Law School and Career Switching

Didn't say which direction... It seems like I know as many people who are lawyers and are looking to do something else as people on the outside trying to get in. What do you do when you invest in an expensive credential and find out it's just not for you?

For some people, law seems to be a ticket to a high-quality professional life, defined one way or another - the star litigators, the well-paid specialists, the judges, the law professors, etc. For others, the credential actually limits their options.

(I'm told there are stories of medical school graduates who never practiced medicine. But how do you explain that to people? I once knew an Air Force pilot who was like that - he found that all he wanted to do was fly, and that was that. It would take a lot of both courage and sudden self-certainty to be able to do that.)

For most people, the usual first step in becoming an attorney is to go to law school and graduate. Then you have to sit for the state bar exam and pass it. And then that's no instant ticket to heaven. There are probably lots of blogs out there about professional trajectories after that - getting hired, making partner in a firm or not, etc.

There are some states where you theoretically don't have to go to law school to become a lawyer; see http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0603/p13s01-lecs.html. But I suspect that's harder than going to law school would be, which is pretty hard. My father went to law school at night and from what I've seen, that is wretchedly difficult and exhausting.

One distance part-time education provider I've actually heard some good mention of is Kaplan's Concord Law School; see http://www.concordlawschool.edu/. But I'm suspicious. Law pedagogy by its nature doesn't seem like it would work in a distance program.

Would be interesting to hear from some lawyers who successfully entered the field at mid-career and find out how it's gone. The culture of the law firm seems to favor an apprenticeship of the young.