Career oportunities for (introvert) lawyers who don't like dealing with people?

plstudent

I wanted to ask a question to all lawyers and people otherwise involved in law on this forum.

To make a long story short, I dropped out of law school because of a job. I'm considering coming back but I'm not sure that I would like to work as a lawyer.

The reason for that is that, despite the fact that I like thinking and coming up with arguments, I don't like people, big cities and being exposed to a lot of stimuli. I wouldn't want to be in a profession where I have to meet a lot of new people and live in a big multicultural city. Suits= not what I want. I'm different from most law students in this regard.

TO MAKE IT CLEAR.

WHAT I LIKE: Thinking, Writing, Arguing/coming up with arguments, Researching, Analyzing, Reading.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE: People, big cities, multiculturalism, doing lots of things at the same time, talking fast

Does it seem worth it for you to study law in my situation? Or do you think my dislikes would limit my work possibilities too much?

In case I do decide to go back to law school: What role within law would you recommend for someone like me?

Uno my Uno.

there is a role for all personality types in the field of law but if you want to work in Law you will need to accept and prepare for the fact being a lawyer involves wearing a suit, meeting new people, multi tasking and working as part of a team. If those are deal breakers for you a career in Law may not be a good idea.

Having said that I don't believe it is usefull to be so black and white about the requirements of a career and a certain supposed personality type. All people contain both introverted and extroverted character traits and both types are useful in almost any career you care to mention.

A better way of deciding if Law is for you would be to try to spend some time in a solicitors office to see what the job actually entails and if it is something you want to do.

plstudent

Uno my Uno. wrote: »

there is a role for all personality types in the field of law but if you want to work in Law you will need to accept and prepare for the fact being a lawyer involves wearing a suit, meeting new people, multi tasking and working as part of a team. If those are deal breakers for you a career in Law may not be a good idea.

Having said that I don't believe it is usefull to be so black and white about the requirements of a career and a certain supposed personality type. All people contain both introverted and extroverted character traits and both types are useful in almost any career you care to mention.

A better way of deciding if Law is for you would be to try to spend some time in a solicitors office to see what the job actually entails and if it is something you want to do.

So you mean to tell me that virtually all lawyers meet new people on a regular basis? What about a role as a legal clerk/researcher or something of the sort. Are there not many openings?

Uno my Uno.

plstudent wrote: »

So you mean to tell me that all virtually lawyers meet new people on a regular basis? What about a role as a legal clerk/researcher or something of the sort. Are there not many openings?

I'm not sure what sort of answer you are hoping for here. Some of the best barristers in the country are pretty much incapable of having a normal conversation with another human being but they still have to meet new clients and new colleagues (ie other lawyers) on a daily basis, and make the best of it. I think pretty much all people everywhere in almost any job meet new people regularly. Law Clerks spend their time going from Firm office to Court office and back again, from what I gather they spend most of their time chatting and networking.;) Legal researchers do their work in offices with other people and on teams of researchers, from time to time they also have to present their research to the Lawyers who are going to use it.

Finding a career that doesn't require you to deal with people or have human interaction is going to be very tough if not impossible and for what it's worth that isn't what being an introvert is about. If Law is what you want to do you should do it and work on finding a position with a level of interaction that you can be comfortable with, there are shy Solicitors who are successful just as much as there are gregarious ones. It will be the same in any field, economics, science, IT or whatever else you may choose.

plstudent

Uno my Uno. wrote: »

I'm not sure what sort of answer you are hoping for here. Some of the best barristers in the country are pretty much incapable of having a normal conversation with another human being but they still have to meet new clients and new colleagues (ie other lawyers) on a daily basis, and make the best of it. I think pretty much all people everywhere in almost any job meet new people regularly. Law Clerks spend their time going from Firm office to Court office and back again, from what I gather they spend most of their time chatting and networking.;) Legal researchers do their work in offices with other people and on teams of researchers, from time to time they also have to present their research to the Lawyers who are going to use it.

Finding a career that doesn't require you to deal with people or have human interaction is going to be very tough if not impossible and for what it's worth that isn't what being an introvert is about. If Law is what you want to do you should do it and work on finding a position with a level of interaction that you can be comfortable with, there are shy Solicitors who are successful just as much as there are gregarious ones. It will be the same in any field, economics, science, IT or whatever else you may choose.

I rarely meet new people in my present job. I work as a programmer and work mostly alone. I could probably work from home if my employer allowed it.

I guess you may meet new people even if you work as a legal researcher but it's probably nowhere near as many. I'm OK with having some coworkers I work with regularly but the idea of constantly meeting new people (specially clients) doesn't appeal to me at all.

So the answer I was looking for is: how likely is it that you will get to work as a researcher/law clerk? Are there enough openings to make it a viable career path? Do you meet with a lot of new clients working as a lawyer otherwise?

I try to make a cost/benefit evaluation on the basis of how much interaction I would need to put up with and what the probability to get a job as a researcher would be.

Mr. Incognito

You could go into academia?

Grolschevik

Legal editor/proofreader?