Student Debts

If You Don’t ‘Like’ Your Student Loan Servicer on Facebook, You Will Default

By

With graduation fast approaching, maybe people are coming to the startling realization (what took you so long?) that they’re going to have to figure out a way to pay off their student loans. Sure, it was fun to have government monopoly money to play with while you were in law school — maybe you had a weekly shoegasm at DSW; maybe you repeatedly blew your wad at Game Stop — but now it’s time to face the music.

Unfortunately, when it comes to debt repayment, the soundtrack that’s playing on an infinite loop in your mind is from the shower scene in Psycho.

Whether or not you’ve got a job lined up, you know for sure that your starting salary is nowhere near high enough to allow you to both live indoors and make monthly payments to your loan servicer. You’re scared that you’re going to have to moonlight in retail, or worse yet, move back in with your parents.

All you know is that you really, really don’t want to default on your loans. Your credit will be shot. Your phone number will be scrawled on the bathroom walls at collections agencies. Your life’s work will be all for naught. What the hell are you going to do?

Don’t worry, friends. Your loan servicer has a secret to share on how to avoid the disaster of default….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “If You Don’t ‘Like’ Your Student Loan Servicer on Facebook, You Will Default”

32 Comments

Biglaw Perk Watch: Tuition Reimbursement

By

It doesn’t have to be this way.

If someone asks you whether they should go to law school, here is a very safe response: “Sure, provided that you get into a top law school and can go for free.” Even the biggest critics of legal education would admit that, assuming you want to be a lawyer, going for free to an elite law school is not a bad idea. See, e.g., Professor Paul Campos, Don’t Go To Law School (Unless) (affiliate link).

How can this be achieved? It’s not impossible. As we’ve mentioned before, more than 10 percent of law students graduate with zero debt, and another 5 percent or so graduate with less than $20,000 in student loans. Some of these students receive generous scholarships from their schools; others have savings or come from well-to-do families.

But there are other options. For example, does your employer offer tuition reimbursement?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Biglaw Perk Watch: Tuition Reimbursement”

6 Comments

From the Career Files: Law School Scholarships & Grants — How to Finance Your Legal Education

By

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, Mansfield J. Park gives some practical advice to prospective law students on how to finance their education.

Law school scholarships are the most important way you can fund your painfully expensive legal education. Law school grants are more rare and not much different than scholarships.

Otherwise, you will — as with most law students — fall back on law school loans to fund your education. Be very, very, very careful with this route. Let me say this in all caps and bold so you can hear me:

DO NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL WITHOUT A CLEAR PLAN TO FUND YOUR EDUCATION!!!

Sorry for shouting.

Read more at the ATL Career Center…

The Decision: UVA v. Northwestern v. Minnesota (With Varying Scholarship Amounts)

By

Yesterday we asked you to advise a prospective law student choosing between NYU Law School, at full sticker price, and UVA Law School, at half price. You overwhelmingly voted in favor of UVA. (Some of you suggested in the comments that he try to use his UVA scholarship to wrangle some scholarship money out of NYU; he did, but NYU said no.)

Today we bring you another 0L choosing between some excellent law schools. This individual has narrowed his decision down to three places: UVA, Northwestern, and Minnesota. For those of you who slavishly adhere to the U.S. News rankings, the three schools check in at #7, #12, and #19, respectively.

So what makes this choice more challenging? The differing scholarship amounts they’re offering this candidate….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “The Decision: UVA v. Northwestern v. Minnesota (With Varying Scholarship Amounts)”

51 Comments

The Decision: NYU Law v. UVA Law at Half-Price Tuition?

By

Going to law school is a smart choice for many people. It’s not a smart choice for all people or probably even the majority of people who end up going, and it’s not a decision to be entered into lightly. But if you want to be a practicing lawyer, based on an informed view of what lawyers actually do, and if you’ve concluded that law school is right for you, after a rigorous process of psychological and financial self-examination, then by all means, matriculate.

(We are not uniformly anti-law-school here at Above the Law. I’ve written many times in defense of going to law school, provided you’ve done your research. See, e.g., here, here, here, and all of these law school success stories. And Elie’s on vacation this week, hahaha….)

The question then becomes where you should go to law school. It’s a timely topic, since now is the time of year when prospective law students or “0Ls” must decide where to put down their deposits. So help a brother out and offer some advice on the following situation….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “The Decision: NYU Law v. UVA Law at Half-Price Tuition?”

86 Comments

A Trend in the Making: Falling Law School Tuition? Let’s Make It Happen, People!

By

Last week, in Morning Docket, we mentioned that one law school was thinking about lowering tuition. My colleague Staci requested less thinking and more doing.

As it turned out, the law school in question went ahead and reduced tuition, by significant amounts. How much are we talking about? And could this positive trend spread to other schools?

Maybe — especially if law students do their part and speak out….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “A Trend in the Making: Falling Law School Tuition? Let’s Make It Happen, People!”

23 Comments

Need a Rural Lawyer? Why Not Use a Quasi-Indentured Servitude Plan?

By

Amid a jobs and loan debt crisis, the push for legal education to reinvent and remodel itself upon the medical school paradigm continues to grow. From a reduction in years of schooling to legal residency programs, these and a slew of other ideas are looking better and better.

Next up to the plate: monetary incentives to practice in no man’s land. Doctors have been getting loan repayment incentives for four decades in exchange for practicing in underserved rural areas.

Why can’t lawyers do the same thing?

In recent weeks, South Dakota’s innovative plan to keep lawyers in the state and practicing in rural areas has gotten a great deal of media attention. If you’d consider hanging a shingle in a small town for five years in exchange for a yearly sum of $12,000 to pay off your debts, then this is a great idea.

There’s free money waiting for you in flyover country….

20 Comments

If You Want To Own A Home, Don’t Borrow Money To Go To Law School

By

How do I know that these people are not lawyers?

Now that my wife and I have a baby, people keep telling us that we shouldn’t just find a bigger rental, we should buy something and put down roots. My wife, politely, laughs and says, “We’re thinking about it.” I angrily roll my eyes and say, “Why don’t you think about going and f**king yourself.”

You see, we are both law school graduates who debt-financed our educations and now live in New York. Property ownership is not something that will happen for us… unless we just want to give up and move to an oil-soaked subdivision in Arkansas.

But I am not alone. A law professor has crunched some quick numbers and determined that at least half of the class of 2011 wouldn’t be able to own a home….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “If You Want To Own A Home, Don’t Borrow Money To Go To Law School”

109 Comments

Lawsuit of the Day: Nobody Puts Faruqi in the Corner

By

Star-crossed lawyers: Juan Monteverde and Alexandra Marchuk.

If you want to sue a defense-side Biglaw firm for employment-related claims, go for it. Unless your lawsuit is bats**t insane, chances are the firm will settle with you. See, e.g., Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell; Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy. Heck, you don’t even need to file an actual case; even threatened litigation can yield a six-figure payday.

Biglaw firms are busy — busy making money, of course — and very reputation-conscious. They don’t want to be distracted by litigation, and they don’t want their white shoes sullied by grime. They will pay good money to make headaches go away.

But suing a scrappy plaintiff-side firm is an entirely different story. They will hit back — and hard.

Last month, Alexandra Marchuk sued her former firm, Faruqi & Faruqi, making a host of salacious allegations. The most incendiary: that a partner of the firm, Juan Monteverde, forcibly had sex with her in his office after the firm holiday party.

Now the Faruqis and Monteverde are turning it around on Alexandra Marchuk. They’re suing her back, filing counterclaims and seeking an eight-figure sum….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Lawsuit of the Day: Nobody Puts Faruqi in the Corner”

62 Comments

State Comes Up With Quasi-Indentured Servant Plan For 16 Law Students

By

Do any of you remember the set up of Northern Exposure? It was a decent enough show where a “city slicker” doctor had to practice in small town Alaska to pay off his student debt. Aidan from Sex in the City was on it.

Anyway, the point was that the state of Alaska paid for Rob Morrow’s medical school. In return, he had to work wherever Alaska sent him for five years.

Subject, of course, to the restrictions outlined in the Thirteenth Amendment, I’ve wondered why this isn’t an actual thing that more states do in order to help underserved communities. Why doesn’t New York pay for a bunch of people to go to medical school, but then they have to practice in poor areas for a term to work off their debts?

One state is giving it a try. And why not? I mean, it’s not really like peonage, is it?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “State Comes Up With Quasi-Indentured Servant Plan For 16 Law Students”

23 Comments
Page 2 of 21123456...21