McGill Alumni: Do you regret going to law school and becoming a lawyer?

[Confused Bagel]

Do you regret going to law school and becoming a lawyer? Do you know anyone who does?

What did you dislike about McGill Law?

What do you dislike about being a lawyer?

(I am currently an undergraduate student considering applying next year.)

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Confused Bagel
Needed to add context

[ccq35]

@Confused Bagel did you ever end up applying/getting in?

For those who might have the same questions, here are a few personal opinions:

1. McGill admin can be excruciatingly frustrating to deal with. Our student affairs office gets a lot of criticism from students dissatisfied with the level of service, and while a lot of that criticism is unfounded, not all of it is. 

2. The student body skews young because of the CEGEP factor, which can result in a lot of immaturity (not that this is perfectly correlated with actual age, of course… lots of immature older students as well). Students also get upset over everything and will complain very loudly. 

3. Faculty politics have been increasingly visible since some of the professors unionized, and this has had a noticeable effect on the atmosphere on campus. 

There’s a lot to complain about, but McGill is an incredible school with a well-deserved reputation. The transsystemic program has its critics but is a fascinating and unique way to learn law, and the dual degrees open doors to all sorts of careers, whether in big law, government, foreign markets, policy… the options are vast. 

[MarkT137]

I applied to McGill Law about a decade ago and got accepted. The process was trying and I lost interest in law itself, eventually completing another full degree in science in addition to an initial B.A. and then an M.A. in the history of science. I never became a lawyer. Lawyers do very noble work but injustice is virtually everywhere.

McGill Law is a great school with a unique program. While I left McGill Law, it's a fabulous school with a unique program and student body. Obviously Montreal is beautiful.

I think undergrads need to realize there's more to academia than just lawyer or doctor. You can do a lot of important research in other areas, and believe it or not some areas are ready to be discovered at the ground floor. For example I've worked on history of medicine as well as an innovative approach to potential theory in physics.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.08309
https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14293/PR2199.000584.v2
https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/22899/
https://thescipub.com/abstract/10.3844/pisp.2020.1.3
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/53hyz

You don't have to become a working professional to make the most of academia. I didn't like the application process and being a lawyer would be depressing for me since lawyers miss a lot of people who fall through unfairly. On balance I think most people are happy to have gone through McGill law and becoming a lawyer considering the options both provide and the unique education in a storied setting.