Graduate high school at 18. Work on a vineyard as a farm hand with exclusively middle aged Hispanic men for a year. Went to Europe for a month with money saved by living in a large shed. Return to the States and attend university studying mathematics. Decide math isn’t the route for me. Transfer to another university and study horticulture, winemaking, and vineyard management. While studying, got a job at a hazelnut farm. Worked there for 1.5 years while finishing degree. Decide farming isn’t quite right for me. Decide to try law school. Take LSAT. Score well enough. Apply and obtain scholarship at a law school a few hours away. Move to new city and do law school. While in law school, worked at several firms and distric attorney offices. Graduate and study for the bar exam. Pass bar exam. Work full time as solo attorney. Very stressful, not very much money (was making around $40,000/yr). Decide to try district attorney office. Get job offer for $80,000. Move closer to new job. Now been working at DA office for two years and am making $106,000. Much less stressed. Really good support from colleagues and staff. In line for promotion. Life is pretty good. In the future, looking to potentially become a professor/law professor as long term career to hopefully have even better work/life balance.

This is just describing the outcome of a warrant or subpoena (depending on the circumstance).

I’m an attorney for a local government.

Right.

I’m a county prosecutor (in the US). Prior to law school, I studied horticulture and worked on an industrial hazelnut farm. Law school only required an undergrad degree and a decent score on the Law School Amission Test (LSAT). Law School took 3 years and then a summer to study for the Bar exam. After passing the bar exam, one is generally qualified for an entry level attorney job with most DA offices, but the pay is generally slightly lower than you could find at a private firm.

However, government jobs are often sought out for because they don’t generally have a “billable hour” requirement. Billable hours are how attorneys generally charge for their services with a set price per hour. Most attorneys charge by 0.1 hours and each charge must have a statement explaining what it is the attorney did. This is sent to the client at the end of a job or month for them to know how much they owe. Most law firms require a out 1,600 hours per year (33 hours per week). An efficient attorney can probably get their ratio of billable hours to work hours to about 60%. This means if an attorney worked for 10 hours, they would generally only have 6 billable hours. This system often forces people to work longer hours to meet their requirements. However, if an attorney bills more than their requirement, they get a bonus based on amount of money brought in.

If I could do it again, I might do it. I generally like the work environment, pay, benefits, and coworkers, but someday I think I would have enjoyed a more physical job doing something interesting.