What Can You Do With a Law Degree?: A Lawyer's Guide to Career Alternatives Inside, Outside & Around the Law [Paperback]

Deborah Arron (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 094067551X | ISBN-13: 978-0940675513 | Publication Date: September 2003 | Edition: 5

Written by a lawyer for lawyers, Deborah Arron's book is a virtual encyclopedia for lawyers in transition, covering such topics as how to conduct a self-assessment and transferrable skills analysis, how to detect and prepare for layoff, how to establish a transitional financial plan, how to market your special talents, how to work with career consultants and headhunters, how to decide whether to stay in law or leave, how to avoid job-interview hell, how to handle compensation negotiations that work in your favor.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A lawyer's version of What Color is Your Parachute? Offers a logical, analytical way of evaluating career options -- ABA Journal

A practical, inspirational manual whether you want to change your practice or ditch it altogether -- Washington State Trial Lawyers Assn

When those dark nights of the soul arise, Arron's book is the beginning of the solution -- Law Practice Management Magazine

From the Author

I am a former civil litigator and bar association leader who closed my law practice in 1985 to take a one-year sabbatical, and never returned. Since then, I've studied, consulted with and talked to thousands of lawyers nationwide to learn what separates those who create satisfying and successful careers in or beyond the law from those who remain unemployed, underemployed or unhappily employed. This book shares their secrets. You won't find any easy answers or quick career fixes in What Can You Do with a Law Degree? What you will get is a pragmatic approach to career development, and a multitude of career-building techniques, that have been successfully tested by thousands of lawyers and law students. You may be facing unemployment or retirement, or graduating from law school with no clear career path ahead of you. You may be wondering if you want to return from parental leave or whether part-time work is the answer. You may be restless and bored, hate your job or your work, feel underpaid or unappreciated, or be too burned out to drag yourself to the office each morning. No matter where you are, if you're the kind of person who can get into law school, get through law school, pass the bar or practice law, you're among the cream of the crop of American workers. You're analytical, intelligent, motivated, responsible, the kind of person who achieves the goals you set for yourself. And that's the key. You can't get very far if you don't have a meaningful goal. What Can You Do with a Law Degree? will help you find it. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: LawyerAvenue Press; 5 edition (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 094067551X
• ISBN-13: 978-0940675513
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #618,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

147 of 152 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You can be a (fill in blank), BUT WITH A LAW DEGREE, April 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: What Can You Do With a Law Degree?: A Lawyers' Guide to Career Alternatives Inside, Outside & Around the Law (Paperback)

This book was almost completely worthless.
Basically, the author's suggestions are along the lines of "With a law degree, you can be a doctor!!! Of course, you will have to go to med school first..."; "with a law degree, you can be a chemist!!! But you may have to go back to school and pick up some of those science and math courses you skipped in undergrad because you knew you were going to law school..."
I mean, yes, I already KNEW I could go and be WHATEVER, given the proper additional training and/or sufficiently low expectations ("a drug dealer...WITH A LAW DEGREE!!!"). What this book's title suggests is an anlysis of alternative career paths utilizing a law degree, and what it delivers is a worthless list of random jobs that you are at least not banned from by virtue of having a law degree. I admire the author for tapping into what is an almost genetic yearning in the legal profession to GET OUT (and thereby getting out herself), but as a useful tool, the book fails miserably.

56 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST career change book for lawyers--a must read, October 25, 2000

By 

Tina, Career Counselor in Chicago (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Can You Do With a Law Degree?: A Lawyers' Guide to Career Alternatives Inside, Outside & Around the Law (Paperback)

I am a career counseler at a law school in Chicago, and I used Ms. Arron's book about a year ago to decide what career I should pursue when I left the practice of law. I bought other career-change books and found none of them to be as useful as this one. I knew I wanted to stop practicing law, but was completely lost as to what career I wanted to pursue next. I kept dragging my feet because I felt so unsure of what awaited me. As soon as I started reading Ms. Arron's book, I instantly felt that she understood exactly what I was going through. Doing the self-assessment exercises really brought me a lot of clarity, and helped me decide what career I wanted to pursue next. Her book also contains an abundance of valuable resources which I used to research my options. By the time I applied for my job as a career counselor, I felt 100% ready to leave the practice of law and very excited about embarking on my new career. I had a much better understanding of my strengths, weaknesses, and values than I ever had before. Without this book, however, I think I would still be unhappily practicing law (or worse yet, that I would have left the practice of a law for a job that suited me even less than being an attorney). I recommend this book to all the law school alums I counsel with respect to career change issues, and I have also recommended it to several laywer friends of mine who are struggling with the question of whether they should continue practicing law. Everyone I know who has read the book has enjoyed it as much as I have and found it to be just as useful. It is, without a doubt, the best career-change handbook for lawyers.

52 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book of its kind out there, February 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: What Can You Do With a Law Degree?: A Lawyers' Guide to Career Alternatives Inside, Outside & Around the Law (Paperback)

I have looked through practically every book on career change/transition for lawyers, and generally found them totally lacking in concrete advice as to lawyer-specific issues, self-assessment and options. This book not only hits the nail on the head as to reasons for dissatisfaction with the law, but offers sound ways to evaluate possibilities for change, both inside and outside the law, in terms of one's personal interests. And the examples of people who did make changes are very inspirational. The resources offered are the most comprehensive I've seen. Very valuable. If, as a lawyer, you question the path you are pursuing, this book will make you feel less alone in the process.