"My area of law will be mergers/aquisitions, something that mainly bases on a wide-spread social network rather than talent or very intimate knowledge of the law. I do not actually intend to be a very good lawyer, just to be one."
Take it from an M&A lawyer - quit now before it's too late! While you can and probably will make a lot of money practicing law, (a) you will spend 10 years apprenticing to learn this area of the law, (b) intimate knowledge of the law IS required to be able to do a deal, and (c) if you are not very good, no one will let you do their deals. Worse yet, you will work obscene hours becoming a good M&A lawyer, which will leave very little time for programming or forking ANY processes, let alone a little foo, bar or baz.
While going to law school was clearly the best financial decision I ever made, and while I enjoyed law school tremendously, actually practicing law takes WAY too much time. The thing to do, in my view, is invest the same effort you are putting in your legal studies in molecular biology, and then use your computer skills to become a computational biologist. It may not pay as much as helping people buy and sell companies, but I have to believe that, long term, it's a hell of a lot more interesting.
I got a BS in math and loved college so much, I went to grad school for five years. Picked up an MA in econ and MBA in finance. Tired of school, got a job. Worked for a few years. Tired of work, went to law school. Now I'm a corporate lawyer, which I like, mostly, but I'm itching to go back to school and maybe do a PhD in CS with a little neuroscience thrown in for good measure. My advice: stay out of debt to preserve flexibility, study whatever you want, and don't get stuck on the conventional school, career, retirement, death treadmill. There is no law that says you have to live a boring, conventional life.
Slashdot Mirror
Take it from an M&A lawyer - quit now before it's too late! While you can and probably will make a lot of money practicing law, (a) you will spend 10 years apprenticing to learn this area of the law, (b) intimate knowledge of the law IS required to be able to do a deal, and (c) if you are not very good, no one will let you do their deals. Worse yet, you will work obscene hours becoming a good M&A lawyer, which will leave very little time for programming or forking ANY processes, let alone a little foo, bar or baz. While going to law school was clearly the best financial decision I ever made, and while I enjoyed law school tremendously, actually practicing law takes WAY too much time. The thing to do, in my view, is invest the same effort you are putting in your legal studies in molecular biology, and then use your computer skills to become a computational biologist. It may not pay as much as helping people buy and sell companies, but I have to believe that, long term, it's a hell of a lot more interesting.
I got a BS in math and loved college so much, I went to grad school for five years. Picked up an MA in econ and MBA in finance. Tired of school, got a job. Worked for a few years. Tired of work, went to law school. Now I'm a corporate lawyer, which I like, mostly, but I'm itching to go back to school and maybe do a PhD in CS with a little neuroscience thrown in for good measure. My advice: stay out of debt to preserve flexibility, study whatever you want, and don't get stuck on the conventional school, career, retirement, death treadmill. There is no law that says you have to live a boring, conventional life.