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How will you leverage your law degree for success?

How do you leverage a law degree for success in business?

  • Assume you already have a law degree and are starting work at a law firm.  How do you maximize your chances of using the degree and legal experience for success in business.  Assume also that "success" means (1) starting a fundable/scalable business, (2) an executive role at an established company, or (3) starting a profitable lifestyle business.

  • Answer:

    Now this is truly amazing question, as I have wondered about the same myself. If you are willing to hear from a 28y lawyer who still pushes to make the break-trough, here are my two cents: Start from the end - what is your ultimate goal? Do you want to have your own law firm, or some other type of business, or do you want to be a corporate counsel/executive? Do you find your drive in pushing changes in the world, society, technology? Or do you more-less enjoy status-quo? Do you want to be a (m/b)illionaire, or is it enough for you to have a decent amount which will support you just fine? There are no right or wrong answers so be honest with yourself. Once you have them, try to figure out which path is most likely to take you to your ultimate goal in X years. Understand what assets you need to achieve goal, and start working in a law firm and/or corporate legal department. If you want to leverage your law degree, you will need to have law-related working experience under your belt. So start acquiring some. That way you will make contacts & connections and also understand problems in the industry. But getting any of these assets is close to impossible if you do not have a hands-on approach. You will need other skills/people & leadership traits You can not start and/or run any business alone. That is where leadership traits come to play. Luckily, those can be learned, and I am not going to discuss it here. For example, if you are going to start some you will need tech champions. So how do you find them? Attend tech-entrepreneurial events, show genuine interest in the matter (of tech-entrepreneurship), you may as well start writing blog articles for your local tech-blogs thus helping out entrepreneurial community, etc... The above examples are all awesome for networking, you will learn a lot about business & tech, furthermore, you will meet people who are ready to risk & fail, and rise-up again. It will do miracles for your mindset, you will have a hard time recognizing your new-self (which is good, trust me :) ). Start - Fail - Start again Now, after you have done a lot or reading, networking, problem-thinking etc. it is time to actually get down and dirty. You have to start, take risk with your idea, see what works and what does not. The only way to cross the finish line is to actually start running. Everything said above comes from my personal experience, and the examples I provided are what I actually did/am doing right now myself. Right now my team & I are working on  https://legaltrek.com/ so I will have more examples in the course of our work. I hope it was of any help to you. Thank you for this question & good luck with whatever path you choose. Cheers! Ivan

Ivan Rasic at Quora Visit the source

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I think a lot of this depends very much on the lawyer as I have met some that are great business people and some that are not and that all depends on their interest in the business side just as with any other profession.  I know a few lawyers that made great use of what they learned in other law firms and in corporate world and started a law practice that is focused on serving small business and start-ups.  All come from larger firms or were corporate lawyers but they have a firm of different disciplines and they offer services that deal with all of the things that most hate about lawyers.  They charge you for the work done, not the photocopies and staples.  They offer reasonable rates and in a lot of cases fixed price services.  They are in a downtown office - but do not have mahogany and leather coaches and  expensive decorators - it is a volume and return business and they are well known and do well. Another lawyer I have worked with got out of law and became an equity lender and dealt with Mergers and Acquisitions.  He used his background and contacts as a lawyer to get going and hasn't practiced law for years. On the other hand I have relatives in law and medicine who need to stick to what they know best as they are Horrible Business People so if they started a business outside their profession  - they would have failed. So just like anyone that is in any profession....how successful you will be in business will be how much you enjoy business versus being just a lawyer.  An executive role at a successful company could mean Corporate Counsel - which requires the lawyer to "learn the business" as well as the law.  The other 2 - a fundable or scaleable business / or successful lifestyle depends on the skills needed in business to make it a success no matter what your background.

Karen Fischer

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