Choosing Not To Practice Law: Here Are Some Non-Legal Career-Options

It is worth noting that not all of those licensed to practice law are actually engaged in the practice of law. Some are in private industry, or the public sector.




If you choose not to practice law, you may experience more difficulty in obtaining employment due to the lack of contacts you would otherwise develop in the legal profession or law-related fields. Also, you may confront outright prejudice toward your previous legal experience. However, the skills that served you well through law school, communication skills (oral and written), motivation, tenacity, and thoroughness, should also prove to be an asset in any non-legal career you choose.

Law school may have been tough but once you manage to survive it you find that it has inculcated in you certain skills that will come in extremely handy as you look out for jobs in non-legal fields.

Among other things the law schools empowers you with skills that include: Thinking and decision-making ability, paying attention to work and focusing on the job, having credible edible writing abilities and being able to analyze data speedily. Most law graduates are innovative and creative and can handle pressure better than most. Moreover, they have shown a penchant to be able to work in teams. There speaking skills enhance they are communication ability making them a great asset when it comes to public relations or handling thorny issues.

Writing briefs builds them in the ability not only to read speedily, but all to seek out minor points of importance from bulky data. For most law graduates time was always in short supply as the work was immense and they had to manage their limited time well making them lead well organized and structured lives.

Apart from these fundamental skills that the students learn at law skill, which are highly marketable and saleable skills that can be used to great advantage in many careers, law schools pressures force students to deal with a lack of sleep, to perform rationally under extreme pressure and to act swiftly when crisis calls.

There are many non-legal options available to those who may choose not to practice law. There are basically three types of businesses: service, merchandising, and manufacturing. Merchandising and manufacturing are self-explanatory, but less immediately applicable to a legal background. However, service-oriented businesses are very compatible with a law degree.

Service-oriented businesses can include various types of firms such as accounting, brokerage, consulting, or public relations companies, financial institutions such as commercial banks, insurance companies, or financial planning businesses, corporations, health care, education, government civil service jobs (like postal work), city management, hotel and motel management, travel, sports, entertainment ... and the list goes on. There is a world of choices.

If you choose not to practice law, create your own destiny. Start your own business or join forces with an existing business entity. Your legal training is an asset that many firms will recognize as an indication of your resolve and ability to succeed.

A non-legal job does not compulsorily require the study of law but it certainly helps. The skills you learn at law school are a boon to both the person seeking employment and the one providing it. It adds to the individual's competence and acts as a catalyst to help in the non-legal field of work that he or she has chosen.

Before opting for a non-legal career consider the advantages and disadvantages of your decision. It must never be made because you were bothered and fed up of the aches and strain of law school.

If you are unsure about whether you want to seek a future in the non-legal job market, it is better that you find employment within the legal profession. After all you have specialized knowledge in it after years of toil and sweat at law school. It will always be easier for you to resort to a non-legal job rather than the other way around. You may find it hard to start practicing law after commencing work in the non-conventional arena for a number of reasons:

One you will lose touch with the latest innovations about law. The number of your contacts will dwindle. Your classmates will have moved on and will be busy with their own careers and will be either untraceable or too busy to assist you. Hence opt for a non-legal career only if you are absolutely certain.

Once you have made up your mind, you have to aggressively market yourself to the non-legal employer. The first question they will ask you is why you don't want to become a lawyer and what the reason for this transition is. Many employers will be skeptical that you are seeking this employment, as you have not been able to get a job in the preferred legal are of your choice and are only biding your time, waiting for that elusive job before you'll bid goodbye. Such apprehensions must be addressed and the employer convinced that you will not miss practicing law and your desire to opt for this job is enduring and that you are genuinely interested in the job.

It is very important that you tell your potential employer or the person interviewing you that you have the requisite skills for doing the job that you have applied for.

When writing your resume and the introductory letter, don't include too much legalese or legal vocabulary in it. The employer will not understand it. Most will not know what a summary judgment motion means. Frame your resume and tell not what they taught you but what skills they imbibed you with.

You have to demolish and counter the notion that all the law school taught you was law and nothing beyond that. Talk about being self-motivated, organized and detail oriented. These are traits that law school instilled in you. As a law student you may find these traits very common, but most employees don't possess them and employers place a lot of importance on employees who have these values.

Never tell your employer that you are disinclined to work in the legal profession because you think that the work is long and hard and that the pressures and responsibility is hard to take. Most importantly never make the mistake of telling your employer that, you would have opted for a legal job only if you could find one - doing a non-legal job as a second choice, will not go down with the employers.

Before you feel disheartened that armed with a law degree you may be at a disadvantage compared to the others who have specialized in their particular fields and seemed to more ideally suited for the job. Perish the thought. Applicants with a law degree are the most employable of all and a survey has revealed that less than 5 percent of all law graduates are unemployed. Just know that the skills that law school taught you are not exclusive to law school but are transferable to many professions and the respect and value that employers place on law degrees give them an open ticket to a variety of non-legal jobs.