What types of challeges do lawyers face in school and the job?

I am in house counsel for a large Silicon Valley technology company. I would agree with Deborah's remarks above about stress and mentoring. The job is stressful because of the volume of matters you must resolve in a timely fashion. Everything to your clients is urgent. It's a good idea to find a senior attorney in the company to mentor you on how to find the balance that Deborah mentioned. One thing you learn quickly is to prioritize and achieve a work life balance to avoid "burning out". You need to quickly learn what's urgent and what can wait.

You will also be challenged to stay current on legal trends, cases and fields of great interest in the business you support. For example, if you are a lawyer working for a company that manages information, your value to the company is how much you know about the laws related to protecting and securing that information which can include privacy and information security.

In-house lawyers must also be effective communicators and leaders within the organizations they support and must work well with others. Most legal issues for in-house counsel require working across functions within the organization, e.g. working with the Finance department, the Sales department, the Business Development groups in order to properly understand issues and make good business and legal decisions on those urgent matters I mentioned. It's exciting and challenging work. I hope this comment has been helpful for you. Good luck on your study project!

I am a practicing lawyer and I can help. I will direct message you, and we can set up a time to talk.
To give you a preview answer to your question, I think there some challenges that are pretty universal in law school and on the job:

-time management - how to find the time to study/work and still live the kind of life you want
-finances - how to pay for law school, and how to pay off those student loans after you graduate
-stress - how to stay balanced and calm when studying/practicing law is very demanding
-mentoring - how to find someone more experienced than you that is willing to advocate for you, advise you, and give you the benefit of their experience

Hi!

Here is a resource that will tell; you learn much about law:

http://www.collegeview.com/articles/article/so-you-think-you-want-to-be-a-lawyer

Talk to your school counselor about internship, coop, shadowing, and volunteer opportunities that will enable you to get an "inside view" of this career field.

Send thank you notes to those who help you.

Keep me posted. I would like to follow your progress.