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Guy Kawasaki Quit Law School After 2 Weeks ... Should You?

By George Khoury, Esq. on January 07, 2018 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Quitting law school is not an easy decision. The debt quickly becomes so insurmountable that most students are left with few career options that provide enough earning power to actually enable them to pay back the crushing debt. Or at least so it seems despite the fact that the legal job market isn't all that promising for recent grads.

Noted Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki quit law school after only two weeks. For Kawasaki, the decision did not seem too difficult. He was pushed toward law school by his parents, and he simply wasn't interested in it. And if you're in law school right now, or made it through already, you know well enough that there's no way anyone can make it through without actually being into it.

Should You Quit Law School?

If you're thinking about quitting law school, the general consensus is that doing it sooner rather than later is a better decision, financially (just maybe not too soon). But, even if you missed your school's "drop deadline," or even the final tuition reimbursement deadline, if you're just not into it, cutting your losses early might be the right decision for you. If you wait too long, you could find yourself saddled with six figure debt, rather than just a semester or two of debt (which is more manageable than you think right now).

How Do You Know If You're "Into It"?

There's no reliable Buzzfeed quiz to tell you whether or not the law, or becoming a lawyer, is actually for you. Complicating the matter, you don't even have to enjoy studying law to be "into it," but if you don't find your studies interesting, nor the prospect of actually working on real cases, or for real clients, then you may want to reconsider why you're in law school. Many law students are disillusioned by what lawyering actually entails, and once they start clerking, they realize they want to do something completely different.

If you are on the fence, you may want to consider taking a semester off in order to spend a significant amount of time shadowing practicing attorneys, interning or clerking, and sitting in on court cases, to really get an understanding of what you'd be doing after graduation if do you decide to continue.

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