Career Development

Should You Become a Lawyer?

Man-dressed-in-suit-for-interview

Thinking of a career in law? The legal arena offers lifelong employment prospects (and depending on your role, the salary can be an attractive prospect). Today we’re going to look at the kinds of things that may mean you are suited to a career in law. For further reading on law firms, check out a company like this criminal defense lawyer with offices in Los Angeles. Otherwise, let’s get started…

An empathetic approach to the needs of your clients

Clients come in all shapes and sizes. This seems like an obvious thing to say, but people who are considering a career in law may not have considered the range of backgrounds from which their client base will be formed. Typically in life, we surround ourselves with like minded friends. This means that the issues affecting one member of our friendship group are likely to be similar to the issues that have already affected other members of the group or may potentially affect you or your friends in the future. In short, we become accustomed to the things that we show empathy towards, and we may not know how to express empathy to people with problems outside of our normal realm of experience and understanding.

However, if you are the kind of person who takes pride in getting to the bottom of matters, so as to see things from someone else’s point of view and find a resolution, you could find that a career in law may be suitable.

Determination to see things through to the end

Some people give things a try, and then give in when they don’t get what they want the first time around. Others might try again, perhaps even a couple of times, albeit with diminishing levels of effort, in sort of a “well let’s just see if this little change to my prior attempts helps at all” kind of a way. If those things sound familiar, a career in law may not be suited to your particular outlook. But if you are the kind of person who doesn’t readily accept the prospect of defeat without exhausting every option in the book (indeed, before getting to a point where increasingly creative options are required), a career in law may be more suited to you than you may have thought.

Academic abilities (attention to detail)

There’s no denying that anybody planning to undertake a role in the legal arena is more likely to succeed in carving a long and rewarding career where they are able to call upon some degree of academic ability. Facts, figures, dates, emails, spreadsheets – this may all sound like standard fare for any office role, but where the law is concerned, there is likely to be a vast difference between the research required. If you love to get stuck in and to problem solve, a career in law may be for you, but if you prefer to steer clear of research and note taking and learning and planning, you might soon find that working in law means you are in the wrong job.   

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.