Does My Law Degree Suck???

If I heard one thing about my law degree, it was that I could do ANYTHING with it.

So after about 100 drafts and re-drafts of this post, here it is. Finally.

Why did it take so long you might ask?

Well, it certainly wasn't because I didn't know WHAT I wanted to say. 

Spoiler Alert* Gentle reader, you cannot do ANYTHING with a law degree. [More on that in a minute.]

The promise of a Law Degree.

Though neither I nor any one of the law people I've asked can remember exactly where we first heard "You can do anything with a law degree", we do remember believing it implicitly. What we believed was some variation on the following:

1. a law degree can and will open all kinds of professional doors.
   
2. a law degree /legal training will widen career options.
   
3. "thinking like a lawyer" and our many      transferable skills would make us highly prized and desirable super candidates in the career/job sweepstakes.
   
4. a law degree would enable us to move easily around, into and out of law.
   

That was all sweet back-in-the-day Lauryn Hill music to my ears. Because when you're like me....

1. smart but professionally aimless;
   
2. not inclined to spend endless years in med school;
   
3. the child of a (West Indian) immigrant father who crushed his dreams that I would become a doctor [but then basically resuscitated his belief in the rightness of the world and his paternal      pride when I decided to become a lawyer]; and
   
4. without lawyer family or friends to tell you to ABORT THE MISSION.
   

....you hope the lawyer thing works out. But if doesn't, and your thoughts of your massive debt give you insomnia, there is immeasurable comfort in knowing that you have strategically and reasonably hedged your bets by getting this law degree. You've given yourself the tools and skills to make your way anywhere.

Not so much. At all.

Given how important to it was to me to have those career options, do I regret my choice to go to law school? Depends on the day that you ask me. That said, I don't judge my younger self too harshly. I know there are are many Things-That-Shall-Not-Be-Discussed in law and this was, and continues, to be one of them. 

Job hunting outside of the Law 

I want to be clear. This post ISN'T meant to dissuade anyone from going to law school. Instead, for those thinking about law, think of this as a cautionary tale: cavaet emptor if you will. It's about asking better questions before you make the leap. And for those who've had experiences similar to mine: this is about saying - I’ve been there.

Other than being 100% certain that I do not want to do a traditional law practice, do I know EXACTLY what my "anything" is? Nope. Still trying to figure that out.

However, having job hunted successfully for both non-traditional legal jobs and entirely non-legal jobs, here are a few of the things that I now understand about having this law degree.

• a law degree is no guarantee that you can transition from one area of law to another with the profession itself.
  
• if the "anything" you want to do is a unrelated legal kind of law or not law at all (think policy, strategic communication, policy for example), you're going to have to work for it.
  
• the only thing your law degree tells a prospective employer about you is that you are smart. And that you're a lawyer.
  
• a law degree can make you overqualified and under qualified for a job....at the same time.
  
• having a law degree could be career limiting.
  
• depending on where you want to go next, the most important skill (that I had to learn) was how to market your legal skills in a way that is unfamiliar and initially HIGHLY uncomfortable.
  

My conclusions

In the end, your ability to do "anything" is what YOU make it. A law degree might give you credibility of a certain kind, but it will not give you an automatic advantage or a pass. In my opinion, the days of the inherent value of law degree are waning and will continue to do so with the many disruptions in legal service delivery.

And so where does that leave us? I'll tell you where. Embracing discomfort as a new normal and working really freaking hard to define what "anything" is for us. It might mean taking a sideways career step in order to move forward. It might mean retraining. I’ve done non-practicing roles, dabbled in freelancing and am now hanging on doing doc review until I take my next step.
 

Have faith in the process and you’ll get there.

And in the meantime, let’s build a community here so we can help each other. 

Feel free drop me a line/comment. Always happy to hear where you are at. 

Until the next one.