Career change - lawyer to architect

Newbie

I'm a corporate lawyer (in his mid/late-20s) considering a career change and returning to university to study architecture. My current profession provides me financial security but it's completely soul-destroying. I understand there will be huge financial sacrifices in doing this but it's the price to pay for pursuing something I've had a strong interest in since childhood. Are there others who have made this sort of career change or have studied architecture as a mature age student? Advice from others would be greatly appreciated! Am I completely mad (considering I'll be well into my 30s by the time I get qualified)?!

MB

Have you consdered combining your current profession with Architecture? I know an environmental lawyer who is particularly ineterested in Architecture, does a lot of work with developers and, in the end, has quite a bit to to with Architects and Architecture.

There's no reason why you cant educate yourself about Architecture and use that to direct your own legal practice into an area you are interested in.

mark_melb

I do know of somebody that did this. Some years ago an Architect in my previous office studied Law part time and then went to do his articles (whatever they are. Photocopying?) Now he is doing Building Law.

chunk

I studied with a lawyer who did a Grad Dip and then the B Arch with us. She was excellent at what she did and had no issues with gaining employment - in fact many employers seemed to give her credit for the experience she brought from her law background and she currently has more responsibility than most graduates of our level (3 yrs out)

She certainly has taken a pay cut to do so but I'm pretty sure that she didn't enjoy law in the first place so for her it isn't too much of an issue.

The only thing to be aware of is not to have too romantic a view of what architecture actually is. Uni is great fun, and provided you get into the right office there is design work available however there is a fair bit of tedium and process in the everydaywork as well.

As long as you go in with your eyes open and do have a passion for design I think you'll enjoy it.

And remember a young architect is under 40 so age isn't much of an issue.

Neville K

Hi I am one such lawyer who is doing the U-turn to architecture. I did law because I got the marks. Pre HECS days a law degree was the crayfish on the menu.Why have hamburger with the lot when for the same price you can have the law crayfish. Why not do it: because you can. So I did. After 3 years I wanted to pull the pin. I sought to do architectural theory with Conrad Hamann at Monash. The arts faculty Dean, then Patrick Mc Caughey, former director of the NGV welcomed me with open arms. The trouble was the Economics and Law Deans treated me as deserter scum and with disdain respectively. They would not allow me to enrol in the subject. So I carried on. Finished the degree, but went on architecture tours, read magazines and books. Why not get qualified. So I did Leo Cussen. Well now that you are qualified why not practise? So I did. At the Bar. But I knew nothing especially for the first 4 years. Then having served a batispm of fire apprenticeship why not practise with some modicum of skill? So I did. But all the time I could scarcely name the 7 members of the High Court, but at the same time I could nominate my favourite 7 architects; favourite 7 Australian architects, favourite 7 Melbourne architects etc. I loved architecture. I never at any stage loved law, but it was a placebo to status anxiety. It paid the bills. Sort of. The Bar's remuneration is well overstated. Few earn the mega bucks attributed to the profession. Most cling on for respectability and because most are unemployable elsewhere.

Anyway armed with a copy of RMIT's Aardvark :The RMIT Guide to Contemporary Melbourne Architecture a Sydney friend who is an architect and I did a tour of contemporary architecture. I had a stunning day. An epiphany. I said I never have days as rich and fascinating as this. She said 'why don't you study architecture? " I was 38. The penny dropped. 12 months later I enrolled.

Faark!!!! I started a new course and we had our first child a baby 2 months old when I started. I continued part-time at the Bar. I have no idea how I got through first year, both family and architecture. It is exponentially different to law. The amount of study is ridiculous if you have no core skills like being able to draw, make models and have computer skills. You are effectively taught nothing of the core skills. They are assumed. Now you start. You cannot cram design development and drawing or making a model. All nighters are par for the course. By week 3 you will be working all night. There is nowhere to hide. It is a small group all taking the same subjects. You stick out like dog's. Once you get over the shock it is as stimulating as it is simultanteously painful. You are way out of your comfort zone. The culture is completely different.Welcome to Architecture, only for masochists.

I have done 3 years and currently I am taking a breather before I should be starting my year out practical experience. My advice to you is understand what is expected of you. This is not a fluffy course. I wish I had done AutoCAD at a TAFE and at least Photoshop; Studio Max, or Sketch Up rendering programs prior to starting. You somehow get by on the furiously paced travelator without it, but you scarcely bring anything relevant from law to architecture. Measure 17 times before you cut a path.
My 2c from Melbourne Uni.

Neville K

schifo

that is one of the best replies i have read on this forum, well written! and so true.

i think a lot of of people not involved in architecture (practice) have some romantic idea that beautiful buildings come from sitting on the sunny porch drinking a sweet white wine then BAM you think of the design. Architecture is without doubt one of the most physically and mentally demanding (draining) careers anyone could partake in. there are the floaters who turn up at 9 and leave at 5... then there are the passionate who dont get much sleep, wear dark clothing (all the time) and are most of the time socially awkward, but ask them how to resolve a problem with a detail and they begin to articulate their vocabulary, even making 'archi jokes' or constantly referring to ideas as 'clear as mud' or feeling 'warm and fuzzy' ultimately, they become another person!

so i dont have any advice or helpful tips. i just wanted to rant.

blabbyboy

Oh no - that's so bluddy discouraging!!! See my predicament: http://www.butterpaper.com/talk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1674

I think that's the nail in the coffin then, isn't it? I just wanted to be a design professional, but I can see it's going to be very difficult in practical terms.