Ian F asked:
I’m just about to go to Temple Law this fall, and I’m having serious second thoughts. I’m not sure that the sort of career I’d want is really realistic.
I want to focus on international law, maybe get an LLM in addition to a JD.
My aim in doing this would be to work in or in relation to Northeast Asia (I speak Japanese and Korean). If I were in the US I’d want to be in the northwest.
Money matters, of course, but I don’t care if I never make (inflation adjusted) 6 figures. But thinking about it…I like the free time I have now. A lot. I don’t think I’d really want to work more than about 50 hours a week.
I hear that’s feasible with a lot of civil service positions, but, I guess those would be pretty stationary.
To summarize, I’m after:
Low-Medium (for a lawyer) pay
40-50 hour week
Work from or travel to Japan, Korea, or China
Is my goal a realistic one? Or should I just forget it?
Part of this is also I’m not sure I want to commit to 3 years in a city I don’t know I’ll like.
(hey, I only get 1000 characters)
And then there’s the endless pages of bitching about hours from lawyers.
And there’s the fact that I…I sometimes see listings for jobs I’d like…sometimes a few at once. But then again there’ll be times where there’s nothing, nothing at all.
I have met one person who had a job something like what I’d be after (except in West Africa), but that was at a foreign service exam, so I’m guessing he didn’t like his job THAT much.