The LSAT thread got me thinking that we have a whole lot of lawyers and law students here. If there's interest, we should run a threat to help each other out. (I admit that one of my motivators here is that one of my good friends from high school is a practicing Intellectual Property attorney and is looking for a new job, preferably in the Houston area. If someone can help out, let me know). Question to the lawyers here: what's your job satisfaction? I'd have to say that most of my law school friends are down on their jobs. Most of them work at big firms and love the money but the work is too much and not interesting. I made the move in-house about a year ago and think it's the best thing on earth.
I did my own thing. Was fortunate enough to partner up with guys who are quaility people. Friends who I trust and good lawyers. Both of my partners worked at big firms. Neither would go back and do it again. I knew guys who left school as gung-ho lawyers. Went to work for relatively big firms; and in less than a year were looking for new CAREERS! Not jobs..but careers. The system is my biggest frustration. Judges who won't enforce the rules. Judges that don't seem to have any respect for the rules...or even care for them. Taking clients through trial only to hear jurors later say, "yeah, we really got tired..we didn't wanna look through all those documents, so we just found for the other guy." That kind of stuff. That stuff will drive you crazy. I practice with people I like. I work in civil litigation. I've served as mediator in mediations before, and would love for my practice to head more and more in that direction. My office is about 2-3 minutes from my home. I don't have to impress anyone but my clients.
just like the nfl, there should be laws inacted to make the law more fun. A shot clock. high def tv, lawyer-cam, witness waiver wires, maybe even lawyer draft coverage. Whatever happened to the virtual courtroom thing? The law is just entertainment, and we all need to keep that perspective.
pretty much. or defend them from being sued by other companies. much more likely to be on the defense. i make the world just a little bit worse every day. (i stole that line from the Friends spin-off, Joey -- the girl who lives next door to him said that, and I've taken it as mine! )
i am also frustrated with judges, mostly the state court variety. they won't rule on anything important. g-d forbid someone actually dispose of a bs case on summary judgment. i've not tried many cases, but am frustrated with the jury system b/c the risk of trial rarely deals with the merits. it's just the risk that jurors have made up their minds after opening. i also thought about heading down the mediation route, but wound up in house, managing litigation for a company. the hours are great and the work remains interesting.
amen!! preach on! summary judgments are a joke. in theory, they're great! and they serve great purposes in fleshing out a case. learning more about the evidence involved. but courts are so ridiculously reluctant to grant them because they're too worried about being overturned. jury trials are a coin flip. when people tell me that another attorney told them their case is a slam dunk, i laugh. no such thing. nothing is a given. in-house is a great route to go! congratulations!
I've had a pretty varied career since law school (MadMax & I went to law school together). Started my own company and mainly focused on the transactional side at first. Didn't start "practicing" until about a year & a half after, when I went over to a plaintiffs firm... I've been in-house for the last three years... In-house is definitely the most structured & easiest as far as stress and living a normal life. Plaintiff's side work was cool, but scary as well, b/c of the "eat what you kill" mentality and the lack of a secure client funnel. The first gig was the most "fun," but paid the least. My dilemma now is that I'm moving out-of-state, prolly to NY or MA, and can't waive in for another year + 3 mo's... No, I do not want to sit for another Bar when I can waive in 6 months or so after I would get the results anyway... I think I'm going to go the non-legal route for a while. Funny thing about going the small firm-independent route first is that I have more litigation/litigation management/electronic discovery management experience than most attorneys who went big firm right off the bat... Yet, I often have a difficult time selling out-of-staters on that experience because they assume that since I wasn't law review/big firm that I have no idea what I'm doing. I should have been a fisherman.
Talking about IP/patent lawyers, are they in high demand? Do they typically practice law exclusively in one field only? For example, may an IP/patent lawyer in pharmaceutical industry also work for IT industry? Is one required to have in-depth/broad knowledge in that particular field? How about corporate lawyer? Do law schools accept part-time students? Finally, What do you mean by "in-house move"? Sorry about the bombardment of questions.
As a general rule, IP lawyers are in the highest demand, or nearly highest. IP lawyers are attractive b/c of their geeky science knowledge, which means that they are specialized in Chem E, Mech E, BioChem, etc. But you start out doing all kinds of IP work. Prosecute patents of all types of technology. Participate in litigation relating to all types of patents and technology. Eventually, the idea is that your unique technical background will combine with your growing understanding of the patent process and litigation process, to make you a really good lawyer. But its not expected right off the bat. corporate lawyer is a broad term. there are a lots of types of "non-litigators". real estate; mergers and acquisitions; corporate compliance; tax . . All of these can fall under the term "corporate lawyer" Most people get into one of these sub areas because it's hard to know what you're doing in all of them. As you get more experienced, what happens is that you know a little about a lot of these areas, but most of your practice revolves around 1 or 2 of these areas b/c you spent more time in them. some law schools take part time students. UH is particularly good about that, which is nice for people that want to work and do school. other schools may do part time, I just don't know of any others. going in house refers to working for a corporation, rather than a law firm. I used to work for a law firm that had corporations as clients - the corporations hired us to handle litigation. Now I work for the corporation, and as an "in house" lawyer, I hire law firms to handle litigation for the company and I supervise them. although not always the case, the quality of life is generally better "in house." for 7 years, I worked my butt off at 2 big firms. big money, lots of work. it's tough but I learned a log. now, i have very regular hours, good (but a little less) pay, excellent benefits, no worries about getting cases/clients, guaranteed vacation, and i get every other friday off with this company. the best thing is that i get great complex litigation and get to work with some of the top lawyers in the country from the top law firms.
Wow Rileydog, thanks for the detailed reply! OK, another question. Truth or myth, in general, are litigating lawyers better paid and held in higher regard than the non-litigating ones?
like many generalities, false. successful litigators that represent plaintiffs the most moolah, that is true. but setting that aside, and all things generally equal, which they rarely are, I'd say this about lawyer pay. Big firm lawyers - most get paid the same, regardless of practice area. at least as associates (years 1-7 or so). As partners, if you have big clients, you get paid big money. prosecuters make government pay - which is on the low side. IP lawyers are generally very wellpaid, perhaps more than most other types of lawyers, b/c most lawyers don't know much about science. it's all supply and demand. insurance defense lawyers make relatively less. insurance companies are cheap and don't pay their lawyers much. successful litigation boutiques generally do defense and plaintiffs work and pay their lawyers well. finally, as to who is held in higher regard . . . trial lawyers get more press and fame b/c there's publicity with big trials. Within the lawyer community, I think litigators know famous litigators, transactional/non litigation lawyers know the famous lawyers of their type . . . especially the dealmakers. Dealmaking lawyers in NY that help broker the mega transactions on the front page of the Wall Street Journal . . . they're equally famous. I'd be willing to be that the nonlawyer public might actually think less of litigators b/c the perception is that we do nothign but siphon money from the economy.
My deal coming out of law school a couple of years ago was that I wanted to get in front of a jury and try cases. A bunch of them. Important ones. I wanted an opportunity to know my facts, apply the law to them, then make an argument to twelve (hopefully well-reasoned, level-headed) folks. So I went to work for the D.A.'s office. A bunch of my buddies really don't like the courtroom for reasons I totally understand. They absolutely LOVE transactional law. Trial work just isn't for everybody. I spend so much time prepping for trials at my office or at my house into the wee hours it's not even funny. And it's totally one-sided discovery. I give them everything I have, then they show up for trial and can throw any number of alternate theories up on the wall and hope the jury bites on just one. Or, better yet, muddy up the water so much that one or two of the jurors buy into 'reasonable doubt', and, like in baseball, the tie goes to the runner. So I'm looking at either a hung jury or, even worse, an outright acquittal. And it's none of this full discovery with depositions where there aren't many suprises at trial or this 10-2 verdict stuff by a 'preponderance of the evidence' like in civil cases. We're talking it has to be freaking unanimous. And it should be. But the moral of my little story is I absolutely love the courtroom and trial aspect of my job. It gives you an opportunity to be clever and creative in how you turn a phrase, or make an analogy, or every once in a while when a defendant actually decides to take the stand you can try for one of those 'Perry Mason' moments. Well, okay, those are damn rare, but you get the idea. The downsides are: Money, stress, money, quality of life, and, umm, money. My long-range plan when I turned down some civil firms to go into prosecution was to move back into the civil side of things and do commercial litigation somewhere down the road. I'll probably still do that since that's where my experience was while clerking in law school for a civil district judge and civil defense firm. Or, I may just decide to partner up with someone one of these days and face the big, bad, legal world without a safety net.
Max, I don't think my old e-mail addy that's listed here works anymore. Try george@mercmedia.com Sorry about that!
Funny, when i entered law school , I knew litigation wasn't my thing and I had no interest in pursuing it (tried it, hated it). Naturally, law school is very litigation focused so I didn't have a fun first year. The past three summers I've done general corporate work, and recently have gone into financing and secured transactions. Personally, for me, its a lot more fun because I feel like a businessman and not a lawyer. I'm in my second year now and am lucky to have more experience than most of my classmates, and more importantly to have a good idea of what I like. I think the problem with law school and general social perception of lawyers is that it seems overwhelmingly to be litigation and going to trials and all that stuff. Not surprisingly, easily 90% of my classmates wanted to be litigators, mostly because they didn't know what else was out there (some wanted to do international law, and sadly, the perception of international law and the practice are two very different things). Talk to a law student about REIT's and ERISA, or Structured Finance, and many will scratch their heads. I wish the school gave us an idea of what is really out there. To sum up, the advice I give to all incoming law students is to go into law school and think of it as starting a career, and to not think of it as "becoming a lawyer" especially the ones on tv or the ones who "argue a lot". Trying to be that perception can really screw you up and will ultimately be a disappointment (many litigators I know have never gone to court). Try and learn about as many areas of practice as possible and find out what interests you.
My job satisfaction is at an alltime high, it feels as if I haven't had to work a day in 4 months. Of course that's because I quit and have been on vacation since.
