Commercial Insights: When I was considering law school, my uncle (a lawyer) told me that my law degree would always be valuable because “The Law” was an underpinning of commerce. He was correct; and to this day I’m always happy to have the ability to quickly evaluate the legal angles of any business situation – and there are legal angles in every business situation.

Analytical Ability: Law school simply taught me to think better. It forced me to organize my thoughts and present them in a compelling way. The IRAC structure of advocacy (Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion) still sticks with me and applies to all sorts of non-legal situations. In my earliest media training at Expedia, the trainer taught me an IRAC-like structure for answering questions. Not surprisingly, I picked it up very quickly. Trimming complex things down to their simple parts is an invaluable skill.

Legal Point of View: How the law works makes a lot of sense . . . if you think like a lawyer. Law school teaches you how to think like a lawyer which gives you a fairly unique point of view. I look at many regulated situations and have a deeper understanding of why they are like they are, and whether I have any chance at affecting them. This was certainly the case with Avvo. I looked at how consumers and lawyers were finding each other and the model simply looked broken. With my legal point of view, I was able to conceptualize something that I knew could be valuable . . . and would weather the legal challenges. :-)

Mental Strength: Law school made me mentally stronger. I know that sounds almost trite, but the law school crucible forced me to grow up and simply handle difficult situations better. I was a young, coddled undergrad who suddenly was thrown into Mad Max’s Thunderdome. I had to get it together and perform or risk being impaled by law school finals — the academic equivalent of Tina Turner in a chainmail corset. No ifs, ands or buts – you had to start preparing for these three-hour torture sessions from day one of the semester. Similar to SEAL training, I think law school was also just painful enough that almost every life situation is favorably compared against it. “Wow, I’m hanging upside down because I just rolled my new car. Oh well, at least I don’t have law school finals coming up!” I joke, but not by much.

So, for those many ATL commenters who are clearly not finding value in their law degree, I would say that no profession is perfect. No life is perfect. Law school is hard and expensive but, with a little perspective (maybe after you right your professional ship like I did), hopefully you will see the gifts that law school has given you.

In the end, so much of success is what you make of it. Law school puts a unique set of tools on the bench. May you all use them to shape something professionally satisfying.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3055501&forum_id=2#29263317)