81–90 of 296 posts
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Plumbers produce real value, i.e. the total value of the world is higher after they finish their work. This cannot be said for lawyers.
Or most software developers.
Unfortunately, most of they ways in which they do so were already done in the 70s. It's just repeating that work in more modern languages / stacks.
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> few that make partner and rake in decent cash, which is only like average FANG entry salaries What entry level FAANG pays partner salary [1]? I need to apply. [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Sidley-Austin-Partner-Attor...
Starting salaries are 200 to 300k at the best firms. Partners make much more.
Starting salary for partners is around 300k at a big four. That's true for FAANG starting salaries, too.
The only difference is it takes 15 years to make partner at a big four, whereas (especially with college-age side hustle experience) you can start with a few years of experience.
Oh, the other difference is you can spend a few hundred thousand to buy-in as a partner, as opposed to a 100k signing bonus at a faang.
The fact senior partners make millions doesn't change the fact about starting salaries. At that point you're comparing a 25yo to a 45yo.
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Has anyone ever done a study on the costs/benefits of funding public defenders? Better funded public defenders, I imagine, would result in fewer and shorter prison sentences (saving money), but I guess also have some potential for an increase in crime (costing money).
I don't know about studies, but San Francisco has had an elected public defender's office since 1921. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Public_Defender%... and http://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr-online/the-publics-defende... An elected office means they can more freely lobby for funding and changes in policy. OTOH, if the office is elected, there's a chance voters might elect a "tough on crime" public de…
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I would think COVID might have scared more people off Or talking to doctors, or listening to what doctors write and say: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-n...
Great article. Unfortunately medicine continues to attract endless applicants. Universities have worked out that people will eat broken glass and pay for the privelege if they think it will raise their status.
It's still true though - it's one of the highest status professions out there.
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I always wondered if studying law, also prepares your mind for coding. Lots of complex preconditions, trying to find clauses that catch all side effects - sounds familiar to me. So transitioning from law to coding is maybe "just" learning some programming language and technical details, but the mind is already somewhat prepared to the thinking?
I've taught code-lite tools to a bunch of repurposed analysts, and your idea tracks with my experience too. Students that had an analytical perspective (e.g. from supply chain debugging) typically excelled. Students from more fuzzy, language-based perspectives (e.g. marketing) had a lot more difficulty.
The theory was that programming has many arbitrary rules that you need to be aware of work your way around to make things work, why is the language construct like this instead of this other way etc.
The law in many ways is logical but it is an arbitrary logic.
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My girlfriend was a lawyer for a few years. Shortly after we met she went to a bootcamp for coding, immediately got a new job, and now (a couple years later) makes something like 4x what she did as a lawyer. Of course she was doing contract work for a small local firm, but that was the best job she could find in the job market as it was.
I always wondered if studying law, also prepares your mind for coding. Lots of complex preconditions, trying to find clauses that catch all side effects - sounds familiar to me. So transitioning from law to coding is maybe "just" learning some programming language and technical details, but the mind is already somewhat prepared to the thinking?
I think there is another benefit - in that if you have some legal background (not much needed, some business law courses and basic familiarity) then when you are looking at code that you can't figure out why did they do this and think I will improve it! Sometimes the reason they did things in a weird way is because of regulatory requirements and you might be better able to notice those situations.
Also when you are planning features you might be able to determine this needs to be ran past legal more than other developers (at least I've had this experience a few times)
When I was considering going to law school I learned some sobering facts: - something like 75% of lawyers would not recommend their children go in to law - there is a high rate of burnout among lawyers - while the public perception is that lawyers are extremely high paid, that's only the case some elite lawyers that went to elite schools and work for elite firms[1] For someone like me, who doesn't just want to help t…
Law is a well paying profession in general, insofar as many can make high five figures and low six figures. That’s good money for real life. You’re correct that only a relatively few people make the kind of money people think lawyers make, and the profession is highly segregated by education. Most people at my law school (northwestern) went on to a big firm job with a salary of $200k rising to $500k after 8 years. A…
When I was considering going to law school I learned some sobering facts: - something like 75% of lawyers would not recommend their children go in to law - there is a high rate of burnout among lawyers - while the public perception is that lawyers are extremely high paid, that's only the case some elite lawyers that went to elite schools and work for elite firms[1] For someone like me, who doesn't just want to help t…
But after that it's a walk in the park.
The competitiveness of lawyer and developer jobs is really not comparable. All companies have a legal department and hire lawyers, internal lawyer is a good office job with a decent pay but nothing extraordinary.
There's no comparable career path for developers because only tech companies hire developers, the comparison is unemployment if you couldn't make it to a tech company.
When I was growing up there was this idea that the best of the best became doctors (physicians) and lawyers; and that these were well paid careers. Today that’s broadly no longer the case. Both professions certainly have a top tier that earns a lot (top firm partner, top specialist surgeon) that does very well but the vast majority in both professions aren’t particularly well paid and also are no longer attracting th…
Likewise being a plumber isn't that respectable either.
And let's not even get into the dating/marriage aspect of it.
When I was considering going to law school I learned some sobering facts: - something like 75% of lawyers would not recommend their children go in to law - there is a high rate of burnout among lawyers - while the public perception is that lawyers are extremely high paid, that's only the case some elite lawyers that went to elite schools and work for elite firms[1] For someone like me, who doesn't just want to help t…
Law is a well paying profession in general, insofar as many can make high five figures and low six figures. That’s good money for real life. You’re correct that only a relatively few people make the kind of money people think lawyers make, and the profession is highly segregated by education. Most people at my law school (northwestern) went on to a big firm job with a salary of $200k rising to $500k after 8 years. A…
High five figures is not good money for a professional in the US.