Lawyer Unemployment

[donheff]

k.

I chose not to practice law and work as an engineer instead.

Combining the two interests can be very lucrative. DW stumbled into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) out of law school. Not a top paying job and a pretty obscure mission. Turned out she liked the mechanisms of the gas industry. After a couple of years at FERC she was able to switch to the private sector and get a big law salary in a boutique specialty. A fair number of her peers are engineers who worked in the gas industry and then picked up a law degree when they saw where the money was.

A lot of those public defenders, prosecutors, and other gov agency lawyers do the same thing. Learn a specialty in the gov and then cash in on the other side of the fence. Like any job, however, finding a specialty you will really like is not easy.

 

[windsurf]

I did 25 years as a defense litigator. I did some product liability defense for the auto industry, defended railroads for crossing accidents and then for the last twelve years did primarily medical defense. I bailed at the time of my peak earning. Many years, I managed only one week off, worked lots of weekends, had trouble sleeping because I was worried that some mistake I might make could cost my client millions, and during trials, was engaged 24/7 (you dream about the case). Many of the individuals that I encountered may have been decent folk after hours but were agressive and predatory in the practice. My nature is more congenial which, I think, helped me before juries. I was very good at it (won over 90% of the cases that I took to trial). When I realized that reasonable saving could supply me with a nest egg sufficient to shift gears, I made the decision to get out. Like many jobs, a person who has not done it has no clue as to the demands. Same difference for my wife who taught first grade. The specialites within the practice and the tiers of complexity and financial exposure in the litigation realm mean that the profession is actually many distinct professions that defy generalization. As I may have posted here before, I am now happily earing 8k a year as a grad teaching assistant in an MFA in Creative Writing program.

 

[LEX]

Windsurf:
Great trade off. I left the pressure after I made my coin as a mining lawyer/excutive. I now enjoy writing off my trips to attend board meetings at mining plays I own a % in in eastern Europe, Africa and South America. Its great, I go to cities I once visited when I 'worked' and had no time to kick back and relax, such as Cape Town and Novisibirsk, and now I go to spend a day or so checking on progress and then spend three weeks doing the tourist stuff. The cost of work is as much the lost oppurtunity to waunder and discover when one has so many third party commitments. Personal time is the only real wealth one has (along with health!). 8)