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It’s true that you don’t have to be a lawyer to know the law. However, as those condescending executives so rudely illustrated, law is a profession just like medicine, and even though you can know a lot about it without joining the profession, you’re risking that your knowledge and experience won’t be taken seriously when it really matters. Just think about how sweet it would have been if you could had been able to respond back: “As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer.” One of my best friends in law school was nearly fifty when she started. She hadn’t been in school for decades and was freaked out about the testing, too. However, she worked for an insurance company in their mitigation department, and one of the attorneys she frequently consulted with actually thought she was a lawyer before she even started school. She wanted the credentials to help her opportunities for advancement, and so management would stop dismissing her advice the same way they dismissed yours. There are lots of careers that can be aided by a law degree in that way. You don’t necessarily have to go into regular practice after finishing school.

Unlike you, I’m not “professionally” qualified for what I do, but I’ve been passionate about it for the last 12 years of my life (designer / information architect / etc.). I studied Mechanical Engineering, never finished my degree, and looked back a few times only to find that it ultimately wasn’t for me. My real education started once I left University.

But just like you, I’ve thought about going back, so I could go on to graduate school, etc.

But the bottom line is I’ll never go back because it’s not something I’m intrinsically interested in. I’m not passionate about it. I’d rather work, and do what I love.

So I guess what I’d say is, do it for yourself. Not for the executives, but for yourself. Ultimately, that’s what’s going to get you through it.

Plus I guess you’d have to ask yourself if what you would do day-to-day as an Attorney is what you’d want to do. Guess that’s really a question only you can answer.

Well, that’s my thought, at least at this late hour. Best of luck.

The exec’s statement was meant to intimidate and devalue your contribution. The same thing has happened to me. Communicating risk to an exec who has their head so far up their @ss they couldn’t find it with both hands is never easy. I try not to take these types of things personally but I often do. The only thing I have found that helps is when what I warn them about actually happens. Then I can do the “Told Ya So Dance”.

If you want your JD, girl you go out and GET it. I will cheer you on all the way!

Those execs didn’t want to talk about that insight you provided and used their size 13 egos to make the remark appear illogical. It would of served everyone better if they simply asked you to expand on why you felt that way or what relevance it could possible play into the future of that company; past, present and future. In that arena you should have been an equal, however they appeared to have been posturing themselves – sad for them.

Gads I’m sick of that mentality. There’s a handful of Managers at my job I respect; the rest are over paid, dead wood and appear to possess one or more psychological disorders.

Oh wait; I’m not a psychologist/psychiatrist.

And I’m digressing, I apologize.

The part of your post that caught my eye is that you are excited about doing some new and or expanding your education and experience.

I don’t know what kind of HR functions you do. The ones at my employ just try and keep the corporation from getting sued. But key to their roles and key to I think a Lawyer’s skills are the tools to convince someone. You’ve got to be able to sell, inject a little theater, and without fear of crossing personal morals, screw someone’s head over. I’m not talking about eating small children, but you have got to willing to go for blood knowing (and hoping) the end will justify the means.

I did go back to your opening paragraph and in hindsight wonder if a comment like “You’re not a Lawyer” is ripe for a spicy rebuttal – I wonder if they were goating you?

Best of luck!

SO true. I too have had the law school jones for many many years. I think about it many times each week. I actually got talked out of it by a friend who said, “Yeah, but do you want to wake up every morning and find you’re still a lawyer?” And he wasn’t kidding. The thing is, I don’t know if I want to be an attorney, but I’d really like to know the subject matter and be something else.

Tests are no big deal…they’re just a moment in your life. I say go for it.

My aunt went back to school and got her law degree around the age of forty — after raising five kids and divorcing her husband. She’s been practicing law for over twenty years now, and after moving from Alaska to Hawaii had to re-take bar in a state with one of the toughest exams decades after she’d completed law school.

So I say go for it. No time like the present!