Bruce Schneier and Marcus Ranum go point-counterpoint on certifications.

Schneier provides a less than overwhelming endorsement:

Security Certifications:

In the end, certifications are like profiling. They work , but they're sloppy. Just because someone has a particular certification doesn't mean that he has the security expertise you're looking for (in other words, there are false positives). And just because someone doesn't have a security certification doesn't mean that he doesn't have the required security expertise (false negatives). But we use them for the same reason we profile: We don't have the time, patience, or ability to test for what we're looking for explicitly.

Profiling based on security certifications is the easiest way for an organization to make a good hiring decision, and the easiest way for an organization to train its existing employees. And honestly, that's usually good enough.

Ranum counters:

Information Security magazine (Jul 2006) : Face-Off:

Certifications are great if you're lazy and ignorant and want to stay that way. If you're a hiring manager and you're too lazy to review a candidate's résumé, understand its contents and perform the difficult task of thinking whether his qualifications fit your needs, just hire the guy with the alphabet soup after his name.
...
The bottom line is that, regardless of whether a candidate is certified, a smart interviewer needs to know enough to judge if a candidate is the right person for the job. In fact, a smart employer is always going to check references and evaluate a candidate based on past accomplishments--only one of which may be successfully cramming for an exam.

I've long fallen very much in the Ranum camp on this. I have precisely zero professional certifications in my current line of work, despite the ready abundance of certification opportunities. However, as I was chatting with one of my professors the other day about career prospects, I noted that while I've long eschewed certifications in the current (tech) career, I now find myself staring at a career that often times seems obsessed with them. It's certainly obsessed with the ability to "successfully [cram] for an exam."

For instance, it's been suggested to me that it would be useful (and lend an air of credibility) for me to be admitted to the Patent Bar. Fine. Except I don't qualify right now. What's more, most people filling such positions (or at least asking for such qualifications) also seem to want a technical degree. Fine. Except I don't have one. And so, lately, I've been pondering a second B.S. in computer science so that I can have both a technical degree and sit for the Patent Bar exam. All, essentially, for certifications.

Or, I suppose, to make myself more certifiable.

A few thoughts:

1. Do you really want to do patent prosecution anyway? That's the only area which requires you to be admitted to the Patent Bar.

2. If it's both technology and law you're interested in, there are many other practice areas (within IP law and elsewhere) in which you might work with technologists. For instance you could work on the IP litigation side.

2. If you're still intent on doing patent prosecution (the hours tend to be better, perhaps; although there are other areas that provide a better work/life balance as well), you don't necessarily need a full-fledged second bachelor's degree in CS. You do need a certain amount of units in a science or related field in order to qualify to sit for the Patent Bar though.

3. IP boutique law firms which primarily hire attorneys for patent prosecution and large law firms with many practice areas and with attorneys doing all sorts of things including patent prosecution in general don't really seem to care what your bachelor's degree is in. What does matter is that you're admitted to the Patent Bar. This could save you some time then.

4. Admittedly this is more to satisfy my own curiousity, but might I ask, why not continue working in the IT field as a Unix system administrator rather than seeking to practice law? (Although since you're already in law school, perhaps you've already invested too much now to change your mind.)

a. From what I understand at least, being a system administrator is a lot less stressful than working at pretty much any size law firm.

b. Plus while law school can be in a sense enjoyable, intellectually stimulating, and all that, working as a lawyer is at best quite mundane.

c. I suppose hours are a toss-up between the two, since you're always on-call anyway.

d. In addition it probably depends more on what you enjoy doing with those hours anyway - e.g., working on a deal or resolving a computer issue.

e. Arguably you do deal more with people, interacting with clients (except at the big law firms, at least at first), often on the phone, Blackberry, or what not, but really, it seems more to address a problem or solve a conflict or something along those lines than (usually) to collaborate or learn from one another. This seems true of law firms and beyond.

f. I'm unsure but I would guess the potential earning potential of a lawyer is probably significantly better than working even at the "top of the heap" in IT.

g. But the trade-off for better pay is you have to be a rainmaker, bring in business, etc., which is more of a sales role.

h. That said I would speculate it'd be better working as an in-house counsel somewhere than at most (though not necessarily all) law firms. This might be the way to go for work/life balance, healthy salary, etc. But it's still essentially the same work, only now you have one client.

i. Of course there's the prestige of being an attorney, but by the same token there are limits to that prestige, too, depending on the groups or circles you find yourself around.

Some I have ready answers for. Some of those, despite being relatively open, I may not wish to post too openly.

I do understand that I only require admittance to the Patent Bar if I wish to do patent prosecution. While I don't at this time know if that's what I want to pursue, having that option available doesn't seem like a bad thing. I don't necessarily need the second degree, but that might actually be the easier way to go. I've got to nail down the requirements for the second degree and get some definitive answer on what would be required to fill out my 2.5 years of science and engineering classe.

As for the career change, it's largely because I feel I want to make a change. If I was wholly satisfied in my current career, I wouldn't have pursued the law at all. There are certainly trade-offs to each career, and I feel that I've appropriately considered them. Time will tell.

I am well aware that there are many unhappy attorneys out there, and I listened even to those who gave me advice not to attend law school. I guess if it's not for me, I can take solace in having a career to fall back on.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I do appreciate the suggestions and concerns.

Glad I could be of some help.

And for what it's worth, if anything, here's (more often than not) a useful law advice resource (I parenthetically include "more often than not" primarily because the columnist has the rather annoying tendency to almost always push for "highest ranked law school," "top 10%," "BIGLAW," "highest ranked BIGLAW firm," etc.):

http://wwww.nylawyer.com/lawlorn

By the way, if you do pass the Patent Bar, and believe law firm life is for you, you might consider this particular law firm because it appears they only require 1600 billable hours (and honestly, call me politically incorrect but in my opinion what the whole "work/life balance" thing really boils down to is how many hours one is required to spend in the office or schmoozing for business rather than being with family, friends, and pursuing other interests - and not how comfortable minorities or women feel at such and such a law firm, or how good the day-care services there are, or maternity leave, or flex time, etc.):

http://www.ll-a.com/our_firm/our_approach.cfm

So it goes.

Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have tried to work in the computer field instead (e.g., I've often been fascinated with programming).

In any case I do wish you the best in your future career, whatever you decide.