I feel like I'm running out of options here on the social front. Just about everyone in my field is older so it's unlikely that I'd meet someone at another company or five other companies. I'm not sure if I'd make a lot friends in law school but at least I might have more opportunities to network in other places. I would like to have kids someday and I need to create a good story for them. I just have to decide on which one.

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