I am here, however, to tell you that there is a world of opportunities out there if you take the leap and leave the legal profession. The options are abundant, interesting, and varied. Whether it’s using your quick wit to be a comedian (as one of my law school classmates did with some success) or entering the business world to join a compliance organization, investor relations, or a tech start-up, the possibilities are quite endless.
Your Legal Skills Uniquely Position You for a Variety of Opportunities
Taking up any of those options may mean you are leaving the traditional idea of what an attorney is, but here is something to remember. You are leaving with the irreplaceable core competencies that a law degree gives you, for example, elite-level problem solving, pattern and anti-pattern recognition, and most importantly, fungibility. Your new dream role can be legal-adjacent (compliance or risk management) or less traditional (product management, communications, business, entertainment, or even engineering).
My experience working in a technology-forward financial services company has taught me that the tech path is not only quite compelling intellectually but also presents a variety of opportunities that, with your legal training, you are well positioned to go after. For example, your legal skills have taught you how to understand the customers’ needs, meet those needs, and solve customer problems within the confines of the company’s product or technology. Your advantage in these tech-adjacent roles is that many involve customer needs and the legal/regulatory requirements of a new strategy or product.
The Core Competencies You Acquired in Law School
Elite Problem Solving
The business, nonprofit, and tech spaces are rich with exciting problems to solve. Your legal training is a perfect fit for a rapidly changing technological environment with complex regulations that often do not keep pace with customer needs. For that reason, companies seek the kind of talent that can operate in gray spaces and create the flexible boundaries needed while still pushing toward the end goal.
For example, engineers are building foundation models, brands are leveraging fast-paced social media accounts, and the privacy landscape is shifting. Even in the current GenAI environment, there are a lot of concerns that teams have to consider and for which they must design. Some of those concerns include staying on the right side of privacy and adhering to copyright and cyber laws and best practices. Your legal background makes you a compelling candidate. After all, you’ve been trained to apply existing laws (some new) and some that are quite literally ancient (ahem…the fertile octogenarian) to new patterns. For the same reasons, your skills are useful for areas such as product design, cyber security (where threat vectors are constantly evolving and case law is only part of the solution), and many others.
Pattern Recognition
Think about this as case law within a business. Essentially, a company wants to do something new. Maybe regulation exists, or maybe it does not. Your training would make you the person on the team who knows how to look for any patterns (case law) within the company or the industry that might be used to justify why or why not to build a new product or establish a new business strategy.
Negotiation
Negotiation is an art. Lawyers are exceptional at it, but they are also exceptional at risk management, and that combination is magical for any business organization. You know what outcome the business wants, how to assess the pros and cons of the path to the outcome, and how to bring the customer to that point. Law school trains you to be that person in the room who knows the outcome needed. That is a unique skill set. You can sell your vision (make your case), predict the dangers along the path (case law), and solve several customer needs (the law, the customer, the business, the industry).
The Grass Is Green for Lawyers in the Business World
Look carefully at most job descriptions but not necessarily at the experience required. Instead, look at the competencies that are demanded for the job. You will see that more than a few of these are skills honed in law school. I have law school classmates who are comedians, entrepreneurs, compliance officers, influencers, and even home shopping network hosts. In every case, each “usta be lawyer” uses skills learned and sharpened in law school. While many others believe that being a lawyer by trade is rewarding, the grass is green on the other side of the legal trade. I can tell you that being a recovering lawyer in the business world is a powerful, satisfying, and rewarding career.