Lawstudents.ca

Hey all
So, I have had this question on my mind for some time. I guess it has more to do with career than admissions, but I will aks anyway.
I have been admitted to l.s., I'm taking a year off, gonna 'find myself' so to speak, and try to mentally prepare for the road ahead (blah blah blah)

My concern: how many lawyers, or ppl. in the law profession, seem to complain about it. I mean, maybe I'm listening to the wrong people, but how many of us have heard from others things like "be prepared to work long hours, geez if I could do it all over again, don't get into for the money, etc, etc

My question: if being a lawyer was so bad, and ppl. complained so much, then why do so many of us want to/do it? I mean, sure, maybe some ppl. are just complainers, or are upset they go into something they couldn't foresee, but I feel like this is a great profession to gain reputation, respect, and provide substantially for a family

Am I missing something?

There are some serious misconceptions by people who haven't worked in the industry about what being a lawyer actually means. There's a great thread about this in the UT forum going on right now... I resisted commenting... I think a lot of people go into it expecting something that is not a reflection of reality and end up being disappointed.

1. The money. Some lawyers make very good money. Most do not. The median salary for lawyers in Ontario is $60k, regardless of their year of call to the bar. Those that make really good money work very, very hard for it or they do not survive in those areas of practice. The money on Bay Street is good, but if you figure out the hourly rate, you might be surprised.

2. The work. Legal problems can be really interesting and challenging. Some lawyers go to work everyday and love it. But some areas of practice are extremely routine and can get boring after many years. Compounding this problem is that it is not common for a lawyer working in one area of practice for many years to be able to move to another area.

3. Reputation. Outside the profession, it's really surprising how many people react to lawyers. It's usually something like "a lawyer, eh? He must have a lot of money and be a real asshole" That's not universal of course, but it is surprisingly common.

Well I can't speak for anyone else, but I can offer you this advice:

- focus on what you want to do NOW. If you want to study law, do it. Find out about the profession from others, but don't let it scare you or cloud your judgement.

- people in every profession complain. You just happen to notice the lawyers complaining because you're paying more attention to them.

There are a lot of career paths that can provide reputation, stability, income and prestige. don't go into law if those are your only objectives - or any profession, really. Give yourself some time to figure it out and just do what interests you and excites you at any given time. I bet a lot of the people who complain about the job do so because they went into it for the wrong reasons and now they don't know how to change things.

Those are my 2 cents, anyways.

This is an interesting topic, I just had a similar conversation with one of my UG law profs.

The problem is, a lot of people go into law because they think that it is very lucrative and pretigious. Thre reality is being a lawyer is NOT a licsence to print money. It is very hard work and often pays less on a per hour basis than many many other jobs.

If you get into law because of the money or respect or any other superficial factor it is likely your in for a rude awakening in the future.

Those lawyers who love their jobs most often went into law because they are passionate about it and find it interesting, and not because they thought it was an easy way to get rich.

Just my 2 cents.

Agreed. If I just wanted to make a lot of money, I wouldn't have gone through 4 years of what many argue to be a "useless" undergrad degree (B.A.H.) and then signed up for 3-4 years of law school in order to slave away at job with ridiculous hours... There are jobs that make more money with less school (hello i-banking). I know a legal career is not going to be a cakewalk, but my interest in the law and need for intellectual stimulation is what's getting me through the prospect of 4 years of living the poor student life, working my ass off and getting little to no sleep.

I can tell you from growing up in a "legal" family that for the life of me I've never heard any lawyer say they love what they do. I've never heard any lawyer say they love their career or enjoy going to work everyday. Every single one I have talked to have tried to talk me out of going to LS. Why do they do it? It's a combination of things -the "prestige" the prospect of pay are both seen as significant factors of attraction but I think they are minor. In a surprising number of cases it seems to boil down to lack of options - the law is basically the only profession catering to B.A./philosophy type students. And I really believe that is the reason so many turn to it.

That's interesting. Anecdotally, I've talked to a few lawyers who do love what they're doing and stressed the fact that law school was the best time of their lives. I guess it does depend on who you talk to.

is median in ontario actually $60K????

just wondering cause i got this source that says it is $120K

http://www1.on.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/ojf/ojf. ... e&noc=4112

One possibility is that the "average" used on the website is a mean, not a median. I imagine that law would have a big gap between median and mean. The mean being twice the median is still surprising, though.

The median is a pretty bad statistic to look at, in my opinion. After all, Ontario isn't Toronto or Ottawa, for example, and most firms outside of Toronto and Ottawa, in smaller cities/towns will not be paying "biglaw"-esque salaries to their lawyers. Plus, not everyone works at big firms or does high-paying work... The median really doesn't say too much about the actual salary distribution. So take that stat with a grain of salt...

I didn't click the link, so I didn't realize that there were other stats other than the median. My bad!

Sure, but if the stat's right, it means that half of us will end up earning <60K. Which is much more important, to me, than what the mean income is.

Another interesting stat in that 46% of lawyers are self-employed, which I take to mean that they started a practice of their own, and took cases from people walking off the street and such. From what I've heard, you're not too successful that way.

Yes, the stat I gave was a median. The average is higher. But for people entering law, the median is a much more relavent number. The "average" is a salary that no one actually makes and it is very skewed by a few very large salaries. The median, on the other hand, basically means that, all other things being equal, there is a 50-50 chance of making above-below 60k, meaning if you pick an area of practice based on non-income factors, you can't count on making more than 60k. It puts the law=money myth to rest (hopefully). Also, a median actually does say something about distribution - it says that half is above and half is below. An average contains absolutely no information about distribution whatsoever.

All this is not to say that if you want a big salary then you can't get it. Making more money in law just means choosing the city, firm and practice area accordingly. It's just that most people either can't or don't.

Does it really? $60k/annum is higher than the average FAMILY income in Canada.

I don't see how when half of the members of a profession make more, as individuals, than most Canadian families (and it's doubtful that many lawyers are many significantly less than $60k, so a good portion of those below the lawyer median are probably still above the Canadian family median) that is a strike against 'law=money'.

I'm not sure I agree with Maybe07, but just to play devil's advocate, high school teachers in Ontario can make $80,000 within 9 years (depending on the board). But I'm not sure if that would qualify teaching as a high paying profession.

hey, 60k is good for me. I wasn't meaning to imply that it was peanuts or that it makes lawyers worse off than the average, just that I think it is less than most people assume. But comparing it to the average canadian family is maybe not too useful. Comparing it to professions with somewhat similar educational requirements (medicine, teaching, etc.) and considering the costs involved with getting a law degree...

Very few lawyers (self-employed or otherwise) take files from walk-ins. Most self-employed lawyers work by reference from previous clients, opposing clients, and other lawyers - though it can take many years to build a self-sustaining practice of this kind and many are not able to do it. Sole practitioners tend to make less than those in larger firms. However, there are some sole-practitioners that have gained a reputation for being experts in a given area and do very well.

one mistake is that people think law is like any other profession.

I was on my way to joining the actuarial profession and I have some authority on this topic.

There are some professions which are quite distinct from the rest. Law is a profession. Yes. But I doubt you can apply the common patterns found in medicine, pharmacy, engineering, dentistry, accounting, actuarial, etc.

Law is a business. Many go in with the hopes that they will cut it and make it big on bay st. but many don't cut it. Just like IBanking. Most MBA grads don't get IBanking jobs or even internships... but many still go.

I would say that law is a brutal profession because on the one hand, almost anyone can become a lawyer, but on the other hand its hard to become an established lawyer with a staple of clients willing to pay $800/hour.

Compare this with actuaries. Less than 50% of students pass the certifying exams, but almost all actuaries have employment. But at the same time, you are going to get paid based on # of exams passed + experience...

I bet that law has the greatest variance when it comes to compensation stats. Therefore, I think the idea of "lawyer" is mistaken.. you have to qualify it... its like saying businessman, well what kind of business man? cause my friend's dad runs a convenient store and pulls in less than 80K/year but would be considered a businessman.

When I told people I was going to law school the majority of my friends were quite disappointed. Like I as going over to the dark side or something. My dad was happy, until I told him I was going to do social justice 'stuff' (whatever that will end up meaning for me). The general perception of lawyers is pretty cra--y. Were any of you aware of this. Some everyday examples -- I sometimes give presentations at police parades, and when the officers find out I am going to law school there's a loud 'NOOOOOOO... don't do it' from the room. I am leaving my job at the end of this week... and I swear every person who signed the 'see u later' card wrote something about how law and lawyers are 'cold' and money-hungry. It's making me wonder if they all know something I don't! I'd like to do work that people respect, admire. Anyway.. that's my two canadian cents...

In every sarcastic statement there is a little truth, and I would not be surprised at all if you are taking meds or seeing a therapist.

I suggest you seriously consider your problems at heart and seek out your therapist, your obviously very very disturbed and upset and I think you need to resolve those issues.

If you're interested in stats on lawyers, check out this article:

http://www.averyindex.com/happy_healthy_ethical.php

Wow, he makes the profession out to be pretty negative...........he mentions the surplus value of labour that partners extract from associates as about 1/3 (1/3 is assoc. salary, 1/3 operational costs), which for a first-year assoc. billing 2000 hours @ $100/hour comes about to be a salary of $70,000 for the assoc. This is obviously a reality of capitalism, but consider the surplus value extracted from other types of workers, (construction, retail, sales, blah, blah, blah), and i would venture to guess that 1/3 (and thats just year one, with the ratio rising), is pretty damn competitive on the worker-exploitation scale................... I guess I am optimistic that if I truly hate what I am doing once I get there, that I will find other work to do with my law degree, I think there is a lot of options for persons with law degrees aside from practicing, and I know for sure that I would like to avoid the perils outlined in that article, but then again, we assume that the problems assoc. with the law profession are somehow isolated, I'm sure every professional position/career has its challenges, I guess it depends on the person facing them.

I think it's pretty clear from the stats he quotes that lawyers are much more miserable than people in other professions. But certainly not all firms (or law jobs) are alike.

Here's another link, to a calculator that lets you figure out how many hours you have to work each day to reach a certain billable hours target - it's quite enlightening!

http://www.envoyglobal.net/jdbliss/test/calculator2.htm

Yale's Career Development Office also has a number of good links, including this one, entitled, "The truth about the billable hour":

http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/C ... e_hour.pdf

Being a lawer IS INDEED A BAD THING... If you are the lawyer who t-boned my car last week, and now completely refuses to accept the blame. The moral of this sad little tale is as follows: if you are ever hit by a lawyer who is pulling into on-coming traffic... (looking right while steering to the left) make sure you get lots of witnesses... because the lawyer may look nice, honest, and clean in his suit and tie...he may even say'sorry for smashing into your lovely and well-loved car', but underneath it all is a swamp of evil...

All lawyers are evil.

oh, except me.

and,

hopefully...
all of you.


sorry for the personal digression. felt the need to vent.

In the piece, the author compares happiness and other factors (e.g. suicide rates, alcoholism, divorce) from lawyers to "comparable demographics." Usually the implies income, race/ethnicity, gender, location...

I wonder if that means lawyers are just less happy and more alcoholic/suicidal/divorced than other white men earning over $200K a year living in urban centres New York or Los Angeles. Seriously...I mean is it possible they are more happy than the people earning the American average of like $30K a year? I am just curious...money doesn't always bring happiness, but in some ways, it can reduce stress (e.g. not stressing as much about mortgages or if you can afford college for your kids, marriages not falling apart over money fights, etc).

I wonder if a lot of the angst that middle aged, well salaried lawyers feel comes from that exact expectation, pencil-skirt.

I think a lot of the unhappiness in the legal profession comes from the realization that the money is not worth the hours of personal time lost, but yet by the time this realization hits, you and your family are accustomed to a certain lifestyle that seems impossible to give up.

60K does sound a little low to me. Not that I'm in it for the money, but lets be honest here -- a job is a job. If you are going to work for a living you may as well make a lot of money - call it efficiency.

I recently found a stat that had law coming out on top of medicine and teaching (on average - in Alberta). Plus you have to realize that people who practice education and medicine are both employed by the government. I would hate the idea of working for the government only to realize that you can only make x amount and get to x position. Law, like a previous poster said, is a business. The sky's the limit. You get out of it what you put into it.

thanks for posting those links anascott... they were really enlightening...
I can honestly say they made me rethink my view of a lawyer's life. I'm applying to school right now, so I suppress all these negative aspects to being a laywer... but I really need to address them now, before I've worked my butt off for a life that's really not that great.
I'm just curious.. what is everyone's top 3 reasons to want to pursue law.

In a lawyer career:

1. To have a job that challenges me daily.. that is constantly changing and asking me to apply knowledge and creativity
2. I like the prestige of being able to do something that not everyone can, it's like being an "expert" on something. In society we are the expert of making the rules and making sure everyone plays by them. I like to be able to help someone with something they can't do own their own.
3. I won't lie, I like the financial compensation.

I am one of those future lawyers who aims to spend next to no time inside a law firm.

Ultimately, I would like to combine my JD and Bachelor of Science and go in-house for a science corporation or a research lab, work my way up to CLO and then CEO.

However, we all know that dreams change, so my my top three picks as to why I want to pursue law are:

1. In-house legal advice and then a CEO for a technology corporation.

2. Money for my brothers and mine pet project - our own start-up corporation. He is earning an MBA right now from a highly regarded university and I am going to get a JD. Then our skills + work experience + money and several years down the road we are going to make a start-up company. We already have several ideas (hopefully they wont become outdated )

3. Financial world, working for a bank or something. I heard they like JD types over there.

4. Working as legal professional for a military mercenary company, specializing in international warcrime law.

I realize thats four picks by the way

That last one #4 made me laugh. Mercenaries operate essentially outside the law, so they probably won't have much of a need for lawyers. Still, I can see how business accumen could translate into committing warcrimes.

Maclean's just came out today with their August issue. They have an article on an interview with an author of a very interesting book.

Details here: http://lawiscool.com/2007/07/26/absolut ... osolutely/

It amazes me that the "top 3 reasons for wanting to become a lawyer" that people have listed so far have failed, in every case, to mention wanting to help OTHERS.

I must admit that this profession sickens me to my core - even from the outside looking in. Every lawyer I have ever met has been an integral scumbag willing to use his skills to help whomever will pay him most. And worst of all, these lawyers use every opportunity to adorn themselves in the garbs of saintliness whenever their clients just happen to be in the right...

The fact is, the practise of Law has degenerated into a trade. The painter and the carpenter are no different from the lawyer, except that the latter will use his wits and not his hands to create monstrocities. I feel nothing but sympathy for the truly upright practitioner of law who is caught in the maelstrom of this field's endless greed, corruption and ignorance.

I must admit that *ONLY* reason I am even willing to THINK about going through with Law School for the sake of the billions of people that are suffering miserably right now...but I wonder whether anyone even stopped to realize that such suffering is rooted in our incessant selfishness...

Ugh! And to think that I was rejected last year because my LSAT was under par. To hell with the LSAT! It tests nothing but wits, and wits without a heart will be the death of every man!

Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton and Dante...here I come. Only the truly great souls are the defenders of the Law.