Law School Is Not A Stock: It’s A Very Expensive Lotto Ticket

Joe here. Let’s start with what I like about this article compared to the last one. The disclaimer is much better. Remember, I said that all those caveats needed to be more prominently profiled. On the other hand, the headline is still the unconscionable “Now Is a Great Time to Apply to Law School.” For comparison, here’s how Bloomberg Businessweek titled an article about the exact same numbers: “Jobs Are Still Scarce for New Law School Grads.” See how that sets a different tone?

Now let’s go through the bulleted “objections” that Jordan Weissmann pins on me and Elie:

Objection No. 1: You don’t actually know how many jobs will be available to future grads.

To get purely philosophical, neither of us do. But we have competing numbers, and I’d much rather go to Vegas with mine.

First off, the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers that I cite are, of course, guesses by design, but so are Weissmann’s preferred numbers. I’ll throw my lot with the numbers that, by Weissmann’s concession, are “sophisticated guesses involving econometric models and loads of data.” On the flip side, Weissmann prefers the numbers prepared by a law school lobbying group. Astounding.

Rather than tout the ABA’s methodology, he cites some anecdotal misses by the BLS, but one of the articles he cites — which has its own issues — is even entitled “The Government Is Horrible at Predictions (So Is Everybody Else),” hardly giving a reason to trust any alternative, which is too bad when you have to make predictive choices — which Weissmann’s article DEMANDS.

The problem with the ABA numbers remains definitional. In my initial salvo, I “edited” Weissmann’s numbers to note that only 57 percent of grads got full-time, long-term employment in jobs requiring a law degree. Over 20,000 of the nation’s 47,000 law grads are out of luck. Oh wait, there’s “J.D. Advantage” jobs — the last refuge of the scoundrel. We’ll get there in a second.

Finally, in addition to the BLS having a better predictive methodology, it also comports with everything an observer of the legal industry can see. As Alex Rich will tell you, litigation departments are outsourcing doc review. New products are out there to mechanize due diligence too. The system remains a pyramid scheme, and fewer and fewer lawyers are needed to flesh out the base. The industry simply needs fewer entry-level lawyers in positions that pay. There is a distributional justice problem in this country, and we actually need more lawyers willing and able to work as public defenders in Alaska (for example), but until law schools change their model, this sort of article is just making more lawyers desperately seeking corporate jobs to get their heads back above water.

Objection No. 2: Whatever. Only Harvard graduates are going to benefit.

No, Yale will be fine too. There are two aspects to this objection as I made it originally. First, the jobs uptick reflected in the new numbers that forms the very basis of Weissmann’s argument is based largely on Biglaw hiring which will, in fact, favor the elite students. But also, even if there’s some kind of mystical trickle-down effect — literally his tweets went the trickle-down route — this supercharges the ROI discussion. Those getting entry-level gigs at mom and pop shops aren’t paying off their debt.

Objection No. 3: You’re not taking into account all those unemployed law graduates already searching for work.

Weissmann consistently botches this point by pointing out that law firms prefer “fresh meat” over unemployed veterans. Fascinating, yet irrelevant. The problem is that the buyers of legal talent, from clients on down, are going to outsource massive segments of the work to contract attorneys. There’s a reason why older lawyers are driving from Columbus, Ohio to Detroit to work for peanuts — those jobs exist, and the vendors hiring these people are drinking the milkshake of the old Biglaw team of first-year associates.

Objection No. 4: So what if there might be enough jobs to go around — will they be good jobs?

Weissmann replies by citing Simkovic. Go directly to law punditry jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

The only aspect of this worth answering is the dare Weissmann threw out over Twitter that we needed to have a better response to the report’s finding that the bottom 25th percentile of law graduates still managed a stirring 8 percent premium over comparable — defined questionably — college graduates. The best answer still comes down to the cherry-picking data selection.

Objection No. 5: Ok, but you haven’t talked about the absolute lowest earners. What is going to happen to them?

We agree they get screwed.

Objection No. 6: None of this changes the fact that there are a ton of students who can’t get jobs as lawyers at all, which is the whole point of going to law school.

Here comes the J.D. Advantage canard. Just check out Weissmann’s article: a near majority (and definite plurality) of these “J.D. Advantage” types are looking for new jobs. But Weissmann waves this away by saying that some of them might have good banking gigs. Indeed. But what “advantage” is there? I have lawyer friends from Cleary now on banking desks and the people sitting next to them… have 3 more years of earnings and 3 fewer years of debt. This is not a reason to send more people into the law school maw.

Again, if you want to be a lawyer, then go to law school. But be realistic, and if you aren’t getting either a tremendous deal or a great pedigree (or both), then consider that your alert that this job isn’t for you right now. But whatever you do, don’t fall for the “get rich quick” shell game the rest of the media is hyping.

Now Is a Great Time to Apply to Law School [Slate]

Earlier: How Did The Law School Class Of 2013 Do In The Job Market?
The ATL Markup Of Slate’s ‘Apply To Law School Now!’ Article