My reasons aren't terribly exciting. I knew that I really wasn't interested in anything particularly adversarial, but always figured there was a paper-pushing branch I could get into if I had to. Ultimately, I hoped to work for a few years and then get an LLM and teach or something like that. But I graduated shortly after 9/11 and there were no jobs out there really other than really low paying public defender positions. (I know the economy is worse now, but at that time it seemed pretty bad!) I got a clerkship instead in a small town and got to see a condensed version of how things work. What I saw was that everything was based on meth. In that picturesque tiny little town, everything was somehow tied back to it. I saw the public defenders having their official hours cut because of funding, but having to take on a higher case-load. So to make ends meet, they'd be taking a few private clients on the side (meth defendants or nasty divorces)--hoping that they could pay their legal fees. I saw the attorneys working for people who were angry, disrespectful, hurtful, threatening and entitled. The attorneys I met on both sides of the aisle didn't enjoy what they were doing. They represented their clients appropriately, but when they found out I didn't intend to take the bar exam, the reactions ranged from congratulatory to jealous that I'd gotten out while I could. Don't get me wrong...I really enjoyed law school. After the first year, it wasn't particularly difficult. (First year is evil!) And my clerkship was the cushiest job I ever had. I got to do more than most of the clerks in bigger cities just because there wasn't a huge staff or caseload---they didn't need to keep me locked away in my office. I wrote opinions, I sat in on every trial we had, I got to judge high school kids doing moot court, I taught a "law unit" to a group of local nursing students. It was great. But I didn't want to be sitting at the attorney's tables.
I really didn't want to feed my family based on other people's problems. And the career of constant pressure just wasn't what I wanted long term. I had hopes of having a child in a few years and I didn't want to work 70 hrs a week and have the babysitter raise him.
I probably shouldn't have ever gone to law school. But I don't feel like it was wasted time. I honed my analytical, research, and writing skills. And it's given me a leg-up in my current career. Because of my degree, I got my foot in the door where I'm at. And now I have a hard-to-explain-but-they-seem-to-think-I'm-vital niche job. Was it worth the cost? Maybe. I don't regret it though. I refuse to do regrets. Everything we do builds off of our past. It all contributes to who we are. Without law school, I can't even picture where I'd be right now. But I haven't ever for one minute regretted the fact that I didn't take the bar exam.
You said catharsis right? Hence the novel!!!
Oh! And the cool thing is that once I got the job where I am, the whole building is full of lawyers who don't want to be lawyers--hundreds of them tucked away in random departments! For the first time since I'd made that tough decision, I was with people that understood that practicing law is not always the best choice. It's nice not to have to explain myself. Seriously...the decision not to take the bar was almost as hard as the decision to get divorced. MAJOR stress/pressure/etc.
Good for you for realizing and redirecting early on. I can only imagine how tough that must have been.