It's a truism that one of the wisest things you can do with a degree in English is go to law school. English majors who want their degrees to pay off--or at least to open doors to an eventual payoff--often choose law school over publishing, grad school, teaching, and, it must be acknowledged, working in a coffee bar (that so many humanities majors do wind up behind the counter at Starbucks or similar should tell us something about how humanities departments, in their highminded commitment to Liberal Arts [mustn't teach marketable skills, mustn't do any practical training, mustn't even ensure that majors can actually write competently], participate in a truly insidious form of economic degradation. But that's fodder for another post, another time).

Law school is held up in the humanities as the great rationalizer--that which will offer the artsy kid who majors in English because he likes to read passage into a lucrative, steady, mobile, potentially socially responsible career. At Penn, at least, a large number of English majors go on to law school, which their parents respect, and which as such justifies majoring in English (which many parents, thinking about how much tuition they pay, and how little earning power Jane will have with her B. A. in women's writing, do not respect). On the surface of it, this works out for everyone: English majors do have good luck getting into law school, and all that practice close reading novels and poems serves them well when it comes time to studying the textual and logical intricacies of the law.

The attraction of the law school route is only intensified when one considers how unlikely the other obvious professional route--graduate school--is to lead to actual, secure, paying work. For many, and again I am speaking from the limited experience of working at Penn, the choice often comes down to this: law school or grad school? Law school usually wins (there are local theories about this, having to do with the Wharton School emanating a vague penumbra of practicality and professionalism that seeps into even the most non-Whartonesque places on campus, but they are theories only).

Having noticed that even on Critical Mass there exists a sort of unexamined romanticization of law school as a much more rational alternative to grad school, a reader who was once a humanities undergrad and who is now a working lawyer writes in with a cautionary tale:

As a young lawyer in Canada, I am really disturbed at how casually some in the "academic blog community" advise arts graduates to go to law school rather than grad school. (I only use scare quotes because I can't think of a better term) "If you are smart, go to law school," the refrain goes. I unfortunately took that advice and I can't tell you how much I regret it. "The grass is always greener."

First of all, the exploitation of labour. Here is how the racket goes. You get out of law school. If you're lucky, you'll end up at a big firm where you'll make decent money right off the bat. But even if you're quite smart, most of you won't. Fortunately, almost all of you find a job. But it'll pay only about $20,000.00 US. You'll make this for about 5 years, all the while working at least 60 70 hours a week. And here's the kicker, only about 50% of you will survive. You put in 5 years of slave labour and at the end about half of you are too tired/exhausted/burnt-out/bored/sick unproductive to go on. The profession counts on about 50% of you to do grunt work and then move on. Sound familiar.

Sometimes, it's your choice to leave, sometimes you get fired, even if you do reasonably good work. One of my best friends, incredibly bright, almost on the dean's list at law school (a very big deal), got canned at his big city very pretigious downtown firm after one year, moved to a small town firm and, after a year there, just recently got canned again. Even after being a consistent moneymaker for both places, he is being let go.

The work itself is absolutely brutal. You need a thick, thick skin. Even if lawyers are sometimes unfairly maligned, by the very nature of the work you often find yourself in what is just about the moral sewer of the universe. A law office is a perpetual crisis, and there is always someone on the other end trying to prove you are wrong. And yet, while in these and many other ways, the work is incredibly difficult, and while it certainly requires what I call cunning, there is rarely much to directly challenge the intellect. You find yourself, incredibly, both absolutely bored and absolutely terrified.

I find that the people who survive in the profession either just plain love money (and status) to the exclusion of just about all else, or have some sort of cause to advance, like libertarians who become criminal defense lawyers, or law-and-order types who want to put away the bad guy and make good prosecutors.

So where does your interest in the arts or humanities fit in. Like to do any serious reading, well forget about it. In Search of Lost Time is just not compatible with 60-70 hour weeks. Survive those first five years, and maybe you'll only be working 50 hours a week. But perhaps, just perhaps your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend will want to spend some actual time with you after barely seeing you for the last half decade. Not to mention children. No my friend your life of the intellect is OVER. This profession is one where you succeed only if you eliminate every other real interest from your life. You are a priest of the law; you must commit yourself absolutely to her. She is very jealous and admits of no rivals.

But if you're lucky you'll be one of the 50% that survives and makes the big bucks.

So, after committing 3, 4, 5 years to the profession, what does the arts grad who wants to leave have to show for it. Not much. You probably haven't saved any money or made much of a dent in your student loans. You may not have your health. You've probably picked up a drinking problem (a very common malady in the profession; next time you visit your lawyer take a good look at how red his nose is). Your job prospects probably aren't that stellar: being a lawyer does not teach you how to do much of anything except be a lawyer. Things are different if your first degree was in business or nursing or whatever, but then again, if thats your degree, your prospects always were better. So hopefully by now you have married someone with a heart of gold and a decent paycheck to help refinance your education, because otherwise you are FUCKED.

So beware, beware, beware you sweet, gentle babe, you innocent, newborn honours BA, freshly unwrapping yourself from an arts education. This profession eats smart people for lunch, and success here has much less to do with intelligence than personality type. Sure maybe you'll be one of that 50% that survives and makes the big bucks. But then again maybe you'll be one of the lucky 40% that lands on the tenure track.

One thing is for sure, a legal career is not for someone who has any serious interest in the arts or humanities. At best you'll be able to cuddle up to your money at night after your long day of mindnumbing, soulless work, and at worst you'll end up as tired, and as broke, as ever a jobless humanities PhD. And to my mind, if you're going to suffer, better to suffer for something you really believe in, like John Milton or Emily Dickinson, rather than suffer for the statutory code of Nevada or your boss's bank account.

To be fair I should mention the two ways in which the legal profession is a bit more fair than academia. First, however low paying, a law graduate from a decent school will be able to find a job. You may hate every minute of it, but, if you can stand the work, you WILL be gainfully employed. Second, success in law, unlike landing that elusive tenure track position, is a bit more open and transparent. For all the real unfairnesses of the market, there is a kind of purity to money. Your success is measured, at least outside the big downtown firms, not by how you meet some esoteric standard of excellence nor by how you conform to some byzantine social code, but in cold hard cash. If you bring in the billing, you'll make yourself a killing.

Lastly, of course none of my complaints about the
legal profesion means that you should go to grad
school. Just be aware that if you are interested in
the arts, you may not be much better off in law
school, or for all I know, in Business or Med school.

The poster's estimates are wildly exaggerated but he or she makes a good point. No second-best job choice will satisfy a worker's every preference. All jobs involve trade-offs between the quality of the work, time demands, job security, income levels, working conditions, and many other factors.

Anyone who becomes a lawyer thinking that it will be a high-paying way to read poetry is naturally going to be disappointed. That said, there are legal jobs (and ways to use a law degree in other settings) that leave one more time and energy for other interests, government employment being just the most obvious example. Of course those alternatives require compromises such as lower income and often less prestige, but there's no Constitutional right to interesting work, modest time demands, and high pay.

I picked law school over graduate school. JD over Ph.D. I do not regret it. I practice complex commercial ligitation in NYC. I think your young Canadian friend overstates the problems in the field, but it's hard to say since she doesn't say what area she practices in. Litgation? Corporate? Tax? What?

First, there are plenty of opportunities which exist between mega-firm and sole practioner. Mid-size and small firms pay well and make up the majority of private sector legal jobs. Work at that level can be much more flexible. Also, as the previous poster noted, government jobs exist as an alternative.

She's bored? That I find hard to believe. I have to learn something new every day in my job. I do research and writing every day. I take on a new client and I have to immerse myself in his business. In many ways, you become the ultimate dilletante and I love that part of it.

The work is brutal, sometimes. Thick skin? Well, it's true that there is almost always a clear winner and if it ain't you, you better have a reason why. Perhaps she spent too much time with professors unwilling to offend her such that the real world was too much of a shock. Beats me. It can be tough to learn how not to invest your ego in your work product, though.

Also, there are soooo many areas of the law you can practice in that you almost have to be able to find something that interests you. Certainly, there are too many to list here.

Finally, I disagree that the work only requires "cunning". We regularly find ourselves, in my office, locked in cutting edge, theoretical discussions about the applications of legal doctrines. Cunning is silly and plays no part of what we do.

There may be things about the practice I don't like, but they aren't the things she points out.

Let's talk about the law for a moment.

First off, in my experience English majors are not necessarily the best law students or the best lawyers. My experience has been that math majors, philosophy majors, history majors tend to do much better both in law school and in the great beyond that follows. What's needed in law is not a sensitivity to the written word, but pure analytical power -- the conceptual ability to rip something apart into its constituent parts and put it back together again. "Cunning" is a very good word for at least one of the primary qualities required by an attorney. Others that I can think of are "adaptability", "persistence", and "confidence."

But I didn't open up this comments window to talk about English majors so much as to illuminate the decision to become a lawyer.

Being a lawyer is a lot like being a teacher. You can be a professor at an Ivy, or you can teach New Math in a ghetto school in Detroit -- there are different *types* of jobs, and different strata of jobs within those types.

It's true that the powers that be sell the Big Firm as the holy grail of law: who wouldn't want to make $125,000 straight out of school?

But like everything in life, there's a cost associated with this sort of financial success. I work brutal hours -- but I make more than a full professor at most Universities. My fiancee makes HALF of what I make - she's a prosecutor - but she takes 90 minute lunches and is out of the office by 4pm. It's a trade off.

But here's a big secret: It's not really about the job -- but about YOU.

You see, also like everything else in life, being a lawyer will be rewarding in a fashion commensurate to the effort and sincerity with which you pursue it. There's nothing magical about the occupation: it won't make a happy person out of a cretin, and it won't destroy someone with clarity of purpose.

If you go to law school by default, or because your parents want you to, you are going to be miserable. But you'd be miserable no matter what you did, because you don't really have any idea what it is you want.

The reason the law chews up people and spits them out is the same reason grad schools chew up people and spit them out: there are a LOT of people there who don't really want to be there -- they just didn't know what else to do.

So for the wayward English Major who thinks law school is a ticket out of uncertainty, I can only say one thing: the only ticket out of uncertainty is certainty.

-Michael E. Lopez, Esq.

As an undergrad, a long time ago, I was thinking of going to law school and my advisor suggested history or english as a major. I asked what happens to history or english majors who don't go on to law school. My advisor answered "they teach history or english". I ended up in the business department in order to have something I could fall back on should I, as it actually turned out, not go on to law school.

Looking back at it now, it's not surprising that my advisor didn't say that english and history majors go on to have outstanding careers in the private sector. Even back then he must have been known that majoring in one of those two subjects was not something that opened doors in the corporate world. I owe that advisor, whoever he is and wherever he ended up, many thanks.

This is a HUGE can of worms. There is alot more that plays into this then simply what type of law you want to practice. For example, class rank. Your class rank at the end of first year in law school is pretty much going to determine your future. Top 10%? Then you have access to clincs, interships, clerkships, law review/journal etc. which allows you to actually follow your interests by providing you with opportunities other law students cannot match. These folks can get the intellectually stimulating, well paying jobs on the cutting edge.
Bottom 50%? Forget high-end jobs, clerkships and such for the most part, your opportunity window is smaller. Most people from that group are doing low end, brain numbing grunt work. Like working for Pre-Paid Legal. Like reviewing low-end contracts for Sprint. I made $27K my first year out of law school. I had to take a second job to make rent and student loan payments. So, I was working the 70+ hours a week of my higher paid fellow grads making 50% of what they did. I have since moved on to a better paying, more interesting state job.
I think the poster is right on target, as it mirrors to some extent my experience. But, if you talked to my friend who graduated Order of the Coif (upper 10%) and was on law review, he would say the post is not reality. *Shrug* I think most people find law school and the practice of law is not what they thought it to be. If you are going to law school, you need to realize these types of "bad" experiences exist. And be willing to accept them.

My experience has differed dramatically from the young Canadian lawyer. Everyone’s journey is different.

I loved law school and I love being a lawyer. Why? I don’t know exactly but I think a good portion of my satisfaction derives from the fact that the law is a second career for me. After undergraduate school in the U.K. (B.A. Politics & History) I returned to the U.S. and spent twelve years in the international transportation industry. Returning to school (NYU) was something of a shock but I adjusted relatively quickly. I remember my chagrin when my younger student colleagues, those who never took any time off after undergraduate school, complained about the extraordinary pressures of law school. This while sitting in leather chairs in a mahogany paneled library doing what? Reading. Pressure? For me this wasn’t pressure, it was pleasure. Wait till you get out in the real world and a client tells you to stick a broom up your butt and sweep the office with it! Wait until 5,000 metric tons of frozen chicken is found sitting rotting on a dock in Nigeria because the Customs inspectors there were on strike seeking a higher bribe per clearance (a true story by the way). Or wait until you are sitting in a dirty hotel room in St. Petersburg shrinking in fear because you are worried that the deal that just went belly up will result in your untimely demise at the hands of people with easy access to Uzis. That’s pressure.

The gap between undergraduate and law school made my transition to life as a lawyer easier. First, I was a real, honest to goodness grown up (depending on who you speak to) with life experience and I simply was not willing to concede my entire life to a job. Hence, nothing kept me from family functions or being a full time father to my child despite the fact that I worked for a major downtown law firm in New York. (I now work in a large D.C. firm). Second, my non-academic work experience provided me with any number of benefits. I had already learned how to deal with people in an office. One of the great failings of many young lawyers is their treatment of secretaries and staff. They do not know how to be a boss. They do not know that they have much to learn from a secretary who has been doing his/her jobs for years. They do not know how to praise people publicly but critique them privately. Some never learn to say please and thank you. Courtesy and kindness is a career builder – not a weakness and too many lawyers are led to believe the opposite. Third, I knew what type of law (international trade and transportation) I wanted to practice and I had sufficient commercial (and academic) experience to get what I wanted.

Is my life of the mind over now that I am a lawyer? Of course not. I think my intellectual horizons have broadened since I transitioned to the law. As with Random Pensuer my work has caused me to expand my intellectual horizons in ways I never could have imagined, particularly in areas I always avoided as a liberal arts major. It isn’t English lit – but it is learning something new on a daily basis. Do I work long hours? Yes, about 1900-2000 a year. Do I enjoy it? Yes. Do I make a lot of money? Yes. Do I have a life? I think so. My office is next to the Shakespeare Theater and I am a long-term season subscriber. I go biking, work out daily, and cook a mean shrimp curry. I also direct a Children of Chernobyl program that brings 70 children from Belarus to the U.S. each summer for a 6 week respite vacation. Do I still read? Absolutely. No editing of briefs on the subway for me. I read. I turn off the TV and read some more. Sitting on the couch with my daughter in the evening reading and doing homework is a favorite pastime. I remember sitting down and going back to Hobbes & Rousseau while she was doing a book report on “The Lord of the Flies” so we could discuss and she could incorporate their relative theories of man in a state of nature into her book report. I think that qualifies as having both a family (a child albeit not a spouse) and a life.

If I have any advice to impart to undergraduates pondering any graduate school decision it would be to take a few years off and do something, anything other than school. I cannot recommend a 12 year absence as I think I stretched the envelope with that gap – but take some time to get out of academia and grow up for a while (and I do not mean that in a dismissive, condescending or pejorative way) and then make your decision. Some of the points the original poster made are well taken, particularly the issue of being churned in the system and then spat out. I cannot dispute that there are many lawyers who are just not happy with what they do. That does happen. I also do not doubt for a second that the poster’s observations are real and heartfelt and well within the realm of many people's experiences as lawyers. However, it is less likely to happen to ‘you’ if you have developed a fuller sense of who you are and what you want to be before you commit to any life decision, including law school.

Erin, I apologize if this post sounds a bit too self-congratulatory. I also apologize for the length. I usually do try to avoid any sort of shameless self promotion on this blog. The original post, however, was so unrelentingly gloomy that I thought I would set out another prism through which your undergraduate readers can view their career choices.

The secret to living well lies in doing something you truly believe in, as Erin is doing. That is, go to law school if and only if there is something you really desire to accomplish as a lawyer, something you will be able to look back on with satisfaction and gratitude at the end of your career. My own route out of academia (my area is molecular genetics) took me to forensic science. I take enormous satisfaction in going to work every day and knowing I'm doing something that really helps real, identifiable people. I also found myself a job in a very small lab where I have a very high degree of autonomy, and where I get paid as much as I would would be were I now a tenured associate professor at the prominent liberal arts college where I once taught, while having more time and energy left over for life outside work; it takes both luck and persistence to find the right job. But you never find the right job by settling for the first thing that comes along that promises to pay the bills.

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." -Horace Mann

Drat it. I was going to write this post, or one very like it.

The issue here that's larger than law school is the "just" in statements like "I'll just be a lawyer," or "I'll just go teach high school."

Er, *just*?

That immediately paints all careers that aren't academia as consolation prizes. Second best. The fruits of failure. Hardly the best mindset for building a second career, or even a first one.

It also, of course, devalues the very real skills and education necessary to make those supposedly "second-best" careers happen.

A poster over at Household Opera pulled the "just" thing in comments. I wanted to slap her, really I did. Maybe it's because one of her "just"s was "I'll just work in a library." When our own oxen get gored...

OK, I wasn't English major, and in fact never even thought about it, but probably would have been if my Hisory/International Relations hadn't been so obvious. But I knew quite a few in law school, and know some now as an attorney. I don't know if there's any one proper thing that best prepares you for either law school or the law. Having SOME knowledge of the world outside your own particular narrow academic field can definitely help, too: I remember being asked by a classmate (an English major, I'm afraid) in Corporations, "what's a bond?"

I never considered the conventional wisdom of working for a big firm after law school, and don't regret that for a second: the past two and a half years that I've spent working for a state legislature has been incredibly interesting, educational, and important work, and while it hasn't been quite as financially rewarding as a big firm woudl be, I've loved every minute of it. If I'm ever out in the private sector, I think I'd prefer to be the CLIENT of one of those big firms, thank you very much.

Maybe if I'd been an English major, that last comment wouldn't contain so many typos. ;-)

Along the lines of what stolypin said, I also took 10 years off between undergraduate and Ph.D. and I don't regret it one bit. I have a number of students now who are taking the LSAT and applying to law school because that is why one goes to college. I advise them all to take a couple of years in between; get a job, revel in a life without homework for a while and then start thinking about law school or graduate school.

A cousin just dropped out of law school stating that he was tired of being cranky and in a bad mood all the time, and he's been out of college for about 5 years now; law school was not something he originally thought of after college. I think the fact that the bad moods were what woke him up to the reality of the situation is telling. I'm guessing he would have been miserable had he gone on to practice.

I do think a lot of general career unhappiness stems from the fact that people believe that they have to have everything figured out by the time they get the BA. Law school or graduate school, in my view, should not be undertaken immdiately after finishing an undergraduate degree (for traditional students at least). Take some time off and figure out what exactly you like to do!

Figure out what you'd do for free and find a way to make a (legal) living at it. Life's too short to stay with a career you despise.

I wasn't an English major, but with my multiple foreign language major (German, Spanish and French), I may as well have been. I attended three years of grad school, comps and all, before ditching everything for law. Why? Because somewhere along the line, I figured out that to me, the law was every bit as interesting as, and infinitely more lucrative than, the field I was studying (linguistics). If I thought law were fundamentally dry, and did it ONLy for the money, I'm not sure I would have made it.

As to what pay to expect, a lot depends on what school you attend. If you can get into a top tier school, you will make a lot more than $20,000 a year, even if your class ranking is less than stellar. I went to Boalt, with crummy first year grades, and graduated in the top third, maybe. That got me a six figure job at a mid-sized firm right out of law school, and that was the consolation prize; most of my friends got jobs that paid better than that.

Also, a law degree allows you to do a lot of things besides practice law. That's why I generally advise anyone who can't decide between law school and grad school in the humanities to pick law school. If you know you want to go into academe, the Ph.D. is where it's at. If you don't know what you want to do, a Ph.D. in the humanities may be useless, while a J.D. has the potential to open doors you didn't even know were there.

Of course there's the issue of legal academia, which pays a lot better and actually -is- somewhat predictable in terms of who can get a job where. A social-science PhD is in fact a big help for that.

I have only one thought to add to the discussion:

U.S. lawyers are the best-paid professional writers in the world.

I'm sure glad I didn't go to law school with my English degree. But, then, the problem was me, as it is with our disgruntled lawyer.

I left grad school in disgust. The problem was still me.

God forbid that I had become a lawyer. I would have become one of those godawful cause lawyers that plague our lives. They only get worse with age.

I have been around lawyers all my life since I work in the legal publishing business. I've met some very happy lawyers. They love the work of being a lawyer, and go not regard doing client's bidding as degrading. I know a few litigators who whistle on the way to work as they anticipate the combat they love so much.

Work is supposed to humble us. Earning the right to be happy and stimulated at work is one of the major struggles of life. Who said this is supposed to be resolved at the age of 22?

There is a horrible spoiled brat mentality at work here, and excuse me please for saying so. The satisfactions and happiness that the writer seems to think should just drop from the sky, are won by a lifetime of struggling and developing one's self.

Princess, it's tough leaving the comforts of puerile self-pity. But, I just know that one day you will. In the meantime, I will send you a quarter so you can call all the people who give a damn.

Be an English major and earn major bucks while influencing culture! Where do you think TV writers come from? And, I actually think that writing The Simpsons is a better moral chice than being a lawyer. The lousiest job in entertainment pays better than most mid-level jobs in other fields. Mos lawyers I know are souless; the only exception I can recal is a Federal prosecutor who was a college radical and a red-diaper baby.

As a what is day-by-day looking more like a former lawyer, I think you writer had it pretty much pegged. The big bucks staring salaries you hear about go to the top of the food chain only - much like actors. The annual salaries are not as impressive on an hourly basis (figure 80 hours a week 50 to 52 week a year) and whether you can do anything else with the degree when you turn out to be one of the losers in the pyramid scheme business structure entirely depends on what your non-law background and experience is. In twenty years of lawyering (with those kinds of hours), I only made more than my elementary school teacher wife 2 or 3 years (and teachers always complain that they are poorly paid - even with all the time off).

Further, anyone who is acclimated to the PC world of academia had better be ready to leave that behind in the legal profession. It is a free fire zone.

BTW, for anyone who is thinking of going to law school, I'd advise reading Planet Law School (at least the parts at the heart of it that the author suggests in the introduction. You can do that standing in a book store).

I did it and I'm sorry. I am worn out and cynical and wondering what to do with the rest of my life, OTHER THAN PRACTICE LAW.

After being a troublemaker all through high school, my options for college were limited to several Ohio schools. My guidance counselor laughed when I picked a prestigious school out of a catalog, and said that I wuold never get into that school, and that in fact I would not even get into Bowling Gren or OU. I was not a big devoutee of the status quo at that time. I got scuba and lifeguard certified, worked over the summer, looked at commercial diving vocational schools, but ultimately decided to become a Navy Seal as an alternate route to prestige and meaningful work. I joined the Navy and left that fall. After a year of training, I spent 2 years in Italy repairing submarines, and worked hard to get qualified aboard the ship as a warfare specialist. The academic work of this taught me all about the various funtions of the ship, from Navigation, to Supply & Logistics, to Engineering, Radio Communications, and Weapons.
This work was what gave me the academic discipline that I did not achieve in high school.
It also have me self confidence. Gradually, I started reading alot at the base library. I took a job in a supervisory role here as well, and loved every minute.

The lesson I take from being a relatively smart guy who enlisted in the military instead of settling for a mediocre college at the time is that if you think you are better off treating people under you lke garbage, you will suffer. You might not know it, but plenty will be done to undermine you- and God forbid you make a mistake at that point! I've seen workers defend their boss to the end, and I've seen them sell them out in a flash. I've even seen extremes such as coverups and intentional frame-ups of officers. I've seen photos mailed to wives, beatings, hazing, you name it. These lashbacks and coverups take different, milder forms in the real world, but I remembered that kindness and respect for those who support you don't cost anything and can yield rich rewards. Also, I've seen from the deckplates how hard people will work for someone they like and respect, and how they will turn it into an economic self-preservation scenario when they work for a disrespectful and ingracious boss. I agree with the previous poster about the importance of building those below you so that you stand on a firm base should you totter or slip.

Anyway, my application to a special programs went through, I went through some rough training in Coronado, and then embarked on what was the least enriching part of my Navy career. no matter how hard I tried to force myself into the mold of my prestigious new job, I found that I was better off back in Italy doing meaningful work and working normal hours. People who are intent on working for the big firms might want to consider this lesson.

I got out of the Navy and went to community college, majoring in Business until I took an interest in a foreign language. I graduated with honors and transferred to the prestigious university that my high school guidance counselor had laughed at me for wanting to attend! I took my sweet time getting there, but I did it. I studied the language for one year but then switched to a humanities major (pre-law) to develop writing and analytical skills.

The things I studied were law-related philosophy, political science, history, and
Literature and foreign languages in the elective areas.

The thing is, I am now 30, have a BA, and speak three languages- none of them well enough to get a job using it.

The choices I have are to get into real estate or paralegal work now, go teach English overseas, or work for a year and then go back to school. I wouldn't go straight to law school right now even if I wanted to.

It is a hard decision. I am not getting any younger. I have about $10,000 saved still, but I have to start thinking about family and marriage.

One idea I have is to go teach abroad, really nail the language down, go to law school to study shipping maritime or international transactions or something like that, and then market my Navy experience. This would tie everything together in a nice package. I could use all of my past experience practically (or at least on my resume), do some interesting work, and travel.

Of course, I might just find that amid globalization, teaching english will always be a got commodity all over the world, and set up a school of my own abroad.

Thanks to the poster who practices int'l trade/ transpo and also to the rest of you for your useful insights about law school and the profession.

Just wanted agree with all those who said that regardless of profession, you need to know what you're getting into. I have a JD and am now (very happily) in a Ph.D program. The original poster does make a number of exaggerations about the plight of the lawyer's existence, to which I wanted to add a few cents.

The work is not "brutal" at what I assume is a large firm, just incredibly inane. Lawyers get paid far more than many of them are worth and it's for a very good reason: they need to be able to concentrate on minutiae that would drive most anyone else nuts. And let's not kid ourselves -- servicing clients often sucks and for someone who has been on both sell-side and buy-side (I was in mergers and acquisitions at a "Charmed Circle" firm for 2 years then jumped to private equity the first chance I got), the latter is incomparably better. They also need to have a high tolerance for infantilization -- it's demeaning the way certain partners want you to grovel for permission to go on vacation, go to a family funeral, wedding, etc.

For the New York offices of the firms in the AmLaw 100, the going rate is about 125K per year with certain firms giving bigger bonuses. If you went to a top 10 law school, your chances at getting a job at these places is practically a done deal. Of course the compensation is pretty crappy given that you work investment banker hours and make something like 30 bucks/hour after taxes. But unless you're living in a luxury loft and pounding bottles of Dom Perignon on the weekend, you WILL pay off your student loans and then some. I don't know if the original poster deluded him/herself into thinking she/he was an investment banker in the days when Frank Quattrone was a free man, but most everyone I know in the big firms have saved enough to pay off their loans and make a down payment on a house/apartment.

To the poster who read Planet Law School -- by no means is the lawyerly life is innately dreadful. I have friends who love it, but then again they're all in legal academia (a curious field whose journals of record are edited by students, who in turn, spend most of their waking hours conforming manuscripts to an ill-advised and largely useless system of citation...hello, anyone ever hear of MLA? Chicago, even?) or have a "white knight" public interest job. Yet as an above poster pointed out, the availability of options directly depends on 1) where you went to law school and 2) how well you did. There is a steep drop in options from the top 15 on down, and an even steeper drop between the top 3 and everyone else. Same distinction between those who were in the top third of their class and those who weren't. If you're going to pursue a non-clinical job in legal academia, for example, the prerequisites are almost always a spot on law review, a federal clerkship (preferably with a big-name 1st, 2nd or 9th circuit judge followed by a second clerkship on the Supreme Court) and a few published notes. The law is all about hierarchy and I don't even want to talk about some of the grad students I know who've said "if all else fails I'll try law"...many of 'em who did end up in law school ended up in second- or third-tier schools because they bombed the LSAT.

But I am indebted to my law school experience. I went to a law school renowned for intimidating and terrorizing its students and was a member of law review. The intellectual belittlement I encountered during my first year at law school was excellent mental preparation for what I anticipated would be graduate school. Thanks to Dorothea Salo's exemplary site, I was thoroughly disabused of any Pollyanna-ish ideas which I fear many of my classmates are not.

What an interesting thread. I am a lawyer who wishes she had been an English major. I loved law school and have enjoyed practicing law for the past three years (small law school, small firm), but am just now getting restless and re-examining my choices.

I wrote about my thoughts on going to law school on my own blog a while ago; they echo many of the sentiments written by commenters (e.g. don't go to law school right out of college as a default choice). http://civpro.blogs.com/civil_procedure/2004/03/dont_go_to_law_.html