By Katie Cowan I am worried about how to get going in my career in law and have a few questions. I want to be a lawyer. How do I find a job as a lawyer? How do I find my niche in law? Is it better to start off with general legal experience or … Continue reading
How do I reconcile my motivation for studying law being to help people, with the reputation lawyers have for being greedy and ‘slimy’? – Cait, 22 This is a great question. I take slimy to mean cynical, aggressive, manipulative, scheming, underhanded, and possibly unethical or even corrupt. (I also take it to mean super creepy, … Continue reading
What are some habits I can develop in law school that will help me in my career? – Ryan, 19 Man I love this question. It took me until I was about 29 to learn that a good life was more likely built on the shoulders of habits than goals, and here you are with … Continue reading
And so, you feel you should probably just keep going. Just get through it and then see what happens after that. After all, what if you took a break and never came back? What if you fell behind everyone else? What if future lawyers saw a big gap from June 2019 to July 2020 and refused even to let you in their doors? It’s all too much. Better to just keep grinding on as best you can, right? Continue reading
I am struggling with the social side of law school. How do I make friends with my law school peers? – Struggling, 19 I’m sorry to hear you are struggling, Struggling. University, for all its social clubs and events, can be an isolating place and social stuff can definitely get hard. Law school in … Continue reading
Around 90% of the guests on the podcast chose to study law because they were good at English. Rare is the guest who studied law because they wanted the skills to do particular justice-related work, or the guest who thought being a lawyer looked like fun. (I say that with the caveat that for many … Continue reading
“How do I know what area of law to practice in? I am worried that everyone says practicing law is very different from studying law, and that I might end up somewhere I hate. There are subjects I like studying, but how do I know if I should pursue them in practice? Can you offer any advice … Continue reading
“Did the time you dedicated to study at law school prepare you well for the hours you had to work as a junior lawyer?” – Jack, 19 In a word, no. In more words, no but it didn’t matter too much. In my first job I was contracted to work 40 hours and would … Continue reading
Dear Katie – How important are grades? Part 2 This column is Part 2 of a two part series about grades, prompted by a reader question. You can read Part 1 of the series here. This is a column not so much about how high grades lead to jobs, and whether B or … Continue reading