7 Lies About Law You Thought Were True

1. Lawyers Earn Big Bucks

Law graduates can earn as low as RM 1,500 during their pupillage and the average starting salary of a law graduate stands at about RM 2,443 — lower than what is offered in other careers across a variety of industries.

2. Lawyers Lead a Glamorous Lifestyle

What you don’t see on television is the hours of unglamorous work behind the scenes involving late nights slogging over submissions, poring over paperwork and scouring precedents to build an infallible case against your opponents. You’ll be under immense pressure to perform consistently in a highly stressful environment, as your client’s entire livelihood could rest on your shoulders.

3. Lawyers Profit Off Criminals

Lawyers play an instrumental role in the preservation of the rule of law. According to these universal principles, a person is innocent until proven guilty and has the right to be defended in a court of law. 

This means that in a criminal trial, it is for the court to decide if an accused person is guilty or otherwise based on the evidence at hand — not based on the opinions of his or her lawyer. Instead, the lawyer is responsible for safeguarding justice by ensuring that the accused person is given his right to a fair trial as well as testing the prosecution’s evidence to see if they are able to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

4. All Lawyers Go to Court

While litigation lawyers (those who resolve disputes in courts) regularly make trips to the court and are probably the most recognisable of the bunch, they’re not the only type of lawyer that make up the profession. 

For starters, lawyers who engage in conveyancing (transfer of property) do not hash out legal arguments in front of a judge. Nonetheless, their job is no less challenging, as it involves completing a mountain load of paperwork, scrutinising arguments and conducting rigorous background checks on vendors and buyers. Those who work in corporate law and banking and finance law also rarely visit the courts.

5. You’ll Be a Good Lawyer If You Like to Argue

In reality, being a lawyer doesn’t require you to be argumentative. While a court case is technically founded on a disagreement between two parties, lawyers aren’t paid to engage in a mindless verbal battle with one another. Instead, they are expected to persuade the judge to favour their client based on the facts of the case as well as sound logical and legal reasoning.

6. Lawyers Know Everything About the Law

The ever-changing nature of the law means that no lawyer really knows everything and must be open to learning throughout their career in order to thrive in this field. Even senior lawyers are constantly confronted with cases involving complex legal issues demanding in-depth legal research.

Law is ever-changing and it is impossible for you to know everything about the law. Be prepared for a lifetime of learning!

7. All Law Graduates Become Lawyers

Law Degree leads you towards a bright future in law, the skills you will pick up during the course will make you a valuable asset in a vast variety of other industries. This is because during your degree, you will carry out generous amounts of research (there’s so much reading involved, taking a Law Degree is actually known as reading law), hone your public speaking skills through mooting and mock trials and master your academic reading and writing skills through exams and assignments. 

This makes you a good candidate for jobs in areas such as management consulting (business analyst, management consultant), writing (journalist, content writer, copywriter) and human resource (HR executive, recruiter, corporate trainer).

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Edited by: 浪子

Bibliography

Kamini Senthilathiban. (2018). 7 Lies About Law You Thought Were True. Retrieved from 
https://eduadvisor.my/articles/7-lies-about-law-you-thought-were-true/