Should lawyers learn to code? Arguments for and against
This is a good piece. I don&#x27;t believe (I&#x27;m probably mistaken) it&#x27;s a US take. But it&#x27;s still good. I came through it from the other side and used software royalties to pay my way through law school.  I didn&#x27;t have a CS or engineering degree and that ruled out practicing before the Federal patent bar: Make sure you realize this if you start taking law school classes, you need the undergrad engrg or CS degree in the US to sit for that exam and practice before the bar in that specialty. My geekdom precedes most CS major offerings and all but a handful of computer engineering offerings.<p>Other observations-
- Engineers make fucking excellent lawyers.  Statutes construed alongside caselaw is sort of like data sheets alongside a schematic and code. You&#x27;ll blow past everyone else in school and research will be a snap. When you get out to the real world don&#x27;t spend too much on electronic research. Two services are there to service white shoe firms. You can&#x27;t afford them if you&#x27;re not one of the people I reference in the YMMV, <i>infra</i><p>- Good engineer attys are efficient and effective and don&#x27;t hold back the truth. Your clients will come back to you and trust you.  You will be a rainmaker on merit. But schmoozing, man, learn it if you don&#x27;t do it.  I can&#x27;t: It hurt. YMMV if you practice for a large firm and are expected to book 8K billable hours per year. At that point you&#x27;re doing something exceptional (not a judgment)<p>- US judges are a mixed bag, elected or appointees. I preferred elected judges but wound up practicing 90% of the time before Federal appointees.  Until early noughts the appointees were great. The statutes and binding caselaw in front of them may not make a difference. Unfortunately they&#x27;re not like compilers or circuitry. You became an atty&#x2F;engrnr because you&#x27;re brilliant. But you need to schmooze or latch on to a partner to bring clients in and take the schmoozing bit on for you. Seek them out in law school and hang up your shingle with them. Don&#x27;t go solo if you neither schmooze nor practice well.  Don&#x27;t go into law if you lie, please.  If you don&#x27;t schmooze, and if you forget to suppress your brilliance in arguments your client will get fucked. You&#x27;ll get fucked if you have a temper and cross the contempt line (but that&#x27;s really hard to do if you&#x27;re sane enough to get through law school without a thorazine drip)<p>Bottom line:  Go for it. My 2.5 years at law school were the most fun I had in my life. My 10 years practicing were stressful and not worth doing (I didn&#x27;t have the schmoozer partner) but the education and my law license carries me forward in my engineering career, hopefully will get me into a corner office when geeking tires me. And it breaks the ice with my geeky colleagues who always need advice.<p>Copyedits for slightly improved readability. AMA here or by email if you wanna dig deeper