| Topic Name: |
Alternative Careers for Attorneys |
| Message Name: |
Network With Alumni |
| Date Posted: |
11/15/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
I have been an attorney for almost 2 years. I'm already burned out. Believe that! I know so many people in this field that are just settling, because this is the only field they have a degree in. I decided not to settle. I walked out of a firm and have been unemployed for 6 months. Regrets, "I have a few" - Should I have walked out? Yes. I was coming home crying every day, miserable because I was one woman attorney among 9 other men. They would make some sexist comments, disgusting ones, eyeing me up and down, etc. I got sick of it. They critiqued (unecessarily) everything I did. I put up with it. But when the insults started, that was it! When I think about it in retrospect, I feel that I made the right decision. True, I am unemployed and in debt, but I have my integrity, self respect, and sanity in tact. Still no job and I don't want to practice law any more. What next? That's what I want to know. What are alternative fields with someone with a J.D. and a bachelors in Criminal Justice? How limited am I? Problem is, I don't have experience in any other field? Is the bottom where I have to start in any field? Did I go to law school for nothing? Help? Anyone with the same problem? I don't mind making less money, so long as I'm happy. |
| Message: |
I'd have to agree with Jane. I'm in a similar situation. I've been an energy attorney for 5 years and just recently had a baby. I don't like my job and don't like at least one of my partners. I think he's rude and completely unprofessional and unfortunately sometimes that occurs in law firms. Probably a little too often. It's seems where ever I've worked there is always at least one. But the question you need to ask yourself is are you burnt out on the law or is it your work enviroment or is the type of law you were practicing or maybe a combination of things. I've come to the conclusion that I really don't like working in the big firm environment and that I'm not really interested in the area of law that I practice. But when I talk to people about Estate Planning and Probate work or when I read about it I'm interested again. So I'm trying to switch fields. If after soul searching you can answer honestly that it's not just the environment but that you really wouldn't be happy practicing any kind of law then sit down and figure out what you'd like to do. There is a great book that I've used called Guerrilla Tactics for Getting the Legal Job of Your Dreams. Whether you chose to go back into the law or you chose another field I think its helpful for job searching tactics and soul searching. It suggests that to get the job of your dreams you first need to figure out what your dream job is and that you do that by thinking about what are your interests, what are your skills, what are your values, what kind of contact with people do you like to have, what kind of work environment would make you happy, what do I want, what are you willing to give up to get what you want, they even have this great open ended quiz. After you've done the soul searching, there are some great ideas on resumes cover letters and networking. At the end of the book it gives you 16 popular law related jobs and how to get more information on them i.e. what to do with your law degree. After you've done all that start networking with Alumni, it doesn't matter if they're in the field you want to be in. You'd be amazed at how truly helpful they can be. And in fact they might even know of someone who's hiring. This website http://career.missouri.edu/holland/ has a career assement game that helps you start thinking about your personality and what types of jobs are out there.
I realize that was long but I hope you find some of the advice helpful.
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