ThatWeirdLawyer

Do not go to law school if you are not 100% sure you want to be a lawyer. I'm an attorney, largely because I was a good student with a liberal arts education and didn't know what else to do. That was a terrible reason to go to law school. I can't stand practicing law. I've tried big law and two very different types of public interest, and that's been enough to convince me to leave the field; this summer, I will start a PhD program in computer science. My experience of law is far from unique. I know many lawyers personally who are very unhappy with their jobs. A lot of them feel trapped by debt, or by the same sense of not knowing what else to do that led them to law school in the first place. The profession as a whole has unusually high rates of depression, suicide, and self-medicating behaviors. This is not to say no one should ever go to law school. I have good friends and colleagues who love their jobs practicing law, and if it's a good fit for your personality and interests, law can be a rewarding (not to mention lucrative) career. What is essential, however, is knowing before you decide to go to law school whether the practice of law (note: this is different from the practice of being a law student) is a good fit for you. One of the best ways to do this is to work in the field before you decide whether you want to go to law school. True, you can't be a lawyer yet, but many firms hire recent college grads as paralegals, and there may be business-related support positions (marketing, training, IT, and so on) at large firms. You say you might be interested in practicing environmental law. Start looking for law firms that have an environmental practice, and apply there. See if there's a public interest group that does the kind of work you'd like to do, and apply there. If they can't afford to hire you, can you volunteer for them in your spare time? Work side by side with people who are doing today what you'd like to be doing in five years. Understand what they do from day to day. Ask them what they like about their jobs and what they don't like. Ask what they'd do differently if they'd known when they applied to law schools what they know now. If you do decide the practice of law is right for you, you will have a stronger application to law school after a year or so of this. And if you realize law is not for you, you've spent a year earning a salary, rather than three years racking up debt.

I'm a lawyer. My undergrad major was not CS, math, or any hard science. I want to get a PhD in CS. ... Has the laughter died down yet? I did minor in CS. I also took two semesters of behavioral statistics and one of calculus, so I have at least heard of a logarithm, albeit quite some time ago. My overall UGPA was 3.96, and in CS it was 4.0. On GRE general, I got 170V/166Q/5.5W. I have a variety of law-related honors that seem unlikely to influence a CS admissions committee. I have research experience; unfortunately, it's in psychology (my undergrad major) and law. I have a very minor publication (think one step above a blog), but again, it's in (a computer-related aspect of) law. I'm happy to take prerequisites to fill in the gaps, but I need to figure out how to do so without taking on debt (I feel guilty enough that I'll stop being the primary breadwinner of my household. Debt is simply not an option). My ideal scenario would be getting accepted to BU's MS/PhD program to start in January 2013 and taking any prereqs I'm missing during my first semester. Another option would be to apply to schools in or near Boston to start in fall 2013 and take a semester of prereqs somewhere like UMass Boston during the spring. But the way I've figured out to make this transition work financially involves working through the end of this year and, right when I leave my job, putting a big down payment on a small house. I can only buy a house if I know where I'll be going to school. And the obvious solution of continuing to work while taking prereqs in the evenings can't really be done at a law firm like mine. The short version of why I'm doing all of this is that, personality-wise, I should be doing research and teaching, not litigating. If only I found law interesting enough to research, I would become a law professor. But the only subject that has ever engaged me enough to make me want to study it in the depth needed for an academic career is computer science. When I'm learning about an unfamiliar algorithm, there's a moment when I suddenly realize how it's going to work, and my heart rate actually increases, because I get so excited about how wonderfully clever it is. I don't get that in law. I'm not going to ask what you think my chances are (I can only read "slim to none" so many times without it getting depressing), but I would appreciate any advice on how I can make this work. In particular, thoughts on how to work out the prereqs would be helpful. Also, do you think the CS GRE subject test will help? If so, any advice on how to prepare for it while working significantly more than full time? I'm taking the Coursera course on algorithms right now (and loving it), and I tracked down my old calculus textbook for when I finish that, as well as a PDF of Mathematics for Computer Science. I'd also appreciate your thoughts on the feasibility of eventually becoming a professor with a PhD from a school like BU, or one like Brandeis or Tufts. Thanks in advance for your advice.