What Law School Doesn’t Prepare You For (But Big Law Absolutely Expects)
Law school teaches you the law not the job. Law school prepares you to spot issues, brief cases, and survive cold calls. What it does not prepare you for is the actual lived experience of being a lawyer.
No one teaches you how to:
- Manage impossible expectations
- Advocate for yourself without being labeled “difficult”
- Function on minimal sleep for extended periods of time
- Separate your self-worth from your billable hours
You learn all of that on the job. Painfully.
People Management Is Emotional Labor
Law school doesn’t tell you that lawyering is as much about people as it is about precedent. You’ll manage: anxious coworkers (even if as a Junior you’re not in the direct line of fire, you still feel the repercussions of an unhappy client), demanding and unrealistic senior associates and partners, and terrible power dynamics within your teams and work allocator manager. And you’ll be expected to do it calmly, competently, and without visible emotion—no matter how unreasonable the request.
Big Law Is a Business (Surprise!)
You’re not just a lawyer. You’re a revenue generator. Your performance is gauged by your billables, utilization, and realization rates. These metrics quietly determine your value long before anyone talks about “fit” or “growth.” This was the most frustrating part of my experience. It didn’t matter how hard I felt I worked or how far I stretched myself (even while pregnant), if my metrics didn’t meet the requirements I was disposable. My “soft skills” only mattered in relation to my metrics.
Mental Health Is Treated as a Personal Problem
Burnout is normalized. Anxiety is joked about. Therapy is offered as an employee benefit, but good luck finding time to squeeze it into your schedule. Law school never teaches you how to:
- Set boundaries without guilt
- Rest without panic
- Say no without fear of retaliation
Yet these skills are essential for survival.
Moral of the story
Your well being should not be the collateral damage of your career. You’re should build a legal career that doesn’t cost you yourself.
