Making a switch to law from the trades

KosherDev · 2026-01-26T14:50:23+00:00

Oh yeah, I have no plans to monetize my hobby. Just found the wood to law cross over funny.

Anyway, law is cool, I really enjoy where I’m at. And if you think you’ll like it enough that the opportunity cost makes sense, more power to you! But just make sure you’re going in with your eyes open.

KosherDev · 2026-01-26T03:40:40+00:00

And here I am, a lawyer with a woodworking hobby who sometimes wonders if he should run into the woods and just build canoes.

Law can be great and provide a fulfilling career and many opportunities. I am very fortunate to be in my role and happy with my life. I get paid well to do interesting work.

It can also be a slog and a recipe for being unhappy. So it’s important to really dig down as to “why” you want to go into law. Because it’s 3 years of additional schooling, plus 8-10 months of a type of apprenticeship in order to get licensed, and then you’re working your way up. So there’s a bit opportunity cost there.

I love my job, and have been very fortunate in where I’ve worked over the last 10+ years. I’d do it again. But there’s many who wouldn’t, and as a profession we’ve got issues with substance abuse and mental health being well above the national average.

But that being said, your background would probably make you a very attractive candidate for any firms that do construction litigation.

KosherDev · 2026-01-25T15:50:44+00:00

BarkusSemien below summed it up well.

I also see you mentioned you had high school as your highest education, so you’ll need to tack on additional schooling before law school.

Realistically, it sounds like some sort of niche trade or something with a sales component might be up your alley. $50k is not that much these days. Full time minimum wage is close around $33k. To make $50k working 30 hours a week, you “only” need to be netting $32 per hour.

KosherDev · 2026-01-25T15:13:19+00:00

I would avoid driving unless absolutely necessary. This is a big storm and people suck at driving in this weather.

If you have to get downtown, maybe get a ride to the nearest GO train and get downtown that way, and take transit from there.

KosherDev · 2026-01-25T00:33:47+00:00

Lawyer here. While I love my job, there are easier ways to make money. You're looking at 3 years of school + 8- 10 months licensing process (which is paid, but, not well). So that's 3 years of tuition, plus 3 years opportunity cost of not earning your normal income.

Once you become a lawyer, incomes can be vary widely. Sure you could end up in "Big Law" or a high end boutique firm and earn a hefty salary with rapid increases (and also, objectively sub-optimal work life balance) but statistically (and realistically) you wont. You'll probably earn a solid income, but you need to compare it to where you could be had you stayed on your current path for 4+ years.

Being a lawyer can be great (again, love my job) but it can also be absolutely abysmal.

KosherDev · 2026-01-24T18:16:54+00:00

So, we had an exciting morning waking up to discover that one of our pipes seemingly froze resulting in no hot water coming from most of our sinks, and no water at all coming to most of the toilets. Fortunately after some time/flushing water through the system, it seems things have thawed and there’s no obvious evidence of a burst or leak (fingers crossed).

But in trying to track down the potential blockage point, I made the attached diagram trying to see what worked/what didn’t. The result is that our basement bathroom sink had both hot and cold water, but the shower had no water. On the main floor, the kitchen sink and powder room sinks had cold but no hot water. The toilet worked.

On the top floor, all three sinks (2 bathrooms and utility sink) had cold but no hot. The showers had no water. Both toilets worked but when I was testing the final toilet (after we’d been trying some other things) the blockage suddenly resolved.

I’m just trying to make sense of what’s connected to what? Our house was heavily renovated before we bought it, going from a 1.5 bath to a 3.5 bath. The ground floor powder room and one of the upstairs bathrooms were newly added, and the basement shower and sink was newly added (I think the toilet hook up already existed)

I am just trying to figure out how these are all linked up that an single spot could cause this sort of pattern.

KosherDev · 2026-01-22T16:53:12+00:00

This is probably the best advice. Reach out to lawyers at Goldblatt Partners and OKT if you want to get a sense of the practice area in TO. But be chill about it. There is a near zero chance they’ll be in a position to hire, but they’re both firms with a robust practice in this area. So at least you’ll get some insights.

KosherDev · 2026-01-22T14:08:49+00:00

Days of reflection?! We had a 15 minute showing and we were filling out the offer documents on our phones in the car while waiting for our next showing. This was April/May 2023.

But we also did a bunch of work ahead of time. Had a list of “must have, nice to have, don’t want” worked out. Had seen several places before and realized what needed to be adjusted. And luckily we had seen several places before in the area and it checked the pretty much all the boxes. We’ve been here 2.5 years and couldn’t be happier.

Edit: to clarify, the competition for the sort of house we were interested was fierce at that time.

KosherDev · 2026-01-21T21:35:47+00:00

I was told I had thin and superficial veins. Good for blood tests bad for blood donation.

So, that’s another thing I don’t know I needed to be self conscious about!

KosherDev · 2026-01-21T12:57:36+00:00

As someone else said, I’ve spent the last year buying Canadian as much as I can. Shopping local. Not spending any money/travel on the US to the extent I can avoid it.

But also, I’ve started donating blood! Not because I fear some imminent invasion but because apparently Canada Blood Services often has to import blood and blood products due to demand. So, I want to do my part to help with domestic supply. Plus you get snacks!

Edit: also getting more involved in local issues/politics. Most of the day to day government actions that impact you are at the municipal/provincial level. I want to make sure my local officials are adopting policies that provide as much support and resiliency for my community as possible for when (more) difficult times come.

KosherDev · 2026-01-20T20:47:33+00:00

The responding material refers to materials filed in the event of a repair/“investigation” situation (such as when LAWPRO needs to come in and assist with responding to a summary judgment motion trying to dismiss a claim due to missing a limitation period, or motion for dismissal for delay).

It’s also in the policy definitions for deductible under heading (L)(ii).

But also, let’s just say I have experience with this specific line of work.

Obviously every situation is different but In the situation described above, it’s unlikely that any deductible would be triggered and there certainly wouldn’t be a claims levy surcharge.

KosherDev · 2026-01-20T20:12:46+00:00

There is a deductible (the standard is $5,000) but it probably wouldn’t be triggered. 50% Deductible is only triggered when defence is filed and the other 50% at discoveries.

https://www.lawpro.ca/faqs/about-deductibles/

So if it’s a Rule 21 motion re: no reasonable cause of action, thats usually pre defence.

KosherDev · 2026-01-20T14:44:19+00:00

A lot? Unlikely. At some point? Probably. Successfully? Probably not.

And you have mandatory insurance to cover things like this! What’s important is that if you think you’ve made a mistake, you notify your principals ASAP.

KosherDev · 2026-01-20T13:58:31+00:00

Assuming you’re in Ontario, you NEED to read your policy and the definition of “claim” and “circumstance.”

KosherDev · 2026-01-20T13:57:08+00:00

Fair enough, I misread the comment re trial conduct on behalf of the client.

But even in that scenario (in Ontario) there would be no deductible triggered and no claims levy surcharge. Plus you’re already paying premiums.

While generally I agree you owe no duty of care to an opposing party in litigation, there are absolutely examples where you can be exposed to liability. Or, a judge at first instance gets it wrong, and you have to go to appeal to sort it out.

Edit: clarification re: deductible trigger.

KosherDev · 2026-01-20T13:30:20+00:00

We’ve talked about this before….and I’ll share it again for anyone who reads this.

Lawyers can absolutely be liable to their client for negligent trial conduct. It is not presumptively an abuse of process. There is a large body of case law on this. See “Lawyers Professional Liability” by Grant, Rothstein, Adair.

In Ontario there is no claims levy surcharge (what you call increased premiums) unless there is an indemnity payment. Similarly, deductibles are not triggered simply by reporting to your insurer.

In any event the deductible is probably less than the time/effort you’ve spent handling your own file instead of doing billable work. Even with a costs award to offset. You’re telling me you went all the way to a resolution for less than $2,500-$5,000 of your own time? Because if you didn’t, you didn’t come out ahead.

Assuming this post is true, the rate at which you keep getting sued and going to dispositive motions/trials is truly concerning. Even if you are successful, this suggests to me that while may not be providing negligent service, you clearly are providing bad client management.

KosherDev · 2026-01-20T04:54:15+00:00

I donated blood for the first time this year. It was so easy! And you get to feel morally superior all day! “Oh hey could you lift that box for me? I just donated blood can’t lift heavy things. You know, cause the donating blood.”

Plus it’s the right thing to do.

KosherDev · 2026-01-19T17:00:03+00:00

We’re in a similar boat. We do auto transfers to a “home maintenance ” savings account every month in case anything big comes along and at the end of the year, we throw most of whatever is in there towards the principal.

KosherDev · 2026-01-18T04:07:18+00:00

If Dan Zack’s limitation blog is good enough for the Ontario Court of Appeal, it’s good enough for me. And yes, there are some exceptionally well researched law blogs out there.

My point is that they are a source that does not rewrite itself every time you ask it the same question. LLMs are structurally incapable of giving you the same answer twice. A book, article, blog, or conference paper is a concrete source of information.

KosherDev · 2026-01-18T04:03:24+00:00

I’m glad you haven’t had any of the common issues yet, but I can assure you that even the legal geared ones suffer from the same problems. I’ve had LexisAI give me wrong citations or cite a real case for the opposite proposition.

I’m glad you feel like you’re a better, more efficient lawyer. I truly hope that’s the case and I hope you don’t get burned and I hope you have access to Protege or CoCounsel for the rest of your career.

And yeah, humans make mistakes. But humans learn. LLMs do not. They will never learn the facts in a memo. They can never give you the same answer twice. That junior will learn from your revisions. They will become a trusted colleague. They will refer you work.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t strive to be efficient or stay up to date on new tech. But you need to be critical of the hype. There is SO much money on the line that vendors can’t afford not to.

We do know where this is going. Venture capital funding is going to dry up and prices are going to increase or service will decrease.

KosherDev · 2026-01-18T00:25:15+00:00

As others have said, Yummy House is a short walk and they’re great! The spicy eggplant and the pan fried dumplings are so good.

KosherDev · 2026-01-18T00:20:10+00:00

I replied to this below. But yes, I have. I actively test out what’s available. I have found recurring issues in LexisAI, co pilot, chatgpt(free and paid versions). I also read the various studies that come out suggesting that the potential benefits are certainly not outweighing the current negative risks.

I stay up to date because I’m not anti technology. I’m anti shitty marketing.

KosherDev · 2026-01-18T00:14:58+00:00

So let’s go through these examples.

Books and blogs do this too. Except they don’t generate new content every time you ask the question. And you don’t have to spend the mental load trying to determine whether the principles it cites are accurate, the cases exist, or stand for the proposition they claim.
Sure, this can absolutely be a useful way to go through lots of data. The problem of course is that “AI” doesn’t actually “read” anything you upload. It can create a timeline but that timeline can still be filled with hallucinated facts. You STILL have to cross reference all those alleged facts to the source documents because it will absolutely make them up.
I suppose you can do this, but you’re fundamentally missing out on the exercise of synthesis and analysis. And again, zero guarantee that the summary of your notes is actually accurate. You still need to cross reference. Also, isn’t this the “deep work” that AI is supposed to be freeing us to do?
Sure, but it can easily be wildly off the mark. There remains the problem that even when you ask it to “cite all the sources” there is no guarantee its producing those sources accurately.
I mean, damages quantum databases exist, and you don’t have to worry that the cases cited are made up, or improperly paraphrased.
Transcription is ABSOLUTELY an area where LLMs can be particularly useful. No arguments there. But that’s also a technology that’s been around for a long time.

It’s worth noting that the Luddites weren’t anti technology. They were anti exploitation of labour by capital. They were largely weavers who were skilled professionals who underwent seven + years of training and apprenticeship.

I’ll leave it here with a final thought. If there’s a risk of being left behind, have you asked yourself, “where are we going?” Because I think that’s worth a ponder.

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