I’m an attorney who’s facing the prospect of a job change in the near future. I am currently looking for a new job, probably in an entirely new part of the country. While I’m looking, it occurs to me that I may have more careers open to me than just continuing to practice law.
I know there are a lot of people out there with law degrees who don’t practice law. I think I’ve seen one or two of them on this message board. I’ve never met any in person.
And so my question for any non-practicing attorney, or for anyone who knows someone like that: Why did you (or they) change careers? What was the next career? Was it hard to find jobs in other fields? Did prospective employers think you (or they) were overqualified for anything but law? Anything else I need to know if I think about a career change?
A co-worker at my first job never practiced law at all after passing the bar; she worked as a compliance person at a social service agency. She was in charge of making sure our agency complied with all requirements of our funding sources, particularly the state and federal governments.
My boss’ husband also never practiced after passing the bar; he worked for a while doing PR for nonprofit agencies, but is now staying home with the bambina and ostensibly writing a book.
One of my cousins, after graduating from Stanford Law School, never even took the bar. She got married and banged out 4 kids. She does a lot of volunteer work, especially for her synagogue, but as far as I know the only paying job she held after law school was as an aerobics instructor. She’s done a heck of the job with the kids, though.
I don’t think your situation is at all uncommon; I know tons of people who finish colllege and think about law school just because they feel like they should get a graduate degree, but have no idea what they really want to do. My recommendation: think about what you want to do first, and then figure out how to get there. Also, check out “What Color Is My Parachute?” It’s a great book with excercises to help you figure out what your favorite skills are and how to put them to use.
Thank you, Eva. It’s good to hear about others who have succeeded in this sort of situation.
Those examples are a bit different from me, since they have never practiced law. I have been practicing for over five years, with most of that time spent working for a local government agency. I am currently looking for a new job, and the possibility of doing something besides law seems rather appealing. Maybe that’s a temporary symptom of burnout that will fade when I move on, I don’t know.
When I graduated from law school, I was so severely burned out that I didn’t look for legal jobs. I didn’t even sign up for the next bar exam. But I had no luck finding a job, since prospective employers assumed I would leave when I eventually took the bar and got a legal job. (It was that problem that led me to take the bar, which rekindled my interest in law, thus leading me into practice.) Hence my fear of being considered overqualified.
I’m probably in a better position now that I have a few years of practice under my belt. No one can just assume I’ll run off for good legal opportunities if I run away from those opportunities first.
Will check out “Parachute” at the first opportunity. Thank you.
Anyone else have any input?
I am hoping to be leaving the field of practicing law to work for a large legal/human resources publisher (if the damn funding ever goes through).
I had worked for private law firms or accounting firms since leaving law school with a tax specialty. I am sick of being a slave to the billable hour. Anything you do where you’re not charging anybody, you feel like you should be charging people. My firm’s billable requirements are not even outrageous (suburbs vs. downtown) If I never have to fill out a timeslip again, it will make me very happy.
What was your job with the gummint? Did you gain experience that would help you work in the real world? If you were working with Small Business Administration loans, for instance, maybe you could set up your own consulting business, since you know the ins and outs of getting those loans. If you worked a lot with utility companies, maybe you could go to work for a company in that field. There’s always companies that work with the gummint, and they need employees who have contacts there and know what they are doing.
Although it wasn’t right for me, maybe working in private practice is what you need. I don’t know if you tried that yet.
Good luck.
My graduate degree is in library science, and my first job out of school was as an indexer for NILS Publishing. The general qualification for the job was that you either had to have a law or a library degree, and we had a fairly even mix.
The pay was abysmal, but eventually one could hope to get promoted to associate, then senior editor. And it was the most highly educated set of co-workers I’ve ever had, which was reflected in the level of office chitchat and lunch conversations. I enjoyed that part of it, and the indexing itself was stimulating. Other work-related aspects, however, were less pleasant, like having to proofread indexes.
One of my former coworkers, who was a JD, is still in the field; I think he’s working for West now.
You just made me remember another former co-worker, a law clerk when I worked in Immigration Court, who went on to write articles on new legal developments for CCH. Do you like writing? Lots of writing jobs out there where legal expertise is helpful.
I never practiced. I went straight into legal publishing and have been editing books on NY estates law ever since (12 1/2 years now). My husband practiced for several years, at large firms and then solo. He wanted out, and went work at the same legal publisher I currently work for. Now he’s a freelance writer/journalist, doing lots of legal writing, but hoping to branch out into other areas. It’s very difficult being a freelance writer, but he likes working for himself.
I’m also in legal publishing. I actually never planned to stay in law - I figured 3-5 years would be plenty of time for me to decide what I really wanted to be when I grew up.
Well, um, at year 7 I was (finally) laid off. I’m now working for a publisher here in New York and loving it. I’m not sure how long it will last - we’re privately owned, and the founders are talking about selling - but in the meantime it’s great. I don’t miss practice in the slightest.