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UTL;DR: A burnt out 42 year old software engineer wants to study and practice law. Is it practical?
A person I know who is no longer able to endure the heavy workload and fast work required by the software industry, wishes to do a 3 year LLB (Hons) (there’s a university offering such a course without any age limit). I’ve told him that being a successful lawyer needs a certain amount of influence among lawyers and deep knowledge of the law and years of apprenticeship, but he believes he might be able to automate a lot of the routine work using the automation skills he already has with software. He also realizes that since he has no lawyer in the family, even if he wishes to start a software business, the legal knowledge would help avoid making mistakes and even if any case comes up, he would be able to handle it.
My question to lawyers on this forum is: Whether it is practical for such a person to take up law? In terms of memorizing the laws at such an advanced age and then obtaining apprenticeship with any practicing lawyer in order to gain experience of practicing in court. Or even if he wishes to practice on his own or start a business?
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UI’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think it’s practical. Field of Law also has very heavy workload. I’ve heard that law graduates who come from low tier law schools and do litigation suffer from long working hours and bad pay. Just doing llb won’t guarantee a good life unless it’s from a very good college. There’s alot of hustle and hardwork there also.
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UHe’s ok with workload as long as it does not involve staring at a computer screen for long hours. He’s considering doing the degree from NLSIU, which I believe is a good college. When you mention heavy workload, I assume it’s primarily about researching legal precedents, drafting pleadings, motions, and other legal documents, frequent appearances in court, managing case files, handling correspondence, billing, negotiating with opposing parties and reaching settlements, right? A lot of such work is what he plans to automate using software similar to ChatGPT, speech-to-text and text-to-speech software.
But will someone practicing law at the age of 45 be taken seriously and would he have any chance of fighting cases successfully? Won’t he be destroyed in court by experienced lawyers, or does he stand a chance using software algorithm legal research? Technically, he could offer his software services to other lawyers and make a business out of it, but I believe I remember reading something about a law that says that an advocate cannot practice any other business.
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UTo be honest, i agree with your second point. At the age of 45 with no experience he would find it very hard to fight in cases and compete with people. There are so many others who would be younger and more motivated. And it feels too much of a burden to start a new career at this age. There’s no harm if he wants to do this but practically I just don’t have a good feeling about this.
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UOne of my uncle and DSP in Kerala police and after retirement he took law degree and enrolled and is now working in Kerala High court. Keep in mind that he is working as ab associate to a senior lawyer. Here seniority is defined by experience and not age.
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UI looked up [some information on Quora](https://www.quora.com/Is-law-school-in-India-tough), and it looks like the stress of the course itself may be high, but could be managed by studying from law digests or looking through previous year’s question papers. But practicing in court appears to be an extremely exhausting process. It does not look like something a 42 year old like the person I know would be comfortable doing. Also, the seniority issue you mentioned is pertinent. I hear that one needs very thick skin, as there is some amount of ridiculing for small mistakes too. Even the pay is very less. Pursuing software would be a better option.
**Given that there is so much manual work in the legal profession, I do see scope of automation in many areas. I know someone who may have experience in not just software, but also in the design and improvement of interfaces. If lawyers or judges would like to have some automation built into their daily routine, I think that person would be able to do it for a low cost or for free to a certain extent, to gain some expertise in the relevant software.**
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HA person can start law practice at any age. There are many successful lawyers who have started out late. But it is not easy and your friend will have to struggle a lot.
However, if he thinks that a lawyer’s workload is less than an engineer, then he is mistaken. There is no work life balance for a lawyer. Take for example, if you have a case to argue on Monday, then you have to prepare for it on Sunday when the rest of your family is enjoying. If any deadline is coming up, it will not matter if rest of the world is enjoying a holiday, because your deadlines don’t care.
Also, if he wants to rely on AI to do work, it is best that he doesn’t get into legal profession. AI is nowhere near the level where it can finish any legal work reliably.
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UDo you know the approximate age range at which those lawyers started late? Did they have to work under a senior lawyer first before venturing out on their own to become successful? The thing about the legal profession I’ve noticed is that apart from experience, trust is extremely important. My uncle told me of how some lawyers secretly side with the opponent. My uncle’s trusted lawyer (his relative) deliberately delayed processing a case by lying to my uncle that there were clerical errors or that the summon was delivered to his house but he didn’t receive it. Similar to how many doctors don’t bother going into details to diagnose a patient, even many lawyers don’t go into a sufficient amount of detail. The person I know is meticulous and trustworthy. So won’t that give him a position of advantage in being trusted and in being able to find procedural faults or ways of tackling the case that his opponents may not have thought of? I agree that AI is not good enough yet, but now AI’s are being custom-trained with legal data and it’s only going to get better with time. If any lawyer had an AI that could analyze a case and predict the possible ways in which the opponent might present their argument, and if the AI could show the lawyer various options they could choose, and the probability of success for each those options, don’t you think it would be worth it? There is of course the mental toll that legal work takes. So yes, if the pay isn’t that good, it wouldn’t be worth it.
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HPeople of all ages join law. When I was giving my law exams there were at least three people with a head full of white hair who were also giving the exam. Getting a law degree is something that adds value to your profile even if you don’t practice law in courts. Even companies will prefer you more if you have a law degree.
You are right that trust is a very important factor in the legal profession. But you knowing your friend is trustworthy and meticulous does not equate to the client knowing it. He would have to prove it over time and through the cases he handles. Every advocate faces a lot of struggle early on and has to build a reputation for himself.
Regarding AI, there are a few glaring concerns: (1) It provides false answers quite often and when I say false I don’t mean making a mistake, it literally makes things up at times which are non-existent (this includes judgments or provisions of law); (2) While AI has a lot of data, it does not truly understand the data. It may take random statement in a judgment and say that the judgment favours you, when in fact, that judgment is against you; (3) Also, as law evolves over time, there is too much conflict in data. (4) While it gives several options and way to proceed, I have noticed that 1 or 2 of them are genreally wrong and only a very knowledgeable person might be able to pick out these mistakes.
Overall, while you can use AI to bounce off ideas which you have (it has good insights due to huge data), you cannot fully rely on it to do the work or blindly trust it. If you use AI to do work and there is an issue with it later on, your reputation is going to go down the drain.
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LIt was pretty doable tbh. Especially if you want to practice yourself. A know a few people becoming lawyers at 40/50 too.
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UDid they first have to work under a senior lawyer for a few years before starting their independent consultancy? Did they have to struggle to find work? I believe in a city like Bangalore, there would be difficulty because there’s good competition. So I assume they’d have had to practice in a tier 2 city? One person on this subreddit said that most lawyers don’t even explain the case properly to the client. If such is the situation, wouldn’t a more meticulous and articulate engineer do well in the legal field?
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PI will never say it’s too late, however my 2 cents:
1. Pick a field of law that’s close to the field he’s worked in. It will be easier to set up a niche like that.
2. Pursue this career change only if he is financially stable and has enough money saved up.
3. Understand that courts don’t function as shown in tv.
4. If he has good command over English that’s an added advantage.
5. Learning under an established lawyer is good, there is no substitute for it, however considering the age, it may be best to unofficial partner with younger lawyers who are just setting up their independent practice. Eg: your niche is tax law and your “partner’s” is criminal law. You both trade cases (handle) according to your niche. If you look old enough that’s one advantage to young lawyers that money can’t buy. It’s easier to bill when there are older partners in the office, like clients mostly assume fee is directly proportional to age If that makes sense
6. Practise in the High Court. The learning curve is better.
7. Any more advice and I’d have to bill you. 🤣-
UGood suggestions. Thank you. This is good advice. He had a look at law schools in Bangalore, and the one good one (NLSIU) offering a 3 year course that had no age limit for LLB, has only 120 seats and he hears it’s very competitive. So it looks like there’s not much of a choice due to age.
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BIf you can’t handle long hours and the mental strain in IT, you’re probably not going to make it in legal field my friend. Law isn’t like IT, expect way more screen time, endless research, and no fixed schedule. And as for becoming a successful lawyer Nothing’s really going to happen for the first 5-10 years, even if you’re insanely good. It takes time, connections, and grinding through the system before things start clicking.
This is all from a point of view of someone of a practicing advocate, who did his law from one of the top law colleges.
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UIf screentime is related to reading, the eyes can be kept closed when using text-to-speech software. Screentime related to typing can be done with eyes closed like how I’m doing right now. Typing for programming is different, where one has to constantly look at the code even while typing. Research can be simplified with AI tools that do Retrieval Augmented Generation. May I know what you mean by “grinding through the system”?
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NMy dad started his LLb from Delhi University at age 59, a year before he was about to retire. He did well, graduated, passed bar in first attempt and is now practicing lawyer. Ofcourse its a challenge to establish a very profitable practice since it takes time. But its still positive cash flow and money was not his driver.
You can establish a practice at 40 but it will take time, in case you dont have a financial cushion, it will be difficult.
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NMy dad started his LLb from Delhi University at age 59, a year before he was about to retire. He did well, graduated, passed bar in first attempt and is now practicing lawyer. Ofcourse its a challenge to establish a very profitable practice since it takes time. But its still positive cash flow and money was not his driver.
You can establish a practice at 40 but it will take time, in case you dont have a financial cushion, it will be difficult.
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