Can an INFJ be a Lawyer? (INFJ personality & careers)

In this brief guide, we will discuss the question “Can an INFJ be a lawyer?”, and other topics related to this question like INFJ personality and INFJ careers to avoid.

Can an INFJ be a Lawyer?

While the INFJ can be a lawyer if they really wanted to be, most INFJ personalities would find the career choice of being a lawyer problematic and repugnant to their strongly held morals and beliefs, and they may not feel like they are helping people, which is what they want to do in the first place.

The INFJ personality is someone with intuitive functions and introverted feeling, and as such these personalities tend to gravitate towards the field that involves a certain degree of feeling like you are helping people, but the problem with being a lawyer, at least in the current climate, is that ethics, morality, and law may not always be the same thing, which may bother the typical INFJ.

An INFJ lawyer may often have to sideline their strong values and morals to do their jobs as lawyers, and even though the profession sounds like a perfect match for someone who wants to bring about reform and help people, the way lawyers need to go about it may be problematic for the INFJ.

Another problem with the INFJ being a lawyer may be that they need to be extremely confrontational and generally interpersonally unpleasant, which is not something that comes easily to the INFJ, and while they may hone that skill over time, chances are they will not like doing it.

The INFJ lawyer may suffer from mental health issues that they might also not be able to take care of, which may lead to worsening of their health, and since they are private people, they may also not be able to share things with their loved ones or close friends.

INFJ Lawyers

While it is okay to discuss theoretically whether an INFJ can be a good lawyer or not, it may be better to hear from some of the lawyers that are INFJs, and see how they feel about the profession given their personality traits.

There are many forums that discuss the career options of different personality types and they may often be a great place to go to talk to people who are like you, and see if they may be able to help you decide.

These are some responses about being a lawyer that some INFJs on Reddit has given, and while some of them are negative, as might be expected, some are also surprisingly positive.

“I am an INFJ lawyer and I love it. I have always had a strong desire to make fairness happen and I have had 9 fulfilling years of doing just that. Law school sucked. I sat in the back and avoided all the goofy hobnobbing. I made close friends in law school who are all introverted passionate types. It seemed that the extroverts gravitated towards different areas of law. Most of my friends practice in the civil legal services areas or poverty/social justice. As a surprise to me, I actually really enjoyed my time as a litigator. Telling stories and being passionately manipulative was fun. I have found a lot of peace in my INFJ-ness. I see so many posts on here of the struggles that our personality type can bring–I have worked through a lot and still do, but I feel very peaceful with myself and my place in the world.”

“Because I chose law as a career and completely forgot about my need for harmony and being an INFJ. I don’t know, in some situations, I can debate well. But some situations make me want to just break down and cry. So IDK. I just looked at the prospect of being able to help people in need”

“I’m in law school! It’s fine. I think the first-semester social scene really caters to the extroverts, but there are so many different (and strong) personalities that I’ve learned to play up my strengths. I think the most important thing is to be very aware of who you are and what you need. Also, there are so many different kinds of law, I think it’s too presumptive to say you can’t do/won’t like the law because you’re a typical introvert. A lot of introverts thrive in law school and law—just don’t push yourself to be the extroverted lawyer when you don’t need to.”

“INFJ law student here. It’s difficult to take really blunt, often aggressive criticism from coaches, and law students are very competitive with each other (can’t tell if I’m prone to feel inadequate/anxious as an INFJ or that’s just me).”

“However what drew me to the law was feeling a deep sense of outrage at any injustice I came across and a real desire to help correct it. It’s not just about arguing – it’s about sticking up for people who have been wronged, or empathizing with them. You could do defence work and help people who really need you. Crime, immigration, family… there’s also great work representing private individuals, working in teams.”

“Law can be less soul-draining if you have the purpose of learning it. Perhaps it can help a family, children, or even protect citizens from corporate ‘abuse’. Don’t let this reply stop you from doing what you want. All the best.”

INFJ Personality

INFJ stands for Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging, and it is a personality type in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, based on the Jungian theory of Cognitive functions.

The INFJ personality is quite rare, and they are known for their quiet and calm manner and their ability to engage in deep thoughtfulness, while at the same time being able to interact and connect with other people on a deep and meaningful level.

The INFJs are the most humanistic people one might ever meet, but that does not mean that there are no bad INFJs, as there are plenty of INFJ personality types that have unhealthy sides and tend to be somewhat difficult to deal with.

The INFJ is also creative and has a good imagination, and they may often be able to predict how things may turn out solely based on their intuitive and imaginative abilities, which is seen quite often in intuitive personality types, but what makes the INFJ truly unique in this case is that their other main function is that of introverted feeling, which means that they process things differently.

MBTI personality types are often compared with the Enneagram theory of personality, and if we were to compare the INFJ personality type to one of the Enneagram types of personality, we might find a lot of similarities between enneagram type 1w9 and INFJ, as their idealism is not the morally rigid kind of type that Enneagram 1 would be, but they are still very idealistic and they care deeply about helping people.

The INFJ, true to their name and function stack, maybe very Idealistic and have great integrity and a staunch belief system, that may not change as a consequence of little things, and these traits come from their function of introverted feeling, which has less to do with emotions or feelings and more to do with values and beliefs.

INFJ personality is that of a quiet, principled person, and if someone needs helping and guiding, despite their introverted nature you can be sure that the INFJ will be there for them, although after long periods of meeting and being with people the INFJ personality may need to take some time off for introspection.

INFJ Careers

INFJ careers usually include careers that allow for a good combination of interaction with other people, being able to care for other people, and also being able to take some time off to care for themselves.

INFJ also tends to be very morally correct and based on values and beliefs, so they might not like to be a part of any career that makes them feel ethically or morally wrong in any way.

Ideally, some of the best careers for an INFJ may be the following:

• Artist/Writer
• Teacher/Professor
• Counselor
• Dentist
• Occupational Therapist
• Social Worker
• Human Resources
• Psychotherapist
• Firefighters
• Animator
• Interior Designer
• Environmental Attorney
• Speech pathologist
• Physical Therapist
• Nurse

When making a decision about what career they should be in, the INFJ needs to remember INFJs that they need the opportunity to do something that is consistent with their values, and something that they can feel proud about at the end of the day, because anything else may just cause them far too much stress.

Most INFJ careers tend to be in the fields of health care, education, or counselling as these fields almost call out to the empathetic and gentle, altruistic tendencies of the INFJ individual.

The INFJ needs to avoid careers that involve a lot of repetition, system-related work with no interaction with people, and something that does not have any observable, immediate, and clear real-world consequences, like programming or data analysis.

Conclusion

In this brief guide, we discussed the question “Can an INFJ be a lawyer?”, and other topics related to this question like INFJ personality and INFJ careers to avoid. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions or comments you may have.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Can an INFJ be a Lawyer?

Citations

https://www.truity.com/personality-type/INFJ/careers

https://www.16personalities.com/infj-personality