Why I do not practice law | Practicing Law Sucks
In 2007, I graduated from law school. I passed the notoriously difficult California state bar exam — on the second try. Today, however, I’m an “inactive” member of the California bar (by choice), which means I don’t practice law. A lot of people are often times surprised when I tell them that I do not practice law. “Why would you go through the bother of going to law school, passing the bar, and decide that practicing law is not right for you”? Sounds like a waste of time!
There are a number of reasons why I decided to stop practicing law.
Lawyers argue about literally everything, including trivial matters that are boring.
When people think about the practice of law, they think that there will be arguments about truly monumental issues that significantly improve society for the better. So it probably is demoralizing to a lot of new lawyers to realize that opposing counsel will write hostile messages because one did not comply completely with form 1(A)(B) that states that one needs to use a special holepunch and to staple the form the right way. Opposing counsel will often times argue that one’s work is incomplete, false, and subject to sanctions — even when things are done in good faith. There is a lot of fighting over nothing. I don’t think most people decided to practice law to argue about a lot of nothing.
Attorneys spend a majority of their time on discovery and not arguing a case on the merits most of the time.
When you think of an attorney, you probably imagine an attorney coming up with some crafty arguments that will truly win the day. Well, that’s definitely an exciting view of what an attorney does. Most of the time, when an attorney is doing “legal work,” they are sending discovery requests to opposing counsel. In America, we have liberal discovery rules. What this means in practice is that one has the right to request from the opposite party all relevant evidence to help one make the case. As a result, most of the time one will be submitting requests such as, “Provide all documents, receipts, memorandums, photos, of economic transactions that took place on XYZ date.”
There is a reason why TV shows are not able to really present the real practice of law. It would bore most viewers.
If you didn’t graduate in the top 10% of your class, you graduated in the bottom 90%.
The practice of law is an incredibly snobby profession. No one has ever asked what my grades were in college (aside when I applied to law school). However, if you apply to practice law, your employers will all ask what your grades were and what rank you held in law school — even if that was 25 years ago! Attorneys routinely go to social events where they discuss what grades they got in law school decades ago. The reason why they do this is part of establishing a caste system where it is difficult for newcomers to change the establishment much. Ever wonder why there is so little innovation in the legal profession? The legal profession is designed to ensure that the next generation of legal entrepreneurs are stuck with so many regulations and time consuming constraints that they have to keep the system incredibly expensive for the vast majority of clients.
Lawyers are generally unhappy people.
I don’t blame lawyers for being unhappy. Their profession is quite terrible. Even their advertisements give an indication into the mood of the attorney. The attorney always promises to “fight for their client,” “be aggressive,” and the name of the law firm is often times an attorney who died long, long ago. Imagine if technology companies did that: “Steve Jobs Inc.” is not quite as appealing as Apple. In fact, lawyers are so unhappy that a large number of them decide to become alcoholics. In one study, 13,000 lawyers from across the United States were asked if they had a drinking problem. 21% indicated that they had a problem with alcohol!
If you enjoy writing, you’ll be miserable as an attorney.
I happen to enjoy creative writing. I like coming up with innovative and fun ways of communicating ideas. The sad truth is that practicing lawyers are often boring writers because there is a formula to the practice of law. The law does not necessarily reward people who write in a creative way. Instead, the job of an attorney is often times to present the facts and the law to a judge who is trained in the law, which means that one’s audience is quite narrow, specialized, and, dare we say, loves boring prose. Also, when you are writing legal commentary, the audience for this material is rather narrow — either other lawyers, judges, and occasionally, the general public. There aren’t many lawyers trying to explain how the law works in a way that is captivating to large numbers of readers, unfortunately.
And frankly, it is my goal to be part of the financial independence community.
I keep my expenses low. I don’t buy anything I don’t need. I don’t try to impress friends, colleagues, or relatives, so I don’t feel compelled to make an incredible salary just to show how cool I am. Ironically, I think someone who lives frugally might end up saving a lot more money than someone who has an incredibly large income but spends every dime of that paycheck.
