Lawyer?

[WarriorOftheLord]

Hey all!
I wanted to be a doctor, but now I'm rethinking it. It's a very, very long time to become a doctor, and while I know it's definitely worth it at the end, the thought of studying medicine and only medicine day in and day out for at least 10 years.....that kind of gets me down. I mean, medicine has always interested me, but....at least not right now....it's not my first love, if you will. Not only that, but that is a career that leaves very little time for anything else in your life. I want to have a family one day and actually be there to take care of my children. So, I was talking to my mom, and she said I should look into being a lawyer. So I was wondering about some things:

1. Is it fairly stable?
2.Would I have to live in a city to practice?
3.Does the military have any use for lawyers?
4.Would I have to defend criminals?
5.Is the lifestyle just as busy as being as being a doctor?

I'm hoping you guys can help me with a few of these questions, and as always I'll be praying to God about what to do!

 

[Sketcher]

1. Umm, sure. However, it seems that there are only top-tier lawyers, and bottom-level lawyers these days in this area because the whole middle sector is being liquidated. The market is being flooded with bottom-level lawyers, which is doing this. This is what a lawyer who goes to my church has been saying, anyway.
2. Living in a city, or close to a city would definitely help. However, it seems that a good number of lawyers in the area live in an entirely different city than the one they practice in, and commute an hour. Criminal defense lawyers don't want to bump into their clients. Other sorts of lawyers, I'm not sure why.
3. The military has its own court system, so I would imagine yes.
4. If you become a defense lawyer, yes. I am not counting the extreme luck necessary for avoiding it. The upside is that you would be helping to keep people who are not guilty of crimes out of prison. The downside is that you would also be doing this for people who did commit crimes. Defense lawyers typically don't want to know if their clients did it or not. You may well find that the people you defend, even if not guilty of the crimes they are being charged with, aren't exactly good people and may be guilty of other things. Prosecutors on the other hand, help put bad people in prison. The catch with them is they have to assume that the people they are prosecuting are guilty, in the worst way.
5. This I am not sure of. I wouldn't expect you to be on call (and there are doctors who aren't necessarily always on call, depending on what they choose to do). However, you would have to read a lot.

Also, you need to consider how your choice would affect the other areas in your life. Personally as a single man, I would much sooner date a doctor than a lawyer. Female lawyers are perceived as a certain type of person, and I would not want to be with that type of person. I'm not saying this is always true, but I am putting this perception out there so that you know about it. Your "man options" are likely to be more limited if you choose to be a lawyer rather than a doctor, for this reason alone. Accurate or not, it simply is what it is.

 

[Jupiter Drops]

Hey all!
I wanted to be a doctor, but now I'm rethinking it. It's a very, very long time to become a doctor, and while I know it's definitely worth it at the end, the thought of studying medicine and only medicine day in and day out for at least 10 years.....that kind of gets me down. I mean, medicine has always interested me, but....at least not right now....it's not my first love, if you will. Not only that, but that is a career that leaves very little time for anything else in your life. I want to have a family one day and actually be there to take care of my children. So, I was talking to my mom, and she said I should look into being a lawyer. So I was wondering about some things:

1. Is it fairly stable?

Becoming a lawyer is very, very competitive, especially since the economy's gone kaput right now. You don't want to get into a Third Tier Law school. You would want to get into one of those T14 schools. Where you got your bachelor's might not matter much -heck, it wouldn't matter if you got a degree in Basket Weaving-, but your GPA, LSAT, connections and experiences do when it comes to getting into your top choices.

Is a career in law stable? Yes and no. It's a tough field, but there are a lot of directions that you can go with law. I've mentioned the economy before. Right now, the stability is in question since there's a surplus of lawyers in the US, and many of them are getting laid off. Some of them are getting paid less for what they do.

2.Would I have to live in a city to practice?

Not necessarily, but that's where the drama happens

3.Does the military have any use for lawyers?

Yes.
In fact, you could probably join the military, make them pay for your education, and work your way up to become a lawyer.
But that's only if you want to go that route.
There's also the CIA, FBI, Immigration, etc.

4.Would I have to defend criminals?

Here's the thing: Everyone's a criminal, but not everyone gets caught.
Anyway, you don't have to work as a defense attorney if you don't want to. There's probably a list of law jobs out there that you could take a look at online.

5.Is the lifestyle just as busy as being as being a doctor?

It's busy, but I would imagine that a doctor's life is busier since they practically live as their jobs.
Lawyers are busy too. There's a LOT of reading involved.

 

[WarriorOftheLord]

Ok, thank you guys very much for your help!!! I think I will be able to handle the competition. Honestly, I don't think I'd be very happy doing something that wasn't... As for the military: I am absolutely looking into that. I really like the idea of going that way. And as for men, I think God'll point the one He wants out for me. <3 I am continuing to pray about this, and having faith that God will pull me down the right paths.

 

[KitKatMatt]

Be ready for certain consequences of being a lawyer too- like the death threats.

The lawyer my sister worked with received constant streams of death threats, and had to call the police several times to his home because people had found out where he lived and decided to show up. If I remember right, he was a defense lawyer and the threats were from clients (or their family/friends) who had been proven guilty.

My sister also started to receive death threats after working with his firm for about a year. It's actually why she quit.

 

[WarriorOftheLord]

I do admit that does make me nervous. Is he still receiving threats? I know that law can be a pretty dangerous profession, but really, no profession is completely death-threat free

 

[KitKatMatt]

I do admit that does make me nervous. Is he still receiving threats? I know that law can be a pretty dangerous profession, but really, no profession is completely death-threat free

I have no idea, she quit after a while because of it. One person found where she lived too (with my grandparents and me) and we had to get the police involved. That was when she finally quit.

 

[WarriorOftheLord]

Yikes. I'll be praying for both of them, and you guys too,...and myself !