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Originally Posted by blankall
Another lawyer here. I graduated about 8 years ago.
IMO the biggest issue with the current practice of law is that the firm model is broken. Law firms simply cannot afford to function and pay their lawyers a fair wage. They've also increased the workload substantially as customers have become much tighter on what a billable hour looks like. So you've got a situation where young lawyers are doing more but less interesting work for far less pay. It also doesn't help that many of the "perks" like cocktail lunches have been stripped from the job.
I found at all the law firms I worked at, other lawyers looked at you as a competitor or cheap labour...or possibly someone they wanted to harass if you were a good looking young female. Lawyers, particularly those at larger firms, were not a good group of people to be around.
I also found many senior lawyers at bigger firms to be just straight out incompetent and offer little in the way of mentorship. They'd gotten to the position they were in by screwing other lawyers over or having family connections. In order to stay on long term at the large firms, you need to be a "rainmaker". The issue is how are you going to do that if your locked in your office 12 hours a day with little interaction with clients.
A few months ago I moved to a small firm, where I will be working on 100% commission. It's a big risk, but I'm also being given the opportunity to build my own practice. I get to chose which clients I take. I've taken a big pay cut this year, but if does work out, I'll be potentially making much more in the future.
It might be an option to look into before you consider abandoning law altogether.
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I would love to know how this turned out for you. I’m in the same boat. I’ve been practicing for about 7 years. Moved from a big firm to an in-house role and then back to a boutique. None of those jobs I overly liked. The in-house job was so bad I had to leave within six months and basically jumped at the first firm that would take me... which obviously wasn’t going to work.
I’ve been looking at getting out of law but it’s not elastic easy as they tell you in law school - especially in this economy.
I’m now considering heading back to private practice in a full commission role as well and am excited at the control. I’ve considered opening up my own shop too.
I’m done doing big law. There is no reasonable amount of money that would make me put up with that bull#### again. My GF is an insurance lawyer at a big firm and there is no way I could take what she does with just walking out the door