Howdy
So last time, I talked about the issue of hours and pay. Certainly, jobs with longer hours tend to pay more. Some people are comfortable with working over a hundred hours a week and raking in
$200,000--$400,000 per year. Others prefer to stick to 40 hours a week and make enough to live comfortably. Understanding what you want is crucial for choosing a career. With that, let's talk about lawyers.
As I said before, when you already have a science degree, the main reason you'd go to law school is to become a patent lawyer. These folks check out patent submissions in order to see whether or not they're truly original or innovative in some way. They also help arbitrate patent and intellectual property disputes. Patent lawyers are required to get a degree (at least a bachelor's) in a science or engineering field. They will then deal with patents that have something to do with their field of prior knowledge.
According to this, patent lawyers are sought after primarily because not many scientists or engineers have an interest in law. As a result, they can make more money, while working far less than most lawyers. The poster cites a figure of $150K for 1600 billable hours, or roughly 6.15 hours a day, which seems like an incredibly good deal, but billable hours are not on site or on call. Often, lawyers sit around waiting for work for weeks at a time, and get billed for none of it, and other times, they'll work 70-80 hours a week. So, it's hard to pin down actual hours worked for attorneys. The BLS puts the figure a little at $121,000 per year with no mention of hours worked.
Suffice it to say that, if you're going to be a lawyer, you have to be comfortable with long days for weeks on end punctuated by periods of nothing.
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