maybemaybe

this is insane, i always here how laywers have terrible work life balance for little pay but from what i've seen on these forums its usually not too bad, especially in your case. do you mind sharing how you got to this point?

thanks for this advice. I will definitely look more into the career. A reason why i considered law school is just because of how my strengths align with the profession as well as my interests. Over the last few days of me posting, I was very demotivated under the stress of figuring out what to do with my life along with schoolwork. Maybe thats why I kept on stressing my need to have work life balance, I was just too tired at that point. Now thinking about it, I would not mind working longer hours as long as I do work that I love. I will look more into the law profession before commiting to make sure it is something I want to pursue. One last thing, I saw that you mentioned the city of edmonton which is where I live. Do you think it would be possible for me to reach out to lawyers in the area and ask about the career?

how did you get here?

What is your job? Also do you mind sharing how many hours you typically work per week?

Has anyone here worked as a student either with the government of alberta or with the city of edmonton? I was wondering if I could ask some questions about how you got those positions?

how can I know for sure if I will like it? Mostly, I have been looking into the classes that we need to take, the daily responsibilities of the lawyers in my field of interest and their job descriptions. I have also been looking at the LinkedIn profiles of people who are in my field of interest and reading the job descriptions. Lastly, I kind of just watched videos of a day in the life of a lawyer.

i mean, my goal is to work with the government as a lawyer.

thank you, i appreciate your insight. I'm in Alberta so I'm not sure how competitive it is to get into the MAG but i'll definitely do some more research.

sorry i meant solicitor! my mistake, ill try changing that on the original post. i guess when i was talking about litigation i meant criminal law which im not interested in. to my understanding, i thought 120k would be quite reasonable for a lawyer working in the government after working 6-10 years for sure assuming they start at around 80k after articling

Hi all. I'm a female undergrad interested in law, specifically working with the provincial or municipal government as a legal counsel or solicitor. I am not interested in litigation or criminal law. In addition to the interesting work, the work life balance also interests me in government law. The pay seems comfortable for a regular 40 hour work week with the occasional hectic weeks thrown in. On top of that there are benefits, paid maternity leave, health and dental, and a pension. However, I am hesitant to commit to law school because I am wondering if I am being naive as to where I may end up. First of all, am I too optimistic about the work load I will have? I asked a question on this forum yesterday and it seemed like people working in law in the government worked around 35-45 hours a week and occasionally more. Secondly, my sister advised against law school for me because she said my plan was too specific. Like what if I don't end up securing a government job as a student or article and end up somewhere that I don't want to be. Lastly I looked at different government roles within the BC government and assume there are similar roles where I live (Alberta). It seems like a legal background would help you progress to many of the roles. However, I am worried that I may end up locking myself into government and if I ever need to move anywhere, it would be hard to transfer my skills. I'd rather not have to move from where I currently live due to some family related reasons but you never know. I don't really have a desire to make boatloads of money, just about around 120k in around 6 years. I just want a comfortable job where the work is interesting but at the end of the day, I can enjoy my free time. Do you think I am being too naïve?

how often were these unpredictable events per year where they would have to put in extra hours?

what are your typical work week hours and how did you get to that point?

are they software engineers? that might be why they seem to earn more with a nice work life balance

what was their work life balance like? i saw a recent post that said higher up government positions are expected to work long hours

what is your job? also can i ask what your location is?