What If You Don’t Want to Practice Law?
If you're in law school and secretly wondering,
“Do I even want to be a lawyer?”
You're not broken. You're not behind. You're not alone.
I know it feels like everyone around you is locked into BigLaw dreams or clerkship goals, but the truth is: a lot of us don’t know what kind of law we want to practice — and some of us figure out we don’t want to practice at all.
That doesn’t mean law school was a mistake.
It means you’re paying attention.
You’re realizing that this degree — the same one that cost you sleep, sanity, and probably a small fortune — might serve you best in unexpected ways. That’s not failure. That’s growth.
A J.D. is more than a bar license.
Sure, passing the bar is one way to validate your legal education. But a J.D. opens doors far beyond courtroom arguments and billable hours:
Legal tech
Compliance
Policy and advocacy
Higher ed
Business and entrepreneurship
Writing, editing, consulting
Literally any job that values critical thinking, communication, and leadership (which is... all of them)
Maybe you’ll still practice — just not the way you thought.
Plenty of people leave law school thinking they'll be litigators and end up in transactional law, nonprofits, boutique practices, or something else entirely.
And some go in circles for a while — doing doc review, contract gigs, or law-adjacent roles while figuring it out. That’s normal too.
The “perfect fit” doesn’t always show up by 3L year. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it changes. That’s allowed.
Law school is hard enough. Let go of the shame.
There’s so much pressure to have a 10-year plan the second you walk through the door — but here’s the truth: your J.D. is a tool, not a sentence.
You get to use it however you want.
You get to change your mind.
You get to build something new.
Whether you end up in a courtroom, a boardroom, or building a business like this one — it still counts.
Final Thought:
You’re not wasting your degree just because your path looks different.
The law doesn't own you. It equips you.
And if you ever need someone to say it’s okay to pivot, explore, or walk away — this is that permission.