If you became a criminal defence lawyer, I can tell you that most of your clients would be ones who have committed crimes.
The idea behind wanting to be a criminal defense lawyer is not necessary to “protect innocent people” but rather to protect against unfair and excessive punishment against an entity that has huge resources to fuck up people’s lives for minor crimes. Like smoking weed? 40 years. (There was an article about it) Getting an abortion? Get charged with murder. Laws are just so unnecessary cruel, which is why I always wanted to be a laywer. Unfortunately I think that’s a bit too much for me to handle.
In that case it sounds like you would have been better off being a politician (they make the laws), judge (you can give minimal sentences) or just a lobbyist / non-profit.
Being a judge practically requires having a law degree as a prerequisite (and also convincing whoever appoints judges to appoint you or convincing people to elect you), being a politician requires actually convincing people to vote for you, also lots of funding for advertising. Much more difficult than being a lawyer.
Agreed, only reason I suggested this is because as a lawyer, you will at most practice in just one district. In a country with thousands of districts. Even then you may not get a lot of clients who you seek to help against unjust laws, because they have to select you too and it’s a free market. Would just be impractical to make a big difference.
The idea behind wanting to be a criminal defense lawyer is not necessary to “protect innocent people” but rather to protect against unfair and excessive punishment against an entity that has huge resources to fuck up people’s lives for minor crimes. Like smoking weed? 40 years. (There was an article about it) Getting an abortion? Get charged with murder. Laws are just so unnecessary cruel, which is why I always wanted to be a laywer. Unfortunately I think that’s a bit too much for me to handle.
In that case it sounds like you would have been better off being a politician (they make the laws), judge (you can give minimal sentences) or just a lobbyist / non-profit.
Being a judge practically requires having a law degree as a prerequisite (and also convincing whoever appoints judges to appoint you or convincing people to elect you), being a politician requires actually convincing people to vote for you, also lots of funding for advertising. Much more difficult than being a lawyer.
Agreed, only reason I suggested this is because as a lawyer, you will at most practice in just one district. In a country with thousands of districts. Even then you may not get a lot of clients who you seek to help against unjust laws, because they have to select you too and it’s a free market. Would just be impractical to make a big difference.