Ed. note: This is another installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, Casey Berman, founder of Leave Law Behind, a blog and community that focuses on helping unhappy attorneys leave the law, discusses the truth behind the phrase “you can do anything with a law degree” and lists nine real-life, non-legal jobs that are in fairly good alignment with an attorney’s skill set and can realistically be a stepping stone for a lawyer to leave the law behind.
Many of us unhappy attorneys are tired, exhausted, and frustrated with the practice of law. We are confused as to how, after all of the work we did in law school, all of the loans we took out, all of the hard work we did as an associate attorney, we now sit three, five, eight, 12 or more years in and wonder, “I’m not happy. How did this happen?”
So, we decide, yes, we want to leave the law behind and do something else. We want to find another job that pays well, that provides us with meaning and self-worth. And we are encouraged by that oft repeated advice, “You can do anything with a law degree.”
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And so we begin to think of other things to do, anything. But soon, this optimistic phrase that is supposed to encourage us can actually begin to stress us out.