I Hate Being a Lawyer – is it me, my firm, or the law generally?
It won’t come as a shock to anyone that lots of lawyers end up hating their jobs. Sad lawyers aren’t hard to find – maybe you’ve met one, maybe you’ve read about one, and maybe you’re becoming one.
If that’s you, then wallowing in your dissatisfaction isn’t likely to help.
To begin approaching a solution, you need to ask a series of questions to help hone in on what the problem is, and whether your legal career is salvageable.
Is it Temporary?
Deciding to leave the law completely because you had a bad day at the office isn’t a good life decision.
All lawyers, like pretty much everybody else, have bad days, bad weeks, and bad months.
Perhaps you started your job at a firm with six people in it and two of them left a week later, leaving you with a massive workload. This is stressful, of course, but it’s probably also temporary. Leaping to conclusions about what life as a lawyer feels like based on that period of practice wouldn’t make any sense.
So before making any conclusions, the first question to ask is whether you’ve had enough time to know that your perception of things is clear.
Is It Your Firm?
The people you work with are a significant factor in how much you’re going to enjoy your career.
Unfortunately, some lawyers start (and finish) their careers in firms that have bad less excellent cultures. Perhaps it’s bullying and snarkyness, a supervising partner who’s a nightmare, or being overworked and underpaid.
What’s difficult for younger lawyers is assessing whether what they are experiencing is simply “how things are”. That’s particularly the case when you’re in your first job so you don’t have much to compare it to.
We’re happy to tell you that the answer is no – that’s not just how things are.
Firms all around Brisbane and Australia have widely varying cultures and attitudes towards their staff. Different partners, different policies, different teams, and different places will all have slightly different feels about them.
So, if the thing that gives you a sense of dread heading in to the office is not the job as much as the people you have to work with – then perhaps a change of firm might be in order rather than a change of career.
Is It You?
Self-awareness is an important personal characteristic, and no more so than trying to figure out whether you’re actually the problem.
Some people find that even after trying a few different firms the same problems keep coming up.
Of course, there’s a chance that you’ve just gone from one bad environment to the next.
But if your problems seem to follow you around, then it makes sense to look at the common element… yourself.
While we don’t want to start sounding like a self-help service, we do spend a lot of time counselling young lawyers on their legal careers. With that experience, we suggest you take a moment to honestly self-assess a few things:
- What attitude are you bringing to your career – is it generally positive, or are you walking around with “life sucks” carved into your forehead?
- How do you treat the people around you – are you generous with your time and assistance, viewing other people as part of the team, or do you find every conversation an imposition?
- Is your life in order – are you going OK in your personal, financial, spiritual and avocational areas?
Here’s the deal – if your attitude and your life are a train wreck, then that’s going to infect your legal career at every step. If the problems are elsewhere, then changing firms or changing careers probably won’t help – it will just bring the problems with you.
So, be as honest as you can, and ask yourself: “am I part of the problem?”
Is a Legal Career Simply Not for You?
So, your problem isn’t temporary, your firm is great, and you’re a bastion of good personal health – yet you still hate your job as a lawyer.
Is it time to leave the law? Perhaps.
We find that most young lawyers didn’t really know what they were getting themselves in for when they decided to do a law degree. Perhaps they enjoyed the study of law, but find that they don’t enjoy the practice of it.
Perhaps they didn’t really know what “being a lawyer” was like until they hit the office floor. Once there, they found that it’s just not very enjoyable or wasn’t what they were expecting at all.
Given the investment of time and money you’ve made to get here, leaving the law isn’t going to be something you want to leap in to. That said, hanging around in a career that you’re confident isn’t right for you won’t do you any favours either.
If you’re considering leaving law to become an apprentice baker or starting an e-commerce side hustle, then here’s what we’d suggest:
- Be sure that you’re not leaving law because of the people or your own attitude;
- If you’re not sure, see if you can find a sensible change of firms to a place that bears no resemblance to your current firm;
- Speak with someone else about it;
- Also consider related careers that use your experience and training;
- Don’t burn your bridges.
Over to You
Hating your job shouldn’t be normal, and it’s not a situation you should learn to tolerate. If possible, take a pro-active approach to crafting a legal career that you enjoy.
As legal recruiters, we spend a lot of time talking with lawyers about their careers, so this kind of conversation comes up regularly.
If you want to talk through the options in more detail, get in touch with us for a confidential chat.