One thing that I would like to do more research on is the question of how valuable legal research and legal policy work is overall, in comparison to the work done by generalists. 80K hours seem somewhat pessimistic about law, so reading your more optimistic perspective (and things like the Legal Priorities Project) is really fascinating to me. It’s really hard to know whether one could do more good doing either, A: improving policy as a generalist in The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, The Australian Department of Defence (etc), or B: focusing specifically on law, in The Attorney General’s Department, The Australian Law Reform Commission (etc). Of course, even if A is better (though I’m not saying it is), doing A poorly is obviously much worse than doing B well. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if many non-entry level policy positions are really competitive, and thus I might be ‘capped’ as a generalist in a way that I would not be if I focused on law. It would also be bad if I managed to reach an influential generalist position through charisma (or whatever) and ended up taking up a spot that ought to have been filled by someone who was quantitatively talented.
I found your point about traditional lawyering for a while really interesting. I actually think I might enjoy being a lawyer more than being a policy advisor (though it’s hard to be sure), based on the research I’ve done thus far. What worries me is whether I could be a traditional lawyer with a clear conscience. 80K has several articles that (whether correctly or not) heavily emphasize the amount of good one can do as a generalist in the public service. On the other hand, it’s very possible that those articles don’t really apply to me, given the (perhaps atypical) gap between my verbal and quantitative aptitude. I get the general sense that it might be better for me to excel as a lawyer rather than scrape by as a generalist, because doing a great job allows one to rise to more influential positions, and earn more money (which I could donate to orgs like EA). It could also be the case that being a lawyer for a while might eventually lead to a role which I would have been unable to get if I had started as a generalist, in which case not having a direct impact for an extended period might ultimately be worthwhile.
Thanks a lot for your response, Cullen!
One thing that I would like to do more research on is the question of how valuable legal research and legal policy work is overall, in comparison to the work done by generalists.
80K hours seem somewhat pessimistic about law, so reading your more optimistic perspective (and things like the Legal Priorities Project) is really fascinating to me. It’s really hard to know whether one could do more good doing either, A: improving policy as a generalist in The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, The Australian Department of Defence (etc), or B: focusing specifically on law, in The Attorney General’s Department, The Australian Law Reform Commission (etc). Of course, even if A is better (though I’m not saying it is), doing A poorly is obviously much worse than doing B well. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if many non-entry level policy positions are really competitive, and thus I might be ‘capped’ as a generalist in a way that I would not be if I focused on law. It would also be bad if I managed to reach an influential generalist position through charisma (or whatever) and ended up taking up a spot that ought to have been filled by someone who was quantitatively talented.
I found your point about traditional lawyering for a while really interesting. I actually think I might enjoy being a lawyer more than being a policy advisor (though it’s hard to be sure), based on the research I’ve done thus far. What worries me is whether I could be a traditional lawyer with a clear conscience. 80K has several articles that (whether correctly or not) heavily emphasize the amount of good one can do as a generalist in the public service. On the other hand, it’s very possible that those articles don’t really apply to me, given the (perhaps atypical) gap between my verbal and quantitative aptitude. I get the general sense that it might be better for me to excel as a lawyer rather than scrape by as a generalist, because doing a great job allows one to rise to more influential positions, and earn more money (which I could donate to orgs like EA). It could also be the case that being a lawyer for a while might eventually lead to a role which I would have been unable to get if I had started as a generalist, in which case not having a direct impact for an extended period might ultimately be worthwhile.