Talk to as many lawyers as you can to get a real perspective on what a 3 or 4 year program is likely to be like, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. Judge for yourself from all points of view. Though I have never met even one happy lawyer in my 45 years does not mean they don't exist. Every field has a lot of misplaced, unhappy people.
This is the single best advice that can be given if you are looking to become an attorney. Talk to attorneys, better yet, go work at a law office while you are doing your undergraduate studies. See what their lives are like, what they do, how much time they spend at work, what kind of life they have outside of work, etc.
Not to deter you, but I'll give you what I perceived in the few years I've spent working at a smallish medium size firm. Being an attorney can be a very very interesting job. It is challenging, you get to think, you get an office, not a cube, you'll probably have your own secretary, as well as a myriad of other assistants that work in various other capacities around the office. There are tons and tons of work related perks; lunches paid for by the firm, great holiday parties, massages, decent health and retirement benefits, pretty good pay, parties and golf tournaments and the like with clients, etc. You'll probably drive a pretty nice car and have a pretty nice house, and you'll probably take great vacations.
Now all that sounds awesome, and it is, but here's the downside, you might never see that house during the day for months at a time. You'll probably work more than you ever imagined was possible. Even at smaller firms the billable hours can be extraordinarily high. The firm I work at doesn't have the super highly competetive billable hour requirement that other firms have, but none-the-less, if you aren't there on Saturday's, you're probably not billing enough or preparing enough for trials, depositions, etc. There are a few attorneys who do really well without the weekend work, but they're definitely the exception, not the rule. The other downside, you have to bill every 6 minutes of your life. 6 minutes spent watching TV or washing your car or cooking dinner, etc becomes $30, not just 6 minutes. Some attorneys get obsessed with this; I know attorneys that higher drivers so they can work in the backseat on the way to court or depos, and these aren't $1000 an hour attorneys, only $350.
Most of the attorneys I know think they're job is fine, but would any of them go back to law school? Probably only 1 or 2 of the 15 or 20 that I know would.
Here is an
article that I enjoyed reading about being a happy, ethical lawyer. I suggest you give it a read. (And yeah, its long, but you'd better get used to it now if you want to go to law school
)
So as to my decision, after working at the firm I decided that though I find the law extremely interesting and challenging, I'd much rather be happy, so I've decided to pursue a career as an accounting professor. Professor happens to be pretty much the polar opposite of attorney when it comes to satisfaction (and required work hours) and allows large amounts of freedom to pursue hobbies and family, so hopefully it will workout.
