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Ask HN: Is switching careers from IT to legal crazy enough to be worth it?

9 points by skarlowicz ↗ HN
After 20 or so years in IT (operations mostly) and routinely observing the embarrassing state of legal affairs around anything IT-related, "a friend of mine" has been visited by a thought to switch gears to legal field to apply some technical expertise to the world of yellow notepads. Ignoring the problem of at least 4 years of education required to qualify for a legal clerk job, do you think this is something that can make this world a better place or merely a fancy attempt to cope with mid-life crisis? In a more constructive mode, how do you think the hacker approach can improve the existing legal system?

5 comments

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[dead] crudbot
That's a tough road man. Legal field is hurting bad. I know the feeling though.

Can "friend" join a legal software company?

jeffepp
I went to Law School at Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago-Kent School of Law) there were many, many students who had backgrounds in IT, engineering, etc..

As far as making the world a better place -- I am all for ya trying, but the legal profession is pretty set in its ways.

Constructively, one way to improve the legal system is to get rid of legalese and replace with clear and concise language.

russell
Nice idea, but legalize is really a programming language that predates even COBOL. If you deviate seriously, you may get exceptions and loose your case. I think a better legal language would be even less understandable.

For those of you who question my assertion, try reading the original PL/I standard which was an executable (by humans) programming language specification. There were only a few people in the world who could read it. It was precise though.

idoh
You don't need to have a legal background to help firms with their IT problems. Just go out and do it. If you get an education in the legal field then you'll be doing legal related work. It is like saying dentists need help with IT, therefore I will go to dental school.

But anyway, the legal field really needs some help. Six years ago I was a clerk at an average law office. I went into the store room to get a pen or something, and pulled open a drawer of dictaphones. I asked one of the attorneys what the deal was, and he was like, if you want to make it as a lawyer you need to learn how to use one. They'd dictate out their letters, and then place it in a little plastic bag with a note and drop it off with a paralegal.

hga
One of the best lawyers I ever worked with had in a previous life done things like program a Z-80 embedded system that measured valve wear for a nuclear power plant in California. It really made a difference that he could understand a lot of what we were doing.

That said, I'm pretty sure he made his career switch earlier than you did and he hated normal big law firm life (I first got to know him when he was a startups corporate council and jack of all trades). I'd want to find out how big the clued in competition is per jeffepp's observation.

Good luck!