Becoming a Lawyer
Becoming a lawyer takes years of hard work and intense training. Naturally, if there were not a few excellent benefits of being a lawyer, very few people would choose this profession and choose to study law. Did you know that the common ground that brings together world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto, Barack Obama and Mahatma Gandhi today is studying law?
The law department, one of the oldest academic fields in the world, is among the most preferred departments, especially among students who want to become lawyers. Therefore, a career as a lawyer is one of the most sought-after professions in the business world with high salary options. Our guide includes information about the advantages of the legal profession, which is among the most valuable and respected professions in the world, and what it will bring to you.
Pros of Being a Lawyer
Do lawyers make good money? : Lawyers can make really good money
Earning potential ranks first among the top 10 reasons to become a lawyer. Among the highest-paid professionals in the legal industry, the average annual salary for paralegals is around $126,930. Well, do you know who is the richest lawyer in the world? Richard Scruggs, a graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Law, has amassed a fortune exceeding $1.7 billion from the cases he won in court.
However, remember that not all lawyers make big money! It is good to know that this will vary depending on the company you work for, your level of experience and the country, and the highest-paid earners are patent lawyers.
Career options lawyer: Offers wide career options
There is a wide range of career options and areas of expertise for students who wish to become lawyers. Therefore, it will not be difficult to find an option that appeals to your interests while studying law abroad. If you are wondering what a lawyer does, you can work as a public defender in a government institution or focus on certain areas such as environmental, commercial, family law in a large company or law firm. Once you become a lawyer, it is also possible to change career paths. At the same time, the legal profession will offer you job opportunities in a wide variety of sectors such as banking and finance, politics, media and publishing, and marketing.
Is being a lawyer prestigious anymore?
Yes,you gain prestige and respect. Becoming a lawyer will provide students with prestige and respect for generations. Since it is not easy to study law for many years and become a successful lawyer, many people will admire what you have achieved and want to be like you. Of course, you can help your family and friends if they need a good lawyer in the future.
Stress management for lawyers: You learn how to deal with stress
Being a lawyer will present you with a stressful environment. Since learning how to deal with stress in various areas of life is very important, becoming a lawyer will not only help you in your professional career but will also benefit you in developing a stable personality. The difficulties of being a lawyer may also be seen as a positive by some. Laws are complex and constantly changing. In order to effectively represent your clients, you will spend a significant amount of time and often be stressed researching and analyzing these laws
Job satisfaction of being a lawyer: You help people
Many lawyers are not interested in studying law or practicing law simply to make money or receive superior financial rewards. There are other things worth being a lawyer for, and lawyers want to help people solve their problems. In fact, people who need a lawyer are often quite desperate and do not know how to solve their problems on their own. If you are passionate about the field and the feeling of helping people makes you happy, becoming a lawyer is for you.
Lawyer job opportunities: You can do your own business as a lawyer
If you want to have flexible schedules and control over your schedule, you can also run your own business as a lawyer. After studying law and having a law degree, you can start your own business by opening a law office.
Communication skills of lawyers: Your communication skills improve
Communication skills are one of the most important features required to become a lawyer. Lawyers will always have the opportunity to argue, defend their views, and conduct prospective analysis based on the evidence. Practicing such activities will help you improve your communication skills, as well as enable you to be in one-to-one relationships with people, improve your verbal and written communication skills, and gain excellent listening skills.
Importance of networking for lawyers: You will have excellent networking opportunities
Lawyers meet people from all walks of life. When you work with clients, you not only expand your business, but you also begin networking, which leads to benefits in other parts of your life. Networking is not the primary qualification required to become a lawyer, but it will certainly be an added benefit. As a result, over time you will come into contact with many powerful people who can potentially employ you in leadership positions later in your life.
What are your own rights?: You learn about your own legal rights
Lawyers can not only help their clients in difficult situations, but they can also help themselves when they get into trouble. If you are a lawyer, you usually don’t need the advice of other lawyers, you can just defend yourself and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to do so. You will also have peace of mind as you will be able to better estimate how serious your condition really is compared to the average person who is often clueless about it.
You start learning at the beginning of your career
Another advantage of the legal profession is that you can learn a lot at the beginning of your career. In many professions you have to work for many years until you reach a certain level of responsibility, but as a lawyer, you have frequent contact with your clients from the very beginning and you also have to defend your work in front of your clients.
Disadvantages of Being a Lawyer
Below are some of the difficulties faced by lawyers who “never give up being the voice of citizens’ freedom to seek their rights, despite the threats, violence and obstacles they face”*.
Internship
Young lawyer candidates who graduate from law school are required to do an internship. During this internship, the workplace where they intern does not have to pay wages to the young fellows, and the wages of the trainees are far from being sufficient to sustain their lives.
Another problem of our intern lawyers is experienced during the first 6 months of courthouse internship, which starts as soon as their law school education is completed. As a result of courthouses not giving the necessary importance to the training of interns, they do not have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and experience, which are already insufficient for practice.
Not being able to find an internship place, the attitudes encountered in the courthouses and law offices where they do their internship, and the problems experienced in the bar association are some of the problems that lawyers experience before accepting the profession.
First step into the profession
Our lawyers who took their first step into the profession by completing their internship; This time, job anxiety awaits. Starting a job in an office with a satisfactory wage; Working in a company’s legal consultancy is almost a dream for a newly graduated lawyer. In order to start working in a good company or a reputable office, a good education alone will not be enough; the efforts he makes to improve himself throughout his education will be considered a plus. Still, it will be a great chance for him to stand out from dozens or even hundreds of candidates and be selected.
Our newly graduated lawyers who want to avoid the stress of looking for a job and want to stand on their own feet; They will experience all the financial difficulties of opening a new office, and it will take time for them to turn these into jobs and attorney fees by attracting clients. At this point, as everywhere, the bread is in the lion’s mouth. Our lawyer went through a door dozens of times to get power of attorney; He will have to convince his client many times that he can do this job.
Early Years of the Profession
Now our lawyer has slowly started to collect power of attorney and the number of files has started to increase. In fact, the most difficult years for our lawyers begin at this time. Apart from routine workflows; Dealing with the requests of spouses, friends and relatives, and the feeling of having to help with their requests can sometimes be disturbing enough to make you wonder “how did I get into this profession?” What is a spouse, friend or relative compared to that? “The lawyer only writes petitions!”
A lawyer’s life is spent waiting!..
The lawyer waits, he waits for his turn at the courthouse for the hearing, he waits for the client to make payment, he waits for his turn to receive the confiscated property/salary, he waits for the expert report… He waits and waits. Time passes in courthouses, roads and bureaucracy. However, is the client like that? Most clients have no concept of time. He calls early in the morning, comes to his senses, calls at midnight and wants to get an answer to the question he asks at that moment. Moreover, in the eyes of the client, the only person to blame for lost cases is the lawyer.
Prejudice Against Lawyers
The lawyer does not just fight the other side of the case. Lawyers also fight against many prejudices in their daily lives. We think that lawyers always talk too much. However, most of the time in movies where lawyers talk a lot, the judge looks into the lawyer’s eyes and says; “Write, my daughter, the defense attorney said, ‘I will repeat my petition,'” he says. Not to mention that the hearing, where you wait in line for hours, usually lasts 5 minutes. Also, according to some people, lawyers charge a lot of money for this five-minute hearing. The hearing is only 5 minutes long. Those who think it lasts; pre-trial preparation phase of the case and afterwards; They do not even think of contentious matters such as appeal, objection to expert report, reply to reply, lawsuit and declaration petition, list of evidence.
One of the prejudices about lawyers is; “Lawyers are the only professional group whose work is opened during crises and that is why they are in favor of the crisis.” Yes, there is a significant increase in the number of lawsuits and enforcement files during economic crises, but as long as these files cannot be collected, lawyers have no profit.
Lawyers also defend the criminal, that’s why they can’t be trusted! Lawyers are not legislators. At the same time, lawyers are not law enforcement. Lawyers undertake the duty of defending the person assigned to them by law. The law states that both the guilty and the innocent must be defended in accordance with the right to judicial trial. The opposite is unthinkable.
Exposure to Violence on Duty
Lawyers enter law school; They face various difficulties and prejudices until their last years in the profession. Every year, thousands of our lawyers are threatened and pressured, and hundreds of them are subjected to physical violence. Last year, a young lawyer of ours; He was shot and killed by the debtor at the foreclosure site in Gebze. Another of our lawyers in Izmir; The image of the debtor holding a gun to his head at the foreclosure scene is still before our eyes. The legal profession; Bar associations and administrations have a great responsibility to protect their dignity and reputation and to prevent the violent incidents they face.
I hope that one day all our lawyers will be able to practice their profession under better conditions and opportunities…
What type of lawyer makes the most money?
Patent Attorneys, Intellectual property (IP) Attorneys, Trial Lawyers, Tax Attorneys, Corporate Lawyers make the most money.