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Elie, credit where credit is due.

"If, given the events of the past few months, you are even contemplating becoming a part of this system, keeping your debt low is at least like strapping on a seat belt before you drive off of a cliff. "

I am not your biggest fan, and think you are a sloppy writer. That said, this was a great line, and really captures (IMO) how a lot of young lawyers feel and the best advice to give to those who are thinking about going to law school.

First

FIRST to say that the 800lbs, chest thumping gorilla that menacingly sits in on every salary freeze and bonus discussion we've had in recent months is actually just Elie.

I just find it funny that BLS is freezing salaries funny, but undergoing a major rennovation of the lobby at the same time. From what I understand, it is being delayed as they are waiting shipment of a special marble, becaue they like the color. Totally unnecessary....

I agree with number 4, but number 6 has me ROFL.

I just find it funny that BLS is freezing salaries funny, but undergoing a major rennovation of the lobby at the same time. From what I understand, it is being delayed as they are waiting shipment of a special marble, becaue they like the color. Totally unnecessary....

Ellie, wtf? you are not smart enough to be able to unilaterally claim that the biglaw model is dead with any degree of credibility.

its "elephant in the room" NOT "800 lbs gorilla". Damn those AXA ads!

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--Elie.

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--Elie.

What Brooklyn Law School needs is the sleek, dazeling veneer of the 1980's!

How is it that law firms and other legal employers are somehow obligated to pay back law students' debt?

"Associates are overpriced, entitled, and generally worthless? The global financial crisis is exposing a fundamental weakness in the Biglaw business model? No client in his right mind would pay fthis much or associate time? Fine, fine, and fine. Pay back that massive debt recent grads incurred to put themselves in this expensive, unsustainable model and we'll call it even. "

Finally. A great post. If suddenly my law school debt were forgiven somehow, I would HAPPILY work for HALF of BigLaw.

16 - I would only work for half of biglaw if the hours were also sliced. One of the worst parts of the job is the long and sometimes unpredictable hours (for those lucky enough to still have work). So forgiving debt is not enough for me to take a 50% pay cut....

Mmmmmmbutt cheeks?

14 - you realize that having a funny picture doesn't make your posts funny right?

totally agree with 16...has anyone considered a boycott of student loans for just onemonth...what if we all dont pay for one month in an effort to demand lower interest rates.

17 - Half the hours is still not worth it. I would work for half BIGLAW only if my debt was wiped out, my hours were cut in half, and the prostitutes issued by the firm were doubled. Otherwise, it's just not worth it.

totally agree with 16...has anyone considered a boycott of student loans for just onemonth...what if we all dont pay for one month in an effort to demand lower interest rates.

Billy Mays Here! For the low, low, low price of $13.99 plus S&H, Brooklyn Law School can buy Swiffer sweeper vacs to save cleaning costs.

23, you're no Vince Offer.

I applied to BLS, and was admitted and offered a $15k per year scholarship. I also got into a higher-ranked school, so I decided against Brooklyn. I forgot to formally decline their admissions offer though. A couple of weeks past the deadline, I got a letter from them offering me a $30k scholarship. I meant to call the admissions office and tell them that I was going somewhere else, but again, I forgot. Then a few weeks later, another letter came, offering me full tuition and a $15k per year stipend. I shit you not. They were going to PAY ME to go there. And my LSAT scores and GPA were around 75th percentile for BLS, not off the charts by any means.
I'm sure there are plenty of others who got similar officers.

1. I wish tuition was the 800 lbs gorilla: then we would dictate salaries.
2. Per some of the comments, is loan interest high right now? Yay, consolidation!
3. This may sound tool-ish, but it is possible to work while in law school and still get good grades, even at a T10 school. Just a very different life style. Might be worth considering for current law students.

21 - you are right the firms need to provide double the prostitutes because now you have double the time to enjoy them.

-17

The following are the Tri-State's worst offender's:

Brooklyn
Rutgers
Hofstra
Seton Hall
Cardozo

Are all essentially ponzi schemes.

Every administrator and faculty member should be deeply troubled by the futures they are creating for students who will be crippled by student loans for decades to come.

@19 that guy is hilarious, he is from the best episode of futurama ever.

THERE IS NO CONSOLIDATION RIGHT NOW...YOU MUST BE NEW TO THIS WHOLE ECONOMY. IN ORDER FOR THERE TO BE CONSOLIDATION THERE MUST BE A BANK WILLING TO TAKE YOUR SHITTY UNSECURED LOAN...TELL ALL FUTURE LAW STUDENTS THAT THERE IS NO WAY TO GET A LOWER INTEREST RATE...YOU ARE STUCK WITH WHAT YOU GET...READ THE NEWS

You must be a REAL loser if you would rather go back to law school than high school. High school was more fun and less work. You also had your entire future ahead of you. In law school, you are pretty much locked in to a boring and possibly dead-end career.

Plus, you read so much as a lawyer that your face actually starts to sag.

I've always wondered why people value excessive money over health, and then I slap myself in the head for actually doing it myself. I woke up after a couple of years and realized that I had lost my true identity. Now I'm looking to get out.

Does anyone else here think that law sucks the life out of you?

How about the partners? Was it worth it? How is life just as a partner, regardless of the work it took to get to that level? You still have high billable hour requirements, so it can't be that great. But let me know.

28 = Fordham Grad

26 - What amount/type of work are you talking about? Please name a specific job, hours worked and compensation, that is going to make a dent in what are $120K+ commitments with a private out out-of-state school.

You don't sound like a tool, you sound like a troll.

"Pay back that massive debt recent grads incurred to put themselves in this expensive, unsustainable model and we'll call it even. "

Who is being addressed here? For what reason are folks who complain about the costs and quality of legal services and the whininess of its most junior providers obligated to subsidize those junior providers' financial mistakes? Because the people complaining folks are adults and so are the people who run law schools and law firms and adults need to help the children? Because the junior-providers are a bunch of crybaby-heads not used to having to live with their life decisions and shouldn't have to start now? Because "not fair"? This is life, not kindergarten. Grow up.

"fthis" ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Brooklyn has a law school?

Ugh.

"FOREGOING" a salary increase? Really? Does that mean the salary increase came before?

If you're going to forgo something, leave out the damn "e."

Stealth layoffs at K&L Gates.

28 you're a hack. A friend of mine is at Fordham right now and has taken out over 65k for one year. Have fun being 195k in debt and realize that biglaw jobs aren't there any more.

I don't know about 39's comments, but 28 do you even know what a ponzi scheme is? You sound like that guy who tries to make references to lame pop culture fads as an attempt to sound witty or insightful.

28 - law schools are not Ponzi schemes. They are not cooking the books to entice new money to then pay off existing investors. If anything, they are engaging in outright fraud.

You are free to get some like-minded people together to try and file a class action against the offenders. That type of thing happens to shitty undergrad and vocational schools all the time.

stealth layoffs @ Foley

I graduated from BLS (which I loved) and now work in biglaw. however, given the current economic state, i would recommend BLS only with a scholarship.

"foregoing"??? Really law school DEAN? Here's a tip (and I won't even charge you $40,000). That's not the word you were looking for. Try FORGOING.

"foregoing"??? Really law school DEAN? Here's a tip (and I won't even charge you $40,000). That's not the word you were looking for. Try FORGOING.

3L's are so fucked right now. There is no way in hell our firms, which hired us at the peak of the market, will be able to take all of us in. Even if we do manage to avoid having our offers revoked, it is HIGHLY unlikely we will start at 160K. As things continue to get worse, the firms will have no choice, and will have to (i) revoke offers to 3L's, and/or (ii) reduce our starting salaries.

Firms need to start reaching out to 3L's to let us know what the deal is. Personally, I'm applying to every government job I can find right now.

The appropriate word is that "some" administrators will be taking a pay cut. This is nothing more than a shameless P.R. stunt.

the issue is not the number of career services staff
The issue is productivity - compensation needs to be tied to how many jobs are obtained with the help of X staffmember - or maybe some sort of quota system. Otherwise they can do what they do now which is sit around all day and post fake ads on symplicity.

If you are not involved at least in part in the job acquisition of X number of students you should be fired.

Why is everyone on here looking at this "salary freeze" as a negative? I give BLS credit for not raising tuition, knowing full well that many of its students won't be able to get Big Law jobs (if any at all) in this economy. Professors at BLS are already paid well and many get free housing in Brooklyn Heights. They can take a hit before the students do!

The TTT public law school in Atlanta only set me back $30k total. Thank God. It pays (literally) to think about debt if you're looking at anywhere outside T10.

Not a real law school; didn't read.

33, I'm not a troll and I'm sorry if I came off as one. And obviously it's going to be hard to come by decent part time jobs in this economy. Try your school's GC's office or review books for one of the other graduate department's journals. A few years ago, that would get you $16-18/hour. Otherwise, consider what pre-law school skills might be marketable. Can you write code or do anything technical? For some people, 18-20 hours per week is doable. Obviously, it isn't for everyone, but it is worth considering. Between working some and keep costs down, one can put a dent in the loans. I escaped a T10 law school with under $50K a few years ago. This isn't meant to be preachy; obviously this isn't for everyone. But in this economy it is worth thinking about.

46, do you honestly expect firms to send out emails to 3L's explaining "what the deal is"? You're not going to be starting to work for them for over six months. Six months from now, we could be at 20% unemployment and on the fast track to Thunderdome. Nobody can predict the future. As of now, they're hiring you in the fall. That may change. Be thankful for at least the possibility of employment in this economy. You have no idea how many extraordinarily well qualified, Biglaw trained associates with three or four years under their belts right now I know doing part-time contract work for a few hundred bucks a week because that's all they can find... or who can't find anything at all.

I always wondered who posted on ATL. Now I know they sat in front of me in class.

- Disturbed at BLS

I got denied at Brooklyn, so I went to a top 20 law school instead. I'm twiddling my thumbs right now - so I don't think the school ranking mattered anyway. I think there should be a law student loan bailout package. Oh well.

46, smart idea. I'm a government attorney and I can tell you it's brilliant to sit out the downturn in the public sector. You can build some expertise, then lateral back to the private sector in a few years when the salary wars start again (and they will). Be warned: the federal government is slow to hire - you can drop applications and not hear back for 6 months to a year. Get started early, and good luck.

Thanks, 56. I'm a 2L summer-associate-to-be at a V10 but due to the recession and the fact that it no longer means working for Bush I'm seriously considering reapplying for government work.

Plan C is for hyperinflation to render my debts insignificant.

The problem is not with interest rates on student loans... it's that law school costs so darn much and that administrators think they can get away with yearly cost increases that far outpace inflation year after year. prices of everything have plunged. incomes and asset holdings of many people (including many families that might assist with law school funding) have been decimated. and the best BLS can do is say they will lower their 6% annual rate of tuition hikes? ridiculous.

it has to stop somewhere. law school (and college) costs can't just keep going up and up. government plans to lower student interest rates may just have the effect of facilitating these every increasing tuitions...

Elie, you should do a post on the NJ market -- layoffs, salaries, bonuses, quality of life, ect. I'd be interested to know whether NJ is doing better than the major markets in this economy. Lat did one back in 07 and many of the comments were very informative. With NYC big law attorneys being laid off, i'm sure many of them are looking for work in Jersey. I think it would be interesting to hear about the Jersey market, including both Jersey based firms and satellite offices (there are a lot of very respectable satellite outfits in Jersey that pay market or near market and offer great, V100 and Amlaw 100). Of course all of the elitists will trash Jersey since it's not NYC or DC, meanwhile most of them are now umeployed and looking for work in "secondary markets".....tools.

You all realize that, even with the supply of lawyers vastly outpacing demand, the demand for law school seats at even marginal school vastly exceeds supply.

At many law schools, they could raise tuition to 100k per year and easily fill every single seat. At T14s, they could probably raise tuition to 250k a year and still fill the seats.

60,
How about $12 billion a year?

Publicity stunt, perhaps, but I'll give credit to them for actually doing something to acknowledge the crap we are feeling regarding tuition.

Too bad professors aren't posting on here whining about salary freezes. Now that would be a hoot!

obama's insane "stimulus" plan is going to destroy the wealth of an entire generation.

63 -- Sadly, it is those generations before us who have destroyed our generation's wealth.

And you just know some librararian or security guard is going to have his or her salary frozen while some administrator gets a raise.

And the "forego" mistake is ridiculous. If you don't know how to use the word, use something simpler, for God's sake.

Did you know that Brooklyn Law School provides free private school tuition for children of faculty members?

Career Services are not there to "get you a job" they are there to help you get a job. Also, there are no free private schools for faculty kids--get a clue. The economy sucks--it is not your law school's fault.

I'm sorry, but how the hell are biglaw firms responsible for our student debt? Did they come to your college job fair and dangle $160k in your face if you went to law school? No one owes you anything.

The sense of entitlement by biglaw attorneys is beyond absurd.

worked FULL TIME (benefits included) 2L and 3L.... top 10%... get a work ethic

What is a "Brooklyn Law School?" Is that like UPenn State?

"Career Services are not there to "get you a job" they are there to help you get a job."

There's a fairly large number of them that don't do that particularly well.

"Also, there are no free private schools for faculty kids--get a clue. The economy sucks--it is not your law school's fault."

It is there fault for bs'ing statistics to lure people in with the hope of prospects that bear no resemblance to reality. It's fraud. And I say this as someone who went to a top five law school and who has a decent job. I believe a sizable amount of even the top schools fudge their numbers a little, but the stats a lot of the lower ranked schools put out are complete bull---t. Not just the career services offices, but the faculty and anyone else involved who abides that are absolutely despicable for allowing it.

Does Wexler get two checks for being JOSEPH CREA DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF LAW?

NYU has announced no raises--except for unionized employees and promotion raises.

As a BLS grad with scholarship who went to V5 well before the bubble burst, I agree strongly with 43.

43 & 74 - I also graduated from BLS. Since starting work at an Am Law 5 firm, I routinely advise prospective students interested in BLS to attend for one year, kick ass, then transfer to NYU.

75 - I am also a BLS grad. So you routinely advise BLS grads that NYU is a more higly regarded school with greater capacity to land a graduate a higher paying job? Wow, who knew? Thank you for sharing your unique insights, these prospective students are so lucky to have you. Save your self-loathing for your therapist.

75,

That's great. Way to encourage the "brain drain" from BLS. If you aren't interested in the advancement of BLS, why say anything at all?

Brooklyn as a whole has had an economic and cultural resurgence in recent years, with an influx of artist, musicians, writers, artisans, and other young professionals and their families. Cultural attraction such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music draw people from across the city. The products and delicacies of many ethnic groups can be found throught the borough. And in terms of money matter or budgeting. Credit cards are easily one of the biggest culprits in a cycle of debt, and those same credit cards push people towards debt consolidation. Debt consolidation is a good option when you have multiple plastic parasites. It brings all your bills under one roof, so to speak. After debt consolidation, you would want to get smart about budgeting. The more you can dedicate to ridding yourself of debt, the better. And you definitely want to avoid adding any more to it, so stay away from the plastic. It's far better to use payday loans while you're paying down debt consolidation. Check this out to read more about this topic: http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/04/15/repeat-cycle-debt-consolidation-part-5/