Should You Become a Lawyer? | Lawyer Salary, Lifestyle, Law School Tuition & more!

hello everyone welcome back to my channel i hope you're doing well i get a lot of questions on social media about being or becoming a lawyer i often get asked about you know what it's like to be a lawyer what does my day look like how much does a lawyer make what does a lawyer actually do and so today i'm making a video to help you figure out whether or not you yeah you should become a lawyer to be frank there are quite a few things that you need to take into consideration if you want to become a lawyer so i'm going to try to go through them one by one there are definitely quite a few myths about becoming a lawyer that i do think need to be deconstructed and in order to do that i think that the first question you must ask yourself is why do you want to become a lawyer do you want to become a lawyer for financial reasons because you think you will become a lawyer and you'll make bank which is what a lot of people think and i'm actually going to be looking into how much lawyers actually make towards the end of this video so stay tuned is it because you care about certain issues and you want to be part of the solution is it because you are really interested in certain industries and you want to become involved in them on the legal side is it the lifestyle that attracts you are you really looking forward to you know wearing suits and dressing up all the time and going to events and meeting really important people or maybe it is your personality do you have a personality that you think would fit with the whole being a lawyer thing i know that a lot of people who go to law school are told at a very young age that they would be great lawyers because they'd love to argue we're going to be discussing that later on during this video but yeah i think that the first thing that you need to look into is why do i want to become a lawyer once you figure it out why you actually want to become a lawyer let's look into each of these points one by one so let's start with the lifestyle i want to start with a lifestyle because our perception of what lawyers do and what their lifestyle actually is really does stem from pop culture and it also stems from the idealization of lawyers lifestyles or what i like to call the suits lifestyle you about watch it the first thing that i want to say about laura's lifestyle is that there really isn't a set lifestyle i think your lifestyle as a lawyer will greatly depend on where you work and the type of work that you actually do so for instance lawyers who work in law firms have a very different lifestyle from lawyers who work in-house either in union businesses or in non-profits or at the government and then even within those categories all lawyers have different lifestyles so lawyers who work in big law firms don't have the same lifestyle as lawyers who work in medium law firms and don't have the same lifestyle as lawyers who work in smaller law firms and in solo practice and the same thing goes for being in-house if you work for a big corporation it's not going to be the same thing as if you work for a small business or if you work at the government or if you work for an ngo the thing that i really want to stress here is that what you see on tv isn't real and if we just take suits as an example it's not true that you're going to spend your days just walking around in a fancy suit going from client meeting to client meeting and that you're not going to be doing anything else that's not true if suits actually showed you what lawyers do on a day-to-day basis it probably wouldn't make for a very great journey wouldn't it you would just see people sitting down at their desks typing or searching for like hours actually i'm saying it wouldn't make for a great show but i probably still watch suits if it was just people sitting at their computers and complaining about databases not working yeah relatable but yeah what you see on tv isn't real so i think it's really important to have an accurate idea of what lawyers actually do and what their lifestyles look like now let's talk about hours how much you lawyers actually work so the average work week for a lawyer in canada is 50 hours a week and from the numbers that i've seen online it seems to be very similar in the states although i could not find exact numbers in the states for you know like what a typical work week looks like and you have to keep in mind that 50 hours is an average and where you work will definitely have an impact on the number of hours that you work during the week so if you work for a big law firm chances are you're probably going to work for more than 50 hours a week but if you work in-house chances are you will have um something that at least looks very similar to a nine to five maybe like a few more hours here and there but generally speaking lawyers who work in-house do have a much better work-life balance than lawyers who work in private practice so let's look back into what we've addressed suits lifestyle not real your lifestyle is going to be very different depending on where you work on average you're looking into 50 hours a week but this does increase if you go into private practice and if you work for a regular law firm and it will decrease if you are um in-house so aside from hours another thing that i wanted to address was mental health and i think that if you are looking into becoming a lawyer one of the things that you need to ask yourself is how much stress can you actually handle mental health problems are very very common in the legal field it is nothing to be ashamed of i am a very anxious person i have a therapist now so we're working on that but to be honest this is something that i was expecting i wasn't expecting becoming a lawyer to be like a really chillax job uh or very low stress job so i think you need to be aware of that and you do need to ask yourself you know how much can i actually handle now that we've talked about the lifestyle what does a lawyer actually do and this does relate a little bit to the lifestyle what does a lawyer actually do let's start with the basics lots of reading lots of writing if you don't like reading your writing do not become a lawyer just forget about it also as always the type of work that you will do will greatly depend on where you work a lot of people think that lawyers just argue all day and that is absolutely not true there are different types of lawyers i'll give you an example i am not a litigator which means that i do not go to court i do not litigate what does the day in my life look like a lot of sitting down a lot of drafting contracts a lot of reading a lot of doing research a lot of emails client consultations here and there creating content because i have my own practice but if i were a litigator my days would be very different i would probably spend well i would spend a lot more time in court i would spend a lot of time talking to other lawyers so opposing counsel i'd be on my feet a little more i probably wouldn't be sitting down so much dealing with clients is also something that is going to be different from one place to another if you work in private practice you will have to deal with a lot of clients and you will be handling a lot of cases at the same time if you work in-house for a business you only have one client and that's your business and i have to say that like dealing with clients is definitely like a whole other skill set that no one actually teaches you but it is really essential if you are looking into working in private practice i also want to stress the fact that there's so many things you can do as a lawyer so many things you have to think that all industries need lawyers you have lawyers in the fashion industry you have lawyers in the entertainment industry unions have lawyers video game industry has lawyer aviation industry has lawyers automobile industry has lawyers everyone has and needs lawyers every single industry and i think it's important to stress that because you can definitely find a field that relates to your interest and that you can practice law in and be very happy about however you have to remember that at the end of the day regardless of what the industry you are in is being a lawyer is being a lawyer i personally have a lot of clients in the fashion industry and when i say that to students or when i say yes to other lawyers people seem to think that i just spend my days at fashion show and walking around in factories and in people's workshops and you know it's like being very glamorous but i'm i mean i do go to fashion shows and i do sometimes go to to very nice events but most of the time i'm sitting down and i'm drafting contracts and i'm reading contracts and i'm sending emails right now i am definitely not going to any show so i am doing a lot of reading and drafting i i do think it's hard to grasp what a lawyer actually does unless you either like hire one and work with one or unless you shadow one you know spend a day with one just to see what it is that they're actually doing so i would definitely suggest reaching out to lawyers in your area asking them if you can shadow them for a day or asking them if they want to go get coffee with you and you know try to learn a bit more about what it is that they actually do that will definitely help you figure out whether or not you want to be a lawyer and also what kind of lawyer you want to be so we've discussed the lifestyle we've discussed the work that a lawyer actually does now we're going to look into what kind of person are you now before going into this section i do want to say that all lawyers are different all lawyers are different and every single field and every single you know type of law requires a different kind of skill set and a different personality but we do have common traits lawyers tend to have a very analytical mind and this is definitely something that you are taught to develop in school but also as you practice so you know don't you don't have to worry too much about that but it is something that is very important when you are a lawyer another good thing to ask yourself is are you shy and when i say shy i do not mean introverted i actually mean shy if you are very shy becoming a lawyer might not be for you simply because of the amount of people that you have to talk to on a regular basis however i do want to say that whether you are introverted or extroverted you can become a lawyer and you can be a very good lawyer regardless of which one you actually are another question to ask yourself is do you like conflict whether or not you like conflict or whether or not you're actually comfortable in conflict will greatly impact the type of law that you decide to work in but and also the type of lawyer that you decide to become so for instance i don't like conflict i don't do well in conflict i do not want to deal with anyone's conflict so i don't litigate it's not for me and that's okay it's for other people and i am perfectly okay with that so what i would suggest is asking yourself what kind of person you are and then thinking about the types of laws that you actually want to practice or the type of glory that you actually want to become and try to figure out whether or not those are compatible so i gave you an example earlier if you don't like conflict litigation probably isn't for you if you are someone who is very extroverted and you like talking to people and you really like changing then you know maybe going in-house would be a good idea for you i remember when i was articling in-house i got to talk to so many people and i really enjoyed it but i am introverted and i think someone who is extroverted would have enjoyed it even more and now the financial side of becoming a lawyer we're going to look into two things salary and then cost of education let's start with the cost of education now i live in canada more specifically in quebec and the cost of education is very low compared to other provinces in canada and also compared to the states i know that becoming a lawyer in the states is so expensive it's just it's horrendous that's all i have to say it is horrendous let's look at tuition fees in canada so i've compiled some numbers here for you and these are the year nutrition costs in four universities in canada for domestic students quebec tuition costs being the cheapest obviously and then ontario's being the highest in this case and of course i will put all the sources in the description below so that you guys can check them out for yourselves for the us i found this graph that sums it up pretty well average tuition costs are about 49k for private school 28k for public in state school and then 41k for public at escape school and this is also annually and i will be putting all the information that i have given you in this video in the description so all the stats that i've mentioned all the numbers that i've mentioned everything will be in the description below so now that we've looked into how much becoming a lawyer actually costs let's look at how much a lawyer actually makes so this question will depend on a lot of things it will depend on where you live it will depend on what type of law you practice and it will also depend on where you work let's start with new graduate salary in canada so most new graduates working at a law firm will be paid anywhere between 40k to 80k the majority are between 40k to 60k and then about 22 are between 80k to 95k keep in mind that this survey is canada wide in the us median salary for graduates really seems to depend on where you went to school so here we're talking up to 75k in public schools and it can go very very high if you studied at a private school and here we're looking at numbers that can go upwards of 150k obviously there are always exceptions but i think this can give you a pretty good idea of what lawyers can make from the very beginning finally i thought it'd be interesting to look at what lawyers on average make regardless of their experience now this is the last quebec bar report about the members and the median salary here is between 90k to 110k and i will also link this report in the description i also want to point out that we often hear these big numbers when we hear about lawyers billing so we hear lawyers billing you know 400 an hour 500 an hour 300 an hour and we think wow that's a lot of money but you do have to realize that if you work at a law firm and you're an employee you're not actually making that you are not making 600 an hour your law firm is billing 600 an hour for your time and then you are making a salary which is separate from that so don't be fooled if you actually want to know how much a lawyer makes do not look at how much they bill per hour especially if you are looking into working for a law firm so at the end of the day i think it's a matter of being realistic about how much all of this is going to cost you and how much all of this is actually going to get you once you are done with law school if i can speak for like my personal situation i'm really happy that i went to law school i think it was worth it for me but i also do realize that i am privileged in many ways and that i also live in a city and in a province where the cost of education is quite low so i hope this helped you figure out whether or not you should become a lawyer as usual don't forget to like this video if you liked it don't forget to subscribe if you have any questions please leave them in the comments and if there are any videos that you would like me to make please let me know in the comments below bye guys

Channel: Aicha Tohry

Views: 109,383

Rating: 4.9556332 out of 5

Keywords: career advice, is law school worth it 2020, law school 1l tips, law school debt, law student, law school, what is it like being a lawyer, how much do lawyers make, average lawyer salary, how much does a lawyer make, working as a lawyer, how much do lawyers make in canada, should I become a lawyer, should you become a lawyer, the truth about becoming a lawyer, becoming a lawyer, becoming a lawyer in canada, avocat quebec, lawyer lifestyle, lawyer life in canada, lawyer life

Id: ZsWfkAFGi0k

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020