Moneyed career for teaching sort?

February 3, 2008 7:34 AM

If you loved the activity of teaching -- both individual tutoring and lecturing -- and had a law degree from a prestigious law school, are there any jobs you could get (other than law professor) that would pay a lot of money and give a decent amount of free time? Suppose you weren't idealistic and didn't care what you taught or to whom...
posted by shivohum to work & money (11 comments total)

Teaching isn't the kind of profession anyone goes into thinking they'll get rich.

Maybe what you are looking for is more of a motivational speaking kind of gig where you design some workshop or seminar and peddle it to the paying masses. People like Anthony Robbins or infomercial gurus like Carlton Sheets, for instance. Can you package some area of law that might appeal to a large audience and start marketing yourself as an expert? Maybe something to do with real estate law and foreclosures might be hot right now.
posted by 45moore45 at 7:40 AM on February 3, 2008

I'd suggest private sector training. There are companies who specialise in offering training on the legal system to non-lawyers in other professions: This crowd, for example, do things like teach engineers how to give evidence in court or teach nurses how to avoid medical negligence suits, that kind of thing. It's quite remunerative and the government departments and private sector clients who buy these services seem to pay top dollar for them. I don't think you'd get rich doing it, however, unless you are running the company. It's possible all this is unique to Ireland, but I doubt it.
posted by tiny crocodile at 7:48 AM on February 3, 2008

Here's their sister organisation in London.
posted by tiny crocodile at 7:51 AM on February 3, 2008

Charity organising?
posted by A189Nut at 7:52 AM on February 3, 2008

You won't make a mint teaching KAPLAN LSAT prep courses but I've always thought rolling your own prep course and admissions counseling in to one business could work pretty well.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 8:29 AM on February 3, 2008

Develop online courses and ebooks for law students. I am quite happy with my own info products business.
posted by acoutu at 9:46 AM on February 3, 2008

LSAT prep only pays $18-19/hr and only for a few hours a week. It's a job for law students, not law school graduates.

Admissions counseling/test prep businesses are pretty easy to start and fun, though, so I'd definitely look at the christopher hundreds' suggestion -- with the stipulation that you try teaching a Kaplan course for a class or two, so you know if you're any damn good at it (and you get to keep all those nice prep materials!).
posted by InnocentBystander at 10:29 AM on February 3, 2008

What about the other end from LSAT prep? Bar review courses?
posted by Jahaza at 12:08 PM on February 3, 2008

I taught Business Law to community college students in a paralegal program. You might want to look into that.
posted by notjustfoxybrown at 10:03 PM on February 3, 2008

If you loved the activity of teaching -- both individual tutoring and lecturing -- and had a law degree from a prestigious law school, are there any jobs you could get (other than law professor) that would pay a lot of money and give a decent amount of free time?

um . . . Why not litigate legal disputes for a living, given your training and the fact that you love speaking to people in an instructional, if not persuasive capacity? Hanging out your own shingle means you can set your own hours, and no matter where you live, you will find no shortage of putuative defendants against a whole host of social ills . . .

But then, new law professors usually earn about as much as new associates in the large urban area closest to their school, so if earning 6 figures a year isn't enough for you, then I don't really know what else you might be looking for . . . (teaching business at a community college, while enjoyable will not pay you more than one-fifth of what you can make as a professor in law school).

Bottom line? When I was in law school, we had an alum who came and spoke to us about our job searches. He reminded us that nobody would ever pay us 100k a year to sit around and have fun . . .and he was right.

So come up with a more precise sense of "what a lot of money" is . . . and "a decent amount of free time." If a career in legal academia can't satisfy those criteria, then you may have larger problems than simply not knowing what to do with your career . . .
posted by deejay jaydee at 7:32 AM on February 4, 2008

Thanks for the answers so far. Very interesting.

But then, new law professors usually earn about as much as new associates in the large urban area closest to their school, so if earning 6 figures a year isn't enough for you

Oh, it's enough. I just don't like reading and writing what law professors read and write. Publishing, not teaching, is their focus, and I don't like publishing law review articles. But litigation as a solo practitioner is an interesting option.
posted by shivohum at 1:59 PM on February 4, 2008