[Ed Note: This post was so freakin long originally because I hit "publish" instead of "save as draft" after writing this stream of consciousness and I didn't have time to edit it down to near where I wanted it initially until just now, at 6:20 p.m. It's now been edited to where I'd hoped to get it before posting.]
Alas, this is not the post where I tell you all about the success I’m having post-OCI. I continue to search for opportunities for next summer. There are a few promising leads and a few outstanding decisions I’m waiting on, but we’ll see. Hope you’re meeting with more success.
This post is about the question you need to answer in all of your meetings during fall recruiting season: formal interviews, networking events, and informational interviews.
Why do you want to be a lawyer?
While this question is equally important for day and night students, I do think second career lawyers in law school (day or night) need to answer this question in a way that addresses a concern your questioners no doubt harbor: his job sounds pretty interesting, why would he leave, why won’t he get bored being a lawyer too?
I haven’t always been able to answer this question very well. Perhaps I still can’t. But my thinking has evolved sufficiently that I felt it was worth sharing some of those thoughts in this series since it’s a message that you need to communicate during meetings with lawyers in fall recruiting. I’ll warn you ahead of time that this post is much more self-serving than usual, but I can’t really help it on this one…
The short answer…
I went to law school to become a lawyer. Period. Not because it was the thing to do for a liberal arts major with communications and political experience. Law school is something I’ve considered for sometime and I feel that becoming a lawyer fits more closely with skills and qualities that I don’t currently use as frequently as I’d like and the contribution a lawyer makes to a client’s problem is in some ways more appealing to me than the work I do now.
Still, the first point is the nature of the service provided by the PR guy and the lawyer to the client.
News flash: PR firms and law firms provide different types of service to their clients.
I know, shocker!
A company hiring a PR agency to manage communications on an ongoing basis or for a certain project will talk to the agency about the perception of the company among key audiences. This is an important function (particularly in today’s news and information environments), but the work of the business goes on in large part separately from what the PR firm does.
On the other hand, a company hiring a law firm often faces an issue or transaction that directly and certainly affects a company’s business. The work of the business is often – not always, but often – directly impacted by the work the law firm does. (Understanding this influences the type of lawyer I want to be.)
If the law firm doesn’t succeed, the issue will almost certainly impact the client’s business or life. If the PR agency doesn’t succeed the continued negative or worsened perceptions may impact the client’s business, but then again they may not depending on the nature and intensity of the perception. Again, subtle distinction, but to me it’s important.
Still, none of this necessarily leads to the decision to become a lawyer. It’s just my perception of how a service-providing lawyer provides a different, more appealing, sort of value to a client than a service-providing PR guy.
So, why not be an accountant or a pollster or a market research expert rather than a lawyer? Well, I hate numbers. And
It has to do with my personal qualities.
Frankly, I just think a lawyer’s work is interesting. It involves interesting questions of how a law prospectively impacts or retroactively judges a company’s or individual’s actions. Helping a client understand that (and learning it myself) is appealing to me.There’s also something to be said for the fact that lawyer tends to enter at critical points in a client’s life. A lawyer provides a calm, analytical approach to a complex, overwhelming issue and provides clarity to how the problem should be addressed.
But these qualities I think make the law particularly attractive:
I enjoy working with detailed arguments and facts, appreciating how detail and semantics impact the use of language and nuance in accomplishing even the most mundane of projects (like drafting a will, for instance).
Generally, I’m a fairly empathetic guy, and like to think this enables me to understand and empathize with a client to fully appreciate his or her concerns and arguments in order to apply (or advocate against application of) the more definite standards of the law to a certain situation.
I enjoy detailed, complex problems.
Third, I may not always be outwardly aggressive, but I am intensely competitive. I work my ass off because I take my work seriously, I want to be the best and I want to win. I just do it in a more introverted manner than some.
Additionally, there are the “typical” professional skills that aren’t necessarily directly law-related but that I think draw me to law… I enjoy reading and studying; I’m a good communicator who can generally convey a point in a concise and pithy manner; I like answering questions; and I value the connection between the law and public service and government.
No related posts.
I so TOTALLY get this question ALL the time, and I agree that it has a completely different significance for second-career students than those straight from undergrad. Because I used to be an academic, I talk about how teaching became too academic and I wanted something more concrete where I dealt with real-world problems that had direct results. And then I try to dazzle them with my research and writing skills.
The nice thing about being a second-career student is that they’re less likely to ask silly questions about which class is my favorite – there are plenty of other things to talk about.
I concur completely.
Since interviews are far more polite than useful, it’s important for evening students to address some of the doubts interviewers often have but won’t explicitly address – that you might be (1) in law school because the other career didn’t work out (2) an eternal student or (3) just haven’t figured out what you want to do with your life yet.
If you implicitly address those issues, the interviewer is likely to be a lot more comfortable with you. I went to law school to become a lawyer does all three.
Once you’re past that it’s easy to focus on the upside of what you offer as an evening student – (1) I can work a 40-hour week and then some (2) you can trust me to talk to clients without saying something idiotic, and (3) I don’t feel entitled to anything, I expect to work hard and prove myself like I’ve always done.
It’s easy to let the interviewer dictate the interview but it’s dangerous. Often they haven’t thought about it more than glance at your resume. The interview is the one opportunity for you to tell the story beyond the resume.