“There are over 1 Million lawyers in North America. 40% of them wish they were doing something else”

Dissatisfaction with career choice seems to be a growing trend within the legal profession, a trend that will continue to lead more lawyers to seek in-house, law related and non-legal careers.

An article in the Times Online reports that up to 40% of the over 1 million lawyers in the US have stated in various polls that they would like to leave the legal field.

Why are so many lawyers down on their chosen profession and what implications will this have on alternative career opportunities in the future?

The ugly truth

A recent article in the New York Times discussing the decline in prestige and desirability of the legal profession reveals some telling statistics about trends and attitudes. These numbers may help explain why so many lawyers are seeking alternative careers. For example:

• 44% of lawyers surveyed by the American Bar Association said they would not recommend the legal profession to younger individuals.

• Law school applications in the US have declined from 98,700 in 2004 to 83,500 in 2006, a decline of 18% in just 2 years.

• On average, law firms lose approximately 20% of their associates in any given year;

What’s more, the article states that approximately 20% of lawyers will suffer depression at some point in their careers (compared with roughly 6.7% of the population as a whole), a statistic confirmed by the Legal Sanity blog.

Why are so many lawyers unhappy with their chosen profession?

The statistics outlined above are only part of the story. Lawyers give a long and varied list of specific reasons for dissatisfaction with their chosen profession, including:

• The dreaded billable hour model - This business model has been criticized by many in recent years. Increased pressure to bill more hours has significantly increased the stress levels of many lawyers, while at the same time reducing the already small amount of time they have for a personal life. The refusal or inability to bill an unreasonably large number of hours can seriously hinder career advancement, as the number of hours billed is almost always directly tied to opportunities for advancement within the firm. A further byproduct of this model is that it creates environments of unhealthy competition, paranoia and mistrust amongst associates and partners.

• Declining prestige of the profession - Despite the large number of lawyer jokes that abound, lawyers have largely been held in high esteem, garnering respect for their intelligence, insight and valuable opinions. This view, however, seems to have changed drastically in recent years, with many lawyers being viewed as necessary evils and glorified paper pushers. The reduced prestige associated with being a lawyer has no doubt made the profession less appealing.

• Work / life balance - Always a point of contention for lawyers, this issue seems to have gotten worse, not better in recent years despite the lip service paid by law firms to striking a better work / life balance. In addition, many lawyers feel even worse when they look to their investment banking colleagues who have similar stress and long work hours, but receive significantly higher compensation.

• Lack of professional fulfillment - For many lawyers, the practice of law is not what they had hoped for or expected. It regularly involves tedious and uninteresting work, resulting in a lack of fulfillment on a personal and professional level, and hopes of helping people or being involved in exciting, intellectually challenging work are often extinguished.

And now for the good news

At this point, you may be thinking “What a depressing article; that sounds just like me”. On the contrary, this article is meant to be positive, helping you realize two important things:

• I am not alone. There are literally hundreds of thousands of lawyers out there who feel exactly the same way you do, which should give you comfort in the fact that your dissatisfaction does not mean there is something wrong with you.

• There are other options. If you are unhappy with the traditional practice of law and have decided to make a career change, there are an increasing number of resources to help you make the transition, from legal career coaches to recruiters specializing in alternative legal careers, to niche job posting websites such as AlternativeLawJob.com.

Just remember that the right opportunity may not come overnight, and it most likely will not fall into your lap. It will take a significant amount of time, planning, effort and patience on your part.

Changing attitudes and more opportunity

Attitudes towards alternative legal careers are rapidly changing, creating more opportunities for those who seek them out. In the past, in-house jobs were seen as “low end”, those who left the profession couldn’t “hack it”, and lawyers felt trapped in their careers, not because they didn’t want to make a change, but because they didn’t know what else they were qualified to do with a legal education.

However, thing have changed significantly in the past 10 -15 years:

• In-house positions have become very desirable as salaries, bonuses, benefits, opportunities for stock option and prestige have increased. The additional benefits of no longer having to deal with billable hours and the opportunity to give fulfilling input into business decisions, has made in-house positions some of the most desirable in the profession.

• As more lawyers successfully transition into non-traditional and non-legal careers, they are no longer looked down upon by their former peers as individuals who couldn’t “hack it”. In fact, they are often the envy of those who wish they could have done the same but are still stuck in traditional roles.

• As more lawyers become dissatisfied, more resources become available to help them find and transition into alternative careers. Resources such as niche job posting websites, legal career coaches and recruiters who specialize in alternative careers are relatively new, but it appears that more and more of them appear all the time.

• Lawyers no longer fear that their legal education and training constrains their career options to the practice of law. More and more lawyers have realized that their varied and valuable skill sets can often be applied to law-related and non-legal career opportunities, giving them more confidence to move in that direction.

What the future holds

There has always been a certain level of migration amongst lawyers from traditional practice into other fields. Some have entered politics, some have moved to government or non profit organizations, while others have moved into business or become entrepreneurs. However, in the past, these career shifts usually came about as a unique opportunity from a client or a contact.

As time passes and more lawyers become dissatisfied with their careers, expect to see a larger migration from traditional practice, as well as an increase in the number of resources available to assist lawyers in making the transition and finding new opportunities.

Lawyers will no longer wait for the right opportunities to come along, they will actively seek them out.