Maybe You Shouldn't Go To Law School Because Of Donald Trump
After all, President Trump won’t be in office forever.
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Reports of an increase in LSAT test-takers and law school applications surprise me.
I don’t know whether that’s good news or bad news. The article says that the increase of interest in law school for prospective students is due to a “Trump Bump,” that is, the interest in certain areas of law where the president has taken stands, rolled back regulations, signed new executive orders, and the like. Areas of law enticing prospective students include immigration law, environmental law, and public interest law.
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I think that any prospective law student has to approach going to law school very warily. As a dinosaur looking back on more than a 40-year career as a lawyer, I hope that prospective law students understand what awaits them and what doesn’t.
Every prospective law student should read or reread, as the case may be, and casting modesty side, my column several years back on the topic of Another Kind of Law School Admission Test. What I wrote then holds true today, even more so.
Every prospective law student should read Richard Susskind’s book, Tomorrow’s Lawyers.
Susskind has a lot to say, especially about how the future of the profession is going to look very different from the profession in the 20th century, and even from the first decade of this century. For those prospective students who watched (or binge-watched) such television shows as, most recently, The Good Wife, and of older vintage, Boston Legal, and of dinosaur vintage, LA Law, our profession is undergoing radical changes.
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Technology, Susskind says, has a huge impact on the practice, and the changes it has made are here to stay. More changes will come. You also need to know what kinds of legal jobs there will be in the future, at least by the time you apply to law school, slog through the three (or four) years, and take and pass the bar (hopefully the first time).
Susskind has thoughts about what kind of jobs you can expect to find. What you thought you might be doing as a lawyer may be totally different than what you want to do or can do. As he puts it, the future of the legal profession is neither John Grisham nor Rumpole of the Bailey. He quotes world-famous ice hockey player Wayne Gretzsky for the proposition that you “skate to where the puck is going, not to where it’s been.” For any prospective law student, those already in school, and even us dinosaurs (unless we’re collecting on that non-existent defined benefit pension), Susskind’s book is essential. Where is the profession going? Will it even still be a profession?
Law school is a slog — a very, very expensive slog — and just because you make it through and pass the bar doesn’t mean that there’s a pot of gold for you. Far from it. Unless you graduated from a top-tier law school and at the top of the class, the likelihood that there’s a job for you in Biglaw is remote at best. Even further down the law practice food chain, jobs that provide W-2 income, rather than a flurry of 1099s, can be scarce now and may be even scarcer in the future. Contracting? Outsourcing? Standardization? There are already too many unemployed and underemployed lawyers.
So, the problem becomes what do you do with that bright, shiny law degree and that certificate of admission for whatever state that you’re now admitted to practice in, when there are no jobs — at least not in immigration law, environmental law, or public interest law? And don’t forget about those students loans (law school and perhaps even undergrad) that demand your immediate, consistent, and perhaps even life-long payments.
Couple that with providers such as Legal Zoom, eDiscovery vendors who can and do work at a fraction of the hourly billing of an associate, and artificial intelligence which continues and will continue to absorb work that used to be done by lawyers.
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The question then becomes whether you’re willing to make all the sacrifices necessary to become a lawyer and then come face to face with the door slamming, “you’re not a fit for the position,” “we’re going to continue to look,” and other dispiriting and downright insulting rejections. (Of course, that’s assuming that you even get a response to a job application, which is reviewed in many cases by artificial intelligence scanning key words.)
If, however, you see yourself as entrepreneurial, as a person who can and will deliver legal services more cost efficiently and differently from the way we dinosaurs have done it, then go for it, knowing well that the risks of a legal education may well exceed the financial rewards years down the road, and maybe always. It’ll be a very bad choice if you’re in it just for the money, because for many lawyers, the money just isn’t there. It’s even tougher for women and minority lawyers.
Call me a wet blanket, sour puss, a Grinchette (in keeping with the holiday “spirit”), but I think everyone even thinking about law school needs to be fully informed about what it entails.
Is the juice worth the squeeze? Only you can decide how to answer that question, and you may not be able to answer it until you’re done with law school, have passed the bar, and are out in the big wide world of law practice. President Trump won’t be in office forever, and while there may be a “Trump Bump” now, that doesn’t mean it’ll still be operative when you’re practicing 10 years down the road, and artificial intelligence does even more of the legal work than it does now. What will you do in your legal career?
What will still be operative will be the need for lawyers to represent all those who have no access to justice, and as income inequality continues to grow, I think that’ll be just about everyone.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.
