What is one good alternative career for a lawyer or attorney?
There are so many opportunities out there for lawyers and attorneys. To help you decide on your next career venture, we asked business professionals and leaders this question for their insights. From becoming a real estate investor to writing professionally, there are several diverse career options for individuals with legal knowledge and experience.
Here are eight alternative careers for lawyers and attorneys:
- Become a Real Estate Investor
- Pursue Opportunities as a Mediator
- Be an Investment Consultant
- Write Professionally
- Transition into Financial Planning
- Try a Career in Consulting
- Carve Out a Niche With Legal Research Skills
- Become a Project Manager
Become a Real Estate Investor
One alternative career that attorneys may realize success in is as a real estate investor. Real estate investors regularly rely on the advice of attorneys to complete the necessary legal contracts and paperwork involved in real estate deals.
Real estate investors that already have the legal knowledge and experience of an attorney may find a more streamlined and cost-effective route to closing and negotiating a real estate deal, and in turn, may find they have an advantage over their competition as they are able to save time and money on their deals.
Than Merrill, FortuneBuilders
Pursue Opportunities as a Mediator
Mediators play an important role in law, for it is their job to help both parties come to an agreement, avoiding litigation. Lawyers who are well-versed in litigation and advocacy in the fields of consumer, commercial, and family law can consider taking up mediation instead of full-blown law practice.
Riley Beam, Douglas R. Beam, P.A.
Be an Investment Consultant
This specific role would be great for investment lawyers. It is a fairly easy switch, and a lot of the work is similar to being a lawyer.
You have a similar clientele, and you don’t have to search for new clients. You are more than likely able to keep clients but offer a different service.
Michael Jankie, Natural Patch
Write Professionally
Writing is a great alternative career for a lawyer or attorney. This career works well because lawyers do so much writing as part of their profession anyway.
Lawyers and attorneys often have to write briefs as well as motions and memorandums of law. Their work is also very research and writing-intensive, and so is the work of writers.
Adam Reed, Crown & Paw
Transition Into Financial Planning
There are surprisingly a lot of careers one could transition from as a lawyer. One of the hallmarks of being an attorney is the exceptional level of patience, thoroughness and detail-orientation needed to do the job well.
Thus, one field one could successfully transition into is surely financial planning. The parallels between the transferable skills necessary for both make it a natural transition.
But the same can be said for other careers which require the above. So whether it is the sciences, medicine, or engineering, just to name a few industries, it simply pays to possess these universally valuable skills.
Peter Bryla, ResumeLab
Try a Career in Consulting
One promising alternative career for a lawyer or attorney is consulting. A lot of the skills can transfer quickly over into consulting with planning out clients’ information and planning out strategies. Plus, a majority of lawyers already have a solid network of connections across multiple industries.
Katie Keirnan, NUE.life
Carve Out a Niche With Legal Research Skills
Practicing law requires excellent legal research skills, which can be advantageous when looking for a new career. Identifying, finding, and cite-checking information and applicable laws support your legal decision-making and strengthen your arguments. It can also help you gain insight into an industry and spot gaps in the marketplace.
I worked as a lawyer in the beer industry for many years, managing investments and acquisitions for a global brewer. But as a craft beer lover, I experienced firsthand the disappointment of not finding beer locally from some of my favorite out-of-state breweries.
So, I used my legal research skills to find unique, existing licenses and incorporate them with other specific licenses to combine those tiers. This enabled me to start a business that acts as the wholesaler, retailer, delivery courier, and marketer for micro-craft beer brands, helping them become more accessible to beer lovers alike.
Jason Sherman, TapRm
Become a Project Manager
One of the best non-legal career alternatives for a lawyer is to become a project manager. This job is perfectly suited to attorneys because you have to be detail-oriented, organized, and analytical. In addition, you must be able to reconcile information from multiple stakeholders and make sense of complex issues — skills that attorneys typically possess in spades.
In my experience, lawyers make great project managers. In fact, at my last company, one of our top project managers was a former lawyer. Not to mention, demand for project managers is at an all-time high and job satisfaction is off the charts for project managers as compared to being a lawyer.
John Ross, Test Prep Insight
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