Good JuJu

Just chiming in here: It seems to me that you've already decided that you want to pursue a PhD. Your responses to others are more arguing that you're right than considering what they're saying. You're definitely a lawyer. I'm a lawyer, too. I went to a top law school. I have ten years of post-law school experience. I stopped working as an attorney 3 1/2 years ago. I stopped working in law altogether one year ago. I spent the last year broke, living with my parents, writing fiction, and applying to MFA programs. I've never been happier. But I'm not convinced that this would work you. First, you haven't said how long you've been practicing. It matters. Age and experience matter, too. If you're 26, BigLaw is your first real job, it's your first or second year and you're burned out, that doesn't mean that you need to change careers altogether. Second, your undergrad grades tell me that you weren't that into English when you were a college student. If you weren't passionate or excited enough about it then, you probably won't be into it now. For me, I always wanted to be a writer. I never really wanted to be a lawyer. I went to law school because I didn't want to be a starving artist. My undergrad grades in English were stellar. My law school grades were terrible. Grades are not an indicator of my abilities, but they are absolutely an indicator of my interest in the subject matter I was studying. But what concerns me most about the original and subsequent posts is that the focus is not on wanting a career in academia. It's not even about not wanting a career in law. It's about wanting a break from BigLaw, specifically. You don't have to pursue a PhD to take a break. You have a lot of options. First, save up your BigLaw money. From there, you can either take a break from law altogether or you can pursue another type of law practice. I know people who've gone from BigLaw to legal academia, public interest, criminal trial practice, or consulting work. There may be some other type of law practice that works for you. I knew a guy who did BigLaw, took a break, worked at a public defender office for two years, and then went back to Big Law. Not all lawyers work 70 hours per week. I think that the advice about an MA program was actually good advice. Why is it wasted time? What are you in a hurry to do that you can't spend a year or two in an MA program? You'll get a taste for what grad study of English is like and you can decide if you really want to commit to it. You'll get a decent writing sample out of it, too. Humanities programs get thousands of applications from recovering lawyers. They will look at your grades and know that you have buyer's remorse. An MA program will definitely balance out your bad undergrad grades. Legal writing is very different from academic writing. You don't realize how different it is because you haven't done any academic writing lately, which I am assuming since you don't already have a writing sample. The reading is different, too. It's a very different type of reading and a lot more of it. There is a learning curve to transition back. Sitting down and writing a sample for your applications will be more difficult than you think it is. With your grades and no MA, the writing sample will make a huge difference in the quality and number of programs you get into. I'm not trying to convince you not to apply. But whoever said, "This here is why every humanities job search in the country gets 33% of its applications from retired lawyers" is absolutely right. Society gives lawyers and doctors a boost that people in other professions don't get. People think we're smart or accomplished because we have the lawyer or doctor title. They think we must be smart because law and medical school are "hard". The bar exam is "hard". And when you go to a really good school with international recognition, people are basically bowing down and saying, "We're not worthy!" And then we, as lawyers, start to buy into it. We start thinking that we can do any job or study any topic in the humanities because nothing is more difficult than practicing law. That is simply not true. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. You will, too. Good luck. For what it's worth, I hope you figure it out. There are too many unhappy lawyers in the world. But if I were you, I'd go for the slow transition. Also, University of Virginia has an MA concentration in Law and Literature.