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Career counselor?

mrsconn23mrsconn23 member
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in Wedding Woes

Dear Prudence,

I have a wonderful family life, and I have a brilliant and loving fiancé who I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with. My problem is work related: I went to law school, passed the bar, and I’ve been a lawyer for two years. Prudie, I hate being a lawyer. I tried Big Law, a job at a corporation, and nonprofit work, each one with the idea “maybe I’m just in the wrong type of law/environment.” I’m done experimenting with law. I want out. It’s making me miserable, and it’s making everyone around me miserable (via me being a weeping sad sack). It gives me terrible anxiety, and I feel like I can’t do the work. I have people telling me that I can do it, but I just need someone to accept that I can’t, without a pep talk about how I just need to do x, y, and z and I’ll be able to do it just fine. I liked law school, but I just don’t like the practical application of law, I guess.

I have looked at all those “escape the law” websites, but they all advise going into fields that I have no experience with. One just said “be a CEO” as if that was simply achievable. If it were feasible, I would just get a job like I used to have (I was a waitress, although I’m not sure if I actually miss being a waitress or if I just miss being 22), but I have student loans that would make this impractical and would put a lot of financial responsibility for the household on my fiancé. It doesn’t seem fair to expect him to support me when I could, feasibly, suck it up and keep doing this job (albeit poorly and miserably).

I talk about this with my therapist, which helps. She tells me that if I’m that miserable in my job, I need to find something else that I can tolerate. But I’m so afraid that no matter what I do, I’ll have the same experience. I’ll hate it. I’ll dread waking up in the morning. I’m at a loss. Do you have any advice on how to figure out how to move forward?

— Beat Down in Buffalo

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Re: Career counselor?

  • mrsconn23mrsconn23 member
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    Posting Prudie's response because apparently this was their life before. 

    Dear Beat Down,

    I chose this question because I’ve had the exact same experience as a lawyer—right down to dreaming of going back to my high school and college waitress and hostess jobs. I really get it, and I love to talk about it. So brace yourself, this will be long!

    When I was at a firm (I lasted a little under four years) I remember thinking “maybe I just want to work somewhere with a mission I care about,” and then I realized that, like you, I seriously just did not enjoy the practical application of law and would not find it rewarding in any context. I wouldn’t enjoy looking up and analyzing case law for an amazing nonprofit any more than I would enjoy doing it for the trash company (seriously) that was my biggest client. That’s an important revelation to have, so congrats.

    The rest of my advice is premised on the fact that you said you could “feasibly suck it up” and keep working (for a time!) if you had to—I’ll take you at your word, but please take your levels of depression/anxiety and “misery” around this seriously. If you (or your therapist) feel that you’re at a real breaking point, your mental health comes first; it is ok to quit now if that’s what’s necessary.

    But assuming you can handle lawyering a bit longer, my first tip is the one that’s going to make the next steps possible: Save money! Lots of money! All the money you can! You should not be living like the people at your firm who plan to make partner. You should be living like your friends who are two years into teaching or nonprofit work. Have a roommate. Skip the stupid expensive suits and bags that won’t make you happy (because nothing can make you happy right now). You aren’t used to this income yet, so don’t get used to it. And I really think you should press pause on getting married until you know that your fiancé supports you in doing something that doesn’t make you miserable and may bring in significantly less money than you’re making now. It’s only fair to both of you to agree on what you can expect from each other before your affairs and accounts are officially tied up together.

    My hope is that knowing that you’re putting money away to support yourself during a transition will make the next year or two (yes, that’s how long I think you should hang in there to save a good amount of money) much, much easier. I know that once I mentally had a foot out the door, I was far less stressed and miserable, because my sense of self-worth was no longer tied to my billable hours and assignments and reviews. I still tried to do my best work, but it didn’t feel so all-consuming, and I had some perspective. I believe that if you promise yourself you’ll be gone in the foreseeable future, the anxiety won’t consume you the way it is now. You might even find that the work is easier when you’re not in a panic about it.

    Finally, you have to start thinking not just about what you can do or who will hire you, but what you want to do. Focusing only on the practical side of having a career, rather than how you would actually feel every day sitting down at your desk, is what got you into this situation. Don’t do that again! Without giving a lot of consideration to your resume, really do some reflection on what activities are enjoyable to you, what talents you have, and what brings you joy. I definitely didn’t know that I’d end up being an advice columnist, but I knew that I would be happy if I could wake up every day and work with words in some way. Alternatively, you could look for a job that you feel “meh” about, but that involves the kind of work-life balance that lets you leave at 5:00 p.m. every day and enjoy other things. Figuring all this out could involve conversations with your therapist, or a career coach, or your friends and family. Maye you need to do informational interviews with people in different jobs that seem appealing to you, so you can get a better idea of what they look like day-to-day. But you need to plan a transition to something rather than away from something—after all, the last thing you want is to be stuck in a second career that feels just as meaningless and tedious and demanding to you but pays a lot less.

    I’m not saying you can show up at the hospital and get a job as a surgeon, but there really are a lot of fields in which your experience with law will attract interest. Even if your resume doesn’t directly line up with the requirements listed for a particular position, hiring managers will be interested in the kind of analytical skills that people associate with lawyers. Lean into that.
    Still, accept that you will likely have to start at the bottom. Maybe that means volunteer work while you’re still at the firm, or maybe it means taking a very junior role. That’s fine. This is when you supplement your salary with some of the money you’ve saved. And there’s always room for advancement for people who take their jobs seriously and do them with enthusiasm. I predict you’ll find that the work ethic you’ve had to develop to survive at the firm will make you an asset wherever you end up and help you get promoted quickly. The great news is that once you find a job that means something to you, even though you’ll of course have bad and stressful days and awful bosses along the way, you’ll never lose the sense of gratitude that comes with knowing how much worse it could be. I know I haven’t.

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  • banana468banana468 member
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    I agree that LW may need to find a career counselor and will likely need to start over.  

    Think of taking an assessment like Myers Briggs (Which still has poor reliability but it's still popular) and see if there are strong points coming off it.  
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  • charlotte989875charlotte989875 member
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    There are SO MANY things you can do. Find a career counselor, talk to your schools career services, find people who have done this and ask about their experience. 

    I talk all the time with people looking to leave academia and how I did it. There are tons of folks out there who are open to sharing their experience. 
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  • short+sassyshort+sassy member
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    I'm not a lawyer and don't even play one on tv.  But I feel like the skills one would acquire being an attorney would massively translate to many other jobs/fields, that have nothing to do with the law.

    Other jobs probably wouldn't start out at attorney-level salaries, but would probably still pay pretty well and could be a good stepping stone to advancing in another field.

    I don't know if this is true in other places but, here in NOLA, lawyers can make easy p/t cash fixing traffic tickets.  Though the person does need to be available on weekdays for an hour or two, to bring their clients' tickets to a judge.
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  • short+sassyshort+sassy member
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    VarunaTT said:
    Prudie's advice is probably the best bet.  I know I've made similar decisions here recently to do very much the same thing to get me out of where I am.

    On a segue:

    As you all know, I work in the legal field.  I'm so sick of this conversation.  The legal field is rife with it.  If I could change the world, I wouldn't let people apply for law school until they were in their 30s and had some real world experience in their belt and understood that life isn't television dramas.  The legal field is work, and a lot of it is paperwork and quite frankly, boring paperwork full stop, just like any other damn field.

    Suck it the eff up.  So many people work at jobs that aren't personally satisfying, b/c they're good at it and it pays the bills.  Unless you're one of the damn lucky ones (and that's like maybe 15%), you spent a lot of money on a legal education and you have to pay it back now.  Most of the time, the only thing that's going to pay you the salary you need (maybe b/c the median salary for an attorney in MO is $60K, which isn't that much more than I make) to pay it all back, is an attorney.

    ETA:  I don't actually agree that there are a lot of transferrable skills from being an attorney.  The skills that usually transfer is the law knowledge and unless you specialized in that area, you're less marketable than someone with a degree in that area. Law school doesn't teach actual application of law.  Studying for the bar and then your first few years of practice do.  I call them baby attorneys for a reason and a lot of it is because they don't even know how to do a certificate of service when they're fresh.
    I have to admit, that's something I don't really understand.  If someone has put in all the the time, money, and energy into becoming a lawyer, then why wouldn't they want to suck it up and make the big bucks.  If they plan carefully and invest, they can retire fairly young and then do something else.  Or just retire.

    My job is pretty boring also and not very fulfilling, but it's fine.  Though it's also not stressful and I don't work long hours, which probably isn't true for most attorney jobs.  But I've also never worked in the legal field, so maybe it is that terrible.

    My next-door tenant is an attorney and he hates it.  He went into it solely for the money, which I'm not knocking.  He's also mentioned a lot of attorneys want to leave the field.  He owns his own one-man firm and I think his job sounds pretty sweet.  He primarily handles car accident cases, but is also a public defender for his home parish (county).  For the car accidents, I think he works on contingency.  He has said he makes ridiculous money to send a letter or two and make a few phone calls, per case.  But that it's really boring.  For his criminal cases, I assume he doesn't like the work leading up to the trial.  But he LOVES being in court.  He's very theatrical (I mean that in a good way).

    But he's taken a major step down from law and is currently getting a PhD in Urban Planning.  He already has a masters in it.  He's a real estate investor also and one of his dreams is to use government programs to build housing that caters to people with felony records.  I joked with him, that he could take a page from Tia Torres and have a reality show called "Penthouses and Parolees". 

    He is a whiz at finding and stacking special government programs, like "historic tax credits" and "opportunity zones", to help him buy properties.  That's an example of someone's legal background at work parlayed into a totally different industry.  
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  • STARMOON44STARMOON44 member
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    short+sassy said:
    VarunaTT said:
    Prudie's advice is probably the best bet.  I know I've made similar decisions here recently to do very much the same thing to get me out of where I am.

    On a segue:

    As you all know, I work in the legal field.  I'm so sick of this conversation.  The legal field is rife with it.  If I could change the world, I wouldn't let people apply for law school until they were in their 30s and had some real world experience in their belt and understood that life isn't television dramas.  The legal field is work, and a lot of it is paperwork and quite frankly, boring paperwork full stop, just like any other damn field.

    Suck it the eff up.  So many people work at jobs that aren't personally satisfying, b/c they're good at it and it pays the bills.  Unless you're one of the damn lucky ones (and that's like maybe 15%), you spent a lot of money on a legal education and you have to pay it back now.  Most of the time, the only thing that's going to pay you the salary you need (maybe b/c the median salary for an attorney in MO is $60K, which isn't that much more than I make) to pay it all back, is an attorney.

    ETA:  I don't actually agree that there are a lot of transferrable skills from being an attorney.  The skills that usually transfer is the law knowledge and unless you specialized in that area, you're less marketable than someone with a degree in that area. Law school doesn't teach actual application of law.  Studying for the bar and then your first few years of practice do.  I call them baby attorneys for a reason and a lot of it is because they don't even know how to do a certificate of service when they're fresh.
    I have to admit, that's something I don't really understand.  If someone has put in all the the time, money, and energy into becoming a lawyer, then why wouldn't they want to suck it up and make the big bucks.  If they plan carefully and invest, they can retire fairly young and then do something else.  Or just retire.

    My job is pretty boring also and not very fulfilling, but it's fine.  Though it's also not stressful and I don't work long hours, which probably isn't true for most attorney jobs.  But I've also never worked in the legal field, so maybe it is that terrible.

    My next-door tenant is an attorney and he hates it.  He went into it solely for the money, which I'm not knocking.  He's also mentioned a lot of attorneys want to leave the field.  He owns his own one-man firm and I think his job sounds pretty sweet.  He primarily handles car accident cases, but is also a public defender for his home parish (county).  For the car accidents, I think he works on contingency.  He has said he makes ridiculous money to send a letter or two and make a few phone calls, per case.  But that it's really boring.  For his criminal cases, I assume he doesn't like the work leading up to the trial.  But he LOVES being in court.  He's very theatrical (I mean that in a good way).

    But he's taken a major step down from law and is currently getting a PhD in Urban Planning.  He already has a masters in it.  He's a real estate investor also and one of his dreams is to use government programs to build housing that caters to people with felony records.  I joked with him, that he could take a page from Tia Torres and have a reality show called "Penthouses and Parolees". 

    He is a whiz at finding and stacking special government programs, like "historic tax credits" and "opportunity zones", to help him buy properties.  That's an example of someone's legal background at work parlayed into a totally different industry.  
    My job isn’t terrible but yes. Some jobs really are that bad or really are that bad of a fit. And the highest paying ones require you to be fully devoted to the job. Nights. Weekends. Vacations. The big money buys all of your time. 
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  • MyNameIsNotMyNameIsNot member
    First Comment First Anniversary First Answer 5 Love Its
    Oh LW, you're telling my story. When I was in law school, I remember a one-off where I had a couple of drinks with a lawyer I'd worked with for a while, and some honesty came out. He was completely miserable, but 10 years in with kids and SAHM, he felt like a career change and pay cut would just hurt his family. I remember thinking that I would never be like that. Fast forward 8 years, and I wasn't very happy.

    I kind of got forced into action when I got laid off. It was a rough time, but I wound up figuring out my next steps and took an entry level job, that turned into a next job and a next one. Some of my skills were transferrable and helped me to move up much faster than I probably would have if I'd started in the same role right out of undergrad. 

    I agree with Prudie, though. If you don't know what you want to do, hang tight and save aggressively for a year. You can make a change, but there's no point in jumping into a lower paying entry level role if it's not part of a plan to get to where you want to be. Figure out where you want to be. Get a career coach, but also network, volunteer, go to lunch & learns or professional organization events.  
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  • mrsconn23mrsconn23 member
    First Anniversary First Answer 5 Love Its First Comment
    edited January 2022
    I think Prudie gave great advice and insight.  I think saving and networking would be LW's best bet to try and change career course.  I think it's pretty good advice for most people in the position of wanting to change careers and not sure about transferable skills.   

    There's a chick on my mom board who is a lawyer.  She was miserable doing it, so she built up a couple side businesses and then found a part time lawyer job and I think she also provides some freelance services.  But mostly, she's a SAHM that does beachbody coaching and Disney vacation planning.  Now I believe her H is a lawyer too or in some other high paying job and we live here, so it's much easier to have a one income household if the one income is over 6 figures. 
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