Once More, With Feeling: Law School Is Not A Golden Ticket
As we’ve previously noted, what might be called the “Law School Blues” article — aka “Not Every Lawyer Makes $160K” — has been written and rewritten endlessly. See, e.g., here, here and here.
So why not do it once more? These pieces always seem to generate buzz, robust commentary, and traffic, even if the tale they tell is a familiar one. From the AP:
The United States last week became the world’s first nation of 200 accredited law schools, as the American Bar Association gave provisional approval to two North Carolina institutions.In other countries, it’s much harder to become a lawyer. In the United States, the doors are open and getting wider. The 150,000 students enrolled in law schools last year were an all-time high. So adding more slots means even more avenues of opportunity, right?
On closer inspection, however, the economics of the “more is better” argument for legal education don’t necessarily hold up.
What economics would those be? We don’t remember much from Ec 10, but we have a vague recollection of the law of supply and demand.
More excerpts and discussion, including the usual tales of contract-attorney woe, after the jump.
Still from Justin Pope’s AP piece:
It’s the numbers at the top that get all the attention: At the largest law firms, median starting salaries were $145,000 last fall, according to NALP, an organization that tracks law placement.
C’mon, Justin — $145K is so last year. These days the magic number is $160,000.
But many students don’t realize at first that the high-paying law firms recruit almost exclusively at institutions ranked in the top 15 or so. Overall, the median salary for new lawyers is $62,000. For public interest law jobs, new lawyers can expect about $40,000.Meanwhile, the average amount students borrow to attend a private law school surged 25 percent between 2002 and 2007 to $87,906, ABA figures show. For public law schools, borrowing averages $57,170.
Here’s the promised shout-out to contract attorneys:
One symptom of the surplus is the rise of so-called “contract attorneys” _ essentially temps with JDs (the doctor of law degree). They work for roughly $20- to $40-an-hour on often monotonous tasks, like reviewing documents, that law firms outsource. A blog called Temporary Attorney even chronicles the mind-numbing assignments, verbal abuse and poor working conditions that include cockroach-infested, un-air-conditioned rooms with blocked exits and no breaks allowed.
Over at the Temp Attorney blog, you can see the email that the AP reporter sent the blog author. The title of the blog post: “Toilet Law Schools Popping Up Everywhere!”
Here’s how the article concludes:
The problem is that law schools, obsessed with rankings, have been less than straight with students about what they can expect. Too many stats are self-reported. [Professor Bill] Henderson’s research has found evidence of “massive exaggeration” by law schools when they report what graduates are up to….It’s time, he argues, to send in the accountants, to audit what law schools advertise and make sure everyone is reporting numbers the same way. Only then can customers make an informed decision about whether law school will really be a good investment.
Not a bad idea, Professor Henderson. Not a bad idea at all.
Analysis: Law schools growing, but jobs aren’t [Associated Press]
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Comments
If people really want to start rolling in the money - close 150 of the 200 law schools . . . .
First!!! Baby, baby, baby
Given my review of the Boston scene it is perfectly clear that they way to finacial bliss, great benefits, and long vacation is to work in the public sector. The key is that that they get a great pension after only 20 years. Many of these workers "retire" at 42 and then take another public sector job..."double dippers" as we call em up here. Look at who has homes up on the lakes in New Hampshire or a condo down in Florida. It isn't private sector cubicle drones...it's all the fire dept, police and other public sector workers. These are mostly people with a High School diploma....who said education pays?
Fourth!
10:45, we probably could use the top 100.
Can we stop with the "First!" garbage? Even when it is an accurate statement it looks silly. But where, as here, the declarant is anyone but the first poster (which happens more often than not), it looks totally ridiculous.
Law schools, lying and proving themselves worthless? Say it ain't so.
$57,170 in debt?
Maybe for one year.
Can we please stop the posts that complain about people posting "First!"......is will not change a thing.
What a snoozer of a topic. The only thing I can think is that this is a publicity stunt to prove to the country that not all lawyers are rich...and also to prove to the clients that Biglaw really is selective about hiring the best...afterall, most lawyers can barely make their student loan payments!
Anyone who goes to a school that isn't in the top 14 is taking a huge risk.
Anyone who goes to a school that isn't in the top 25 is downright nuts.
Questions?
10:50 goes to a school ranked 100.
10:53- I'm not sure "nuts" is the right term as many of the top law firms (paying top market salaries) hire students at lower-ranked schools. You just have to be pretty brave to go to a lower ranked school and pretty confident you're going to be at the top of your class and on law review and/or moot court.
I'm no economist, but it seems like the increase in the lawyer population could be to some extent self-sustaining-- more plaintiffs' lawyers bringing more cases (even if frivolous) require more defense lawyers; in the end the lawyers keep billing and only the courts get screwed.
There are nearly twice as many law students per capita than in 1963. Ouch.
In Massachusetts there were 20,000 lawyers in the 1960s. There are now more than 60,000. You do the math.
$175k in debt, unemployed since graduation in 2007. Hooray for me!
"You just have to be pretty brave to go to a lower ranked school and pretty confident you're going to be at the top of your class and on law review and/or moot court."
Damn confident. Law school grading = arbitrary. I'm in the top of my class (at a t14) and I can admit this. That's a sort of confidence that borders on lunacy, especially at a cutthroat place, as many T25-50s are. So, in sum . . . nuts.
HAHA. You should all go into banking. Does anyone do public interest investment banking? I don't think so. Now go back to reviewing your documents! I've got a deal to get done.
10:53,
Nope, I went to a national school. I'm just not a complete elitist.
10:50
10:53 -
The posts on this site often devolve into Autoadmit douchebaggery, but to post flaming comments and then to take questions is too much, too explicit.
Damn, that's one attorney for every one hundred forty people in Massachusetts. No wonder I can't get a job.
Typical thoughtless AP garbage. What is the "more is better" sentence even supposed to convey? That it is the ABA's assumption that opening more law schools will cause lawyers to become wealthier, on average? Surely not - that is a false notion - quite patently.
Is it to suggest that the "more is better" policy will not ultimately benefit the profession or society? That's facially more credible, but (setting aside the fact that AP isn't supposed to be in the business of editorializing), it misses the point. If the crappy law schools can produce some number of lawyers who prove to be better than some equal number produced by the better law schools, the profession benefits from having more productive members who would not have otherwise been there.
Basically, if you have 100 kids trying out for the soccer team, you are probably going to have get a better team than you would have with 50 kids trying out, (even if only a handful of the "bottom 50" are viable athletes).
After my last visit to the UK it is clear that the only people that can afford to live in London and the South East are the investment bankers.
10:52: I borrowed less than that figure to attend UF. My annual tuition, averaged over the three years, was about $7,000 and I managed to get a merit scholarship after the first year that cut that figure down even more. 10:57 is right on the money (perfect cliche, sorry). Going to a school like UF was a gamble, but for some it definitely pays sweet dividends.
People blaming new law schools for lowering lawyer salaries is like blaming new business schools for lowering business salaries.
Law schools are a barrier to entry artificially raising the cost of hiring lawyers. Once you reduce or eliminate the barrier by expanding the number of law schools, you find out the true market worth of lawyers, which is around $40k a year since they are mostly worthless liberal arts majors with no productive skills.
The best solution is to eliminate the requirement of a JD degree to be a lawyer altogether, so that anyone can be a lawyer after a licensing process without incurring high student debts. Lawyers will be just like businessmen and will succeed if they are good. If Abraham Lincoln can be a lawyer without a law degree, so can many other people.
10:57 -
I think 10:53 is right on, and thank you 10:53 for stating the truth plainly. When I went to law school (at the TTT I ended up at) I was warned by a couple of friends who were lawyers and a couple of friends in law school that the amount I was borrowing was ludicrous compared to the job prospects I could expect.
But, as a naive consumer, I bought in to the school's 'local' reputation in a major city, and 'national' reputation in the area of the law I wanted to specialize.
Am I an idiot? Of course! (Just not a douche, but that's a topic for another time...stings don't it T14 douches???)
10:53 makes an excellent point, it's a huge risk to borrow all that money if you are not AT LEAST in the top 50, but a better bet is top 25.
I make great money now, but had to start out slow. Even if you make six figures (and moderate six figures) its amazing how much of your monthly income is eaten up by taxes, student loan payments, and housing.
If law school students really understood the burden they were taking on GIVEN THE JOB PROSPECTS AND INCOME THEY COULD EXPECT, 100 law schools would be out of business and close up shop in the next two years...
how is it "much harder to become a lawyer" in other countries? its part of undergraduate studies in most places. you take like, 10 courses and when you're done you take a test and do year of training.
I'd probably vote for top 50 and the state schools. Rankings are often skewed against state schools since they generally have smaller endowments and donations (people feel that they contribute enough by paying taxes to the state). Additionally state schools are generally cheaper, so a lower risk investment.
/product of state school (not in top 50)
//biglaw NYC
FIRST to say, although relevant, evidence of posting first may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice....
Ditto 11:10.
The name of the game should be DISCLOSURE. Open as many law schools you please, but make available the real numbers - not the inflated bullshit self-reported by the top 1/3rd.
I graduated in the top 10% of my class at a top-three law school. Based on my experience, I think that was the best course of action. To anyone considering attending a school ranked 15 or worse, I strongly recommend attending either Harvard, Yale, or Stanford instead.
While it is probably not necessary at that point to graduate in the top 10% of your class as I did, it can't hurt, so I would suggest doing that as well.
I graduated in the top 10% of my class at a top-three law school. Based on my experience, I think that was the best course of action. To anyone considering attending a school ranked 15 or worse, I strongly recommend attending either Harvard, Yale, or Stanford instead.
While it is probably not necessary at that point to graduate in the top 10% of your class as I did, it can't hurt, so I would suggest doing that as well.
Sounds like Lat voted for Alice's Restaurant in yesterday's poll.
High-performing students at T3/T4 law schools routinely land jobs at AMLAW 100 firms. This is especially true in the smaller markets (like Vegas, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, OR, Phoenix, and Denver). It helps to have some latin and a journal/moot court on your resume, but even that is not required. If you're not attending a "national" law school, pick a law school in the region you'd like to practice and do very, very well. It's not rocket science.
11:15: Post of the day
11:16 Worst post ever. You ruined your own genius.
Oh come on. If you go anywhere in the Top 30, do fairly well grade-wise, and interview fairly well then you'll have a good job at graduation. People who say otherwise are just idiots who can't hold a conversation and thus couldn't land a job.
I went to law scholl just so I could understand how the government may legally go about attempting to topple my cocaine trafficking empire.
Informal poll: which of my life-crushing mistakes was bigger: going to Bates College (the number one safety school on Earth - NO ONE goes there because they want to), or attending a second tier law school? The result from both has been > 1 year of unemployment.
The "let the market decide" people insist that it is up to prospective students to do a cost benefit analysis and decline to go to law school. This in turn would apparently lead to a closure of law schools.
Of course that assumes that these prospective students have accurate info. If you went to a car dealership and he told you that the Honda you were buying did 50 miles to the gallon and you drove it and found it only did 20 miles to the gallon you would have a nice lawsuit.
It is absurd that schools are allowed to willfully mislead young students with outrageous claims of gainful and lucrative employment. I cannot believe that some plaintiffs' firm has not filed a massive class action. If it can happen to Barbri it is only a matter of time before it happens to law schools and the ABA.
doesn't north Carolina already have like 8 law schools? WTF? There are not that many people there. I think that chart showing the distribution of the high and low salaries should be published by all schools using thier own stats. The other problem is no matter how many people tell you not to make a risky law school choice you are dumb and will probably do it anyway.
Please tell this to the NY state judges who are suing under the mistaken premise that every private sector attorney starts at 160.
11:12: many other countries impose very high barriers to enter the legal profession. For instance, in South Korea, entry into the profession is determined by passing a test (there is no need to attend law school) and the bar passage rate is 2%.
11:22(1) - so true
Schools outside the top 50 are still viable if you intend on developing niche skills and have a plan for how to market yourself. Sure, you'll have to make some of your own breaks, and the payoff is much longer. But, you'll also have a certain measure of control over your career. If you don't know what you want to do and just know you want to be a lawyer, go to a top 20 school and get the highest paying job you can.
11.24 -
Choice three - you're a moron. Because if you go to a T25 undergrad, T100 law and can't find ANY job for over a year then you must be doing something wrong.
It's AIPAC's fault that everyone graduating from law school isn't earning $160,000. If we were spending less money provoking Syria & Iran, we'd have much more money to spend to first year lawyers
1108: TITCR
The problem really isn't the vast number of law schools; the problem is cost/debt. If you could graduate from a lowly ranked law school with minimal debt, taking a $40,000 contract attorney position wouldn't be that bad. What is more, if you had debt that could be paid off in 2 years on that salary, that would give you the ability to look around at career options, be more selective, start your own business, etc.
However, with the massive debt lawyers accumulate these days, they're all scrounging for work and forced to take low level crap that is awful. And their forced to stay in those positions for years, just to pay off the debt. If they finally get rid of it in 10 years (unlikely), they're burnt out and stuck with a mortgage/kids, so they really can't leave and be risky.
Basically, the current structure of law school (massive debt, poor job market, weak skill teaching) contributes to societal inefficiency. And, what is more, the vast number of schools opening should have dropped the prices, not raised them so ridiculously. There's probably more Sherman Act violations going on with the ABA than there are in Wall Street right now.
where is written that every major city must have a law school? Law school is about becoming a lawyer, not about location. There are plenty of NC law schools to choose from; Charlotte's Law School is just another cheap moneymaking scheme. Graduate and move to a firm in Charlotte, dummies; preferably, a cheap law school.
How does that guy have a printer that works on cardboard?
11:33: 2,000 graduates with a law degree in S. Korea each year. 1,000 of those admitted to the bar. 50%.
In the US, entry into the profession is also determined by "passing a test"...after 4 years of undergrad...and 3 years of doctoral studies. not saying its easy other places, it just isnt "much harder." Im sure there is a reason S. Korea has already decided to adopt a legal education scheme similar to the one in the states. Just sayin...
The main driver behind the crushing debt has been the ease of getting student loans.
Forty years ago, if you tried to charge $40k (inflation-adjusted) in tuition, nobody would come to your school unless it's HYS. The students would not be able to afford it, so the schools charged something like $5k a year.
Now, any crap school from Cooley to Southwestern can charge $40k a year, and find plenty of idiots who are willing to sign on the dotted line and borrow $150k overall. Let's just say that the people going to TTT schools are not the brightest in financial planning.
Thanks Democrats for expanding the student loan program! Please try to think about unintended consequences next time, and how expanding the supply of money to pay for tuition will raise the cost of tuition by the exact same amount.
It kinda depends a bit. As a general rule I would say the lower the law school is ranked the more regional the school. So if you are in the t-14 you can pretty much go where you want. The next 20 or so schools are much more confined to a larger regional area (i.e. ND is a better mid west placement school than UC Hastings). After the top 50 you are in the realm of hyper-regional schools where you are confined to a smaller geographic area. I would say if you are out of the top 50 then you would do well to look at regional placement at top local firms. I live in SF Bay Area where Santa Clara and USF alumni are well represented through lots of top tier firms in the area. Granted, the higher cost of living means that it is difficult to pay less than say 80k but it would be absurd to argue that you need to go to Stanford or Berkeley to get a good job in this area. Of course, this assumes that you need to be in the top 15 percent at these schools, edit law review, and in may ways be outstanding students. That said, the bottom tier of schools (say Golden Gate the local t-4) require you to be the number 1 student to have a chance at a decent job and even then you are really going to be stretched to make loan payments.
I advise my students to really shoot for a school in the top 100 at a minimum and realize that how hard they will have to work for a decent job is inversely proportional to the ranking of the school (that is, you have to work much harder to get a good job at a lower ranked school than you have to work at say Stanford because firms will almost always recruit deeper at top 25 schools before recruiting at lower schools.)
I'd like to see some newly minted grads "from other countries" take BarBri and then pass any American state's bar exam. (Speaking of which, to you Chicago BarBri students, when was the last time you laughed as hard as you did yesterday in civ pro? I can't wait for class today!)
Yay for the Ec 10 reference! Feldstein FTW!
I'm so sick of all these Top 10 law school snobs. You can go to a top 50 law school and get any job you want. Granted, you may have to work a little harder at a school between 20-50, but you can still obtain at a top firm/government job. Get over yourselves.
150,000 new lawyers every year? There's no way that can work. A lot of them are going to be driving cabs.
11:54: see David Gurnham, Book Review of Legal Reform in Korea, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/ginsburg1004.htm (link) (discussing 2% bar pass rate in Korea);
Anecdote: I recently learned of a school called Appalachian School of Law, located somewhere in rural Virginia. Their mission:
"The Appalachian School of Law exists to provide opportunity for people from Appalachia and beyond to realize their dreams of practicing law and bettering their communities."
One of my first thoughts was, "Wow, I guess that provides a low-cost option for the people who are living in rural Virginia, can't get out, can't go elsewhere for various reasons, etc. And I guess that's a good thing." I stand corrected. Tuition: $28,000 a year.
I have lingered under the delusion that all 4th tier law schools charge lower tuition. Apparently not. There are people attending Appalachian Law School, taking out at least 90k in debt for tuition. That says nothing about loans for living expenses (given that the school's program is full time). All told, they're probably looking at a minimum of 120k in debt. And a degree that may get them a job that pays 30k a year. With no LRAP. It may be paternalistic, but I think that's immoral.....
11:54: Only 1000 new lawyers are permitted to pass it each year, against about 50,000 who sit for the exam — a 2% pass rate. In years past, the quota was less than 300.
11:54: Only 1000 new lawyers are permitted to pass the Korean bar exam each year, against about 50,000 who sit for the exam — a 2% pass rate. In years past, the quota was less than 300.
What a great profession. You either hate it because you can't get a job making $165,000/year, or you hate it because you have one of those jobs, but have lost everything else in your life b/c your firm believes you forfeited all that for your pay.
Isn't there any middle ground out there?
Does anyone know anything about Loyola Law School? It's a good school right?
Another killer is the fact that the amount you can borrow from the Federal Government, $18,500 per year, has been frozen since 1988. As a result students have to take out more and more private loans, whith higher interest rates from private loan companies. Why has the amount been frozen?
My fed loans are locked in at 3.25%. It is my private loans at 6/7/8% that kill me.
12:09 --- Over the past two years alone, inflation has been so dramatic that the 18.5k really needs to be reevaluated.
12:09, if the government loan ceiling was raised, schools will simply raise tuition to capture that amount.
Say that you currently borrow $18.5k from the government and $20k in private loans each year. If the government raised the cap to $30k, the schools will just raise tuition by another $10k or so, so you'll end up borrowing $30k from the government and $19k in private loans. Nothing will change except more money to schools, because students are idiots and think government loans are free money.
The bad taste of private loans is the only thing keeping tuition in check, as the high rates makes schools raising tuition unaffordable.
I'm for the ABA yanking accreditation from these diploma mill cash cow law schools like Cooley etc.
Hi 12:02, I'm one of those newly minted graduates. I took Barbri with 36 other Irish students in February '07. 28 of us passed. I only have an undergrad law degree from Trnity College Dublin, but as Ireland is a CL country I could take the NY bar exam. Working for a decent firm which strangely thinks that a first year associate should be paid $130,000 and appologised for being under market but promised client contact, hands on training and shorter partnership track. (By stange I am not a snob who thinks that is low, I think it is strange that they pay so much. Law is a trade profession in ireland, they pay 18,000 euro for first year, then 24,000 and when "qualified" after 3 years work you get bumped up to about 35,000 euro.)
I'm laughing as university is free in Ireland, so my only debt was 4000 euro for the BarBri course. Most of the people who passed are either working in New York or in house with US firms in Ireland.
12:07(1): yeah, working in biglaw a few years, then getting out fast
12:21, you suck. The NY Bar is ridiculous in that if you are American and go to school here, you can't take the bar with just an undergrad school.
But if you are unfortunate enough to be born in the Eu, they allow you have to have just an undergrad degree. 12:21, thanks for reminding us. Next time, just keep it to yourself so we don't all resent you.
12:21, you suck. The NY Bar is ridiculous in that if you are American and go to school here, you can't take the bar with just an undergrad school.
But if you are unfortunate enough to be born in the Eu, they allow you have to have just an undergrad degree. 12:21, thanks for reminding us. Next time, just keep it to yourself so we don't all resent you.
lol! (must click)
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/3063/tier20ls2pr4.jpg
Dude, Bates is totally forgivable/overcomable.
But you could have been an unemployed Bates grad for about $120k & 3 years less than you've spent to be an unemployed TTT law grad. I vote for being an adult (22 or older) and still making the idiotic choice to attend a TTT.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:24 AM
Informal poll: which of my life-crushing mistakes was bigger: going to Bates College (the number one safety school on Earth - NO ONE goes there because they want to), or attending a second tier law school? The result from both has been > 1 year of unemployment.
12:24, you are quite right to resent but make sure you hate me for the right reason. It is not that I am European (and a lot of my fellow Irishmen are questioning if they are, see result of Lisbon treaty), it is that we Irish and you Americans both had the pleasure of being ruled by the bastard english. As such we are a Common Law country. Europeans have to take a LLM to sit New York bar, and as most don't get loans (as they are foreign) they gfraduate with about $36,000 in debt. unlike me, who is debt free. ;)
Vinny Gambini is balls on correct about the pricing model on nearly all private colleges and universities (and trade schools). They start with the max federal benefits and work backwards, building the school so that it will match the max affordable price. For-profit schools make their owners rich while non-profit schools simply pad administration and faculty pay and benefits.
I know this because (sorry) I was a consultant to several of these schools. Every new loan program or increased aid limit is a windfall for them.
Democrats and Republicans are guilty, though of late it's been the Dems.
11:56 has it right. Cheap and easy debt inflates law school tuition just like cheap and easy mortgages created the housing bubble.
Everyone should contact the New York state legislature and governor and ask why they are spending $50 million of your taxpayer dollars on 3 new publicly-supported law schools.
i just graduated from a school that was not in the top 50 but i have a top biglaw job lined up. i did ok but i wasn't in the top 10% of my class. i think what paid off for me was that i had really good work experience (i went to school part time, worked full time). many full time people in my class who busted their asses got biglaw jobs.
to anyone who is planning on going to law school - it's just idiotic to expect a fat paycheck if you go to a school below the top 15, lack job experience or plan on cruising through w/o working hard. be realistic. i even have friends who didn't try hard at top 15 schools and still don't have jobs and graduated last year. an oversaturated market can affect people at the best schools too. but particularly important at a below 15 school, you have to have some quality that differentiates yourself from the rest of your classmates or you're not going to get paid. it never fails to astound me why people blindly enter school and take on all that debt without considering this obvious reality first.
Jeez. With all these new law schools flooding the market, I just barely got my clerkship on the 9th Circuit.
12:55,
3 new ones? I only know of the Binghamton plan. The Stony Brook plan failed. Are they adding a 2nd law school in the CUNY system, or is there another proposition for a 3rd SUNY law school that I've not seen?
NC still needs at least 4 more law schools
12:07 PM: "Isn't there any middle ground out there?"
Depends on what you mean by middle ground. With the feds you can start today around 58K, and be promoted to about 72K, 88K & 105K in years 2-4. Promotion to GS-15 can be tricky but usually not impossible if you're capable & can wait awhile. That tops at 149K today. The SES level has relatively few slots, but I know a lot of GS-15s in Washington that have 4-5 bedroom homes on half-acre lots in the suburbs with a commute of less than an hour.
Fed jobs are very hard to get. Biglaw hard.
Binghamton, Stony Brook, and a private law school in Rochester that will receive state seed money. Enjoy paying your state taxes this year, you NY suckers!
try some federal agencies other than DOJ 1:19. there are quite a few.
At least Stonybrook deserves a law school. They have a top-10 TOP-10! political science department.
The other option is to go in-house or try consulting. Most in-house positions at medium/large companies offer decent salary and great benefits. Not to mention that they're typically 9-to-5.
And there are many consulting firms that are looking for bright, analytical people to work for them.
Middle ground? Yeah right. From what I see, the middle class of the profession is dying quickly. In my market, most of the midsize regional/local firms have long ago sold out to the behemoths. The ones that are left are prime targets from other firms looking to grow nationally. If you are between 50 and 300 lawyers here, you better have some rock solid niche specialties sustained by rainmakers who don't mind making a little less money in exchange for a little slower pace/more control. That is the model I see anyway.
I came to US as an immigrant 6 years ago. My father and older brother never had the right to go to college, so my family and I decided I should go to law school because it is a highly prestige type of profession.
I tryed for several years to get into law school but no availabitly was available. Finally, now I go as 2L to a regional law school and already I am in debt $120k++. However, my point is that many people not only consider debt when going to law school, BUT SOCIAL STATUS ATTAINED AS WELL. ALso, the people have very friendly relaxed attitude here - best choice i ever made.
1:26,
On whose ranking, and I'm assuming that's undergrad? USNews has Stonybrook's grad program at #29.
1:37, are you joking?
Lawyers don't have social status in America. It might be the singly most despised profession out there.
We need to sue the ABA for the economic harm they are inflicting on us by accrediting schools that don't deserve it.
Ave Maria and Regent come to mind...
We need to sue the ABA for the economic harm they are inflicting on us by accrediting schools that don't deserve it.
Ave Maria and Regent come to mind...
1:40pm - In my former country laweyring is a most revered profession. So I disagree - my legal ethics class professor even here inthe US explained that the law is a most noble duty to uphold. I choose to rather believe him over you - maybe you need better self-estem?
Stonybrook can't justify a law school except by saying it would be good for New York, or the country. They can only say "it would be good for Stonybrook" or "we are going to do a little clinic work on the side." Which is not a reason for the state to spend $45 million in tight budgetary times.
Accord 10:50. No, not because my school is ranked low (Chicago), but because, having practiced for several years now, I do know that there are some decent locally-respected schools that fall between 50 and 100 that shouldn't be automatically shut down.
Or maybe close all but 75, and base the determination about the last 25 almost entirely on placement statistics. (Also audit those placement statistics -- it shouldn't count as employment if the school has hired 10% of its grads on a temp basis).
The problem is not too many law schools, but the sky-high tuition that schools below the T25 charge. In fact, there are still plenty of people in this country who cannot afford a lawyer. Letting people graduate debt-free from the Ave Marias and Regents of law schools would go a long way in addressing this problem.
100th!
Very observant comment from the New Englander about public servants retiring well and early. Don't forget the unbelievable health benefits that they will enjoy and the rest of us will only dream of. BTW, they are called double dippers in other parts of the country also.also.
Also, for those who don't get very high grades or don't go to a prestige school: there is lots of room for PI and ID attorneys.
If you go to GULC or AU, you can pretty much write your own ticket in Baltimore or Harrisburg.
Very observant comment from the New Englander about public servants retiring well and early. Don't forget the unbelievable health benefits that they will enjoy and the rest of us will only dream of. BTW, they are called double dippers in other parts of the country also.also.
Also, for those who don't get very high grades or don't go to a prestige school: there is lots of room for PI and ID attorneys.
Very observant comment from the New Englander about public servants retiring well and early. Don't forget the unbelievable health benefits that they will enjoy and the rest of us will only dream of. BTW, they are called double dippers in other parts of the country also.also.
Also, for those who don't get very high grades or don't go to a prestige school: there is lots of room for PI and ID attorneys.
first!!!
First to say that I'm not first!!
1:45PM wow get real...most attorneys (me included) are in this for one maybe two things...first make money, second get some intellectual stimulation (very rarely), ok third get laid due to number one.
Your law prof is the typical ivory tower fool who has to lie to himself and his students since he works in a trade school and is in denial of that fact.
Graduated in 2008 from a tier 3 in the 11th percentile with Moot Court and EIC of a secondary journal on my resume. I landed a job in a smaller market (with a relatively low cost of living) making over 100k. I chose the tier 3 because it offered me a large scholarship. Interestingly, had I gone to the only T-25 that admitted me I'd probably have graduated in the bottom 25% and I'd be unemployed. My Point? I would be screwed without our 200 schools, but with them I'm in pretty damn good shape.
2:07 pm...11th percentile or top 11%
top 11%. An error explaining why I didn't get admitted to more T-25's.
Free enemas at PaulHastings until 4pm today. Be there.
You know what I haven't seen in a while... glib Penn State/UPenn joke.
Those were funny at times.
aren't penn state and upenn the same thing??
2:02, you may mean most MALE attorneys are in it to get laid. Since most of your kind are total neanderthals, I can assure you one of the quickest ways to turn a guy OFF is to tell him you're an attorney. Especially if you mention your salary, which will almost uniformly be higher than his.
maybe the problem starts earlier-undergrad liberal arts degree machines
if you have a liberal arts degree-your options today are basically mcdonalds, secretary, or grad school.
unless you decide to wise up and get a technical grad degree-your looking at law school.
i think thats where the problem really lies
Why'd you have to mention McDonald's. Now I'm hungry.
Ditto 11:27. I went not a second tier school because it offered me a full ride. Not knowing a single lawyer, all that was available to me was the pre-law books and ABA and school data. Talking to current law students at prospective schools was no less informative, because, like the schools, they weren't straightforward either. A week before our graduation, the administration couldn't stress enough the importance of us keeping them informed about our "employment," making it clear that even helping out once a week at your aunt's tailor shop counted!?
The bigger problem is that there are all these mediocre people whose labor is worth at most $40k a year, and they sit though seven years of liberal arts "education" and lower-tier law school classes, with no productive value added, and now are shocked to discover that their labor is still worth $40k a year.
Seven years of partying and B-averages at mediocre unselective schools does not magically quadruple your productivity and earning potential.
Baloney, 2:55. Go look at a faculty listing for most tier 2 and 3 schools. Every - every - professor is HYS or Columbia, just like at HYS and C. The educations are basically the same, taught by erstwhile classmates from those schools who all learned from the same professors themselves. The delusion is that because those people who scored on the 98% percentile on the LSATs instead of the 95% percentile magically get their incomes quadrupled because of it.
Snobbery in the legal profession just reflects the fact that much of the supposed value used to attract clients is pure salesmanship + monkey scribing.
I went to a regional, 4th tier school for free. I worked in my pre-existing job full time while in law school and as a result only (barely) made it into the top 25%. Due to my family and financial situation, it made sense to me at the time. Not knowing any lawyers, I did not realize the handicap it would put on my career.
I'm doing ok now and am happy to be the master of my own destiny, but it has been very difficult to get here on my own. But the snobbery is irritating because it is generally baseless. My LSAT was almost certainly higher than the most arrogant poster above (I mean you 2:55) but since I measure my worth on more recent accomplishments I couldn't tell you what it was.
2:37, I am surprised that men will even talk to you considering that you went to law school. Law school women are almost as ugly as SJP.
3:14,
The delusion is that more than a handful of people at a T3 school scored anywhere near the 95% mark.
There is more to educational quality than where the professor went to law school years ago.
It takes a mediocre TTT graduate to argue with a straight face that Laurence Tribe's class at Harvard is of the same quality as David Yosifon's class at Santa Clara Law School. After all, they both got Harvard J.D. degrees, right?
There is a reason why some professors teach at lower tier schools and others don't.
3:24, guess you went to the wrong school. What a shame.
FWIW, the majority of the men aren't much to look at either.
10:53 get back to document review.
you'll never make it.
I barely graduated in the top half of my class from a top tier undergraduate university with a liberal arts degree. I went to a tier 2 law school on a scholarship and graduated in the top third of my class. My total loans (tuition and living expenses) are less than $50K. I live and practice in one of the largest cities in the country, but it is not NY/DC/SF/Chicago.
My firm employs about 50 lawyers and I do mostly commerical litigation, with some insurance coverage/third-party defense, and some bankruptcy work. Most of my assignments involve writing and arguing pretrial motions or appeals. Most of my cases are very interesting and challenging. Although others are routine and boring, I have no complaints about my work in the grand scheme of things.
I have argued in court more than fifty times in my relatively-short career. I have never been on a document review project that lasted more than a few hours. I turn down calls from BigLaw headhunters at least three times a week, all of whom are looking for a mid-level associate who "actually has some experience practicing law." I routinely reject these offers because, surprise surprise: I like my job.
This year, I will make approximately $130K. I have time to travel, spend time with my friends and family. I like the people I work with. I could survive on half of my current salary --- and although there are a lot of things I'm sure I could buy --- I have no need for more. Moreover, the difference between my salary and the BigLaw standard pay for my year is certainly not enough to make me give up my current lifestyle.
When reading the comments on this board, one would think that someone in my situation should never have gone to law school. Yet somehow, I am employed, financially secure, professionally competent, and most of all, happy.
If anything, reading ATL convinces me that most of the people who post to this site never should have gone to law school, for most appear to have chosen this profession for all the wrong reasons, or alternatively, are so caught up in their own definition of "success" (however corrupt their definition might be) that they cannot see the perspective of someone whose priorities differ. I don’t care where you went to law school, if you can’t see value in an experience outside your own, you have no business being a lawyer.
If I am GULC 2L, will I get a job if I know someone on law review and worked in the law library?
3:24(3): I'm guessing that the Santa Clara class is better. No HLS grad can say with a straight face that the classroom experience there is worthwhile. The best professor I had there was a visitor from another law school.
3:33 - your story is all well and good, but note that
1) not everyone gets a scholarship at a tier 2 law school (most pay full price)
2) not everyone graduates in the top third of their class (I would guess that 66.66% do not)
3) not everyone gets a job that they like
#3 is applicable to every person, but #1 and #2 are factors that someone needs to consider before they enroll in any non t-14 law school because of the job prospects afterwards.
There's always someone who manages to be succesful when there is mostly failure around them (e.g. some people are making billions now due to their bets that the housing market would collapse), but don't assume that this success is the norm. Most people would be better off not going to a low ranked law school for 35k+/year in tuition.
3:24(3): The reason that some teach at lower tier schools and some don't has nothing to do with good teaching. It has to do with the useless scholarship that most (top tier) faculty publish.
3:41 -- I agree with you on all points. My argument was more directed at those who say idiotic things like "Anyone who goes to a school that isn't in the top 25 is downright nuts."
3:33
3:33,
You're obviously fortunate. But out of my pretty big group of law school friends, maybe a quarter are happy with what they do and and look forward to doing it for the rest of their lives. I don't think that's unusual at all. For the significant number of people with both high debt and low paying crap jobs, I think there's a lot of justified bitterness about law school. Going to law school was a good decision for you (it was also a good decision for me), but there's nothing wrong with warning people about the potential downsides and the fact that there are plenty of less than happy endings.
Looking for some comfort here...I am a rising 2L at UPenn (not Penn State!) interning for a federal district judge with a B average. Am I ever gonna get a job?
Looking for some comfort here...I am a rising 2L at UPenn (not Penn State!) interning for a federal district judge with a B average. Am I ever gonna get a (paying) job?
What causes people like 3:33 to be so utterly stupid?
What is the point of that post? So what that you had a full scholarship and were one of the tiny minority who got a good job? What is your point?
Looking for some comfort here...I am a rising 2L at UPenn (not Penn State!) interning for a federal district judge with a B average. Am I ever gonna get a (paying) job?
top third of their class doesn't get you crap out of a tier 2. According to the NLJ, only 5 to 15% of TTT grads get NLJ 250 jobs.
NOT 33%, 5-15%. ONLY 5-15% OUT OF A TIER 2 GET NLJ 250 JOBS.
People from UPenn State need to be in the top 3% of the their class and all be co-EICs on law review to crack the V100.
If you're a waterboy for Joe Paterno and he writes you a good recommendation and the hiring partner is also from UPenn State, then your chances are vastly increased.
3:50: I agree with you as well. I think the biggest disservice that most law schools provide is the notion that you have a "crap job" if it is not in BigLaw. Frankly, most of the miserable lawyers are at big firms and make well more than $150K. Moreover, of all the lawyers I know, the ones who seem to like their jobs the best are DAs making less than $100K. And most of them had more debt than I did going into law school.
3:52: I didn't have a full scholarship. I had a partial scholarship. I borrowed $50K. If you weren't so "utterly stupid," you'd have read that. The point was that good jobs are not reserved to the "tiny minority" who go to T14 schools.
3:33
3:53: Perhaps you're missing the point. There are a lot of good firms that are not listed in the NLJ250. Like mine, for example.
3:33
The plural of anecdote is not data. The plural of anecdote is false hope and naivete.
My GULC is way bigger than your GULC.
This is a great observation, of the sort we don't see enough in major periodicals when the issue of higher education comes up:
By 2:55: "The bigger problem is that there are all these mediocre people whose labor is worth at most $40k a year, and they sit though seven years of liberal arts "education" and lower-tier law school classes, with no productive value added, and now are shocked to discover that their labor is still worth $40k a year.
Seven years of partying and B-averages at mediocre unselective schools does not magically quadruple your productivity and earning potential."
In summary, even if every single kid in the country graduated from college, some of them would still have to drive delivery vans and serve food in restaurants, because those jobs need doing and there's a limited supply of high-value jobs. Further, seven years of passive learning will not transform a dumb or lazy person into a highly productive person.
ATL should start a thread about people whose parents paid for law school. Loans, schmoanze. Has anybody seen my martini?
Wealthy Gadabout
3:33,
My question was what is your point? Are you suggesting that peopel shoudl go to a toilet law school, because by doing so they can get a job making $130k doing ID work? That's just stupid. That's like someone winning the lottery and telling others to play. Do you realize how flawed you are as a human being? You extrapolate from a single data point, and you extrapolate to a conclusion contradicted by so many other data points. Do you see how idiotic that is?
As an aside - ID work is pretty crappy, and one more thing, no real biglaw firm would touch you.
what every person here fails to realize is what the hell all of us law students would do for a job if we just had a B.A. Its not always a prospective student saying " I am going to be a lawyer to be rich" its more likely they think: "what the hell am i going to do with just a B.A., I better get some more education", so its either a M.A. or a J.D. and even with the state of the legal job market i am still pretty sure the earning potential for a J.D. is a lot higher.
4:08,
Hear hear. Meanwhile, the oversupply of degrees reduces the value in each. It used to be that few people went to college, and a college degree meant something. Now many people attend college, and a B.A. in anything other than engineering isn't going to get you squat -- you have to muster the resources for grad/professional school to get ahead.
Eventually we'll all have Ph.D.s, and some of us will STILL be cleaning septic tanks. Enough already.
4:12:
My point was that if you can get into law school and wind up with a job that you enjoy, it doesn't really matter whether your law school or your subsequent job is perceived as "prestigious" by a douchebag like yourself.
Also, the ID work I do is often more interesting than the stuff for our corporate clients because we see a greater variety of issues and arguments. Most of it is related to products liability and construction defects; none of it is car accidents or slip-and-falls. For you to assume that any legal work paid for by an insurance company is always "pretty crappy" just proves my other point -- that you can't see beyond your own experience and therefore, probably never should have become a lawyer in the first place.
As an aside, you don't know shit about me, other than what I've told you. Stuff that up your miserable, pretentious, data-point-extrapolating ass.
3:33
ID work is ID work. Low rates, unreasonable client billing requirements, it is simply the death knell of any legal career. Trying to glorify the ID you do as something else clearly reveals your own self loathing about the ID industry.
Wealthy Gadabout
I actually know someone who goes to Widener Law who was excited over the prospect of making 50k per year upon graduation. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I make more than that as a paralegal... without the debt and humiliation endured from going to a TTT.
Widener Law - is that an FTT? (F = fourth)
4:25:
I haven't glorified anything. ID work (along with whatever other types of cases I get) pays my salary and I'm more than content with that. My firm has no plans to fire me and I've had plenty of offers to go elsewhere, so I don't see how anything I have done could be considered a "death knell."
If anything, this board is nothing but a forum for self-loathing BigLaw associates who feel the need to "glorify" their paper-pushing, memo-writing, busy-work by flaunting their academic pedigree or current salary. But for those of you reading this that enjoy that kind of work, more power to you.
3:33
3:51, 3:51, and 3:52:
If you want a paying job, you should probably intern for a federal judge with an "A" average. Federal judges with "B" averages are generally frowned upon.
Also, I agree with Volokh that calling yourself a "rising" student is stupid and self-congratulatory. If high school students shouldn't do it, what do you think it means for you?
I don't think you get it, 3:33. The point was that you are an exception. The vast, vast majority of people who go to third tier (or worse) law schools do not end up in your position. They end up with $100K+ in debt rapidly accumulating interest while they toil away in a shitty job with little prospect for upward mobility, assuming they can even pass the bar after graduating from those shitholes. It's great that you did well for yourself, that you love your job, that you give the finger to BigLaw three times a week - but I'm fairly sure that you had hundreds of classmates who were nowhere near as fortunate. And that is the real problem - shitty law schools inflating expectations about employability and bandying around average compensation statistics that are massively inflated by V100 salaries, all so they can turn a quick buck.
Congratulations on your success, but you're missing the point.
4:47: Got any stats to back that up?
4:16, a lot of Ph.D.s ARE cleaning septic tanks. Getting a job in academia is about fifty times harder than getting a job in biglaw. You think the market is oversaturated with JDs -- it's WAY more oversaturated with Ph.D.s
4:49 - about as many as 3:33 does.
3:51 get off the blog. get back to polishing judge's shoes. you'll never make daddy proud.
4:52, while I'm willing to accept at face value your assertion that the market is more saturated with Ph.D.s than it is with J.D.s, as well as the obvious fact that an academic position is harder to come by than a BigLaw job, there are hundreds of jobs for Ph.D.s that aren't academic. Chemical engineering for Pfizer, working for NASA, textiles, consulting, etc. Sure, there's not much you're going to do besides teach with a Ph.D. in English, but a Ph.D. comes in many, many flavors.
Seriously: Has there ever been a study that shows that "the vast, vast majority of people who go to third tier (or worse) law schools . . . end up . . . in a shitty job with little prospect for upward mobility"? Or is this just conjecture by someone who didn't go to a third tier law school nor knows anyone who did?
Shut down every law school except for Yale. No other schools matter.
Problem solved.
4:47 is correct.
Just graduated from tier II school, not quite a tier I. I'd guess that 50 percent of the top third of my class does not have a job.
Part of it is the market, and part of it is that law school seems to attract a lot of douchebags with no social skills (many of them not having had a real job in their entire lives), and when these students are forced to interact in a work environment, they fail. Bringing a lawyer with 40 years experience the restatement of torts, because you thought you were smart when you quoted from it in law school, makes you look like a dumbass. For that matter, so does not understanding when someone is making a joke, or asking an idiotic question when you should just keep your mouth shut.
4:59, does it come in chocolate or rocky road?
3:33
Thou doth protest too much!
4:25
Biglaw is a great way to swiftly pay off loans of course. However, unless you can generate a book of business or have incredible credentials and performance you will not make Partner at Biglaw. If you get booted or decide to leave after 4 or 5 years you will have far fewer legal skills than your peers who took jobs at smaller firms/DA etc
I started off at a 15 attorney form doing products liability for some large national manufacturers. I made about 1/3 of my Biglaw counterparts...$40,000.
However, I started to bring in clients through a business association that I belong to. It wasn't rocket science. I just went to every event, was sociable, and brought a large amont of business cards. Now I have a book of clients that know me and trust my work. I couls take it anyway but I prefer not to work more than 45 hours a week unless I have a trial.
The point is, there are plenty of ways to get were you want to go. If you have a TTT attitude to go with your TTT degree you will not get anywhere.
End up in a shitty job with little prospect for upward mobility? Sounds like most V100 firms.
End up in a shitty job with little prospect for upward mobility? Sounds like most V100 firms.
"Law school seems to attract a lot of douchebags with no social skills (many of them not having had a real job in their entire lives), and when these students are forced to interact in a work environment, they fail."
This may be the best description of every person I've ever met who works in NYC BigLaw.
5:04 here-
As a follow up, I should also mention that when my school collects salary data, it only does so if you are employed before you leave school, and provided you disclose it.
Does that sound like a representative sample?
5:05 - perhaps, but at least you're getting paid good money for that limited upward mobility. TTT grads usually aren't so lucky.
"4:47: Got any stats to back that up?"
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1207904900045
5:05(2): 3:33 didn't protest at all.
5:05(3): Best post of the day.
5:05(4): Second best post of the day.
5:07: Tied for second.
5:13: Where does that chart identify which jobs are "shitty" and which ones have potential for "upward mobility." Given the ridiculously low number of law students who start at NLJ250 firms and end up making partner at NLJ250 firms, that chart hardly proves 4:47's point.
the only thing I ever got was a key to the shithouse.
5:13: You extrapolated from a single data point, and you extrapolate to a conclusion contradicted by so many other data points. Do you see how idiotic that is? Extrapolate! Data points! Extrapolate! Big words! Me smart -- you idiotic!
Sincerely,
4:12
415:
333 Protesting away:
"I haven't glorified anything. ID work (along with whatever other types of cases I get) pays my salary and I'm more than content with that. My firm has no plans to fire me and I've had plenty of offers to go elsewhere, so I don't see how anything I have done could be considered a "death knell."
If anything, this board is nothing but a forum for self-loathing BigLaw associates who feel the need to "glorify" their paper-pushing, memo-writing, busy-work by flaunting their academic pedigree or current salary. But for those of you reading this that enjoy that kind of work, more power to you."
5:43: That's not protesting. Boasting maybe. But certainly not complaining.
552: You must have skipped the English portion of your GED class. Brush up on your literature, bro. The quote means that when someone speaks effusively about something (particularly something maligned by most) it probably indicates that the speaker isn't credible.
By "protest," Gertrude doesn't mean "object" or "deny"—these meanings postdate Hamlet. The principal meaning of "protest" in Shakespeare's day was "vow" or "declare solemnly," a meaning preserved in our use of "protestation." When we smugly declare that "the lady doth protest too much," we almost always mean that the lady objects so much as to lose credibility. Gertrude says that Player Queen affirms so much as to lose credibility. Her vows are too elaborate, too artful, too insistent. More cynically, the queen may also imply that such vows are silly in the first place, and thus may indirectly defend her own remarriage.
6:01: Brush up on real life, bro.
604:
Most people consider understanding and using the English language properly to be an important part of "real life." Some might even say it is a somewhat important aspect of a legal career.
Good luck w/yours. . .
6:09:
Funny that your post would show up following a string of responses making fun of "worthless liberal arts majors with no productive skills."
If you routinely use the phrase "doth protest" as part of your vernacular or your legal writing, I can only wish you the best of luck. (Perhaps a Brian Garner seminar would prove useful for you.)
Regardless, thanks for playing the part of Yorick today.
609 -- if you really think that 333 would spend time writing an anonymous message on this board in which he pretended to like his job so other people he's never met wouldn't think he was complaining, you're fucking crazy. look around dude. when people want to bitch about their jobs on this board, they just do it. if you used "context clues" -- something of which an english scholar like yourself must certainly be aware -- you wouldn't have made such a clueless fucking post.
4:11 - I concur... what's a student loan anyway? Lol
And considering only 15% of law grads get the $160k jobs, why would any prudent financial institution (including uncle sam) give an unsecured loan to any prospective law student (one already probably ridden with undergraduate debt)? Seems silly to me but then again I’ve never had to pay for a single thing in my entire life, including 4 years of college and 3 years of law school (oh and the new beemer, wonderful early graduation gift!) – all courteous of Bank of Mom & Dad.
So, while my Teir 2 diploma (@ top 5%) my have not landed me a $160k biglaw job, I’ll gladly take my $60k clerkship and job security, something my former classmates at the big shops in nyc are much lacking nowadays in this volatile economy. God, if I had to start paying off $250k of undergrad/law school debt in two months while trying to support my spoiled ass I’d probably wanna kill myself whether at biglaw or not.
Wealthy and smart go to law school and clerk for prestige; monetary remuneration is just an incidental benefit…
/s/
Mr. Rich Smart (a/k/a Spoiled and Lazy)
I'd trade my bar card for the payoff of my student loans in a heartbeat.
Going to law school was a total error. I wish I'd learned how to do something useful and productive instead.
"In my former country laweyring is a most revered profession"
Which is probably why you left it.
"In my former country laweyring is a most revered profession"
Which is probably why you left it.
"In my former country laweyring is a most revered profession"
Which is probably why you left it.
"In my former country laweyring is a most revered profession"
Which is probably why you left it.
oops
What kind of grades do I need to become an Assistant U.S. Attorney straight out of law school?
I think all of the "T1, T2" talk is way overblown. I sincerely believe that if you're good, either good firms will find you or you'll rocket up the ladder. Case in point:
I had a decent LSAT (163)
Turned down a top ten school to go to DePaul
Had WAAAAY too good a time there, graduated in third quartile of my class
Found a job making 50K
After year one, got raise to 60K
After year two, another firm who like what they saw in court tried to poach me at 75K. My firm matched.
I'll bump up to 85K this year. Within the next two years, I'll be in triple figures.
Enjoy yourself and go to a school where you think you'll enjoy yourself the most. The money will come if you work hard after school. Most of my friends who walked into 125K-140K jobs hate their jobs and their lives.
if you are too dumb or lazy to just google "law school job prospects" (try it, you get a whole damn page of articles ringing alarm bells) before getting ass deep in debt, you deserve everything coming to you and a kick in the balls.
law schools are businesses and their marketing is obviously going to put the best foot forward, the same people that go to trash law schools are the same idiots that buy penis enlargement pills because the infomercial said it's a 'miracle cure'
i would not be surprised if many people who go to top law schools and wind up at biglaw firms are also willing to try "penis enlargement pills because the infomercial said it's a 'miracle cure.'"
Statement: "Law school seems to attract a lot of douchebags with no social skills (many of them not having had a real job in their entire lives), and when these students are forced to interact in a work environment, they fail."
Response: "This may be the best description of every person I've ever met who works in NYC BigLaw."
I worked as a foreign legal consultant in Korea, land of the 2% bar-passage rate. If you think the characters working in NYC BigLaw are socially maladapted, try a legal profession where whosoever passes the bar is a "made man" and the world owes him a living. Bigger group of autistic fuckwads you'll never meet.
I'll be attending Chicago in the fall. People have told me that this situation doesn't apply to me, but I'm still a little worried. I haven't looked closely at the LRAP program.
Am I being rational? Why are employers so keen to hire average or even below average graduates from the top ten schools, rather than extending their net everywhere?
You know what it all comes down? People who go to TTTs and have a fire under their ass will be successful. They will sure as hell not start at 160k, but they can build a book of business and eventually do very well for themselves. Whether they have the drive to do so is a different question.
I worked at an 11 person firm in a small City during my 2L summer and the lawyers there were classic TTTs that did a lot of insurance defense, and sometimes, very rarely, business litigation. However, they drove really nice cars and the offices were regal and they were "important people" in the little secondary market where their little firm keeps trucking on. They work reasonable hours (9 to 6ish) and are generally happy.
If you end up at a firm like that and do a lot of shmoozing anfd give out a lot of business cards you can definitely make a very decent life for yourself. You'll be representing "companies" like Mr. Gutter and doing ID, but you'll also seem like a bigshot in your little community and live in the nice part of town.
Basically, if you end up at a TTT you're not precluded from working at a smaller regional firm and making a name for yourself. Being a contract attorney in NY sucks big balls, but you don't have to live in NYC if you don't want to. Move out to the burbs' get a gig at a small firm and join a bunch of organizations to start building a book of business.
You have to be a little entrepreneurial, which you're probably not if you went to a TTT, but if you are and you put in the time building a book of business, you can be very successful. It will take many years, but once you get there 200k/year goes a long way in a lot of places.
Does this same problem afflict medical schools? Are there too many medical schools? Do the top medical private practice groups only hire from the top 10 medical schools and/or residency programs?
11:22: I actually know someone who this happened to/who did this lol.
Many of the lawyers I know are making ~$150K/yr right out of law school. If we drastically increased the supply of lawyers, maybe the prices would become more reasonable.
10:37, just make sure to get decent grades, and if you know anyone actually working in the legal profession, talk to them to get a sense about what law firms are really like, and what sorts of things *actually* matter to them in a job candidate. OCS is completely useless. I definitely had classmates who could not wind up with big firm jobs, in spite of the whole Chicago name thing (this was at graduation, rather than interviews -- at a time when the economy was not so great. Unfortunately the economy DOES have a significant impact on our profession, even for the litigators). Don't let the OCS people lull you into a false sense of security -- interview with every firm you could possibly be happy working for, and be sure to be upbeat, pleasant, and interested in the firm. Do not ask truly controversial questions (e.g., "what is your part-time policy like"), but don't ask asinine ones either (e.g., "will I have the chance to work in more than one practice area"). Of course, if you grade onto law review, you have nothing to worry about, even if you're the ugliest, weirdest kid in your class. You might not get your top choice or even a place you want to work at all, but you will get a job with a market base salary, unless you like don't interview or something.
I don't mean to sound overly negative or to scare you. Chicago is a fantastic school, with some of the most brilliant professors most lawyers will never even have the chance to imagine. But the administration is a steaming load of 30k/year Grade A bullshit. Several classmates were screwed over by the incompetent admins, who've also managed to kick us down a spot in USNWR (thanks, Levmore!!) If you want to mess with Levmore, come up with a bizarre story that makes your birth order indeterminate (e.g., "well, I'm my adopted mother's first adopted child, but she has one biological kid who was older than me but who lived with her father, so I never saw her. Then Mom adopted a second child, but he is older than me, and then she married my stepfather, who has five adult children, but then they had a child together. Then they got in touch with the orphanage where they found me and discovered that my older biological brother had been removed from his foster parents' home, so they adopted him as well").
And, in spite of my love-hate relationship with the place, I will grant that my friends are the exception that proves the rule. You are going to a great, highly respected school. You will almost certainly get a good job. Just don't get complacent, and don't let the Loyola 2Ls of the world fool you into thinking your degree is a ticket to success. It's a huge old doorjam, to be sure, but it's not a satisfaction-or-your-money-back guarantee.
Wow. Reading this blog has opened my eyes. I thought about attending law school once, mostly b/c I knew I wanted something beyond a bachelor's and wasn't sure what to do. Glad I picked one of the allied health professions); looks like I'll be making more than 1st year attorneys (>50k) with way less debt.
1231-
i dont know. but i do know that med school grads are ranked and better students get better jobs.
one difference is that grades are based on more that 1 test
I think its virtually undisputed law schools do a horrendous job of being honest about job prospects/income to debt ratio. I went to a small private law school, ran up 100k in debt and have been struggling ever since. I graduated top 40% of my class but my first job paid 30k. I've spent the last 9 years paying as much as I can to my student loans but quite frankly, in the lean months (of which there have been alot), those are the last things to get paid. My credit is ruined due to late payments and defaults and hilariously enough, my credit would border on perfect if not for my student loans (I have a mortgage and student loans- no CC debt, no car payment, no alimony, no child support). I recall a number of lawyers I knew who advised against going to law school. I always thought they were just worried about sharing the marketplace with even more lawyers but in retrospect, I think many were right where I am, realizing that even if you end up somewhat successful, crippling debt may ruin your life long before you reach that "successful" level.
If your "credit is ruined due to late payments" you have no one to blame but yourself.
953: You're so full of shit. Quit posing as an out-of-work lawyer.
lol @ "top-ten law school offer w/163 LSAT"
1:55 AM:
Thank you. Can you elaborate on how the administration is incompetent? Also, what happened to your friends? Are you suggesting that, in general, most of your classmates were satisfied with their education and prospects?
I’ve met several UC students with a love-hate attitude toward their school – many more than, say, are love-hate toward peer schools like NYU. I wonder why some people are left so ambivalent.
For what it’s worth, I’m thankful for the opportunity to attend a good school, but my Financial Aid package is loan-heavy, and interest will begin accruing soon after disbursement. I’m a gamble, though what can I do? *shrugs*
This does NOT affect medical students. . . . Med schools are smart and self limit themselves by keeping classes small and not adding a bunch of random crappy schools. Residency programs do the same -- there are a small number of them. Some specialties are more competitive, but you're pretty much guaranteed a (very) good job once you're done. If you have an even remote interest in science, GO TO MED SCHOOL, not law school.
Part of the reason medical schools limit enrollment is because it actually costs real money to train med students. Those labs and hospital clinicals don't come cheap, and the tuition usually does not cover the costs of the education, especially when the student-faculty ratio is around 2:1.
Law schools stick 80 students in a classroom and hire several adjuct or visiting professors to teach them for a year. What a great deal. Those 80 students pay $3.2 million a year in tuition, while hiring six professors and some staff cost far less than $1 million a year.
That's $25k of law school profit per student. Hey, maybe I should start my own law school.
11:39 -- There are plenty of crappy medical schools. And, I have lots of interest in science and I thoroughly enjoyed law school.
3:58 June 17: you are correct. ADA here, making under 100,000 (in region with low cost of living). I've been doing this for over a decade and can count on the fingers of one hand the number of days I didn't enjoy my day. I suppose it depends on how you define "success". If it's money, and only money, by some attorneys' standards, I would be a failure. On the other hand, I truly enjoy going to work, feel like I've done some good at the end of the day, and live comfortably (historic house, overseas travel, etc. - all on under 100K - imagine that!). I wouldn't trade my work for Wall Street or anything else.
I got my JD then my MD after many years of working my ass off for a stupid "corporate" firm and finally wising up and going to med school. It is much better to be in the medical field because you are guaranteed to get a job, people are begging you to work for them. I am making more money now >200K and working 1/2 the hours I did as a lawyer. Even if you do not get into the "best" sub-specialties you will do well. I think you should all quit your jobs and do something more worthwhile to society.
Also the only "crappy" medical schools are in the Caribbean and Illinois.
It's fine if there are more accreditted law schools in this country. I can handle that. What I hate are the unaccreditted law schools like Santa Barbara College of the Law. It just encourages every stupid housewife who gets the law school bug to attend on a whim. And it really lowers the value of law degrees from real law schools. Plus it burdens the legal market in the area where there drive-thru law school is. Close all of 'em!
Just to get it through to some people's heads... being an attorney isn't always about making a lot of money. Some wouldn't mind making a lower salary doing what they love in the legal field. I wish I end up doing what I love, even if it doesn't involve a huge salary.
Furthermore, It's ridiculous to say that law school is pointless unless you're attending the top XX school... and very discouraging to those who didn't have the opportunity to attend one. True, if you hope to immediately start making a large salary right out of law school, you can expect that you would probably need to have gone to a top school. But there are exceptions. Also, there is such a thing as working your way up. Just as with everything else, if you're good, you'll get there faster. If you're not, you have to work harder to get good. Get it?
Forget about lawschool unless you go T14. Otherwise you will be a "temp" worker or practice sh*tty areas like PI & $99 divorces.
I went to a T50 school, graduated fairly high in the class and had no job upon graduation. I finally landed a $20/hr job, which is less than my garbage man makes.
I left law soon thereafter and found a non-legal position that paid many times what I was making as a lawyer.
Most of my classmates did not get the BIGLAW job. Those who did make $160k+, those who did not made $40-60k to start and all make less than me now, 5 years later.
Moral of the storty: T14 or garbage man.
"Turned down a top ten school to go to DePaul"
Words can't explain how funny this is.
I'm not sure which is more amusing about most of the comments on this blog, the propensity for anecdotal evidence or the implication that all law firms are either shitholes or biglaw.
Hi. New here. Question to all you lawyers: Try not to cut me up too much, but I need some honest advice. I am a 23 year old female, graduated last year from the University of Delaware. Got my bachelors in business leadership, was in the honors program, etc, etc.. but "partied" too much and definitely didn't try as hard as I could... because I thought I'd never want to go to a grad school and I'd just do sales (which I am pretty damn good at). Graduated with a GPA of 2.5! Problem is, after a year of pharmaceutical sales and becoming sick of the declining industry and feeling pretty much like only a pretty thing for Drs to look at while I tried to influence their "prescribing habits"...... (deep breath) .. I am now questioning my career choice and leaning towards going to a law school, which I had been set on in high school. I am not the typical "dumb blonde" although I might look a little like it! I got a 1480 on my SATs, and I am strongest in math/logic .. I took a couple practice LSATs score indicator (guesses) and averaged around 168-170... which I know is a good indication of what I'd get on the real LSATs because I am very strong in logic/reading comprehension, etc. and had started off in college as a computer science major but dropped it,.,. (not because it was too hard, but I didn't want to sit behind a desk all day)
My mom wants me to go to Widener since it is close and easier to get into.. and with my GPA I doubt I'd get into a top school no matter what my LSAT scores were. Now reading this article/these comments make me think maybe I should stick to sales!! I figured out that as long as I get a LSAT score over 155, I would almost definitely get into Widener, so that isn't really a concern.. but could I get into a better school? Should I try for a better school, or should I not try at all? Is Widener not worth the money, time, etc since it isn't as good? I am so confused! I wish I could snap my fingers and be a lawyer and make $200k a year,.... but don't we all? Haha...
I definitely don't want to be the typical "business" lawyer.. I'd like to work in the health care industry or some other specialty thing.. any advice would be great!! .. And I know I probably sound like an idiot but I don't care! You don't get far in life without asking questions!