Have I mentioned before about how I'm an angry out-of-work lawyer? (For the three of you who occasionally read this who don't actually know me personally. To the other three of you: Hi!) Last summer I started on the career advice follies trying to figure out whether it was time for me to get out of the legal profession or what, and this was one of the books I wound up starting. I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and I am... sort of irritated I spent time tracking it down.
This is not really that great of a book. It wants to be a hard look at why lawyers are getting out of the profession, and maybe it really was telling truth to power in 1989, but the only striking thing about this book in 2009 is that not a lot has really changed.
The most irritating thing about this book - and it's at the top of a not-inconsiderable list - is that it focuses on the kind of attorneys who went directly from law school into lucrative big firm life (possibly with a pit stop clerking in some court or other in between) and are unhappy. Predictably, there's a lot of "I have all this money and I'm so unfulfilled" kind of whining going on as a result; there're a lot of lawyers profiled whose biggest obstacle seems to be making the lifestyle adjustment necessary to find more fulfilling work, rather than, say, already struggling on a legal aid salary, not qualified to do anything else with their lives, and with no financial safety net to depend on as they make their exit. Since I fall into this latter category, I had kind of a hard time getting through the book.
This isn't to say Arron's criticisms aren't valid; the legal profession is pretty much made of crazy with a heaping helping of misanthropy and a loathing for anything that's not income-generating. I don't know anyone who's been super-happy with their big-firm life, even if they were pleased with their paychecks. More of the government and public interest lawyers I know are happier (maybe not actually happy?) but Arron's not out to address those issues, really. And she's not really out to help you make the transition, unless all you need is to get mentally ready for it. She doesn't identify a lot of possibilities for transition jobs that'll keep a student debt-addled girl afloat while she migrates to a profession that has no steady employment, or steady paychecks, or benefits. She just tells a lot of stories about unfulfilled successes who bailed.
The sad fact is that after reading the book, I had almost zero respect for any of the navel-gazing misfits she profiles; even though I sympathize with their desire not to be lawyers anymore, I judge them for being weak and stupid. (Especially the girl who was shocked, shocked to discover that being a lawyer is literally whoring your brain out to the highest bidder. She? Was clearly too dumb to have gone to law school.) Similarly, the first person to use the phrase "golden handcuffs," a "metaphor" of which Arron is excruciatingly fond, in my physical presence? Is getting punched in the head.
I am also reading What Can You Do With a Law Degree?, also by Arron. It apparently grew out of Running, and... you can tell. If you're going to read one, read What Can You Do?, because Arron repeats herself endlessly in both, and that one at least has some self-assessment exercises that'll help you decide whether it's time to jump ship. I think they're both more useful to a certain kind of lawyer (i.e., not the kind like me, someone who's failed by every traditional measure) but I have slightly higher hopes that What Can You Do? will at least contain some useful information for people who don't have a nest egg and a 401(k) to cash in.
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