My dear law students, some of you have asked me about career specializations. For the most part, I get this question from students in their last year of law school, when students start having existential crises because of the sheer amount of extra time on their hands.

But I also get this question from first years, and even from candidates who are yet to get into law school. Fortunately a law degree allows such a wide variety of careers that I am allowed to get away by saying you can do pretty much whatever you want when you leave law school.

You could become a lawyer, a public intellectual, a public policy wonk, or an environmental activist. At some point of time, when I advise on careers, I feel like a self help book picked up at an airport bookshop-‘how to succeed in whatever you do in seven steps’.

I am saying this because what I am going to tell you now will sound even more like those vacuous pop philosophies but please bear with me. I want to make a point on careers that I feel many law students should care a bit about.

Last year, my daughter wanted to get a passport photo done for her school admissions card. I took her to a photo centre in Gurgaon. It was at the intersection of two noisy, dusty roads and it was crowded. I am quite used to taking my daughter to photo centres.

I am likewise used to bored photographers who look like they would rather be doing something else. Understandably so, as it is a repetitive task with low compensation. But this one person who took my daughter's photo was different.

He was very careful with getting her expression right, took a lot of time making more changes to the photo on the monitor and showed me the various ways in which the photo can be enhanced for effect.

Inside the shop, it was hot, sultry and noisy and there were customers milling around, although none of them tried to hurry him because they could sense he was totally into his work. Even in a nondescript place and working with basic wages, this man took great pride in his work.

I thought his sense of calm and contentment in pretty adverse circumstances came out of immersing himself in his work, trying to see how to make his work better and deriving satisfaction from his work. We face all kinds of aggravations in our daily lives.

But sometimes just losing ourselves in our work, whatever it might be, can help us feel more contented in our lives. This man I met that day was so completely engaged in his work that he had overcome the hardships of his surroundings.

I want to tell you this because, except for the lucky few, for most of us life in the law will be like the life of the photographer, except hopefully with better wages.

We will work with some people we don’t like, in surroundings and circumstances that will occasionally grate on us and a part of our work will be boring and frustrating. If you are a litigator, you will at some point of time face unnecessary adjournments and unsympathetic judges.

If you are a corporate lawyer, you are likely to spend part of your time chasing clients for unpaid bills. If you work in public policy, the government officials will often show you who is the boss.

The only thing you can do is make sure that for the majority of the time, you are able to enjoy work for its own sake. This is the kind of work you need to find out for yourself, based on your personality and attitude. It is not an easy thing to do.

There is a difference between believing a domain is interesting at a particular point of time and finding out you are interested in it a few years down the line. Finding your interest is usually not a moment of epiphany but a journey that takes time & continuous self reflection.

The question you should ask is what kind of work gives you, at least a part of the time, a sense of calm, and a feeling of fulfillment that drives out external irritations.

If your core work is not something that helps you forget your daily frustrations, your career would be a series of tedious events. Try to avoid that, and you would have done well.