Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave D
Stories?
Graduated HS in 2006. Started college immed. after. Dropped out after a year due to lack of motivation which was fueled by success at poker (would stay up all night and FT an mtt for $3k and feel no need to go to class the next day so I'd sleep till 5pm instead).
Played poker professionally for the next 3-4 years or so. Made a lot of money--like more than I'll make as a lawyer working half the hours. Nonetheless, I hated the lifestyle, the people I met, that my job always made me feel like a weirdo when with non-poker players, and that I might wake up one day as a 55 year old who has done nothing with his life other than take money from people (similar to Grizy). I'm sure most lawyers would probably kill to be a poker player and work half the hours, but I found it was actually very detrimental for me. It led to immense laziness, lack of direction, immature decisions, and involved either traveling (to play live) or staying home all day (to play online)--both of which I hated. Color me abnormal but I actually like putting on slacks and a shirt and going into an office more than never. I also kinda predicted Black Friday (though not quite the scope) and wanted to get out before the glory days were over.
Decided that WSOP in 2010 would be my last hurrah. Enrolled in local college thereafter and spent 3.5 years getting my UG degree. Then I went straight through to law school. Knew the legal market was brutal and that all lawyers hate their job, and that if you couldn't get into a top school preferably with big scholly it wasn't worth going, but I always wanted to be a lawyer and had very few other non-law options. Decided I'd go to the best school I could get into that gave me a full ride--a local T2--knowing that I only had to commit 1 year of my life before finding out if I could secure the type of job that would pay well enough for me to pay off any cost of living debt I'd have for 3 years--and willing to drop out if I was at the bottom or maybe even the middle of the class after 1L.
Luckily I was #2 in the class after 1L and it opened up a lot of doors, even from my school. I'll be starting at a big firm in September, and chose litigation, even though I know Disko (and I guess Sam) will throw things at me. I know exit options are infinitely better for corporate, but it just seems mind-numbingly boring to me, and the great exit options in corporate are just to do more corporate work. I also have never met a corporate lawyer who really likes their job. I also really liked law school and I know practice is nothing like it but to the extent they're similar at all, it's going to be litigation based stuff, and nothing to do with corporate stuff.
That's my story for now. Hopefully I don't hate biglaw so much that I'm back to playing poker in a year.