Alternative careers for lawyers

Sort the options by how far they sit from practice. The closer the move, the more of your experience counts and the easier it is to explain on a resume.

Close to the law

You use legal judgment every day, but you are no longer anyone’s lawyer.

• Compliance, privacy and risk. You read regulations, write policies, run investigations and train staff. Lawyers from regulatory, employment, privacy, banking and health care practices have a head start. Expect to learn one industry’s rules in depth. For privacy roles, the IAPP, a nonprofit association for privacy professionals, offers the CIPP/US certification [3] for people who want to show they know U.S. privacy law.
• Contracts and procurement. You draft, negotiate and manage a steady flow of commercial agreements. Speed and a sense of which terms matter count for more than perfect drafting.
• Legal operations and legal tech. You run the business side of a legal department: budgets, outside counsel, data and software. It asks for project management and comfort with numbers. Companies that sell software to lawyers also hire lawyers for product, sales and customer roles.
• Law firm roles outside practice. Knowledge management, professional development, pro bono management, recruiting and practice management keep you in a familiar setting without a billable hour.

Next to the law

Legal training is an advantage, but the job is not giving legal advice.

• Policy, government affairs and regulatory work. Legislative staff, agencies, trade associations and advocacy groups need people who can read a statute and explain it in a short memo. Relationships with lawmakers and agency staff matter, and they often start with a job in government.
• Mediation and arbitration. Litigators and dealmakers bring the judgment. Plan on training first: some states require arbitrators and mediators to become certified to work on certain types of cases [4], and training requirements vary by state and by court. The business runs on reputation and referrals, so start part time while referrals build.
• Teaching and law school administration. Career services, admissions, academic support, clinics and adjunct teaching all draw on what you know about the profession. Faculty jobs ask for scholarship or a teaching record; staff jobs care more about advising students and running programs.
• Human resources and employee relations. A natural step for employment lawyers, especially into workplace investigations. Expect to learn pay, benefits and the systems HR teams run on.

Outside law

Your experience counts as general skill, not legal expertise.

• Consulting. Consultants break down messy problems for clients, which lawyers already do. Business and financial fluency is the gap to close.
• Business roles. Strategy, operations, product, finance and real estate roles, often reached through a former client or an in-house job first.
• Writing, editing and communications. Legal publishers, newsrooms and corporate communications teams hire clear writers who meet deadlines. Build samples that are not legal briefs.
• A business of your own. Lawyers start companies, buy small businesses and open consulting practices. Sales and cash flow matter more than credentials.

NALP, an association of legal career professionals, counts many of these jobs as JD Advantage jobs, which it describes as jobs for which a JD gives a demonstrable advantage in getting or doing the job, but which do not require bar admission, an active law license or practicing law [5]. Its examples include contracts administrators, alternative dispute resolution specialists and government regulatory analysts [6], and it says the category might also include jobs in human resources, at investment banks and consulting firms, in compliance for business and industry, in law firm professional development, and in law school career, admissions and other administrative offices [7]. The JD advantage jobs guide covers that category in depth. If you want to keep practicing in a different setting, read going in-house or leaving Big Law instead.

Usually less than practice, at least at first. Your offer will depend on your seniority and the employer, but federal wage data give a rough benchmark. These are medians for employees in each occupation, not for former lawyers in particular, as of May 2025 [8]:

Some people you might follow are missing from these figures. BLS wage data do not cover self-employed workers or owners and partners of unincorporated businesses [16], so private mediators, independent consultants and anyone else who works for themselves are not counted.

The rows also mix levels. Two are management jobs that usually ask for years of related experience: human resources managers, and postsecondary education administrators, a group that includes provosts and academic deans. Compliance officers is a broad occupation that people can enter with a bachelor’s degree, and federal wage data report compliance managers only as part of a catch-all group, Managers, All Other [17]. So the compliance median says little about what senior compliance roles pay.

None of these medians reaches the median for lawyers. Senior roles in some of these fields can pay as well as practice, but expect the first step out to pay less than the step after it. Work out the pay cut you can absorb before you resign. When you negotiate, ask for credit for your years of practice instead of an entry-level offer.

Start by separating burnout from a bad fit. Burnout can follow you into a new job if the hours, the stakes or the lack of control come with you. A bad fit with the work itself is a reason to change careers. A bad fit with one employer may only need a different seat in law.

The setting matters, not only the profession. In the ABA and Krill Strategies study, litigation practice is consistently linked to more burnout and distress [18], while in-house roles show lower predicted distress and burnout than private firms and solo practice [19]. That is an association, not a promise. Still, it suggests that a move from litigation to advisory work, or from a firm to a company, a court or a school, can change more than the job title.

Lower-stress roles tend to share a few traits: no billable hour, predictable deadlines, little adversarial work, and evenings that belong to you. Government agencies, compliance teams, law school offices, policy research, knowledge management and teaching often fit that pattern, though any job can be hard under a bad manager.

If exhaustion is affecting your health or your daily life, deal with that first. A career change will not fix it alone. The lawyer burnout guide and the lawyer mental health guide explain where to get help, and some coaches focus on burnout, stress and well-being.

Yes, but remote roles draw many applicants, so your odds improve where you bring a specialty. A privacy lawyer applying for a remote privacy program role competes on knowledge most applicants lack.

• Often remote: compliance and privacy roles at distributed companies, contract management, legal tech, legal research and writing, editing, and online teaching. Freelance research and writing for other lawyers is still legal work, so check your license status and your state’s rules first.
• Often part time: adjunct teaching, mediation, freelance writing, consulting in your old practice area, pro bono through a legal aid group, and contract attorney work, which is still legal practice and needs an active license.

Part-time work is easier to set up while you still practice, when you have income and your network is active.

Many retired lawyers keep one foot in the law: mediation and arbitration, adjunct teaching, nonprofit board service, mentoring younger lawyers, consulting or expert work in their old field, and pro bono.

Pro bono is easier than many retirees expect. Emeritus pro bono rules waive some of the usual licensing burdens for attorneys who limit their practice to pro bono only [20], and an ABA article counts at least 44 jurisdictions [21] that have them. Most states let retired lawyers use these rules, and more now also admit attorneys who are inactive or engaged in work other than the practice of law [22]. Read your state’s rule for who qualifies and where the work must be done before you change your license status.

A second career later in life follows the same steps as any other move. The difference is a longer list of people who know your work, so start there.

1. Write down what to keep and what to drop. List the parts of your job you enjoy and the parts that drain you. A new title that keeps the draining part will not help.
2. Talk to people who hold the job. Ask former lawyers in the role what a normal week looks like, how they were hired, what they wish they had known and what the role pays at their level. Your law school’s alumni office and bar association committees can make introductions.
3. Run a small, real test. Take a pro bono matter in the field, join an industry committee, teach a class, or take a basic mediation course and volunteer at a community mediation center. A few months of real work tells you more than reading about it.
4. Look for a bridge. Clients, your employer’s own staff teams, secondments and in-house roles are common first steps out of practice. A move through people who know your work is faster than a cold application.
5. Translate your resume. Lead with outcomes in the employer’s language: risks reduced, deals closed, policies written, teams managed. Cut matter lists a non-lawyer cannot judge.
6. Settle the money before you resign. Know your monthly costs, your savings runway and the pay cut you can absorb.

Keep it until you are sure. Getting back in can take a new application and fees, and in some states, such as Georgia, a lawyer who has been resigned for years must retake the bar exam to be readmitted [23]. Some compliance, government and in-house roles also ask for an active license. Many state bars offer an inactive or retired status. Read your state’s rules on dues, continuing legal education and reactivation before you change anything. If you might come back to practice someday, read returning to law after a break.

A coach helps when you cannot choose a direction, when you keep stalling, or when you want someone outside your workplace to test your thinking. A coach will not find you a job. Use the free help too: many law school career offices advise alumni, and a former lawyer who made the move you want is worth an hour of your time.

This directory lists 43 coaches who work with lawyers on leaving law and career change. Each listing says who the coach works with and whether they practiced law themselves. Among the 8 listings here that show a per-session price, the median starting price is $300; what a lawyer coach costs explains the rest.

• See career change coaches
• Read how to choose a career coach
• Answer three questions to narrow the list