What is it like being a Lawyer?

Starting out as a lawyer is tough. If you go into Big Law, the culture is brutal. You basically don’t have a life outside of work. You can easily be putting in 60-80 hours a week, every week. You will be expected to meet unrealistic deadlines and work on nights and weekends. The pay is good, but, per hour that you work, you don’t earn that much more than someone who is not working in Big Law.

But if you work in a small firm, you don’t earn much money relative to Big Law. You will potentially have a better work-life balance. That depends on the firm that you work at. The pay scale is very low in your first year. After that, your income can have 15%-25% increases when going from an entry-level to associate attorney.

What is your work life like?

We are very intentional about our work-life balance. We also are very cognizant of our team’s work-life balance. We only work from 8-5 Monday through Friday. We encourage our team to not send or respond to any work-related emails outside of our office hours. Some team members still do, but that’s natural.

Our goal is to have our attorneys only doing billable hour tasks. We invest in automation and our team structures to make our workloads more efficient. Our goal is not to have our paralegals do all of the work. Our goal is to make our teams and their tools efficient enough that cases are very easy to work on for our teams.

Pros

The pro is your potential that you have. Depending on what field you go into, you can earn multiple six figures in several years. If you start your own business and have any business acumen, then you can earn a very good living.

Cons

The cons of becoming a lawyer are your debt to income ratio. You’ll most likely have a quarter-million dollars in debt and start out not earning that much. You’ll have to take advantage of income-based repayment plans at the beginning of your career.

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