Law School or Master in Teaching?

For the things you originally wanted (something like freedom and pretty good money), being a dentist or business owner of some sort would both be good. But having your own business typically requires years of putting in the work before you have much free time. I'd think it would be the same with lawyers.

Do you know any teachers? If so, see if you can observe them or volunteer in a school. This might give you a better idea about whether or not you will like the teaching career. Most of the teachers I know work long hours, especially in the first few years. But there is lots of vacation time and it's rewarding.

I am still working on this one. I have an interesting situation though. I wound up going to law school and my sister decided to teach. Now here we are, me 5 years out of law school and my sister 5 years teaching.

Our incomes are almost identical and she gets 3 months off every summer, 2 weeks for Christmas, and 1 week for spring break. I get 3 weeks vacation that I can never use because there is always a trial or an arbitration or something I am not allowed to miss work for.

She truly loves her job and when you get off work at 3pm everyday, you have a lot of freedom to do what you want! I work till around 7pm most days and by the time I get home I just want to crash on the couch and do nothing.

Her kids are full of energy and they seem to really like her. I work mainly with a bunch of depressing idiots that hate themselves.

My advice, go into teaching. I'm actually going back to get a Masters in Teaching and plan on teaching Social Studies. Wish I thought of that 5 years and $100k in loans ago...

How does one go about doing this? Do you have a major in social studies?

A couple of questions:

1) What rank of law school did you attend? How did you place in your class?

2) After paying off your debt, why not just go be a teacher?

One way I've sort of been thinking about the future is like this: if I come straight out of law school and make market (145-160k), I can do that for a few years, build up a capital cushion and whatnot. If I have a family, I can continue doing similar things so that I can provide my children with every advantage I can. If I don't end up with a family, then I can just quit the corporate gig and start teaching, using the money I've saved up to be able to actually enjoy the 2 months off.

One of the problems with the whole time off for teachers perk is that teachers don't make enough to travel/have nicer things/etc.

So ask your self what would be more rewarding personally... if you made the same income or if income didn't matter what would you rather do?

If you are going to get a masters, have you ever thought about getting it in another subject you are interested in and teaching in college. College professors can make as much as lawyers.

Remember: just because you have a law degree doesn't automatically mean you make the big bucks.

Show me one principal who takes more than 2-3 weeks off max. during the summer. Principals are working all the time. Their jobs never end. Not even during vacation. 3 months off??? You're living in never-never land.

Not that many law grads are making $150,000 right out of law school. These are hard times for Big Law. Salaries are dropping and there just aren't that many new positions. I suppose it may recover a bit over the next three years.

I know a few principals who work at camps as directors over the summer. pretty sure that requires time off. If you can get to the administrative level it's not a bad deal.

1) I went to a "tier 2" law school and was Top 10 in my class.

2) As many other posters have mentioned, most attorneys do not make the $150k salary right out of law school. Most never do. I have my debt down to about $40k and am working to get it off the books as oon as possible.

If you think that $145-160k is market, you are dreaming. Most beginning lawyers make less than $50k.

My current plan is to teach, social studies, government, etc... I would think a degree in economics and a J.D. would be a good fit there, and then in my downtime and the summers, maintain a small law practice of my own. Nobody says you can't do both.

How is it that you make such shitty money? One thing that keeps me coming back to the law school idea, is the fact that you have the potential to make as much as you want being a lawyer if you work your ass off. Teaching is pretty set in stone as far as your salary goes, even with a Masters you still make shit money in my state...Like 45 k or something ridiculously low, in WA you can't do much with that kind of salary. Still, teaching has a certain allure to it, the summers off, working with kids and coaching that all seems grand too.

It is interesting that very few people have asked why those two choices. I suggest you get a PhD in some business discipline and teach at the college level. Very small supply of new PhDs each year and huge demand to hire them. If you are in finance or accounting, average starting salaries are around $130-150K for 9 months; other disciplines in business average around $100K for 9 months. Typical pay increases are 3-4% per year. They pay your expenses to travel to great locations to present papers. If you go to a teaching oriented school, as opposed to a research school, you will earn somewhat less but have more freedom, especially in the summer.

Get real dude. Please spare us. Go teach.

Social studies is a broad area encompassing history, govt, econ, psychology, etc. Depending on what state you're in, you get certified to teach it by majoring in one or more of those particular subjects and then taking the relevant Praxis exams for licensure. Some states issue a broad social studies certification that covers any subject, meaning you could teach history, econ, govt, whatever, while others give you a narrower endorsement for one subject. Where I teach, they use the second method, so my endorsements are specific for history and government. Each state does it differently though, so you'll have to look it up for wherever you'd want to teach.

social studies wrote:

How does one go about doing this? Do you have a major in social studies?

a few things to respond to:

1. avocados number asked if you need a masters to teach and whether they would ask the nobel prize winner in physics to get a masters in teaching. the answer to both questions is yes. part of this has to do with NCLB requiring that all teacher be "highly qualified" in their subject area which means attaining a masters within your first x yrs of teaching. a little ridiculous since no study has ever proven a causal link between student outcomes and teaching certification, but it is what it is.

2. i actually was a teacher for two years and now am in law school. i had a somewhat unusual teaching experience in that i worked probably 65-70 hours a week and spent the rest of my free time thinking about teaching. it was and is the hardest thing i have ever done, hands down, and i expect working at a law firm to be a joke in comparison because no one will ever throw a piece of furniture at me while i am an associate. can not say the same for when i was in the classroom. that being said, i expect to feel empty and useless as a lawyer and won't stay in it very long. my intention is to work to pay off my debt and then get back into education working for a district at an administrative level. i initially thought law school was going to be helpful to my career goals, then decided otherwise but couldn't get a job last year. when it was down to the wire, it seemed like a foolish thing to do to say no to a t-14 school and remain jobless in the hopes that something i liked would come along. in retrospect, i wish i had the balls to do just that. now i'm swimming in debt and nothing but a big law salary will help me get out in any reasonable amount of time. i guess fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, i'm in a good position to get one of those jobs, but as earlier posters pointed out, most people don't get big law jobs. at my school, though, it is probably like 60% of our graduating class.

anyway, as far as my experiences relate to your dilemma- don't go into teaching if you aren't passionate about helping kids and making a difference. we have too many apathetic teachers as it is who are just there for the 10 month yr and short hours. that being said, you are going to graduate from law school with a ton of debt and since you seem resigned against the firm route, i don't know how you are planning to repay it. i guess you could just hope to rock the lsat and that your gpa is good and get a bunch of scholarship money, but admissions are going to be rough next year because lots of people apply to grad school when the economy is down. one last piece of advice- don't wait until march to send in your apps. have everything done and then just send them pending your lsat score from the december test. most law school admissions are rolling and you put yourself at a disadvantage waiting until after jan. 1. good luck. you seem to have decided on law school, but just keep in mind what i have said given what your aspirations are for what your life will be like.

one last thing- you can definitely run 1L year. people who say school has to be your whole life are full of it or never had to manage their time previously. if you were a collegiate athlete at a school that was at least semi-demanding academically, you'll be fine. i was so bored in 1L year that i started working and volunteering. people thought i was insane but i knew what i could handle and it worked out totally fine.

NOONE wants to be a teacher

Went through what you are going through. I thought I was going to get into an ok law school, graduate and never have to worry about money again. Well, I was lucky enough to get a job working around attorneys before I decided to go to law school. I work around about 40 attorneys, most of them went to great law schools(Harvard, Cornell, etc.), were on the law review, blah blah blah...and there are very few that make over 6 figures. The thing that made me decide to not go to law school was seeing the work they did every day, and a lot of it is quite boring and not very rewarding. So...

My advice? Ask a local law office if you can intern for free for a couple of hours a week. Get an idea of what it is really like.

NOONE wants to be a lawyer of a teacher

So...what did you end up doing? Teaching?

Same game wrote:

Went through what you are going through. I thought I was going to get into an ok law school, graduate and never have to worry about money again. Well, I was lucky enough to get a job working around attorneys before I decided to go to law school. I work around about 40 attorneys, most of them went to great law schools(Harvard, Cornell, etc.), were on the law review, blah blah blah...and there are very few that make over 6 figures. The thing that made me decide to not go to law school was seeing the work they did every day, and a lot of it is quite boring and not very rewarding. So...

My advice? Ask a local law office if you can intern for free for a couple of hours a week. Get an idea of what it is really like.

NOONE is a compassione teacher and NOONE is an honest lawyer.