All My Law Classmates Hate Being Lawyers

Lawyer note:

This article is a personal reflection on my own experiences and beliefs, not a factual survey of anyone else.

In two years of being the best student in 30 years at paralegal school (the programs assistant heads words, and unsolicited meritorious praise, were not mine) I learned that my next step, law school, was not a path I wanted to pursue.

I was trained as a paralegal many years ago and at one time seriously considered attending law school. During that period, I spent a lot of time around law students and future attorneys. What struck me most was not the prestige of the profession — it was how unhappy many of them were.

Nearly everyone I spoke with expressed regret, exhaustion, or cynicism about the legal profession. What had once looked like a respected calling increasingly appeared to be a career defined by pressure, burnout, and moral compromise.

At the time, I struggled to articulate why this bothered me so deeply. Years later, I encountered a verse that clarified it:

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” — Ecclesiastes 9:11

This verse reframed how I understood success. It reminded me that social status, professional titles, and perceived advantage do not guarantee meaning, fulfillment, or justice.

The legal profession increasingly felt less like a pursuit of truth and more like an institutional machine — one that rewards procedural dominance over moral clarity. Watching how many aspiring lawyers seemed drained before their careers had even begun made me pause.

Eventually, I chose not to go to law school.

Not because I lacked the ability — but because I did not want to build my life inside a system that appeared to hollow out the people within it.

Looking back, I remain grateful for that decision

I followed the Bible instead:

1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.

 8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.

⁹ Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.

¹⁰ He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.

¹¹ When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?

¹² The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

¹³ There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.

¹⁴ But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.

¹⁵ As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.

¹⁶ And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?

¹⁷ All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.

¹⁸ Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.

¹⁹ Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.

So I read Ecclesiastes 5 above and stopped wanting to be a lawyer. That is why I didn’t go to law school. That may change now that I’ve matured.

Luke 11:

⁵² Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

⁵³ And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things:

⁵⁴ Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

Enjoy the next round of boxing. Got me for an 8 count but the judges scorecard is king. Ding ding ding!

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” — Ecclesiastes 9:11

One of my friends worked at one of the most powerful NYC law firms there is, and I’ve retained the most powerful NYC law firm to provide research; know the top marijuana ranked lawyer in the country and have his private cell; know one of the top ten trial lawyers who worked our religious case in a certain state we got two wins in, including at appeals; and know one of the top defense attorneys in the entire country too. People like me, because I do good work, for the under represented, for decades consistently, and won’t quit, for anything. Seriously. Good, luck.