Law Schools

Old Lady Lawyer: Making The Choice Again

Perhaps educators need to think about a college course or two that would deter those who really don’t have the heart (and stomach) and yes, brains, for the arduous path that is law school, the bar exam, and the practice itself.

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Another ATL columnist, Casey Berman, has a blog called Leave Law Behind. I think about why I went to law school all those years ago, and whether, after forty years, I’d choose another career route. Nope, I would make the same choice.

This past week, I was on a panel with two women millennial lawyers discussing changes in the profession in the last forty years. The audience was a mix of old lady lawyers (with a few old male lawyers tossed in for good measure), mid-career women lawyers, and young women millennial lawyers. We guided discussions about their perspectives, their experiences about business development, career choices, mentoring, and technology.

Curious, I asked the audience if they had to do it over again would they still choose to be lawyers. Almost as one, they all chorused, “Yes.”

Why? The answers were diverse: the intellectual stimulation and challenge of always having to learn something new, to keep up with new cases and statutes. (One example: a summary of the 2016 Labor and Employment bills signed by Governor Jerry Brown runs five single-spaced pages.)

We have to constantly learn to keep up and to know about areas of law that didn’t even exist much more than a decade ago. Internet law anyone? Data security? Cyber security?

But I also understand why lawyers leave the law, and I think it’s more prevalent among millennial lawyers who have not been able to find a fit in terms of the practice, which is daunting, all-absorbing, and can lead to many sleepless nights, both in terms of workload and stress/anxiety about whether the work has been done correctly.

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Casey Berman’s point about being able to leave perfection behind when you leave the law is spot on. 

When people tell me proudly about their perfectionism, I think “how exhausting.” Granted that there are some situations where perfection is required (or at least as close as we humans can get to it), but I always thought that, depending upon the situation and the client, perfection was overpriced; in other words, you don’t need a Cadillac when a Chevy will do.

Other reasons the audience gave as to why they’d choose law again: the ability to help people and businesses solve problems, to run interference for those who have no voice, to make sure that the accused have fair trials, to be entrepreneurial and independent. That last reason is perhaps why most lawyers in private practice are solos or in small firms. While Biglaw casts a big shadow, the numbers are in favor of the micro-sized, rather than the macro-sized.

Although these numbers are from several years ago, solos and lawyers in firms of no bigger than five lawyers represent two thirds of practitioners. 

Some millennials who went to law school in the last decade did so because they didn’t know what other career choices they had, wanted to put off making decisions, and law school gave them three more years to avoid making choices. The “Great Recession” also played a large part.

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I know kids, children of lawyers, who went to law school, but either didn’t take the bar or took it, didn’t pass it, and never took it again. Yikes, can you imagine spending three plus years of your life in law school, taking the bar, and then not passing that final hurdle? Just shoot me now. Granted, the legal education can’t hurt, but especially for those who have incurred mountains of student debt, there should be a way beforehand to see if being a lawyer is something a person really wants to do.

Unlike pre-med, there’s no “pre-law” course of study in college as it’s usually political science or history that “pre-law” college students major in. It could also be English lit, philosophy, computer science, essentially any major can be tagged today as “pre-law.”

There’s nothing comparable to organic chemistry for aspiring law students to take in college. Organic chemistry has washed out many pre-med students who learned, while still in college, that medicine was not the field for them. They received an early warning, a “just in time” reality check. Perhaps educators need to think about a similar college course or two that would deter those who really don’t have the heart (and stomach) and yes, brains, for the arduous path that is law school, the bar exam, and the practice itself.

Television over the last thirty years or so (LA Law as a prime example, The Good Wife as another) has both glamorized and trivialized the legal profession. How many times have you seen TV lawyers slaving over responses to discovery, figuring out how to craft a verified answer, negotiating discovery continuances, writing confirming emails or nasty demand letters, and all the other mind-numbing tasks that lawyers perform on a daily basis?

What we have seen is lawyers duking it out in the courtroom where trials are a lot more exciting than the reality, snarling at opposing counsel (definitely reality), and dumping on junior lawyers (again, definitely real). The closing arguments are always brief (no relation to reality there). So, for many aspiring law students, what they have seen on TV is what they think the practice would be like. Ha!

I think Casey’s blog is spot on. If you don’t think that, after giving it an honest try practicing law is for you, then don’t do it. The practice of law should not be a default choice.

Do yourself and your clients a favor. I understand student debt, I understand having to explain that this wasn’t the right choice (it’s more than just a little “whoops”), but to spend your life living with the wrong choice is a terrible decision. It extinguishes your passion, fosters resentment and dulls your enthusiasm. Given that hindsight is twenty-twenty, would you make the same choice again?

Jill Switzer is closing in on 40 (not a typo) years as a active member of the State Bar of California. Yes, folks, California, that state west of the Sierra Nevada, which everyone likes to diss. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see old lawyers, young lawyers, and those in-between interact — it’s not always pretty. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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