Customer Reviews

My First Year as a Lawyer: Real-World Stories from America's Lawyers

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This book consists of 18 short chapters by lawyers who tell of an experience they had during their first year after law school. Though all of the stories are mildly interesting, few really tell us much about either the legal profession or the lawyer as a person. One strength of the book is that the lawyers who contributed chapters come from a wide range of legal areas and employment situations, including one woman who left the law to be a journalist.

I thought this book was just OK. I thought a far better book on this subject was the Vault Reports Guide to America's Top 50 Law Firms, which has 10-pages or so on each firm and is loaded with an insider perspective on what life is like on each of these law firms.

This collection of stories was interesting, but I am not sure who the intended audience is or what that audience is supposed to take away from the stories. I am considering becoming an attorney and hoped this book would provide insight into life as such. I read First Year hoping to get a feel for what lawyers did and how they felt about their first year(s) on the job, perhaps with a holistic approach addressing issues like work-life balance, how interesting did they find their job, were they doing what they thought they would be doing, how does life compare at different sized firms, etc. Instead, the book is a collection of feel-good moments or moments of insight that the contributors would never forget - a bold claim considering many of the contributors wrote relatively soon after the events described. Because First Year is a short read - I finished it easily in two days - it was hardly a waste of time, and some chapters are touchingly poignant, but for those seeking insight into the day-to-day working life of young lawyers there are better books available.