Do you find yourself asking whether you should go to law school?
Here are five reasons not to go:
1. There are WAY too many lawyers out there.
It’s very hard to get business because competition is fierce. Have you even seen all the lawyer billboards and commercials? It’s insane! There’s a billboard on every corner and personal injury lawyer ads play back-to-back all day long.
For many people the pay is not as great as you would think. See above. A few lawyers at the top make most of the money — the trial lawyers. If you’re vicious, relentless and ruthless you might make an excellent trial lawyer.
Many lawyers are in the middle and make “good” money, and the rest struggle to survive.
It’s expensive to hire a lawyer to represent you in court. Court filing fees are prohibitively high for most people who aren’t giant corporations.
And importantly, the field will be revolutionized by AI. I assure you lawyers will dispute that and will kick and scream to prevent that from happening. But just like you couldn’t stop the automobile, lawyers, judges and bar associations are going to have to get with the program and actually care about the client. AI will make legal research, writing and decision making faster and more accurate. This means AI will make representation cheaper. But don’t expect bar associations to not put up a fight.
That means many lawyers will be out of a job soon. For now, I would say that today lawyering might possibly be the hardest way to make money there is, at least in the professions and when the economy is flagging as it is under Biden and the evil democrats.
2. You are immersed in other people’s misery all day, every day.
After dealing with other people’s tragedies day after day, you become emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted from it. The last thing you want to do is be in a toxic environment every day, all day.
People also want you to do free work for them constantly. Nobody wants to pay a lawyer — ever.
3. The bar associations suck – They are woke and all up in your business.
Lawyering is one of those absurd professions where you MUST pay to be a member of your state bar association, even if you don’t want to.
Bar associations are filled with lawyers and people who are not business minded and don’t really understand the marketplace. They tend to make ridiculous rules on advertising and trust accounting that make no sense to other professions.
Bar associations are also exceedingly left wing and promote repugnant DEI policies which are prima facie unconstitutional. I haven’t seen a bar association solve a problem yet. But they love to show glossy pictures of their members at fundraising galas!
4. You deal with the most awful, argumentative and nasty people every day.
Some of my closest and dearest friends are lawyers and they are exceptional people — smart, nice, kind and honest. But I have had interactions with other lawyers who I think are sociopaths. They will stab you in the back and tell you that you did it.
5. You generally are not rewarded for creativity.
If you peruse my videos, you’ll see the first few are of me playing the guitar. I do that because it’s fun and I like being creative. Law does not allow much room for creativity though. You can thank bar associations and stuffy judges.
I think that if you want your life to have meaning, you need to be able to be creative each day. Not punished for it. Do you want to spend all of your spare time arguing and fighting with people? I don’t.
There are some rewarding moments as a lawyer — sometimes you really can help someone get a fair deal and “justice,” as some call it. But it is a very stressful and ultra competitive profession that has many unhappy people trying to escape it.
