#91280 - 08/09/10 11:44 PM
Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
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mckinney
Junior Member
Registered: 08/09/10
Posts: 4
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Hi Everyone! Im new to the site and heres a big part of my life in my first post.
I have already received a bachelors degee in Political Science, and while trying to get accepted to law school I attended grad school where I recieved a Master of Business Administration degree. After taking the LSAT a few times I have now raised my score enough to get accepted to the school of my choice which is The University of Tennessee. Which is tier 1, top 60 in the U.S. But doing my admission process I was offered a job with the federal government. I am now 26 years old making approximately 60k (in a recession) as a starting salary in a career job (one that several people try to get). Keeping in mind that the bachelors and masters have left me 50k in debt, and to go to law school would cost me 65k, landing me 115k in debt (wow). I would like to extend my education but also make a decent amount of money without a substantial amount of debt. I understand that jobs within the legal field are shrinking as along with the pay. But law is still my passion! I have came up with two options which are:
1) Go to law school. or
2) Stay on the job while and save money working towards a PHD?
There are not any part time law prgrams nearby so thats not an option. Also, please consider the fact that if I got to law school I may not obtain a great paying job which would leave me with less money and more debt. Or on the other hand my experience and education plus a JD may land me in a high position somewhere.
I encourage the response of those who are in the legal field and those who just have great advise.
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#91281 - 08/10/10 01:09 AM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: mckinney]
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AnnaD
NTL Addict
Registered: 02/19/08
Posts: 565
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The job market for Ph.D.s is absolutely atrocious - much worse than for JDs. Granted, it doesn't usually cost as much as a JD (or, it shouldn't). But it's a big chunk of time out of your life when you're not earning anything, it probably won't lead to a job in academia, and it doesn't help you get almost any non-academic jobs that you couldn't have got without a Ph.D.
(I'm assuming you mean a Ph.D. in PoliSci. If you're talking about business, the above may not apply as strongly.)
I'm curious, though - why work and save money towards a Ph.D.? Why not either do a Ph.D. now, or work and save money towards law school?
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#91282 - 08/10/10 11:45 AM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: AnnaD]
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oldlawgirl
NTL Addict
Registered: 11/05/06
Posts: 595
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Have you actually been admitted to law school? If not, you are too late to start this fall so you may as well take the job. If you have been admitted, ask for a one year deferment and take the job. See if it is all you want it to be. If you still have a passion for law after one year, then quit the job and go to law school. Or, decide to work a few more years to save money. You are so young that a few years in the working world will not hurt you at all and will, ultimately, be a big help in debt reduction. It will also give the market for lawyers some time to recover.
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#91285 - 08/10/10 10:27 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: AnnaD]
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mckinney
Junior Member
Registered: 08/09/10
Posts: 4
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Anna D,
I was leaning toward a phd in business, but im not completely sure. If I was to pursue a business phd I would try to teach on the college level.
As of now I have deferred my law school seat to give me time to see if I enjoy my new job. I will also be exploring some phd options during this time. This will be my year to research different options and to ultimately be sure law school is what I want to do before I leap in. Law School is beginning to seem more like a high odds gamble but my passion is telling me to roll'em. I'm afraid that if I dont go I will also think the dreaded "what if".
Edited by mckinney (08/10/10 10:33 PM)
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#91286 - 08/10/10 11:01 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: oldlawgirl]
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mckinney
Junior Member
Registered: 08/09/10
Posts: 4
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Oldlawgirl,
Thanks for the advice. I have been admitted. It has been a long process coming from tier 4 to now my first tier 1 acceptance. I deferred my seat to the following year to give me time to evaluate my new job, and explore other options. I work closely with disability law. So close that it make me think of a legal career. I really have a passion for the law, but also for stability and a nice lifestyle. This is were the two passions may collide. I have interned with a local attorney where I watched cases being presented in criminal, chauncery, and bankruptcy court. Just the idea of practing law entices me. I also enjoy the lifestyle (while im young at least) of traveling from court to the office and to meet clients. I also read your post of the description of your days. They all seem more exciting that just entering a office building at 9am sitting at a cubicle until 5pm then leaving. This is now what I do in my current job, and I dread the idea of watching everyone who starts the job around the time I do age into senior citizens. I have been preparing since the age of 19 to enter the legal field only to get to the door and discover that I may not make the money I expected and I can become buried in debt. The legal field is looking more like a high odds gamble, but when you have been preparing for this amount of time and have been academically successful up to this point there is only one choice "to play the odds". This will ultimately be a life altering decision. I understand that each person has a different legal experience but can you tell me how your experience has been as far as satisfaction, salaries, and the overall field?
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#91290 - 08/11/10 07:18 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: mckinney]
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backbencher
NTL Addict
Registered: 10/07/06
Posts: 859
Loc: Florida
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What? Nobody expected to hear from me? 
The plot of all 80s teen comedies is basically the same. Guy with cute sidekick meets girl he cannot hope to attain, but works hard at it, finally wins dream girl, then realizes that the cute sidekick was what he wanted all along. 
In law this is called reasoning by analogy (maybe false analogy, but it was fun.) I think you have been chasing something so long that your focus has been solely on the chase, and less on what will make you happy or on how the circumstances have changed (i.e., the dream girl with big hair is now an overweight, chain-smoking, tattooed troll!) Since I used to work in a government dead-end office I get you, really I do. But here's the deal: You have a paying job, with guaranteed pay-step increases, full benefits (which are rare these days), and perhaps the only employer who is not down-sizing or laying-off anyone. In other words, boring or not, you have the job that every unemployed professional in this country, all 15 million of them, would kill for! And you are thinking of chucking all of this because you have fixated on law school and know that lawyers don't work in offices and grow old! Is this basically it? 
OK, now the really harsh reality check. First your facts are somewhat skewed. Yes, several years ago, to decrease the negative effects of its rankings, USNWR decided to democratically merge Tiers 1 & 2 into Tier 1. While nice, many employers and law schools still perceive anything above #50 as Tier 2. (Want proof, check out the rankings here 2010 USNWR Rankings. You will note that the list goes straight from Tier 1 to Tier 3.) So UT is not really Tier 1. Making matters worse, it is not even the highest ranked school in the state, that would be #17 Vanderbilt. This is not to say a J.D. from the state's flagship public university is a bad thing. Many Vandy grads will head for D.C., N.Y.C., and Atlanta, while the UT grads probably have a very deep network in-state (especially, I suspect, in state politics and government.) 
But here's the overall problem. This is not a normal legal job market (unless this is the new normal.) In the past, where you went and your class rank decided what kind of legal job you got. Today, it determines whether or not you get one at all. My alma mater (JD, anyway) just moved up to the real 1T (#50) and many of my friends from two years ago (three graduating classes ago) are still looking for work in an infinitely bigger legal market than anywhere in TN. So if top-50s are graduating thousands of unemployed, debt-ridden JDs into major markets, 2T in a city with no ready access (internships, networking, recruiting socials) to the two major state markets starts to look a bit more tenuous, doesn't it? Even worse, the legal job market is starting to look a lot like Hartsfield Airport during bad weather. People who paid and suffered to be lawyers, by and large, don't simply give up and become bank managers and IT techs. Say you enrolled this year (pretty late to do-I think you said you deferred.) You could graduate in 2014 (2015 for you?) competing for jobs with other UT grads from 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 (unless the world ends), as well as the bottom third of those classes from Vandy and any other school I don't know about. And this assumes you are sticking with the home market. So maybe you follow OLG, who is very successful, and go solo. Aside from having to learn on the job and with the charity of established lawyers, you will then be "killing what you eat." Do you want this career so bad that you are willing to be sitting in your crappy two-room law office at 7pm waiting for a dead-beat client to finally pay you? You might find yourself envying your fellow cubicle-dwellers going home at 5 with that iron-clad paycheck in their hand and a lifetime promise of federal health-care and retirement. 
Please understand this is not to disrespect your accomplishments. Getting your LSAT to top-100 status from 4T is a real accomplishment that should be the envy of many of your fellow posters on this site (and proof to them that this can be done!) And, in a normal, or old-normal, legal market, UT is a very respectable school (and I say this as a Gator-Dawg) with a lot of real plusses in-state (some of which will still work if you have a good enough class rank.) But this is not 2006, either. 24 year-olds who wrote on law review (I know some) are graduating under a mountain of debt and hanging out shingles in those areas, usually low-paying, where there is an un-met demand, like personal bankruptcy and divorce. (And this means you can forget all that, "I am really interested in X...." crap.) Compare this to a guaranteed job where your salary will probably double in ten years even if your only demonstrable skill is converting oxygen to carbon dioxide. 
I am not saying don't go. If you look at all of this stuff, and still say to yourself that "my life would never feel complete if I did not do this," or if Chancery Court (sp.) really excites you in a way that your Dilbert cubicle can't, then go. If you have the bug too bad to stop you, then tell me and I will gladly send you all the hints and support to help you succeed that you want. I know lawyers who would never be happy doing anything else, even if they are living a very lower middle class lifestyle while doing it. But don't underestimate the value of the security you are giving up or the challenge you are facing. That attitude of "sure it will be tough, but I am smart and highly motivated" should evaporate when you meet your "competition" on the first day of class. If not, then mid-term grades ought to do it unless you really are the best of 300-odd people (and the odds, given your classmates all have the same potential or better than you do, are not encouraging.) I walked into law school with a Ph.D., dozens of published legal articles, and half a decade of teaching law (to non-lawyers), and that first year was humbling, to put it mildly. 
Let me offer you (and others) two other thoughts: Society is changing. Retirement for many used to be 30 years or 62, whichever came first, followed by a life of shuffleboard and fishing (and heart pills, arthritis, etc.) I doubt that jack-ass Boehner will get the Democrats to raise Social Security to 70 anytime soon, but it will someday happen. Besides, AARP says more people are working, either to survive or give their life meaning again, into their 70s and 80s (and I know of practicing attorneys in their 90s and even one at 100!) Most future projections say the average worker will now have two full careers, not one. You could vest your federal retirement and benefits at 46, go back to law school as a real non-trad (we have no rules here, but 26 is when some trads graduate), and still have a full career of 20-30 years of practice with the security of knowing, regardless of your success as a lawyer, your true old-age is already covered! I know deferring a dream 20 years seems like a lot, especially when you are 26, but don't underestimate what security looks like at 46!
Now, to your other suggestion. Unless it is really in your blood (and then law school would not be) the Ph.D. is definitely a second-career, if not a hobby. I am a college professor who, if not protected (knock-on-wood) by tenure, would be down-sized already due to budget and program declines (and changes. They have me teaching some pretty weird stuff right now to justify my salary.) I am aggressively seeking out the next better thing, and it has not been easy even with two terminal degrees (I own two robes!), experience, a publishing record that is growing by leaps and bounds, and the reference of many of the top people in the field (including the top person!) And I teach in a professional field where there is always a demand for graduates. Political Science (my BA) is only about a thousand times harder to break into and their publish or perish is brutal (because 500 people are waiting for your job.) And I cannot think of any other career that would require, or even be much enhanced, by a Ph.D. in Political Science except, maybe, LAW! At least with a JD (and this is my personal "Plan Z") you can troop down to traffic court every night with a handful of business cards and pre-printed representation agreements and clear $500-1500 a night with minimal overhead. (The ultimate in "eat what you kill.")
I opened with an analogy so let me end with one: Last fall I decided the time was right to break into the independent oil refining business and found an issue (stock-I was not looking for rig work!) that seemed like a potential winner and met my criteria. So I watched it like a hawk for a pull-back or correction. When the time was right I went ahead and did my final due diligence and then pulled the trigger: on another competitor which suddenly looked a lot better and has performed much better since! Mckinney (cool name, by the way, this is the name of the compilation of NY statutes), ask yourself honestly, are you thinking of pursuing this opportunity at this time because it is your "make-or-break" dream, or is it because of all the "time-on-task" you have expended over the past years? (When this would have been a much better move!) And is that effort coloring your vision of making a law firm look more interesting and fulfilling than a bureaucracy? I think you need to seriously ask yourself these questions and reach your own honest answers. 
P.S.: I think my opening analogy may have just dated me. Given your age, I would advise you go to Netflix and rent "Some Kind of Wonderful," "The Sure Thing," and "No Small Affair," so you will have some idea what I am talking about. (Although, I suppose, "American Pie 2" will do as a more recent example.)
_________________________
"Audere est Facere" (To Dare is To Do)
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#91292 - 08/11/10 10:28 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: backbencher]
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forthguy
Beyond hope
Registered: 01/30/04
Posts: 1042
Loc: San Francisco, CA
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P.S.: I think my opening analogy may have just dated me. Given your age, I would advise you go to Netflix and rent "Some Kind of Wonderful," "The Sure Thing," and "No Small Affair," so you will have some idea what I am talking about. (Although, I suppose, "American Pie 2" will do as a more recent example.)
"The Sure Thing" may be the best 80s teen romantic comedy of them all (to this day, "Who invented liquid soap and why?" makes me smile, if not laugh), and Daphne Zuniga was more attractive than Nicolette Sheridan from the beginning, anyway. But she wasn't really ever his sidekick, until maybe sometime around the rain storm.
"Some Kind of Wonderful" is also very good and certainly fits the mold, but "No Small Affair" is sufficiently forgettable that I had to consult IMDB to remember what it was.
But there are so many counterexamples, led largely by John Hughes, whose movies don't even fit the model at all.
Beyond that, I largely agree. For one thing, working a few years out of school never hurt anyone, and my opinion is that the overwhelming lack of any such work is a big reason the legal profession is so screwy, as it is. (Seriously, every time ATL does a story on the evils of performance-based pay for associates, I find myself just scratching my head.) Work a few years. Maybe you like the job. Maybe you hate it. Maybe it only solidifies what you already think.
To be perfectly honest, from undergrad to MBA to "do I do law school? or do I get a PhD" sounds to me like "I'm looking for the best way to avoid having to work."
_________________________
: star 42 emit ;
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#91293 - 08/11/10 11:38 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: forthguy]
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backbencher
NTL Addict
Registered: 10/07/06
Posts: 859
Loc: Florida
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"Some Kind of Wonderful" is also very good and certainly fits the mold, but "No Small Affair" is sufficiently forgettable that I had to consult IMDB to remember what it was.
But there are so many counterexamples, led largely by John Hughes, whose movies don't even fit the model at all.
Not to turn this into NTL "Movie Night," but "Some Kind of Wonderful" was John Hughes (his great foray into the Valley.) But I agree that his big hits always saw the hero get the hot boy/girl. I am hurt about "No Small Affair." I loved that film. (And you, of all people, should be familiar with the locations!)
I am not so sure I would be so harsh about the poster. As an 18-year professional student, I am the expert on avoiding the world of work (which I continue to do as a professor. Oh, sure, I have to grade assignments and write papers, but no one said I can't do it in my shorts, eating cold pizza and drinking many beers. Then again, I know some lawyers...) For what we know as of now, maybe mckinney simply wants to get the education part done early before, family, children, and mortgage, set-in. This board is a testament to the truism that, at any age and any circumstance, you can successfully complete law school. However, we also demonstrate that every added non-trad factor raises the difficulty level by, what, ten?
That said, I agree with my West Coast colleague that, especially in this unbelievably lousy legal job market, you really won't lose anything by putting law school off for a few years. And having that federal experience in disability law might be a plus factor to specialized practice once you get out. And beside all that, it's not like the Vols will be any good for another couple of years anyway! I mean Lane Kiffin! Really? Followed by another coach who has never had a winning season! Really? There is no point to enrolling in Rocky Top until they have at least some chance, at least at home, of beating Florida, Georgia, and/or Alabama! Really!!! 
_________________________
"Audere est Facere" (To Dare is To Do)
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#91300 - 08/12/10 10:02 AM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: mckinney]
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kittydoctor
Beyond hope
Registered: 07/18/06
Posts: 1219
Loc: West Texas
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Welcome, mckinney. If you stay at your job and save up, there are schools that offer joint degrees. My school offers a JD/MBA that is really simple to do. In fact, they wrote to me months ago to sign up for it.
It sounds like it's hard to get a job in law, but I'm not worrying about that right now. I don't see myself in a firm doing 6 minute increments of billable hours. I love West Texas, and could see myself as a county attorney in one of the largely unpopulated counties.
I still want to be admitted to the health law cert. program, but let's see if I can get my head out and be successful at 1L.
In this economy, if you have this great job-that salary at your age-keep it while you explore your options, even if you don't like your job. PhDs are largely going to be college professors. Not a lot of money. Listen to BB and AnnaD-the 3L! Anna, I can't believe you are almost done. We were applying at the same time. And tonyg is done in Dec. Big ups to you!
_________________________
Mary
The cow is of the bovine ilk,
One end is moo, the other milk.
Ogden Nash
First veterinarian admitted to TTU!
My blog: DrinkingOutOfTheTrough.com
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#91301 - 08/12/10 12:20 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: backbencher]
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forthguy
Beyond hope
Registered: 01/30/04
Posts: 1042
Loc: San Francisco, CA
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Not to turn this into NTL "Movie Night," but "Some Kind of Wonderful" was John Hughes (his great foray into the Valley.) But I agree that his big hits always saw the hero get the hot boy/girl. I am hurt about "No Small Affair." I loved that film. (And you, of all people, should be familiar with the locations!)
As for "SKoW", you're right. An unforgivable oversight on my part. And "NSA", I spent the 80s in the midwest (Minneapolis followed by Dayton, Ohio.) 1984, the year of its release, was in fact the year we moved from Minneapolis to Dayton.
This board is a testament to the truism that, at any age and any circumstance, you can successfully complete law school. However, we also demonstrate that every added non-trad factor raises the difficulty level by, what, ten?
I think some factors make it harder than others. Those with kids they insist on seeing -- and especially the single parents -- have it much, much harder. Folks like you and me, who simply had outside full-time jobs? Well, it was a pain, and I'm sure it made it harder. But at least from my standpoint, a working perspective made it that much easier. I spent years working 80-100-hour weeks (including 2 years at a company where 100-hour weeks were considered the minimum.) The law school years are a lot like those years, blurs. You just keep going because you're trying to accomplish something.
I was exhausted often, but unlike some of my fresh-from-undergrad classmates, I never really felt like I was overworked. Of course, having a job I knew I could fall back on alleviated a lot of stress. (Not that I really expected to have to fall back on that job...)
_________________________
: star 42 emit ;
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#91348 - 08/18/10 10:10 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: backbencher]
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mckinney
Junior Member
Registered: 08/09/10
Posts: 4
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I would like to thank you all for your advice. This site has provided me with the insight that I was looking for. Now, there are issues in some responses that I would to address.
Forthguy, I am not trying to avoid work. I just planned to finish school and begin in the career of my choice which is the legal field. Backbencher you clearly suggested that staying will be the better option. You gave some strong facts and examples. After reading your response I came to the realization that it’s not just the legal field where my discomfort lies but the entire “system.” The days of going to school becoming an academic scholar and having a successful and lucrative career are over. I say that because of the choices that I have now been presented with in my life. Pursing a JD or Phd that will inevitably not lead to any career advancement or the “big bucks.” So where do these things now rely? I have three suggestions: the medical field, entertainment, and professional sports. So those of us that are naturally intelligent have been given a gift and a curse. It’s a gift to be intelligent but a curse because intelligence doesn’t pay. What is a gift that you can’t use? Is that really a gift? I describe being naturally intelligent as a gift and a curse because if you do not go to medical school there isn’t a field for “us” that will make us the “big bucks.” Speaking from the perspective of a person that wasn’t born with a silver spoon, who is plowing his way through life, the system is not at this point designed for success both academic and monetary, its either one or the other. Where are the 150k+ jobs, I guess they’re on (theladders.com) 100K+jobs.com, simple enough, huh. What happens to my dreams of going to law school, practicing law for a few years, next teaching law at a university, then becoming a judge or politician? According to the responses, the legal field is shattered along with my dreams. So please excuse me while I vent while I pick up the pieces, or what others describe as changing directions or being flexible. My second option of going to get a PHD will lead to only academic but not financial success. Backbencher you stated that you have both a PHD and JD so you are obviously very intelligent. I feel that someone that educated should be at the helm of society. I’m willing to bet it all that you are more educated than the people calling the shots in the country, and would have did a better job than the person responsible for getting us in this situation. But back to the topic at hand, the choices that I am presented with for my career present me with a hell of a decision. Either go to law school acquiring loads of debt and not getting a lucrative job would be like a gunshot to the head. Well, just working a normal job and going to get a PHD which would be cheaper but not as lucrative is like a gunshot to the stomach where I would just bleed to a slow death. Well, I guess with the economy being the way it is now, its safer to be stable and not chase dreams. So I guess I’ll be assuming my place in the world of coffee and cubicles.
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#91349 - 08/18/10 11:22 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: mckinney]
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AnnaD
NTL Addict
Registered: 02/19/08
Posts: 565
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I once saw the greatest quote in someone's e-mail signature line:
"Enjoy your job. Make money. Stay within the law: pick two of the three."
That said, there are plenty of intelligent people who enjoy personal and financial success without either a JD or a PhD, and the lack of those degrees doesn't foreclose financial success and career satisfaction.
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#91351 - 08/19/10 04:19 AM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: mckinney]
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backbencher
NTL Addict
Registered: 10/07/06
Posts: 859
Loc: Florida
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Well, I guess I owe this long post a thoughtful response. Here goes:
After reading your response I came to the realization that it’s not just the legal field where my discomfort lies but the entire “system.” The days of going to school becoming an academic scholar and having a successful and lucrative career are over.
I must have missed "the days." The truth is, and having attended in some way or another, eight major universities (including Oxford and two US R-I schools), there have never really been any big bucks in university careers. Ever heard the phrase "starving academic?" The appeal of this career has always been a comfortable lifestyle (if you find a low-rent college town to live in) and freedom: to do, say, and think what you want. Hence the appeal to intelligent people. The reality is that most academic careers pay under $100K for all but the most senior of faculty, department chairs, endowed chairs, etc. Law, medicine, hard science, and business generally do pay more (some med school professors make $500,000+ a year, not counting their practice fees.) But to get those bucks you need the right major and the right pedigree (a Ph.D. from an elite, as opposed to a merely R-I, university.)
AnnaD and I are good friends (yes?) but have a difference of opinion. She, and some others who have posted here, have used law school and the goal of practice as an escape from the Ivory Tower and its low pay and incessant politics. I used it to enhance my career (although, long story, I may have to switch to practice myself if I can't change schools soon!) I like waking up to the "Price is Right," writing articles or blogging to 4 am and actually working 3 to 9 actual hours a week, while floating in and out of my office at will with only classes and some committee meetings to command my schedule. The pay is not great, but where can you make this money for essentially just being brilliant and talking? I gave a great first-class meeting lecture tonight. I said what I thought, what I knew, and what I wanted. I can be arrogant, idealistic, demanding, and comedic all at once. Would I have this freedom in the corporate world or in legal practice?
To the extent that many in academia look comfortable or even wealthy, it is usually the result of "other activities." This is what non-academic civilians ("Non-lotus eaters" or simply, "Scum") don't understand. Being in a university, done correctly, means a guaranteed minimum lifestyle, with benefits, plus lots of free time and resources to do other things. In the right majors (generally not liberal arts) there is consulting. My mentor can earn $100K or more a year by working as a consultant (Hint: Ph.D. + Professor title = immense credibility as a consultant, expert witness, etc.) I am not there yet, but when I have done this I generally bill out at $600/day, which is low. Sure, practicing lawyers generally make more, but I don't have overhead costs or E&O insurance! Others, while sitting in their offices doing research and helping students, play the market as active traders (meaning, we are watching the market in real-time, placing orders, and using the university's vast databases to do what most "working" investors don't have the time to do.) At my Ph.D. school the entire educational psychology faculty were called the "millionaires club" as every tenured member had made a million or more on the market! And then there are the authors (my latest project and I know several successful fiction writers from academia)! Trust me, you can have a very rewarding (in any terms) life in the university, but it is a little more complex then "I am brilliant, have spent my life in school in _________ major, so give me $100K+."
(Actually, to be honest, if I can get to the state I plan to bar in, one of my plans is to have a faculty side practice in law. Solo practice, probably one case/client at a time, with a guaranteed main salary and benefits courtesy of the school.)
It’s a gift to be intelligent but a curse because intelligence doesn’t pay. What is a gift that you can’t use? Is that really a gift? I describe being naturally intelligent as a gift and a curse because if you do not go to medical school there isn’t a field for “us” that will make us the “big bucks.”
It's not intelligence, but how you use it. Engineers can make mega-bucks (think Apple, Microsoft) as can business majors who are lucky and aggressive (and slightly sleazy.) Actually, medicine, with med-mal and overhead going up, is a nice, but often not great, income with a lot of stress and burnout as the price of a six-figure salary. Finance, banking, insurance (investing, not selling policies), and business admin can be quite lucrative if you have the talent and drive. If all you want is money, start an Internet Porn service filming college girls on Spring Break, and enjoy. And let's not forget conservative talk-radio. Hype up people's fears and paranoia and you too can make $20 million a year just for being a negative feed-back loop. (Of course this career is not just limited to smart people. Glenn Beck and Rush are millionaires too!)
Look, I just finally formally joined Mensa, because I need new outlets after 18 years of college. I put this off for almost two decades because I used to be a "social member" back home and was a bit disappointed, like you are, with the fruits of intelligence. Our members included a print shop manager, BK Asst. Mger., and numerous self-employed under-achievers. The most successful member taught math at the community college. Meanwhile, almost any semi-moron ex-jock can make it big selling cars or insurance or furniture. Who said life was fair?
There is a reason for this. Labor surveys show that highly intelligent people need more variety and stimulation in their work than others. A police department a few years ago was sued for using IQ exams for hiring purposes: they excluded any applicant with an IQ above 100 as data showed smarter officers would get bored and quit sooner. (A similar study of elementary school teachers is a suppressed secret in my field. Most parents would not feel great knowing that the "veteran" teachers their children get have stayed around for 30 years because they are the dumbest employees, not the brightest!) Even in law, many of the most successful lawyers were not the best and brightest in law school. You can't imagine the boredom quotient of tax law or drafting contracts (lucrative fields) compared to lower-paying and more stimulating work. Public interest lawyers don't make a lot, but they have fun and are never bored!
Where are the 150k+ jobs, I guess they’re on (theladders.com) 100K+jobs.com, simple enough, huh.
They're there, but you need drive and luck. If you have great ambition and flexible ethics you can shark your way up to this pretty quick in business. (I have a cousin who manages a hedge fund. Big $$$ if you have the guts and instincts, not book-learning, to do it.) And they are there for people who excel in their field. You are with the feds now. You can sit in your cubicle and wait for your steps like the rest of the cattle, or you can carefully start showing initiative and ability and apply for promotions as they come up. I have seen the GS-tables. A GS-13 to GS-15 can quickly be a $100K job, to say nothing of the new "super-grades." If you want more stimulation than a cubicle take the foreign service exam (I did.) Good money, lots of variety (and travel), and when home-assigned they will buy you the Ph.D. or J.D. of your choice.
Want to make it big in government? Become very involved in a successful campaign (governor, president.) New presidents have over 10,000 appointments to hand out. Obama actually was the first to publicly list them and ask for applications. But these were checked first against the "Friends of" list. (I am on it, on a minor rung. Maybe I need to apply.) Once in, you are now in career track of a high-ranking appointee when in-power (doesn't matter which, just pick a party), out-of-power there are think tanks, campaign jobs, etc., and also lobbying opportunities.
What happens to my dreams of going to law school, practicing law for a few years, next teaching law at a university, then becoming a judge or politician?
What an odd career plan? With the exception of practice, these are three different careers with each not being a prerequisite to the others. Want to be a law professor? You need to go T14 and do well, or T50 and do really well. Want to be a judge, go into trial law, preferably a prosecutor, and wait for the opportunity. Want to be a politician? Have you noticed all the semi-educated noobs, especially in our neck of the woods, who are getting elected? Run for school board, zoning commission, or city council and then work your way up. A law degree is nice, but not mandatory. Robert Byrd had a background like you. He ran for office as a butcher and earned his JD after many, many years in Congress. I think, at a minimum, you need to re-think your plan. Being a successful lawyer ($100K) is possible, even sole, with time and hard work, but it is a goal, not a step. Ditto law professor. Unless you graduate 1-2 at Yale or Harvard, you are not going to be a Supreme. And for most other judgeships, practice, not law professor, is the route to success.
But here is the key, and maybe your background explains it. My grand-parents were the ones who decided to be more entrepreneurial than their neighbors, using land for real estate not farming, and Dad was the first to college and law school. I got the private school, elite college, etc. And yet I, too, started out in the world of the cubicle. My friends are still there while I broke out and made things happen (and now have to again-academic dead end where I am.) But I get your disappointment from listening to my Dad. People not "to the manor born" (or silver spoon, as you put it) think it is just an issue of get the education that the "rich" people do, and then someone hands you the dream job or the big salary. And if your dad is a senior partner or CEO, this can happen. The education and brains can give you an advantage and create opportunities, but you still need to make it happen yourself. Because I live far from my family's roots what I have I earned myself, no freebies. But the real advantage that my "privileged" education have given me is not some secret success ring but the knowledge that life is a competition (prep school stresses this-unlike public school we learn young that not children are created equal!) Even when you have personal advantages like money, education, or intelligence, it is ultimately up to you to do something with that. No one is just going to hand you a reward for your IQ test. For what it's worth, probably half of my schoolmates have lives/jobs that are not nearly what their parents paid tuition for.
OK, it's late and I'm rambling. Tomorrow I need to write another article to boost the old CV and search for some new professor openings elsewhere with better pay and more interesting courses than I have now. McK, you seem like a smart guy and whether you go law school, career civil service, or open that porn site, you are probably smart enough to succeed. But you need to realize that all that education and intelligence give you are opportunities, many which others don't ever get, not guarantees.
I think I have more to say, but even with my freedom, I usually call the limit at 4am. So I'll leave the rest of your questions for later on or for fourthguy, OLG, AnnaD, and others to address. But mostly I think you just need a reality check and start looking at the world the way it is, not just the way it may have looked from the perspective you grew up in. And maybe you need to give yourself a break and a little more time to decide what you really want from life, especially if you can't have everything.
_________________________
"Audere est Facere" (To Dare is To Do)
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#91357 - 08/19/10 11:45 AM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: backbencher]
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AnnaD
NTL Addict
Registered: 02/19/08
Posts: 565
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Hear, hear, backbencher - that's exactly right.
Mckinney, if it is your dream to follow a certain career path (law school to prof to judge etc.), then follow that path. If it's your dream to make money, then look for ways to make money. But if you'll only follow a certain path because it will make you money - or, more to the point, you won't follow your self-described dream because it won't make enough money - it seems you're much more concerned with the money than with what you will actually be doing to earn that money. Which is fine, but I would just be honest about what it is you actually want.
I don't think there are any paths to a rewarding and successful career that don't entail some kind of risk - financial risk, a few years of boredom in a cubicle, instability, whatever. And I don't think there ever have been - I don't think you've missed out on some "golden age" of lucrative jobs (unless, I suppose, you were born a Rockefeller or Vanderbilt back in the day).
(Which isn't to say that it's not important to pay attention to the cost of law school and the debt it requires - it's just that there seems to be a big difference between "if I take on too much debt and can't get a job I won't be able to pursue this career" and "going to law school no longer earns the big bucks.")
(And backbencher, if I could have used the JD to enhance my professorial career, I might have! Sadly, not really feasible in my personal situation. That said, I absolutely ADORE the end of the workday on Friday, when I get to leave work at work, which NEVER happened when I was a professor - I enjoy my work, and I enjoy having time away from it.)
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#91385 - 08/20/10 02:59 PM
Re: Important Legal Career Decision!!!!!!
[Re: AnnaD]
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iceborer
Senior Contributor
Registered: 04/25/08
Posts: 207
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Haven't posted for a while, but still lurk from time-to-time.
Do what you love.
If what you love is comfort (i.e. money), which is 100% fine, I think you should skip more education for now and work in your cube for a few years while you investigate opportunities to improve your financial situation, or it does so naturally with progression in your field. To the extent that your current position doesn't provide you with the tools you think you need, seek to attain them on your own. An intelligent, driven person can obtain most things he needs through self-education (perhaps even doing some unpaid side-work along the way). Education isn't a guarantee of income. If, after a few years, you see that the absence of a particular degree is holding you back, then go get it and check the box-- with the understanding that "box-checking" is why you're there.
If what you love is to "be something" (a lawyer, a prof, etc.) or work in a particular field or toward a particular end (stopping the death penalty, say), then figure out what that is and head on to school to learn more. Part of this process, though, is abandoning the notion that you'll make much money at it. Sometimes you get lucky and you get to work at what you love and make money (or get double Yale as a legacy :), but don't bother to take on the debt unless you're headed toward something you really believe that you want.
Just as a note. You can do all the things you're supposed to, talk to all the right folks, go and see them at work, learn about the mundane and spectacular aspects of the field, and then head off to school only to find that it wasn't what you wanted or that what you wanted had changed without you knowing it. If that happens, don't look at it as failure, but an even more valuable education.
_________________________
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.
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