Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional? Forum

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thefatman11

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Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by thefatman11 » Thu Jun 23, 2016 11:15 pm

Hi everyone. I currently work for a top tech company selling SaaS and enterprise software. My base salary is $110k and last year, I made around $200k before taxes with commission. I'm 26 years old, and have been working in sales for five years. My job is in inside sales, so I mostly work from the office and sell via the phone, although I can work up to two days at home. On the plus, I only work on average around 50 hours a week. I'd say the work is tolerable, and I don't mind it, but it's nothing spectacular, and I don't find it fulfilling. If I keep hitting and exceeding my numbers, I could be promoted to a field rep position within a few years, where I could make between $300-500k a year (although the hours would go up, and I'd be on the road a lot, although it'd definitely still be less hours than BigLaw).

On the downside, while I am quite good at selling, it's not really a huge personality fit. The hours aren't bad at all (sometime I work 40 hours a week), but there's an extreme pressure to perform and close that deal right by midnight, which can be very stressful. Also sales is in pretty much no way intellectual; it's all about hustling. To succeed, you have to be very socially adept, being funny, charismatic, outgoing, personable, etc. And despite being in a technical field, we're taught to "dumb things down" and instead do a lot of small talk on sports and other topics to get the ball going. We take clients out to lunch, play golf with them, butter them up and kiss ass, be a smooth sweettalker and showman, use weird tactics like change your caller ID if you're in nevada calling into texas, doing lip service and flattery, and other shit that's annoying.

Also, to succeed, you have to make it all about the customer constantly, and I find that exhausting. I don't really HATE doing any of this, but I really miss being in college and just talking to my peers in an analytical and intellectually rigorous way. And while I make a lot of money, no one really thinks highly of my profession in sales, and it's definitely not considered "prestigious."

As someone who went to an ivy league undergrad and got a 3.7 GPA in Applied Math and Economics, I really do miss being in an academic and intellectually stimulating environment, and being surrounded by brilliant peers. Half of my fellow sales reps, while making bank and are social animals, are high school dropouts. A monkey could go do my job, and it's pretty low-skill all things considered. Just find that high school dropout who partied all day and ditched class, got Fs and Ds while flirting with girls and making friends, and instill him a good work ethic, and he would excel at my job.

As someone who always held myself to high academic standards, and excelled in high school and college, I feel like pretty much my entire schooling was put to waste, and I barely use my brains for my job. My degree seems pretty useless.

I took the LSAT in February, and got a 171, so I think with a 3.7 GPA, I have a good shot at the t14. If I went to law school, I'd want to pursue BigLaw, and then probably go in-house if I don't make partner track. I think I'd like the academic rigor of law school, and really miss doing analytical work and exercising my brain. On the other hand, I have no idea if I want to be a lawyer. What I think, more than anything, is a job that requires some intellectual labor, and something that I can find fulfilling and where I can put my intelligence to use. Some friends suggested maybe I pursue an MBA to go into management consultant or something instead. But then again, I've never worked 60+ hours consistently, so I don't know if I would hate or regret pursuing a law degree just for the sake of "prestige" and "doing something intellectual."

What do you recommend my next steps be? Thanks a lot in advance.
Last edited by thefatman11 on Fri Jun 24, 2016 12:07 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Stardust84

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by Stardust84 » Thu Jun 23, 2016 11:59 pm

I think many people here will tell you to stick with your current job. I for one really empathize with your wanting for something more "intellectual". I think you will also get some pushback on that point. Regardless, I do think there is plenty in law that can be intellectually rewarding, particularly in litigation. Your post is just asking to be shredded by a Big Law associate who is stuck doing endless doc review drudgery, and they will tell you that it isn't the least bit rewarding or intellectually satisfying and I understand that. Do keep in mind that as a law partner you will continue to have to wine and dine clients, perhaps not to the extent you do now.

Personally, I'd rather be a philosophy professor making 60k per year than doing your job for 200k for the same concerns you have outlined. That makes me less risk averse than a lot of people here. Still, you should at the very least talk with a number of lawyers in a spectrum of different practice areas and career stages so you can get a better idea if would hate it. This part was easy for me because I have a parent lawyer, put me in touch with the right people to talk to, had tons of conversations with me over the course several years about the good, bad and ugly of it. I've also worked a pretty unprestigious unintellectual job, except I have done it for 7 years and I'm 31 now. It's been a slow existential rot for me, where I feel I haven't lived up to my potential and unlike law I work in a field where the stakes of what I do are pretty low. Mind you I have a full scholarship and a job lined up, but I'm more than happy to trade in my easy breezy, relatively lucrative (not as much as yours) job for a much more stressful and demanding career.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by mvp99 » Fri Jun 24, 2016 12:06 am

what? gtfo

edit: I just can't believe you're really considering biglaw... continue working and try to find meaning in life elsewhere. You'll never find it at work.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by thefatman11 » Fri Jun 24, 2016 12:17 am

mvp99 wrote:what? gtfo

edit: I just can't believe you're really considering biglaw... continue working and try to find meaning in life elsewhere. You'll never find it at work.
Is it really shallow and foolish to think that even if I'd be doing doc review, I'd at least have some "lay prestige" and "social status" if I graduated from a top law school? I know it sounds petty, but as an Asian-American who has many friends studying to be doctors, working in i-banking, consulting, and law, it is still something I can't help but care about and crave :/

Of course, I do try my best to find meaning outside of work too, but when I spend the majority of my life in the office, deriving no fulfillment from it can really be draining, despite the big bucks. I feel with doing litigation in BigLaw, I could put my brain and academic skills to professional use, and if I'm not so lucky, at least I'd have some social prestige.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by mvp99 » Fri Jun 24, 2016 12:23 am

thefatman11 wrote:
mvp99 wrote:what? gtfo

edit: I just can't believe you're really considering biglaw... continue working and try to find meaning in life elsewhere. You'll never find it at work.
Is it really shallow and foolish to think that even if I'd be doing doc review, I'd at least have some "lay prestige" and "social status" if I graduated from a top law school? I know it sounds petty, but as an Asian-American who has many friends studying to be doctors, working in i-banking, consulting, and law, it is still something I can't help but care about and crave :/

Of course, I do try my best to find meaning outside of work too, but when I spend the majority of my life in the office, deriving no fulfillment from it can really be draining, despite the big bucks. I feel with doing litigation in BigLaw, I could put my brain and academic skills to professional use, and if I'm not so lucky, at least I'd have some social prestige.
With the money you're pulling in (and apparently will make in the future) you could easily start your own thing within a few years. Be your own boss and start a business. It's ok to want more in life but LS is not the solution to your existential problems.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by darkjak7 » Fri Jun 24, 2016 12:33 am

Stick it out for a few years, get that field rep position, and suck it up. Then you have enough capital to start a small business of your choosing. Getting an MBA before doing so is optional. Establish your own culture, and be your own boss.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by cavalier1138 » Fri Jun 24, 2016 6:09 am

I think it comes down to a question that you kind of danced around in the OP without really answering:

What do you want to do?

If you want to go into a different career, then find out what interests you. It may not be the law (as mentioned, you're probably going to hear from a lot of biglaw associates about how terrible and uninteresting their jobs are), or at least it may not be biglaw. But it sounds like you're not happy right now. And while this will probably run contrary to a lot of the other advice you'll get on this board, I don't think your ultimate goal in life should be the acquisition of money. If you're not satisfied with your career, find out what career is going to satisfy you and start pursuing that.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by HonestAdvice » Fri Jun 24, 2016 7:10 am

There's a reason why a disproportionately high number of lawyers write books, study Talmud and abuse drugs. It's because the actual practice of law isn't really intellectually stimulating. Every so often you might work on something complex and challenging, but there's not as much difference as you think between selling a judge on why your view of the case is correct, and pitching to a client.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by thatsnotmyname » Sat Jun 25, 2016 12:55 pm

TLDR: DO NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL.

Please do not go to law school. You will not find what you're looking for in law school. I'm not telling you to continue being a sales professional if you don't think that is what you want to be doing in life either, but based on what you described that you want out of life, you will not find it in law school. People have already discussed in this thread how it's likely that you won't find the work in biglaw to be any more intellectually stimulating and I agree with that based on my discussions with biglaw associates about how tedious and mundane they find their work. But you also mention being Asian American and wanting to do it for the "prestige." I can empathize, but I would tell you that is a horrible thing to be factoring into your calculus.

First of all trying to make a decision off of perceived prestige is a stupid idea, because when it comes right down to it you could've always been doing something that was more prestigious. While you will likely get an immediate "prestige" bump from Asian parents and older Asian people (older people in general) just by being able to say that you're a lawyer, you'll find that that prestige bump is actually nowhere near as high among your fellow, young highly educated college peers. That's due to the fact that at this point it's no secret to most of them that law school and a legal career path in general is a losing proposition and even if you end up in a good spot, there were many easier, more efficient ways to get there that did not involve going to law school. Your peer group will not be impressed. I know people with bachelors degrees working in decent business jobs who automatically judge people who waste three years on law school as idiots for the most part. You say your peers include i-bankers, consultants, doctors, other lawyers. They won't even consider you going to law school to be "prestigious."

Second of all, if it is prestige that you're chasing to impress your Asian parents, that can easily be compensated for with... money. Yes, Asian parents, love their kids going to grad school and professional school so that when they talk about you to other parents they can quickly and easily communicate that they raised a successful child by saying something along the lines of "My son is studying to be a lawyer at Berkeley Law." But you know how else they can communicate they raised a successful kid? Once you buy a mansion and a Ferrari and invite all of your parent's friends over for a party with all of the works, they'll quickly shut the f up. That's when all of your Asian parents friends go back and yell at their Asian kids that so and so's kid only has a bachelors degree and has all of this shit and bought all of this shit for his parents and you're in school to be a cardiologist and you haven't done shit yet. Asian parent behavior is very predictable.

Lastly, I don't think I need to go into this, but what you're considering doing by going to law school is financially idiotic. An absolute financial disaster in the making. It's very likely that you will never make as much money in the law that you're saying that you can make in sales. The opportunity cost of you going to law school is absolutely massive. I won't harp on this because I'm sure that you're aware of it and it seems that the main reason is that you want to leave your current profession because it's not intellectually stimulating enough for you. The truth of the matter is that unless you end up as a professor or philosopher probably no job will ever be intellectually stimulating. Find your sources of intellectual stimulation from outside of work.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by pancakes3 » Sat Jun 25, 2016 1:09 pm

itt an ivy grad with latin honors in applied math and econ contemplates LS over 110 base salary plus 90k in commission with upward mobility and shot at 500k.

where is your god now, classical economics?

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by dabigchina » Sat Jun 25, 2016 1:14 pm

prestige don't pay the rent. you only think money is unimportant because you currently have plenty of it.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by Johann » Sat Jun 25, 2016 3:05 pm

thefatman11 wrote:Hi everyone. I currently work for a top tech company selling SaaS and enterprise software. My base salary is $110k and last year, I made around $200k before taxes with commission. I'm 26 years old, and have been working in sales for five years. My job is in inside sales, so I mostly work from the office and sell via the phone, although I can work up to two days at home. On the plus, I only work on average around 50 hours a week. I'd say the work is tolerable, and I don't mind it, but it's nothing spectacular, and I don't find it fulfilling. If I keep hitting and exceeding my numbers, I could be promoted to a field rep position within a few years, where I could make between $300-500k a year (although the hours would go up, and I'd be on the road a lot, although it'd definitely still be less hours than BigLaw).

On the downside, while I am quite good at selling, it's not really a huge personality fit. The hours aren't bad at all (sometime I work 40 hours a week), but there's an extreme pressure to perform and close that deal right by midnight, which can be very stressful. Also sales is in pretty much no way intellectual; it's all about hustling. To succeed, you have to be very socially adept, being funny, charismatic, outgoing, personable, etc. And despite being in a technical field, we're taught to "dumb things down" and instead do a lot of small talk on sports and other topics to get the ball going. We take clients out to lunch, play golf with them, butter them up and kiss ass, be a smooth sweettalker and showman, use weird tactics like change your caller ID if you're in nevada calling into texas, doing lip service and flattery, and other shit that's annoying.

Also, to succeed, you have to make it all about the customer constantly, and I find that exhausting. I don't really HATE doing any of this, but I really miss being in college and just talking to my peers in an analytical and intellectually rigorous way. And while I make a lot of money, no one really thinks highly of my profession in sales, and it's definitely not considered "prestigious."

As someone who went to an ivy league undergrad and got a 3.7 GPA in Applied Math and Economics, I really do miss being in an academic and intellectually stimulating environment, and being surrounded by brilliant peers. Half of my fellow sales reps, while making bank and are social animals, are high school dropouts. A monkey could go do my job, and it's pretty low-skill all things considered. Just find that high school dropout who partied all day and ditched class, got Fs and Ds while flirting with girls and making friends, and instill him a good work ethic, and he would excel at my job.

As someone who always held myself to high academic standards, and excelled in high school and college, I feel like pretty much my entire schooling was put to waste, and I barely use my brains for my job. My degree seems pretty useless.

I took the LSAT in February, and got a 171, so I think with a 3.7 GPA, I have a good shot at the t14. If I went to law school, I'd want to pursue BigLaw, and then probably go in-house if I don't make partner track. I think I'd like the academic rigor of law school, and really miss doing analytical work and exercising my brain. On the other hand, I have no idea if I want to be a lawyer. What I think, more than anything, is a job that requires some intellectual labor, and something that I can find fulfilling and where I can put my intelligence to use. Some friends suggested maybe I pursue an MBA to go into management consultant or something instead. But then again, I've never worked 60+ hours consistently, so I don't know if I would hate or regret pursuing a law degree just for the sake of "prestige" and "doing something intellectual."

What do you recommend my next steps be? Thanks a lot in advance.
Id stay in your current job. most of what you bitch about is the same in law (i.e. not being intellectually challenged, stress). If you must change careers, get an MBA and work in strategy for the software companies. Your selling experience will be a huge leg up and there are lots of super awesome strategy roles at these companies.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by Famous » Sat Jun 25, 2016 5:28 pm

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by speed_the_loot » Sat Jun 25, 2016 5:34 pm

.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by thefatman11 » Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:40 pm

thanks for the replies everyone, really appreciate it.

I just wanted to run one other concern with you all. I looked deep inside, and realized, that one of the biggest reasons I wanted to go to law school and go into biglaw is that I want to be surrounded by extremely intelligent and knowledgeable peers. All my life, I've been an academic achiever, getting A grades in honors and advanced placement classes, getting into a top college, and performing well academically there.

in the real world, in sales, i work alongside monkeys. they are really not that smart, and have little knowledge. half of them are college dropouts. many of them got trash grades from shit-tier schools. when they talk about politics or other stuff, it's quite evident they don't really think things through well.

it's just...reading on this board, even the off-topic forum, made me feel really at home. i really miss that academic environment where while i was smart, I was surrounded by very smart and accomplished people as well, and we were all knowledgeable, bright, etc., and pushed ourselves to succeed.

the fact that at law school, i'd be competing with people who are just as smart as me (if not more intelligent), and are hard working, makes me really happy compared to the low-education idiots I deal with on a consistent basis.

i know this is shallow, but this was among the biggest reasons of wanting to switch from sales to law. when i put in so much effort to excel academically all throughout my life, i feel my education has been a complete waste when a college jock dropout thinks he's the shit and my equal.

for those working in biglaw, be honest. is it not a plus to work with smart peers? is it not a plus to have bright law school classmates? as opposed to working with idiotic people?

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by darkjak7 » Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:54 pm

it's a trade-off. your peers will be academically smart, but it could be argued that they are far more likely to be arrogant, to be non-empathetic to those around them, to lack understanding of the real world, especially if they are K-JD.

Since they are surrounded by other "top students," they tend to misunderstand that not everyone is like them - that "if they just tried harder they could accomplish "x", since those around the student certainly could.

I also think that interpersonal skills tend to be devalued in a lot of the admissions processes at law schools, even the top ones. Many lawyers have social disorders and deficiencies, and are extremely dry, as opposed to salespeople who tend to be charismatic, witty, funny, etc. Many of them will be depressed, lonely, fat, alcoholics, etc., and have subpar social and romantic lives.

You can be a socially awkward introvert weirdo but still hack it away as a BigLaw associate doing doc review drudgery, although you need solid social skills to rise to the partner level, where your jobs is basically the same as sales and marketing, where your work is less about intellectual output and more about hustling.

But more generally are students who are academically achieving and go to prestigious universities, there are many people who couldn't get in to Harvard or Berkeley Law. It's not that it's because of financial or personal reasons - they just didn't have the "stuff" that admissions officers at those schools look for.

They may not be the most academically smart. But they are talented in other ways, and can do many things better than us, and deserve our respect. They are the ones who do most of the work in America. They start and run most of the small businesses. They also work in most of the soup kitchens, coach most of the soccer teams, lead most of the girl scout troops and volunteer in most of the schools.

Are they going to be the CEO of Citibank, or NSA senior policy adviser? Nope- those go to the "smartest kids in the room" types.

But to claim that you're somehow superior to these people who break their asses just because you got in to a great school versus them being "college dropouts" comes across as pretty self important and arrogant.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by zeglo » Sat Oct 01, 2016 6:25 pm

.
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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by calpolisci2016 » Sat Oct 01, 2016 10:11 pm

Dude you should just get an MBA. You think a Harvard or Stanford MBA isn't impressive among your Asian peers?

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by dabigchina » Sat Oct 01, 2016 11:57 pm

thefatman11 wrote:thanks for the replies everyone, really appreciate it.

I just wanted to run one other concern with you all. I looked deep inside, and realized, that one of the biggest reasons I wanted to go to law school and go into biglaw is that I want to be surrounded by extremely intelligent and knowledgeable peers. All my life, I've been an academic achiever, getting A grades in honors and advanced placement classes, getting into a top college, and performing well academically there.

in the real world, in sales, i work alongside monkeys. they are really not that smart, and have little knowledge. half of them are college dropouts. many of them got trash grades from shit-tier schools. when they talk about politics or other stuff, it's quite evident they don't really think things through well.

it's just...reading on this board, even the off-topic forum, made me feel really at home. i really miss that academic environment where while i was smart, I was surrounded by very smart and accomplished people as well, and we were all knowledgeable, bright, etc., and pushed ourselves to succeed.

the fact that at law school, i'd be competing with people who are just as smart as me (if not more intelligent), and are hard working, makes me really happy compared to the low-education idiots I deal with on a consistent basis.

i know this is shallow, but this was among the biggest reasons of wanting to switch from sales to law. when i put in so much effort to excel academically all throughout my life, i feel my education has been a complete waste when a college jock dropout thinks he's the shit and my equal.

for those working in biglaw, be honest. is it not a plus to work with smart peers? is it not a plus to have bright law school classmates? as opposed to working with idiotic people?
IMO this is not a good reason to go to law school. In any case, are you going to be comfortable with sharing a classroom with someone who went to some no name state school? Because many of your "peers" will be people like that.

Go get an MBA.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by Phil Brooks » Sun Oct 02, 2016 1:04 am

OP, you sound arrogant and insecure at the same time. On the one hand, "I am so much smarter than all the rubes around me who *gasp* didn't go to fancy schools. They are monkeys." Yet on the other hand, "I need to do something prefstigious in order to impress my Asian parents."

Here's an idea: gain real self-esteem by beginning to live your own life, instead of attempting to gain it by looking down on others.

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by sweets91 » Sun Oct 02, 2016 1:32 am

darkjak7 wrote:it's a trade-off. your peers will be academically smart, but it could be argued that they are far more likely to be arrogant, to be non-empathetic to those around them, to lack understanding of the real world, especially if they are K-JD.

Since they are surrounded by other "top students," they tend to misunderstand that not everyone is like them - that "if they just tried harder they could accomplish "x", since those around the student certainly could.

I also think that interpersonal skills tend to be devalued in a lot of the admissions processes at law schools, even the top ones. Many lawyers have social disorders and deficiencies, and are extremely dry, as opposed to salespeople who tend to be charismatic, witty, funny, etc. Many of them will be depressed, lonely, fat, alcoholics, etc., and have subpar social and romantic lives.

You can be a socially awkward introvert weirdo but still hack it away as a BigLaw associate doing doc review drudgery, although you need solid social skills to rise to the partner level, where your jobs is basically the same as sales and marketing, where your work is less about intellectual output and more about hustling.

But more generally are students who are academically achieving and go to prestigious universities, there are many people who couldn't get in to Harvard or Berkeley Law. It's not that it's because of financial or personal reasons - they just didn't have the "stuff" that admissions officers at those schools look for.

They may not be the most academically smart. But they are talented in other ways, and can do many things better than us, and deserve our respect. They are the ones who do most of the work in America. They start and run most of the small businesses. They also work in most of the soup kitchens, coach most of the soccer teams, lead most of the girl scout troops and volunteer in most of the schools.

Are they going to be the CEO of Citibank, or NSA senior policy adviser? Nope- those go to the "smartest kids in the room" types.

But to claim that you're somehow superior to these people who break their asses just because you got in to a great school versus them being "college dropouts" comes across as pretty self important and arrogant.
Frankly, judging by his posts and his comments about his peers being "monkeys" because they did not pursue higher education, OP seems like he'd fit right in (though in my experience, the majority of law students aren't "the stereotypical asshole law student")

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by sweets91 » Sun Oct 02, 2016 1:36 am

thatsnotmyname wrote:TLDR: DO NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL.

Please do not go to law school. You will not find what you're looking for in law school. I'm not telling you to continue being a sales professional if you don't think that is what you want to be doing in life either, but based on what you described that you want out of life, you will not find it in law school. People have already discussed in this thread how it's likely that you won't find the work in biglaw to be any more intellectually stimulating and I agree with that based on my discussions with biglaw associates about how tedious and mundane they find their work. But you also mention being Asian American and wanting to do it for the "prestige." I can empathize, but I would tell you that is a horrible thing to be factoring into your calculus.

First of all trying to make a decision off of perceived prestige is a stupid idea, because when it comes right down to it you could've always been doing something that was more prestigious. While you will likely get an immediate "prestige" bump from Asian parents and older Asian people (older people in general) just by being able to say that you're a lawyer, you'll find that that prestige bump is actually nowhere near as high among your fellow, young highly educated college peers. That's due to the fact that at this point it's no secret to most of them that law school and a legal career path in general is a losing proposition and even if you end up in a good spot, there were many easier, more efficient ways to get there that did not involve going to law school. Your peer group will not be impressed. I know people with bachelors degrees working in decent business jobs who automatically judge people who waste three years on law school as idiots for the most part. You say your peers include i-bankers, consultants, doctors, other lawyers. They won't even consider you going to law school to be "prestigious."

Second of all, if it is prestige that you're chasing to impress your Asian parents, that can easily be compensated for with... money. Yes, Asian parents, love their kids going to grad school and professional school so that when they talk about you to other parents they can quickly and easily communicate that they raised a successful child by saying something along the lines of "My son is studying to be a lawyer at Berkeley Law." But you know how else they can communicate they raised a successful kid? Once you buy a mansion and a Ferrari and invite all of your parent's friends over for a party with all of the works, they'll quickly shut the f up. That's when all of your Asian parents friends go back and yell at their Asian kids that so and so's kid only has a bachelors degree and has all of this shit and bought all of this shit for his parents and you're in school to be a cardiologist and you haven't done shit yet. Asian parent behavior is very predictable.

Lastly, I don't think I need to go into this, but what you're considering doing by going to law school is financially idiotic. An absolute financial disaster in the making. It's very likely that you will never make as much money in the law that you're saying that you can make in sales. The opportunity cost of you going to law school is absolutely massive. I won't harp on this because I'm sure that you're aware of it and it seems that the main reason is that you want to leave your current profession because it's not intellectually stimulating enough for you. The truth of the matter is that unless you end up as a professor or philosopher probably no job will ever be intellectually stimulating. Find your sources of intellectual stimulation from outside of work.
Wow...as an Asian American there are so many false stereotypes in your post about Asians (the parenting, the berating of children, the desire to one-up their peers, and the chase of money and prestige) that offend me I don't even know where to begin.
Unfortunately, it seems OP is one of the few Asian Americans who seem to want to fit this stereotype.

Your post is still shit though thatsnotmyname, and idk if you yourself are Asian American, but I'm sorry you buy into all this crap about Asians

thefatman11

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by thefatman11 » Sun Oct 02, 2016 2:10 am

dabigchina wrote:
thefatman11 wrote:thanks for the replies everyone, really appreciate it.

I just wanted to run one other concern with you all. I looked deep inside, and realized, that one of the biggest reasons I wanted to go to law school and go into biglaw is that I want to be surrounded by extremely intelligent and knowledgeable peers. All my life, I've been an academic achiever, getting A grades in honors and advanced placement classes, getting into a top college, and performing well academically there.

in the real world, in sales, i work alongside monkeys. they are really not that smart, and have little knowledge. half of them are college dropouts. many of them got trash grades from shit-tier schools. when they talk about politics or other stuff, it's quite evident they don't really think things through well.

it's just...reading on this board, even the off-topic forum, made me feel really at home. i really miss that academic environment where while i was smart, I was surrounded by very smart and accomplished people as well, and we were all knowledgeable, bright, etc., and pushed ourselves to succeed.

the fact that at law school, i'd be competing with people who are just as smart as me (if not more intelligent), and are hard working, makes me really happy compared to the low-education idiots I deal with on a consistent basis.

i know this is shallow, but this was among the biggest reasons of wanting to switch from sales to law. when i put in so much effort to excel academically all throughout my life, i feel my education has been a complete waste when a college jock dropout thinks he's the shit and my equal.

for those working in biglaw, be honest. is it not a plus to work with smart peers? is it not a plus to have bright law school classmates? as opposed to working with idiotic people?
IMO this is not a good reason to go to law school. In any case, are you going to be comfortable with sharing a classroom with someone who went to some no name state school? Because many of your "peers" will be people like that.

Go get an MBA.
I mean, even if they went to no name state schools, I think that's more than compensated by getting a very high GPA and/or rocking the LSAT. So they'd be worthy of my respect. They'd be at the top 5% or higher at their schools, making them not so far off from the median student at let's say, Cornell.

But I guess you all are right. An MBA seems to be a more efficient path, and one that fits my career history and trajectory better. I can look into strategy roles, corporate development, marketing, operations, brand management, rotational programs, leadership development at f500 tech companies. My sales experience would be relevant to all of those roles. Or management consulting at MBB (the most prestigious option). Not as interested in i-banking or accounting, although PE, VC, and hedge funds seem interesting.
Last edited by thefatman11 on Mon Oct 03, 2016 11:37 am, edited 2 times in total.

haus

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by haus » Sun Oct 02, 2016 10:21 am

Personally, I think that an MBA is a worthless degree. It seems really popular as resume candy among sales folks to show that they are serious so that they can compete for jobs that have nothing to do with an MBA.

But if it works out for you, you can land a job where you convince management at the next Wells Fargo that they need measurable sales goals to determine who gets raises/bonuses so that they can be shamed years later when the stupid idea reaches its inevitable conclusion.

At the same time, I would argue that going to law school because you are a good student, without any interest in being a attorney seems rather boneheaded. Figure out what you want to do, then work out a path to get there.

Perhaps figure out what you want to do,

zeglo

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Re: Should I go to law school or continue being a sales professional?

Post by zeglo » Sun Oct 02, 2016 12:53 pm

.
Last edited by zeglo on Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

Now there's a charge.
Just kidding ... it's still FREE!


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