Burnt out and looking for support...

I know others have left positive messages for you, but just for the sake of balance I want to provide another perspective.

My experience in law school was, for the most part, great. I enjoy school, so I loved being in class, learning new material, the competition for grades. But even then I was able to isolate some aspects of being a lawyer I knew I was not going to love. Court appearances, billable hours, etc. And as someone who also suffers from depression and occasional anxiety, it started to creep in that maybe I'd made the wrong choice.

I graduated cum laude, order of the coif, the whole thing, and have a good job at larger firm in downtown of a major U.S. city. But here's the problem - I hate litigation. It's petty, soul crushing at times, and being a slave to the billable hour as the paramount metric by which your value is judged is not enjoyable, to say the least. That said, I know this now and am taking steps to try out a different gig, like transactional work.

I only bring this up because while it feels good to read sympathy and encouragement, the truth is your gut may not be wrong. You might end up not liking being a lawyer. But I do believe there are ways to salvage the circumstances. Just be prepare that it won't be easy and that feeling you have may actually be intuition.

/r/LawSchool Thread