If you can't be an author, librarian or academic ...

Delia Venables' and Nick Holmes's Internet Newsletter for Lawyers ("Making the most of the Legal Web") has long been one of this blogger's favourite reads. It serves two somewhat contradictory functions. One is to fill in his gaps with regard to how lawyers are coping with the world they can reach through their computers; the other is to reassure him that the people who write for it sometimes know even less than he does.

Anyway, the current issue carries a short piece by Delia Venables entitled "Author, librarian, academic, lawyer" which states, in relevant part, that

the most desired jobs in Britain are not what you might expect; they are not even the most reliably well paid ones. Instead of actors and musicians, it seems that an aura of prestige still surrounds the quiet, intellectual life enjoyed by authors (60 per cent of respondents would like to be one), librarians (54 per cent), academics (51 per cent) and lawyers (43 per cent). In most cases, men and women have similar views, although (surprise, surprise) men are far more likely to want to be train drivers, Formula 1 drivers, astronauts and MPs, while women are more likely to want to be interior designers and librarians. ..

These figures come from YouGov research, which also indicates that only 7% of respondents wanted to be call centre workers.

It would be lovely to know how many of the 43% wannabe lawyers imagine themselves as working for large, prestigious partnerships, surrounded by efficient PAs and paralegals and how many yearn for the independence and the freedom of working as a sole practitioner -- or the loneliness of being the only IP professional in an office environment which is inhabited almost entirely by people who work in other fields of expertise.  We should be told!