Political Crossfire Forums

What about paralegal?

in the UK, I haven't the foggiest idea. but I think going into law in the US is a mistake...it costs too damn much to get educated and the returns really don't kick in for some time, if ever. plus there are a lot of ass-holes in this job, weird ass-holes.

don't do law. You will regret trading in your soul.

Eynon still has a soul. Or at least he does until you crush it.

Em (and others considering a career in the legal field),

My dad is a lawyer. We always used to talk about legal type stuff when growing up. But, I never considered the field until I took a business law class in undergrad. I loved it. Went to class early and stayed late. I took 2 more legal classes in undergrad. When I graduated, I took the LSAT (our entrance exam). I did really well, and ended up getting several offers to attend a few different law schools (Univ of Texas, LSU, Tulane). But, 1 week before I had to choose, I got cold feet.

I realized that I liked the law, but I didn't want to be a lawyer. I did not want to get stuck doing the monotony of law. Divorces, wills, corporate filings, etc. I didn't want to do anything criminal. I wanted only the fun stuff. So, I went to get an MBA instead.

Later in my career, I discovered lobbying. It was all the glitz and glamour, none of the drudgery. The only "soul selling" you have to do is to pretend that you don't hate some legislators' guts and be nice to them. But, chances are good that you will agree with the POV of your clients (otherwise, you wouldn't have accepted them as a client in the first place). Basically, you get paid (well) to do in real life what we do here. There is one caveat - you have to live where the government is.

Also, you can go into business and specialize in the legal areana. You can do contract review, claims investigation, or other things. Although it's taken me a few years to get here, I do quite a few of the more fun legal things over the course of a year. I perform and oversee much of the due diligence when we are contemplating purchasing another company. I review and negotiate contracts. I oversee the formation of strategic partnerships between our company and other companies. I just designed a new contract database and routing process. And, I'm in the midst of creating a bid/no-bid process. All of these things have many of the components of legalese. But, it's not the monotony of ensuring that our licenses are current in all 50 states or other things like that.

I guess my point is that there are other ways to do "legal things" without becoming a lawyer. Conversely, if you become a lawyer, you don't have to practice law. Our COO is an attorney, and started as a General Counsel, but now is in charge of operations.