What’s the reality of being a lawyer?
Is being a lawyer worth it?
What’s it like being a lawyer?
How to know if law is right for you?
What are the pros and the cons of being a lawyer?
Or, if you’re in the U.K., what are the advantages and the disadvantages of becoming a solicitor?
There’s no doubt that it’s an enticing career, and for many reasons, as we’ll find out.
However, it’s also a particularly competitive industry.
What’s more, you have to have a natural ambition – a natural determination to succeed – to win.
Many people think that becoming a lawyer would be a very good career move for them.
After all, there’s no argument that it can be very intellectually stimulating. It’s a varied career. And it’s a well-paid career, too.
However, there’s more to it than that.
So, before you dive head first into becoming a lawyer, here are a few factors you should know about.
Advantages of Being a Lawyer
1 Financially lucrative vocation
Most lawyers are employed within private practice law firms. Either that, or they are part of an in-house department.
So, most lawyers have a fixed salary.
In accordance with PayScale.com stats collated from 2014, the average lawyer’s salary in the U.S. back then was $75,800.
Corporate lawyers start out with an annual salary of anywhere between $30,000 and $100,000.
For more experienced patent lawyers, the median salary in the U.S. in 2014 was $129,500.
A first-year criminal lawyer can earn as much as $115,000 in their first year.
In the U.K., in 2017, the average annual salary within the entire job market was £27,000.
For a qualified solicitor, however, in 2017, the average starting salary ranged between £25,000 and £40,000. That’s in a smaller-sized firm.
In a larger-sized city firm, salaries for a new solicitor in 2017 ranged from £58,000 to £80,000 and often even more.
Partners in U.K. city law firms can earn well in excess of £100,000 each year.
2 Rewarding career
Lawyers are, or can be, involved in almost every aspect of life with respect to their work. There’s a whole diversity of work available to you if you’re a lawyer.
Additionally, for many lawyers, there’s no end of possibility of career progression opportunities.
Further, being a lawyer provides for continual intellectual challenge. That certainly cannot be said for most careers.
3 High-profile status
It’s among the most respected of occupations.
It’s not all about a high profile, though.
There’s a whole lot of criticism “thrown” at lawyers. And it’s hardly any surprise, given the extremely high pricing they charge for work that takes but a short amount of time.
And, to that effect…
Q: Why did God invent lawyers?
A: So that real estate agents would have someone to look down on.
4 Transferable job skills
If you do decide that a law career is not right for you after graduating with a law degree or working in the profession for a while, you can use your skills to transfer to an alternative profession.
Just a few of the many possibilities might be: Banking, legal consulting, IT, HR, education, administration, and many more.
Disadvantages of Being a Lawyer
1 Job market is competitive
There are more law and non-law graduates entering into the law profession each year than there are positions available to them.
For many law-related jobs, just to make it to the interview stage means you must have not only an excellent academic record but also some valid hands-on work experience behind you.
It’s the same old story, though: How do you get work experience if you can’t get a job to get work experience?
2 Long working hours
A lawyer’s working hours will vary a lot depending on their area of practice, on their location, and also on the size of their firm.
As an example, a lawyer that specializes in corporate law in a large city firm is going to work considerably longer hours than a lawyer that is employed by a small, local conveyancing firm.
Put it this way, a newly-employed lawyer in a large city firm specializing in corporate law is likely not going to have many weeks where he or she is working less than 60 hours. Oftentimes, that would be more like 80 hours.
3 Stress
For many lawyers, practicing law is a high-stress vocation.
The working hours can be very long and very intense. Time is money. Clients pay big money and expect results!
In fact, the demands of this profession frequently lead to substance abuse and to mental health concerns.
A study was conducted jointly by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.
It was found from the results that from the almost 13,000 lawyers and judges to respond to the study, 20.6 percent reported alcohol-related problems, that 28 percent experienced depression, and 23 percent experienced regular bouts of stress.
4 Law school is very costly
Even for the law schools that have something of a less-polished reputation, it can cost upwards of $40,000 annually to attend that particular school in order to study law.
On the other hand, to attend one of the best law schools in the U.S., then you’re looking at an annual bill of more than $100,000 for doing so.
It’s not uncommon for new attorneys to have to deal with student loans well in excess of $300,000 when they first start out on their law career.
What’s more is that new law graduates are not always able to earn enough to repay such a high level of debt. Thus adding more to the stress and anxiety.
A study in the U.K. and reported in the Independent newspaper found that many students, in general, would still owe more than £60,000 in student debt after 30 years of entering the job market.
Fortunately, non-repayment or low repayments of student loans in no way impacts credit rating – either in the U.S. or in the U.K.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay