I've been a Vault.com member many years. Back in the day they had a couple of lively, if not particularly useful law forums. At this stage in my career I peruse it for entertainment value.
Vault's bloggers and editors produce clickbait seminal works such as A Day in the Life of a Wachtell Partner whose publication is announced via regular e-mails. Statistically, how useful do you think this is to a typical law student?
Anyhow, this week's e-mail featured Can You Do Anything with a Law Degree? DC Lawyers Say Yes.
To give credit where it's due, that piece originated from the Washington Post, which vacillates between Watergate break-ins and vapid articles about yuppies. The problem is Vault should know better, though they included a gratuitous disclaimer at the end of the article.
Here's a more fulsome disclaimer:
- You ain't getting a biglaw job in D.C., probably the most competitive market in the country. If you are then you don't need advice from either Vault or me. The Vault author apparently did obtain one of these jobs and is either oblivious or realizes that writing about shitlaw doesn't pay the bills. Hence, tripe like this
- There's that J.D. Disadvantage that will haunt you like a ghost. I'm speaking from experience
- Heartwarming career-change stories are evergreens in NYC and elsewhere. The common theme is you need money (and health insurance) to make money. Don't have enough capital to offset potentially years of negative cash flow? Sucks to be you
- Legal training may or may not be of any use to you in future endeavors; it's an expensive sunk cost. One woman in the Post article freely admitted she needed a lawyer to negotiate a lease. People who are smart enough to get jobs like that in the first place are smart enough to realize when they're in over their head
- Bonus tip: I guarantee none of these lawyers-turned-bakers went to cooking school, another huge scam. Avoid
