No, I dropped out shortly before finals because I was having alternating panic attacks and depressive episodes. It didn't help that my therapist quit her job about a month before that. I honestly should have tried finding a new therapist but I felt like I didn't have the time or energy to do that while keeping up with classes. Also probably should have gotten on antidepressants at some point in the semester. Too late now though.
Hey OP, my academic journey in undergrad was similar to yours. My mental health made pursuing an education extremely difficult. I took time off, grounded myself and came back revitalized and graduated with high honors. I say that to say, it’s okay to give yourself time to heal. Your journey isn’t over unless that’s what you truly want! Don’t beat yourself up either, honor yourself for the fact you prioritized yourself. That’s courageous. Best of luck with the next phase! Address your health and just look forward!
It's probably a good thing you did drop out though. If you were having panic attacks and depressive episodes over finals, do you think you're going to experience *less* stress at a firm? Your post history indicates you've had multiple instances of considering 'ending it all' and I honestly think sticking out law school would've been the worst decision you could make
I worked in law and then went to law school. If you can work in law at a firm for a few years, the level of panic is about 100x less for law school in comparison.
Fair point, although there are certainly steps that I could have and should have taken that would've helped deal with that like taking time to find another therapist and trying to get a prescription for antidepressants. I think my point still stands though, I'm not any less depressed now than I was in law school, it's just that now I have nothing to show for it and I have to deal with the additional social shame of being the guy that dropped out of law school.
Try and get a job at costco. It’s super chill. You won’t get rich but your mental health will be better and you will be able to pay bills. If school was that stressful any serious job would probably be really stressful for you too. It’s all good we’re not designed for the grind don’t be too hard on yourself. Enjoy life its too short!!
And had you stuck it out, you would've experienced increased stress and done who knows what. You're obviously not in a good place mentally and that needs to be sorted out first before anything. And stop worrying about what other people think. I did poor in undergrad and failed out of a fellowship, took the time to mature and used those failures as extra motivation to correct my path. You can do the same.
At the end of the day the only person who can root for you is yourself.
Sure, but who knows, I might have pushed through it or gotten hold of the resources I needed to succeed. Maybe I'm just in a bad place right now because I'm in a transition period and I'm behind where most of my friends/classmates are. That's temporary for sure, but so is law school. The only difference is I have fewer opportunities now than I would have had I powered through it. That's all I wanted to do with my post, to encourage people who are thinking of dropping out to keep going and not make the same mistakes I made.
I mean, this person hasn't been to law school yet but it's not unlikely that they've gone through their own mental health affairs.
If you're suicidal, it's probably be a good idea to minimize stressors.
Okay, I'm a lawyer and the 0L is right. Therapy is good. Toxic people describes most law students. Law school is a high pressure environment, and combined with the fact that people are spending a lot of money to maybe not get such a chill or high paying job means that for people like OP described, going to school is not healthy and becoming a lawyer would be bad.
"Just tough it out" is not real advice. That's what the OP said.
I don't think telling a suicidal person to stop engaging with the things that make them suicidal is really a stupid opinion, nor do I think I need to be in law school to know that
Except I highly highly doubt it’s that simple???? Generally, depression isn’t “caused” by something tangible—maybe law school didn’t excite them, but it’s very unlikely you’d become suicidal by simply not liking something. They needed medication and therapy to work through the emotions behind their depression—it’s usually heavily discouraged to advise ppl with depression to disengage. If law school contributed to their emotions, it was likely more so self esteem and anxiety problems that would be present in other ways with or without law school.
OP, I really hope you’re feeling better and, if it’s what you want, you can reenroll! 💕
I've experienced suicidal thoughts due to the destructive impact of a toxic relationship and narcissistic/ emotional abuse. It's a challenging process, but I wanted to share my opinion/ comment to inspire hope. ( I saw a lot of negative feedback in this thread. It made me so upset to see)
I am living proof that it is possible to overcome these struggles.
If someone reading this thinks they can't do it, I want to assure you that you can. I am determined to break the stigma surrounding mental health and the belief that giving up is the only option. If you want something, go after it. Mental health struggles are not always permanent.
The stigma is kinda clear here.
you can do law school. you are not weak and u can overcome it. yeah, never said it was easy.
l hope you can understand and respect my choice to uplift those who need it.
i’ll continue being supportive of those who experience this. The reasons people don’t seek help is bc of exactly these responses.
(viewing them as weak and incapable. I had a daily panic attack one semester. i’m onto my 3L. )
Ummm, I commend you for dropping out if that’s what happened! It sounds like you made the right decision. I think right now your feelings are very raw and you’re dealing with alot of job frustration. Give it time, I think things will turn around. Some things in life are just not meant for us and it’s mature to make the decision to let it go and move on.
I’m gonna provide the flip side of what you said. I wanted to drop out after my first year. I stuck through it thinking it would get better, but after three years I have no desire to work as an attorney. I feel like I wasted the past 3 years as I look for a job. I just thought it was the natural progression for a person with a poli sci degree and while I wouldn’t say I regret those 3 years, I could have made better decisions.
Each persons situation is unique, but you should stick it out if you want to be an attorney. But if you don’t want to be an attorney or you are in it solely for financial reasons, then you might want to reconsider.
I also want to point out that your degree field may not be the biggest issue anymore. So far, the layoffs have heavily impacted tech jobs, and there is an overabundance of people working on computer science degrees/certs. This economy sucks for job searchers.
Perhaps you have already thought of this, but with a political science background there are lots of jobs you could do that would not require practicing law. They may not be as lucrative, but you might find more enjoyment.
>As bad as the job market might be for lawyers right now
This can't be true? I graduated less than 10 years ago and my firm is having to offer more than double my starting salary before anyone will even answer our job posts (Note: my firm is a great place to work; we don't have a bad reputation). I see a lot of job postings from firms to whom I'm frequently adverse and I don't see them hiring much either. I think there are a lot of jobs, they're just not all big law.
Right, that's why I said 'might be' in my post. I know the job market for law fluctuates and that job opportunities are heavily dependent on what area or specialty you want to go into. That comment was mostly to anticipate posters whinging about not being able to find a job in whatever highly competitive and/or overcrowded specialty they chose to go into. My point was that no matter how bad the job market for lawyers might be at any given time, the job market for people who only have non-STEM undergrad degrees will always be worse.
Quit after 1L if you hate it. Not after 2L. Finish and don't take the bar.
Spend the time making sure you understand how computers work on an operating system level (you don't need to code) and learn how to read a financial statement. College level prob/stats at a social science level wouldn't hurt, either. And decent writing ability, though that's not as rare in law.
Those skills, in combination, should be in sore demand in 5 to 7 years out. If only to manage people who lack them.
I dropped out of law school and it was such a good decision. It was a tough transition to software engineering but my work-life-pay balance is something I could never achieve in the law.
You know what’s even worse? Sticking it out for three years, then getting a decent paying job you can’t leave because being a lawyer is the only thing you’re qualified to do, and spending the rest of your life working a miserable job.
Sinking less than a year into something you end up not pursuing isn’t all that bad. You’ll find something. Even if it’s a lower paying job, you can always get in at a company and work your way up
Glad I could lead others to a treasure that I can never possess, lol. But in all seriousness I wish I had listened to the posts on this subreddit saying essentially the same thing that I'm saying here. I heard the siren song of dropping out and gave in when I should have put my head down and pressed forward. Hopefully I can at least get some students to reconsider quitting early before it's too late.
You can make it back. Invest some major effort getting that mental health sorted out, grind, and come back stronger than ever with that firsthand experience. It probably won't be easy, but nothing worth while is. Your game is not over.
I was just about to go to law school 5 years ago, hit a similar slide in my mental health, got into legal trouble, became a hermit during COVID, got closer to rock bottom than I ever imagined I could get while growing up. Took some time, got off some meds, got on some new ones, and clawed out of the hole. The fact that you stumbled doesnt matter. You already showed you could achieve greatness, there is no reason you can't find your footing and do it again. It also doesn't matter if it's not in law you choose to pursue, the fact that you made it past all those obstacles to get where you were can be motivation to do it again in any field you set your sights on. Good luck.
Preach it! To be fair the job market right now seems to be pretty bad for a lot of professions. I know several STEM majors who are also having trouble finding jobs that pay well, but decently paying jobs in the arts/humanities fields are always few and far between so if the STEM job market is in a rough spot then you know the arts/humanities job market is abysmal!
I think the better advice may be instead of dropping out, take a leave of absence for a year so that you have a clear option to come back. Based on what OP described in the comments, it’s hard to say that leaving law school wasn’t the right immediate move. If you’re having panic attacks and depressive episodes that don’t allow you to live a normal life, fighting through it and staying in school isn’t the right answer. At the same time, OP’s point that the grass isn’t always greener still holds true. Obviously depends on the school for how willing they are to grant it, but a medical leave of absence could be the best of both worlds if you’re in crisis and need some time to stabilize before making a lasting decision of whether to stick in law school or not.
OP, it sounds like you made the right decision, even if the job market isn’t what you hoped it would be. If you don’t want to be a lawyer, it would have been a waste of money going to school for another 2 or 2.5 years. Yeah the job market for liberal arts sucks, but so does having to go to work every day as a lawyer with a mountain of debt if you hate it. Tough now, but I’m sure you’ll eventually land on your feet.
Well, the title here is strangely self fulfilling because it demonstrates the kind of broad strokes, detail-deficient way of approaching problems that would make law school miserable.
It's been a few months, it's way too early to say that dropping out was a huge mistake for you. Yes the job market is brutal, but that doesn't mean you're never going to find anything. Even if it takes you many more months to finally find something decent, that would still be better than getting into even deeper debt and being locked into a career path you hate. Years from now, you'll probably be happier than if you had stuck it out despite hating it. There are a lot of miserable lawyers who regret their choice to go to law school.
This might be the pep talk someone needs, in which case aweomse! But the argument here makes very little sense.
The difference between dropping out mid first semester vs dropping out after one year is completely negligible. I'll ascribe the thinking here to sunk cost fallacy, but even so the amount you've "invested" (in cash and effort) after a year is minimial compared to the remaining investment (in both time and effort) you'll need to make to get through law school and get a job and learn how to be a lawyer on the job -- and all where the reward is that you get to be a lawyer.
If it's been a year and you hate law school and hate the idea of being a lawyer, the right decision is no different than if you'd come to that realization in the first semester. Heck, in reality, your opinion about whether law school/law is for you is much better informed after you've finished 1L than it is after just a few months.
OP, I'm sad for you and how shitty the experience has been, both law school and dropping out. But it's hard to say at this point that you would have been less unhappy gritting your teeth and medicating and pushing through it (especially when the prize is just being a lawyer).
I dropped out after 1L, though I did have a semi employable degree. Got a job in a call center making like 22 a hr (t.Rowe/vanguard)
Sometimes I wish I would have stayed but i legitimately did not want to be a lawyer outside of big law and tax/bankruptcy. So when I finished median after 1L I bounced
Made very good money in tech sales using the skills I learned in contracts during 1L. Would not be able to negotiate them the way I do with out sitting through those lectures
This is horrible advice. Depending on the year, between 40-50% of law grads never become lawyers. Among those who are lawyers, the salary for *most* people not in BigLaw is not great. Making $50-70,000 to work a ton of hours in a stressful job with a shitty boss and no real growth (thinking about people who work in mills making an hourly wage) and terrible benefits is not a good choice.
The sad fact is that most jobs that law graduates get are not that great and assuming a heightened earning potential 10 years out for some random TT/TTT grad is foolish.
Having a JD you can't use to make as much money as you could have done without going to law school is a bad decision.
Some people shouldn't drop out. Many more people probably should.
It's better than making $30-40,000 a year working a ton of hours in a dead-end job for a shitty boss with zero possibility for growth and even worse benefits. At the very least you can tell people that you're a lawyer and get respect for making it through law school and passing the bar, and in no world does having a JD on your resume look worse than not having one. There's nothing that a person with just an undergrad degree could do that a lawyer with the same undergrad degree also couldn't do, but there's plenty that you can only do with a law degree. Having a law degree does nothing except open up opportunities for you.
> Depending on the year, between 40-50% of law grads never become lawyers
This simply cannot be accurate. Especially if you control for those who self-select not to pursue law careers and folks who go to unaccredited law schools.
c/o 2015 had around 60% of graduates working in JD required FT jobs c/o 2018 had around 70%. To be fair, recent classes are more in the \~70% range, so I was wrong on absolute numbers. I'm sorry.
Still, I think it's very easy to get a skewed perspective on forums where people are actually lawyers or who went to predominantly T1 law schools. When I was in school, there was a forum where people would post who couldn't find jobs, were working doc review at best, and it's obviously full of horrific and depressing stories. I know this is going to sound shitty but there are so many posts here from people facing academic dismissal (which is only a thing at lower ranked schools) or who are having scholarships revoked due to GPA and the truth it, for those people, the actual +EV bet is to drop out. But then plenty of people were able to come back from dismissal and have their own stories of succeeding so it colors the perception here so that people think that's a typical outcome when it's anything but.
We work in a very fucked up industry and law school is a racket. You can discount people who self-selected to not pursue law yet were going to law school, but if you want to talk about just pure "self-selection" then there's likely a good portion realized they were 2 years in with no prospects and figured they'd see it out but work another job. You can probably never accurately account for this, though.
Everything else I said though, about salaries and the relatively bleak prospects for grads from lower ranked schools, is true. People shouldn't be fleeced into going to a TT/TTT because there are stories of hardworking people that got great jobs despite their school.
I'm sorry, I got my threads confused.
I don't know how to say this without being a dick but a lot of people who go to law school are really accustomed to being special, high achieving, whatever. And I'd wager that most people go to law school because they couldn't get a job out of college that they felt aligned with what they were worth, how good/smart/capable they are, whatever.
Better is subjective. But a lot of people at TT/TTTs are taking on an amount of debt to work for little assholes with no real prospects of career growth/serious earning potential. I really think people underestimate what it means to do foreclosure defense/personal injury work/the types of law jobs commonly available to students from lower ranked schools/etc. You could get a job at a small firm that does decent work and may not treat you horribly. But these are definitionally difficult to get (again, small firm) and there's no guarantee you'll receive decent mentorship, guidance, pay, or respect.
Again, my honest to god opinion is that most people are low ranked schools would be better served not going. Get a different graduate degree. If you can't, you maybe need to accept that not everything is for everyone and you maybe can't or shouldn't be a lawyer.
I have no illusions that it's so much better out there w/o a law degree. I'll be pretty open with the fact that I think prospects for young people and recent college graduates are bleak and I don't see that improving. All I offer is that a law degree (from third tier schools) is not worth the cost and/or time.
Thank you for the post. I'm almost 30 and I'm going to law school in the fall (a lower ranked school). I have a very good scholarship so that part of the cost/benefit analysis is weighed in my favor.
I'm planning on being a public defender actually so having an ethical job is important to me.
I'm curious - what graduate degree would you recommend? I definitely couldn't go to med school and business school seems like a circle jerk
If you want to be a PD, then you're fine brother. Big ups, one of the lawyers I have massive respect and admiration for.
If you wanted to do policy work, an MPP or MPA is going to be better than a JD.
A JD also disqualified people from many jobs. If the job doesn’t require a JD or isn’t law-adjacent, it is common for employers to exclude anyone with a JD from the applicant pool on the grounds that they don’t want the successful candidate to have a law degree.
Go to law school if you want to be a lawyer. If you don’t, it’s better to fail fast and fail cheap than it is to fall victim to the sink cost fallacy and end up with a degree you don’t want in a career you don’t like, and having to start over later in life.
What in the world are you talking about
Of course having a JD *might* be a disadvantage *sometimes* … but saying that excluding JDs is a common practice for many jobs feels like a misrepresentation
But I’m only speaking from my own anecdotal experience and intuition. If you have sources that support your stance, please share. I would be really interested in those numbers
I’m a lot older than you and probably have more inside experience with the corporate world. Ask around. Do a Google search. You’ll find that having a law degree disqualified applicants from many, if not most, professional jobs that don’t require law degrees. Corporate employers simply do not want people trained as lawyers in non-lawyer roles.
Yes I do. You’re about the age of my younger son. The cancer researcher.
But I’m not a Boomer. I’m a little younger than Obama.
You might want to listen to the advice of someone with almost 35 years legal experience and working with corporations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 50 companies. But if your anecdotal experience is superior, you should absolutely ignore everything the people with real experience have to say.
Never said my experience was superior…? I was actually saying I *only* have anecdotal evidence and was open to being corrected if you could provide any statistical data
I’m not sure why you’re triggered but congrats on ur resume
I’m not triggered. That’s your generation. My generation is grit.
I’m only posting because I care about young people and want you to have good advice so you can make informed decisions. I once had a college roommate who was much older than me and had been a tennis pro. He agreed to teach me tennis in exchange for me following his direction without giving him a hard time. He told me that he was sharing his knowledge with me and would receive no reward other than the satisfaction that he helped mold a new tennis player and showed him how to do it right.
I feel the same way about young lawyers. I am more than happy to spread my knowledge and experience in the effort of helping make young lawyers something better than they are today. I benefited greatly from an older generation taking me aside and giving me advice. It gives me pleasure to do the same to the next generation.
If you can’t give good advice you have an ethical obligation not to give advice. Even on Reddit.
The end result which could have been accomplished by not going to law school at all and living on a beach in Maui for three years.
If you’re not going to put a JD on your resume because it’s a handicap, there’s no reason to get a JD.
You said a few months ago? Did you finish the first year can you ask to re enroll ?
No, I dropped out shortly before finals because I was having alternating panic attacks and depressive episodes. It didn't help that my therapist quit her job about a month before that. I honestly should have tried finding a new therapist but I felt like I didn't have the time or energy to do that while keeping up with classes. Also probably should have gotten on antidepressants at some point in the semester. Too late now though.
Hey OP, my academic journey in undergrad was similar to yours. My mental health made pursuing an education extremely difficult. I took time off, grounded myself and came back revitalized and graduated with high honors. I say that to say, it’s okay to give yourself time to heal. Your journey isn’t over unless that’s what you truly want! Don’t beat yourself up either, honor yourself for the fact you prioritized yourself. That’s courageous. Best of luck with the next phase! Address your health and just look forward!
thank you for being a positive comment to OP! 👏 i wasn’t treated kindly when expressing this same opinion
Hey friend! Don't give em any mind. Best of luck on your journey as well!
It's probably a good thing you did drop out though. If you were having panic attacks and depressive episodes over finals, do you think you're going to experience *less* stress at a firm? Your post history indicates you've had multiple instances of considering 'ending it all' and I honestly think sticking out law school would've been the worst decision you could make
1. Not every lawyer works for a firm 2. Not every firm's a "high-stress" environment 3. Not every JD works as a lawyer
Government lawyers for example
My point still stands. OP was literally suicidal several times while in law school, do you think it was a good idea for them to continue?
Yes. Poverty is one of the biggest stressors out there.
Based on the post OP made, they are not doing better.
0L promoted to 1L for that L take
More like if you haven’t experienced panic attacks and depressive episodes have you ever even gone to law school?
I worked in law and then went to law school. If you can work in law at a firm for a few years, the level of panic is about 100x less for law school in comparison.
that’s when i got them
Fair point, although there are certainly steps that I could have and should have taken that would've helped deal with that like taking time to find another therapist and trying to get a prescription for antidepressants. I think my point still stands though, I'm not any less depressed now than I was in law school, it's just that now I have nothing to show for it and I have to deal with the additional social shame of being the guy that dropped out of law school.
Try and get a job at costco. It’s super chill. You won’t get rich but your mental health will be better and you will be able to pay bills. If school was that stressful any serious job would probably be really stressful for you too. It’s all good we’re not designed for the grind don’t be too hard on yourself. Enjoy life its too short!!
And had you stuck it out, you would've experienced increased stress and done who knows what. You're obviously not in a good place mentally and that needs to be sorted out first before anything. And stop worrying about what other people think. I did poor in undergrad and failed out of a fellowship, took the time to mature and used those failures as extra motivation to correct my path. You can do the same. At the end of the day the only person who can root for you is yourself.
Sure, but who knows, I might have pushed through it or gotten hold of the resources I needed to succeed. Maybe I'm just in a bad place right now because I'm in a transition period and I'm behind where most of my friends/classmates are. That's temporary for sure, but so is law school. The only difference is I have fewer opportunities now than I would have had I powered through it. That's all I wanted to do with my post, to encourage people who are thinking of dropping out to keep going and not make the same mistakes I made.
you could have. mental health comes and goes. everyone at some point will experience this in their life. don’t even take advice from a 0L
OP has literally had several instances of being suicidal, that is well beyond the bounds of normal mental health episodes
Comparison is the thief of joy just focus on yourself.
ur a 0L stop giving a stupid opinion. I HAD THIS OP. it went away once I did therapy and cut off toxic people in my life.
I mean, this person hasn't been to law school yet but it's not unlikely that they've gone through their own mental health affairs. If you're suicidal, it's probably be a good idea to minimize stressors.
Law school is relatively chill compared to adult life.
Okay, I'm a lawyer and the 0L is right. Therapy is good. Toxic people describes most law students. Law school is a high pressure environment, and combined with the fact that people are spending a lot of money to maybe not get such a chill or high paying job means that for people like OP described, going to school is not healthy and becoming a lawyer would be bad. "Just tough it out" is not real advice. That's what the OP said.
I don't think telling a suicidal person to stop engaging with the things that make them suicidal is really a stupid opinion, nor do I think I need to be in law school to know that
Except I highly highly doubt it’s that simple???? Generally, depression isn’t “caused” by something tangible—maybe law school didn’t excite them, but it’s very unlikely you’d become suicidal by simply not liking something. They needed medication and therapy to work through the emotions behind their depression—it’s usually heavily discouraged to advise ppl with depression to disengage. If law school contributed to their emotions, it was likely more so self esteem and anxiety problems that would be present in other ways with or without law school. OP, I really hope you’re feeling better and, if it’s what you want, you can reenroll! 💕
I've experienced suicidal thoughts due to the destructive impact of a toxic relationship and narcissistic/ emotional abuse. It's a challenging process, but I wanted to share my opinion/ comment to inspire hope. ( I saw a lot of negative feedback in this thread. It made me so upset to see) I am living proof that it is possible to overcome these struggles. If someone reading this thinks they can't do it, I want to assure you that you can. I am determined to break the stigma surrounding mental health and the belief that giving up is the only option. If you want something, go after it. Mental health struggles are not always permanent. The stigma is kinda clear here. you can do law school. you are not weak and u can overcome it. yeah, never said it was easy. l hope you can understand and respect my choice to uplift those who need it. i’ll continue being supportive of those who experience this. The reasons people don’t seek help is bc of exactly these responses. (viewing them as weak and incapable. I had a daily panic attack one semester. i’m onto my 3L. )
also it’s less stress….than a firm ….
Ummm, I commend you for dropping out if that’s what happened! It sounds like you made the right decision. I think right now your feelings are very raw and you’re dealing with alot of job frustration. Give it time, I think things will turn around. Some things in life are just not meant for us and it’s mature to make the decision to let it go and move on.
I’m gonna provide the flip side of what you said. I wanted to drop out after my first year. I stuck through it thinking it would get better, but after three years I have no desire to work as an attorney. I feel like I wasted the past 3 years as I look for a job. I just thought it was the natural progression for a person with a poli sci degree and while I wouldn’t say I regret those 3 years, I could have made better decisions. Each persons situation is unique, but you should stick it out if you want to be an attorney. But if you don’t want to be an attorney or you are in it solely for financial reasons, then you might want to reconsider. I also want to point out that your degree field may not be the biggest issue anymore. So far, the layoffs have heavily impacted tech jobs, and there is an overabundance of people working on computer science degrees/certs. This economy sucks for job searchers.
Perhaps you have already thought of this, but with a political science background there are lots of jobs you could do that would not require practicing law. They may not be as lucrative, but you might find more enjoyment.
Honestly, stop beating yourself up! You're not the first and certainly not the last person that's going to quit Law School
The 1L culling is real.
>As bad as the job market might be for lawyers right now This can't be true? I graduated less than 10 years ago and my firm is having to offer more than double my starting salary before anyone will even answer our job posts (Note: my firm is a great place to work; we don't have a bad reputation). I see a lot of job postings from firms to whom I'm frequently adverse and I don't see them hiring much either. I think there are a lot of jobs, they're just not all big law.
Right, that's why I said 'might be' in my post. I know the job market for law fluctuates and that job opportunities are heavily dependent on what area or specialty you want to go into. That comment was mostly to anticipate posters whinging about not being able to find a job in whatever highly competitive and/or overcrowded specialty they chose to go into. My point was that no matter how bad the job market for lawyers might be at any given time, the job market for people who only have non-STEM undergrad degrees will always be worse.
Is your firm hiring recent graduates ?
Trying to, yes.
May I PM you? 🥹
Yeah, of course
Can I as well?
Come one, come all.
The job market for lawyers is pretty darn good right now.
Quit after 1L if you hate it. Not after 2L. Finish and don't take the bar. Spend the time making sure you understand how computers work on an operating system level (you don't need to code) and learn how to read a financial statement. College level prob/stats at a social science level wouldn't hurt, either. And decent writing ability, though that's not as rare in law. Those skills, in combination, should be in sore demand in 5 to 7 years out. If only to manage people who lack them.
Me when I open up the bios: *#hackerman*
I dropped out of law school and it was such a good decision. It was a tough transition to software engineering but my work-life-pay balance is something I could never achieve in the law.
Some of us make really good money and work 38-40 hours a week. It is actually becoming more common now.
You know what’s even worse? Sticking it out for three years, then getting a decent paying job you can’t leave because being a lawyer is the only thing you’re qualified to do, and spending the rest of your life working a miserable job. Sinking less than a year into something you end up not pursuing isn’t all that bad. You’ll find something. Even if it’s a lower paying job, you can always get in at a company and work your way up
Prof told me to leave. He said he knew too many lawyers that are drug addicts and alcoholics to recommend staying.
i needed to see this so thank you! best of luck on navigating this chapter. you will figure everything out and will be okay! keep pushing.
Glad I could lead others to a treasure that I can never possess, lol. But in all seriousness I wish I had listened to the posts on this subreddit saying essentially the same thing that I'm saying here. I heard the siren song of dropping out and gave in when I should have put my head down and pressed forward. Hopefully I can at least get some students to reconsider quitting early before it's too late.
You can make it back. Invest some major effort getting that mental health sorted out, grind, and come back stronger than ever with that firsthand experience. It probably won't be easy, but nothing worth while is. Your game is not over.
I was just about to go to law school 5 years ago, hit a similar slide in my mental health, got into legal trouble, became a hermit during COVID, got closer to rock bottom than I ever imagined I could get while growing up. Took some time, got off some meds, got on some new ones, and clawed out of the hole. The fact that you stumbled doesnt matter. You already showed you could achieve greatness, there is no reason you can't find your footing and do it again. It also doesn't matter if it's not in law you choose to pursue, the fact that you made it past all those obstacles to get where you were can be motivation to do it again in any field you set your sights on. Good luck.
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Preach it! To be fair the job market right now seems to be pretty bad for a lot of professions. I know several STEM majors who are also having trouble finding jobs that pay well, but decently paying jobs in the arts/humanities fields are always few and far between so if the STEM job market is in a rough spot then you know the arts/humanities job market is abysmal!
I think the better advice may be instead of dropping out, take a leave of absence for a year so that you have a clear option to come back. Based on what OP described in the comments, it’s hard to say that leaving law school wasn’t the right immediate move. If you’re having panic attacks and depressive episodes that don’t allow you to live a normal life, fighting through it and staying in school isn’t the right answer. At the same time, OP’s point that the grass isn’t always greener still holds true. Obviously depends on the school for how willing they are to grant it, but a medical leave of absence could be the best of both worlds if you’re in crisis and need some time to stabilize before making a lasting decision of whether to stick in law school or not. OP, it sounds like you made the right decision, even if the job market isn’t what you hoped it would be. If you don’t want to be a lawyer, it would have been a waste of money going to school for another 2 or 2.5 years. Yeah the job market for liberal arts sucks, but so does having to go to work every day as a lawyer with a mountain of debt if you hate it. Tough now, but I’m sure you’ll eventually land on your feet.
Well, the title here is strangely self fulfilling because it demonstrates the kind of broad strokes, detail-deficient way of approaching problems that would make law school miserable.
OP, give it some time. Try to do some deep thinking on what you want your path to be. Dropping out might just prove to be a blessing in disguise.
It's been a few months, it's way too early to say that dropping out was a huge mistake for you. Yes the job market is brutal, but that doesn't mean you're never going to find anything. Even if it takes you many more months to finally find something decent, that would still be better than getting into even deeper debt and being locked into a career path you hate. Years from now, you'll probably be happier than if you had stuck it out despite hating it. There are a lot of miserable lawyers who regret their choice to go to law school.
This might be the pep talk someone needs, in which case aweomse! But the argument here makes very little sense. The difference between dropping out mid first semester vs dropping out after one year is completely negligible. I'll ascribe the thinking here to sunk cost fallacy, but even so the amount you've "invested" (in cash and effort) after a year is minimial compared to the remaining investment (in both time and effort) you'll need to make to get through law school and get a job and learn how to be a lawyer on the job -- and all where the reward is that you get to be a lawyer. If it's been a year and you hate law school and hate the idea of being a lawyer, the right decision is no different than if you'd come to that realization in the first semester. Heck, in reality, your opinion about whether law school/law is for you is much better informed after you've finished 1L than it is after just a few months. OP, I'm sad for you and how shitty the experience has been, both law school and dropping out. But it's hard to say at this point that you would have been less unhappy gritting your teeth and medicating and pushing through it (especially when the prize is just being a lawyer).
I could’ve told you that bro
Yeah, tragically several people tried but I didn't listen in time.
I dropped out after 1L, though I did have a semi employable degree. Got a job in a call center making like 22 a hr (t.Rowe/vanguard) Sometimes I wish I would have stayed but i legitimately did not want to be a lawyer outside of big law and tax/bankruptcy. So when I finished median after 1L I bounced Made very good money in tech sales using the skills I learned in contracts during 1L. Would not be able to negotiate them the way I do with out sitting through those lectures
I agree. I dropped law after one semester. Here I am almost done with my philosophy degree and guess who's going back to law next year 🙄
Wowwwww
This is horrible advice. Depending on the year, between 40-50% of law grads never become lawyers. Among those who are lawyers, the salary for *most* people not in BigLaw is not great. Making $50-70,000 to work a ton of hours in a stressful job with a shitty boss and no real growth (thinking about people who work in mills making an hourly wage) and terrible benefits is not a good choice. The sad fact is that most jobs that law graduates get are not that great and assuming a heightened earning potential 10 years out for some random TT/TTT grad is foolish. Having a JD you can't use to make as much money as you could have done without going to law school is a bad decision. Some people shouldn't drop out. Many more people probably should.
It's better than making $30-40,000 a year working a ton of hours in a dead-end job for a shitty boss with zero possibility for growth and even worse benefits. At the very least you can tell people that you're a lawyer and get respect for making it through law school and passing the bar, and in no world does having a JD on your resume look worse than not having one. There's nothing that a person with just an undergrad degree could do that a lawyer with the same undergrad degree also couldn't do, but there's plenty that you can only do with a law degree. Having a law degree does nothing except open up opportunities for you.
> Depending on the year, between 40-50% of law grads never become lawyers This simply cannot be accurate. Especially if you control for those who self-select not to pursue law careers and folks who go to unaccredited law schools.
c/o 2015 had around 60% of graduates working in JD required FT jobs c/o 2018 had around 70%. To be fair, recent classes are more in the \~70% range, so I was wrong on absolute numbers. I'm sorry. Still, I think it's very easy to get a skewed perspective on forums where people are actually lawyers or who went to predominantly T1 law schools. When I was in school, there was a forum where people would post who couldn't find jobs, were working doc review at best, and it's obviously full of horrific and depressing stories. I know this is going to sound shitty but there are so many posts here from people facing academic dismissal (which is only a thing at lower ranked schools) or who are having scholarships revoked due to GPA and the truth it, for those people, the actual +EV bet is to drop out. But then plenty of people were able to come back from dismissal and have their own stories of succeeding so it colors the perception here so that people think that's a typical outcome when it's anything but. We work in a very fucked up industry and law school is a racket. You can discount people who self-selected to not pursue law yet were going to law school, but if you want to talk about just pure "self-selection" then there's likely a good portion realized they were 2 years in with no prospects and figured they'd see it out but work another job. You can probably never accurately account for this, though. Everything else I said though, about salaries and the relatively bleak prospects for grads from lower ranked schools, is true. People shouldn't be fleeced into going to a TT/TTT because there are stories of hardworking people that got great jobs despite their school.
What's a better job?
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Does every lawyer do that?
I'm sorry, I got my threads confused. I don't know how to say this without being a dick but a lot of people who go to law school are really accustomed to being special, high achieving, whatever. And I'd wager that most people go to law school because they couldn't get a job out of college that they felt aligned with what they were worth, how good/smart/capable they are, whatever. Better is subjective. But a lot of people at TT/TTTs are taking on an amount of debt to work for little assholes with no real prospects of career growth/serious earning potential. I really think people underestimate what it means to do foreclosure defense/personal injury work/the types of law jobs commonly available to students from lower ranked schools/etc. You could get a job at a small firm that does decent work and may not treat you horribly. But these are definitionally difficult to get (again, small firm) and there's no guarantee you'll receive decent mentorship, guidance, pay, or respect. Again, my honest to god opinion is that most people are low ranked schools would be better served not going. Get a different graduate degree. If you can't, you maybe need to accept that not everything is for everyone and you maybe can't or shouldn't be a lawyer. I have no illusions that it's so much better out there w/o a law degree. I'll be pretty open with the fact that I think prospects for young people and recent college graduates are bleak and I don't see that improving. All I offer is that a law degree (from third tier schools) is not worth the cost and/or time.
Thank you for the post. I'm almost 30 and I'm going to law school in the fall (a lower ranked school). I have a very good scholarship so that part of the cost/benefit analysis is weighed in my favor. I'm planning on being a public defender actually so having an ethical job is important to me. I'm curious - what graduate degree would you recommend? I definitely couldn't go to med school and business school seems like a circle jerk
If you want to be a PD, then you're fine brother. Big ups, one of the lawyers I have massive respect and admiration for. If you wanted to do policy work, an MPP or MPA is going to be better than a JD.
A JD also disqualified people from many jobs. If the job doesn’t require a JD or isn’t law-adjacent, it is common for employers to exclude anyone with a JD from the applicant pool on the grounds that they don’t want the successful candidate to have a law degree. Go to law school if you want to be a lawyer. If you don’t, it’s better to fail fast and fail cheap than it is to fall victim to the sink cost fallacy and end up with a degree you don’t want in a career you don’t like, and having to start over later in life.
What in the world are you talking about Of course having a JD *might* be a disadvantage *sometimes* … but saying that excluding JDs is a common practice for many jobs feels like a misrepresentation But I’m only speaking from my own anecdotal experience and intuition. If you have sources that support your stance, please share. I would be really interested in those numbers
I’m a lot older than you and probably have more inside experience with the corporate world. Ask around. Do a Google search. You’ll find that having a law degree disqualified applicants from many, if not most, professional jobs that don’t require law degrees. Corporate employers simply do not want people trained as lawyers in non-lawyer roles.
You actually don’t know how old I am or what kind of professional experience I have But go off boomer
Yes I do. You’re about the age of my younger son. The cancer researcher. But I’m not a Boomer. I’m a little younger than Obama. You might want to listen to the advice of someone with almost 35 years legal experience and working with corporations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 50 companies. But if your anecdotal experience is superior, you should absolutely ignore everything the people with real experience have to say.
Never said my experience was superior…? I was actually saying I *only* have anecdotal evidence and was open to being corrected if you could provide any statistical data I’m not sure why you’re triggered but congrats on ur resume
I’m not triggered. That’s your generation. My generation is grit. I’m only posting because I care about young people and want you to have good advice so you can make informed decisions. I once had a college roommate who was much older than me and had been a tennis pro. He agreed to teach me tennis in exchange for me following his direction without giving him a hard time. He told me that he was sharing his knowledge with me and would receive no reward other than the satisfaction that he helped mold a new tennis player and showed him how to do it right. I feel the same way about young lawyers. I am more than happy to spread my knowledge and experience in the effort of helping make young lawyers something better than they are today. I benefited greatly from an older generation taking me aside and giving me advice. It gives me pleasure to do the same to the next generation. If you can’t give good advice you have an ethical obligation not to give advice. Even on Reddit.
Yeah, I'd imagine most law grads who aren't lawyers just take the JD off their resume and make something up about the three year gap.
The end result which could have been accomplished by not going to law school at all and living on a beach in Maui for three years. If you’re not going to put a JD on your resume because it’s a handicap, there’s no reason to get a JD.
In a forum populated mostly by students, and a good portion are decent-to-good schools, this falls on deaf ears. Oh well.
Go back to law school