We’re talking about someone who hasn’t even started college yet, so the relevant employment situation would be, what, 8-10 years from now?
Maybe the legal profession faces a long-term decline in demand such that a decade from now this high school kid will have a tough time finding work. But I doubt it. Things will probably stabilize a bit by then, and also the crappiness of the lawyer economy varies greatly by where you go to school.
But the whole exercise of this thread is sort of silly. Anyone still in high school should be focused on college, not grad school. Nothing this kid does in college is going to matter to law school, other than good grades. He should pursue something else that interests him as an undergrad. If he still wants to be a lawyer in a few years, then he can do an internship or whatever. But it would be far better for him to focus on developing some other skillset in preparation for the very high likelihood that he will change his mind about his life goals some time between high school and grad school.
Relevant things that I wish I thought about before I went to law school/became a lawyer:
Getting dressed up every day. God I hate pantyhose, and yet I wear them. All the time. Even on the days I don’t have court (rare), I’m still solidly business casual. If I could, I’d be wearing flip-flops every day of my life.
The profession of law is packed with intense, A-type folks. These include the judges, opposing counsel, colleagues, work friends, classmates in law school, etc… It can be a tough environment and not for everyone.
Lawyers have intense ethical obligations and your choices can have a HUGE impact on the life and livelihood of your clients. Again, this is not for everyone. You have such enormous responsibility that must be taken very seriously.
You need to have a high frustration tolerance and excellent coping skills. Not all attorneys do, and as a profession, we are rife with substance abuse problems and mental health issues. Very high rates of suicide as well.
My recommendation: have your nephew call around to a couple public defender offices or prosecutor offices. We regularly let high school graduates come in and shuffle papers for a week or two, and observe court. He’ll know pretty quickly if the law is for him.
I think that in some of these examples, it isn’t necessarily true across the board, as I type my response in jeans and a button-up.
I will agree that the ethical bar is very high, but depending on the type of law you practice, it may not be as daunting, depending on your clients. Personally, I felt that the bar was higher when I was litigating than when I do transactional matters, but I’ve also preferred a “desk job” versus being in the courtroom.
Also, I’ve found transactional work to be more “team-oriented,” and while you still have your A-types, there is a lot more cooperation and it seems that more people are “goal-oriented,” versus trying to be the sole person who comes out on top. (One of the many reasons I hated litigating.
My dad was a patent attorney. He went from a Mechanical Engineering degree to law school. The technical side let him understand the IP he was working with. That’s a route that constrains the undergrad degree or at a minimum demands more than intro level science electives. He didn’t spend a lot of time in court in the patent attorney role since a lot of his work was preparing patent applications instead of cases that would lead to a court room. When he was involved with trials in that role they were relatively lengthy civil trials for patent violation claims.
Since a lot of his experience was as a corporate attorney he also got pulled in to things outside the patent realm for long periods - product liability defense and assisting with international contracts.
I know a bunch of poor lawyers - they work for nonprofits. And then there are the unemployed lawyers. Anyone wanna hire my little brother, who was just admitted to the NY Bar? He is currently crashed with his parents and working at an unpaid internship.
I’d make sure he’s aware that many (most?) law firms have billing requirements that can be beyond onerous for their associates and jr. partners.
Stuff like having to bill 2000+ hours a year- the “standard” work year is 2080 hours. So at 2000 hours a year, you literally have to bill 8 hours a day to the client, every single day. Usually this is accomplished by liberal overtime and weekend work. And most firms don’t pay the big money- unless you work for a big, prestigious firm, you may not even crack $100k until you hit partner.
Add to this a surprisingly cut-throat culture driven by type-A people, and you get somewhere that’s probably not so bad to someone who is so type-A that they HAVE to win/be the best, and who’ll sacrifice their own personal life to do that. (or so macho that they won’t be seen as quitting anything) But to most everyone else, it’s a horrid, soul-crushing grind.
(my wife was a civil litigator for a medium sized form, and several of her law-school friends had similar jobs for larger and smaller firms and salaries, and they all ended up quitting because they hated the grind. One even gave up a $250k annual salary because she hated it so much.)
I sent him this link - and he really appreciated everyone’s feedback (understanding that the ability to be specific was limited with the original info). He is going to do some more investigating.
How exciting and nerve-wracking to be at that point again - feeling like your decision was FOREVER. I hope he realizes that everything is actually pretty fluid
