I'm 25, I finished my bachelor of laws last year (started in 2010) and I'm doing my master of laws atm (it's a 5 year programme where I live, bachelor is 3 years, master is 2). I've always wanted to do something in IT and lately Infosec has really started interesting me.
Last year I took up some programming classes (java) and I actually liked it, however I kept convincing myself that despite that, I was going to finish law school. Mainly to keep my job prospects open, maybe even get a management position in an IT firm faster that way. But honestly, aside from the pragmatic things that law teaches you, it sucks. It really does. Everyone I know either aspires to pick up notary or fiscal law, just so they could satisfy their own prospects of a well paid, highly regarded profession. It's a fairly depressing field to study and to work in.
I did a summer internship during summer vacation this year at a fairly prestigious firm. I hated that job, it consisted of looking up the latest jurisprudence about i.e. 'higher power', it made me read law books that were too boring to even want to comprehenend. I read an M&A template contract, which was interesting, but I couldn't imagine doing that for the rest of my life. All the lawyers there aged 27 and up were anything but living the dream. They worked their ass off from 8am to 10pm to bill enough hours per month just so they could keep their respective partners happy. The partners were well dressed, hardworking and very prestigious people. They were nice to be honest, they weren't assholes like you would expect. They actually made me, and the lawyers that worked there, aspire to become one of them. But then you hear the dark side of things. One of the partners had 2 kids she hardly saw, she actually had a babysitter/cleaning maid who took care of them all the time. Another one was divorced and spent his time harassing every hot secretary he met. Actually many of the male part ners thrived on exploiting their prestige to flirt with the fairer sex. Which I can't help but feel a bit jealous of, having such prestige must be awesome.
Except that's all it is really, prestige. It's the main reason people study law, to my knowledge.
As I'm writing this, I'm contemplating quitting my master's and enlisting in a bachelor of IT focused on cybersecurity. I'm aware that it won't give me the same prestige, or the nice suits (I really like suits), but maybe I'll stop feeling miserable.
Just wanted to give you guys a view from another perspective, law school and law in general aren't all they're cracked up to be. They're miserable places to study and work. Just google the words law and depression in the same sentence.