if u expect/need the biglaw payoff u cant expect to work less than an average of 60 hours a week (or u will be let go these days pretty quick if work is otherwise available). sure u might get lucky, or as is more likely, if your people skills arent as good as a goy named tyler who played varsity polo, and your grades arent S&C/Wachtell level, u will probably end up at one or another large sweatshops where u can cost for 3 years just doing heavy hours of doc review or due diligence before u figure out what u will do. options really depend on clients and also to an extent your relationships from law school or otherwise.
The most classic exit is working at an internal legal department. Hours will be far more reasonable. You also get general access to the business community & can be offered any job or partnership along the way. You can also have an easier time getting accepted into business school & following an MBA career path.
If your concern is work/life balance, it very well may be worth working hard for a couple of years & then getting off the highway. But if you detest working and every day is a struggle, I doubt you'll be able to push yourself the whole way, and you're likely to give up in middle and be stuck with large debt.
If you want to get an MBA please skip law school, unless you want to do a MBA/JD dual degree in 3 years, those are cool, although may not be worthwhile either.
Thanks for all the responses.
So it seems the general consensus here is that to start, you definitely have to expect long work weeks. I’m ok with this for a number of years. I don’t have a problem working hard for a few years, I just don’t want to go down a path that entails 10+ hours a day, 6 days a week, plus commute, for the next 30 odd years. That is too much. A few years of it is certainly fine.
What I’m trying to get a good sense of is, what is the likelihood of getting these internal legal jobs, or other job that has more reasonable hours.
Is it a bad idea to go down this path if I don’t want to do big law long term.