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The Bad News Law Schools

2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
I'd like to see a poll of law school applicants who thought seriously about working as a lawyer every day of their lives for the next 40 years. I bet the number is very low. I would then like to compare that number with applicants for med school, engineering programs, PhD programs, etc. with regard to their respective careers. I think you'd have a lot less law schools if applicants gave actual thought to being a lawyer as opposed to thinking that money would fall into their lap upon graduation.
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I defs agree. I took a summer associate out a couple of years ago for lunch and he made some comment about how he deserved the $165K we were going to pay him as a first year and that people who worked for the government were stupid because they aren't where the money is. I told him my wife was an attorney for the fed and he said something like "well then she's stupid for not going for the money." He had no desire to actually practice. He just wanted the $$$. His offer ended up getting recinded for a few reasons and I don't believe he ever found a job in a firm. He was a douche.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
I think it's interesting that less than 25% of attorneys are members of the ABA yet the ABA sets the standard for law school accreditation. There are too many damn law schools, but they make good money for universities and they keep popping up.

I'm so sick of hearing kids whine that went to shitty law schools that they can't get a job and are drowning in a mountain of debt. You made a poor investment. You're too stupid to get a job if you thought that paying $250k to go to Thomas Jefferson School of Law was a good idea.
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Agreed. I'm sure everyone has their own benchmark for when it's a wise investment (T14, T1, scholarship, state school where you want to practice, whatever), but I don't think anyone agrees with the dumbasses complaining about a tough job market from T3's and T4's, reagrdless of their class rank.

inspectah said:
I understand some of the criticisms on this topic (though the cracks about test scores and "TTT" schools are silly), but schools need to be held accountable for lying about job prospects. For many students, especially those whose parents aren't lawyers, there is no other way to gauge job prospects than by listening to what the law schools tell them.

I'd like to see a poll of all lawyers 55 and over who thought seriously about their career/salary trajectory before going to law school. I'd bet the number is very low.
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Very true. It's bogus that all of these law schools include people flipping burgers as graduates being employed within 9 months after graduation.
 
I used to tell buckets and a friend how I had no business getting paid what I was making over my summer in NYC. I used to drop some serious dough on our bar tabs because I had done nothing to earn the money.

I do think at this point, I've earned at the very least a job that takes into account the fact that I could have just gotten a job straight out of college and been working for the last five years. Instead I got two extra degrees.

All I want to do though is quality legal work that makes me feel like I'm justified in going to the schools I went to and spending the money that I have. And I don't mean high quality as in, I expect to be a huge part of big deals. I mean I don't want to be doing DUI cases in bum-fuck Virginia.
 
As someone who is in law school and has a close connection with a law school administer, I have seen/heard firsthand that simply put: law schools are lying to students. It is really a shame that this is the current landscape of legal education, but as long as people are willing to pay 40-50k a year to go to T3/T4 schools who really do not belong in the legal profession, things will not change. It is a business. People think that just because they have a law degree means that the world will be handed to you on a silver platter. Until people start understanding that in some cases it is indeed a poor investment for your future, new schools will continue to pop up and more and more students will enter the job pool with dismal job prospects and poor training.
 
There are plenty of students who enroll at tier 3 and 4 schools who are not "dumb asses" with "low intellects". These people don't expect to make millions (or even six figures); they expect to be gainfully employed, which is eminently reasonable based on data disseminated by law schools. Not everybody w/ the skills and desire to be a lawyer can go to the Ivy League.

One of the unfortunate aspects to this phenomenon (and there are lots to choose from) is that when the media covers it, they always seem to focus on students who truly made bad choices, like taking out loans to bankroll summers spent partying in Europe, or to rent 2500 sq feet apartments while in law school, or to generally live a lifstyle commensurate with somebody who's been practicing corporate law for 30 years. That is not true of the majority of students who are being squeezed out of the market.
 
inspectah said:
There are plenty of students who enroll at tier 3 and 4 schools who are not "dumb asses" with "low intellects". These people don't expect to make millions (or even six figures); they expect to be gainfully employed, which is eminently reasonable based on data disseminated by law schools. Not everybody w/ the skills and desire to be a lawyer can go to the Ivy League.

One of the unfortunate aspects to this phenomenon (and there are lots to choose from) is that when the media covers it, they always seem to focus on students who truly made bad choices, like taking out loans to bankroll summers spent partying in Europe, or to rent 2500 sq feet apartments while in law school, or to generally live a lifstyle commensurate with somebody who's been practicing corporate law for 30 years. That is not true of the majority of students who are being squeezed out of the market.
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Where? I'm not being a jackass. I'm just curious as to where you think all these grads expect to work, even if they aren't even making $60k with huge debt. It's not like the profession has only lost its high-paying, private sector jobs. Federal and state budgets are enforcing hiring freezes at the government level as well. Where do you expect them to go after graduation?
 
That's the point--there isn't anywhere for them to go, but law schools are telling them that there is. I have a hard time faulting law students for trusting data put out by the schools. It's a travesty.
 
People bet on themselves and think they're the special butterfly that is unique and the normal rules don't apply.

I don't know where Elon is ranked, but if you're a top 10 kid coming out you've got a decent shot of landing a job at a reputable firm in Greensboro. Those are very long odds though.
 
There is plenty of information on the Internet. Anyone who listens to what any school (law or other) tells them and accepts that as 100% fact and the sole source of information is an idiot.
 
inspectah said:
Since you're a smart lawyer, you know that caveat emptor doesn't apply when facts are actively concealed or misrepresented. Which is exactly what the law schools are doing.
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Ehhh - I'm not so sure about that. I don't think most of the employment stats said anything about employment in a field related to a law degree - it was just "employed at graduation" and "employed 9 months after graduation" (and this is just going off memory, so please correct me if I am wrong). Should working part-time at Starbucks count? I don't think you'll get much of an argument from anyone saying that it should. But, I also wouldn't call it actively concealing or misrepresenting the facts. Plus, this is an issue that has been WIDELY discussed and debated about for quite some time - potential law students shouldn't be able to knowingly bury their heads in the sand.
 
My school breaks down their employment statistics beyond the basic "% employed after 9 months."

You can see what % have a job that requires bar passage, what % are in JD preferred job, etc. I assumed all schools did this, but I guess not.
 
Somewhat off topic, but this is a comprehensive and honest study of what a UVA class ('87) was doing 20 years out.

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/manuscandtablesMonahanandSwanson.pdf

Note how few of the former students chose to stay with large firms.

The legal market has gone through some rough patches since '87. The market was solid at that time, as I recall. By '93, many said it was at a 20 year low. Followed by a few ups and downs. Now, it is horrible.

I would be curious to see a similar study done for something like the class of 2008-2012. Would also be curious to see a few other schools do a similar study. Hope it turns out ok for the more recent grads.
 
My friends and I that graduated from UVA have joked that all of the major names that come back to the school to speak (most notably graduation speakers) have all left the practice of law.

Tim Finchem (PGA)
DeMaurice Smith (NFLPA)
David Baldacci (Author)
Janet Napolitano (Homeland Security)
Emily Griffin (WFU; Author)
We had the editor of Newsweek at our graduation.
 
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Wakelaw2006 said:
Ehhh - I'm not so sure about that. I don't think most of the employment stats said anything about employment in a field related to a law degree - it was just "employed at graduation" and "employed 9 months after graduation" (and this is just going off memory, so please correct me if I am wrong). Should working part-time at Starbucks count? I don't think you'll get much of an argument from anyone saying that it should. But, I also wouldn't call it actively concealing or misrepresenting the facts. Plus, this is an issue that has been WIDELY discussed and debated about for quite some time - potential law students shouldn't be able to knowingly bury their heads in the sand.
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Another trick we're seeing more and more is where law schools will pay a student a stipend to go work at a government agency, firm, pro bono shop since it's basically free help. It will mostly be a 12 month deal right out of law school, and they'll credit that to someone being employed.
 
Just throwing this out here because I need to vent and don't want to start another thread.

I just got my first offer to work this summer at the Public Defender's office. Yeah, it's not an honor to get a position there since they'll take anyone as a volunteer. Here's the shitty part(s): the courthouse is 30 minutes away in a different county, so I have to pay for gas and tolls to take the new ICC here in Maryland. The toll alone is $8/day times 4 days a week times 10 weeks. Fuck that. On top of that, to receive academic credit (might as well get something out of it), I have to actually buy those credits. I get in-state tuition, but it's still $749/credit times 6 credits for almost $5,000.

Yes, I have to pay ~$6,000 this summer to work for free. Even without receiving credit, it'd still be almost $1k in travel. Kill me.
 
For the most part where you went to law school matters, maybe, for your first job as a lawyer. After that no one really gives a damn where you went to law school. After that first job they only care how good a lawyer you are, and the school name on that diploma probably isn't going to decide it for them anymore. I've kicked ass on a lot of folks with Harvard and Michigan law degrees, and I've had mine kicked on more than one occasion by law grads from N.C. Central and other law schools that some folks might not "rate" very highly.
 
wake20 said:
Just throwing this out here because I need to vent and don't want to start another thread.

I just got my first offer to work this summer at the Public Defender's office. Yeah, it's not an honor to get a position there since they'll take anyone as a volunteer. Here's the shitty part(s): the courthouse is 30 minutes away in a different county, so I have to pay for gas and tolls to take the new ICC here in Maryland. The toll alone is $8/day times 4 days a week times 10 weeks. Fuck that. On top of that, to receive academic credit (might as well get something out of it), I have to actually buy those credits. I get in-state tuition, but it's still $749/credit times 6 credits for almost $5,000.

Yes, I have to pay ~$6,000 this summer to work for free. Even without receiving credit, it'd still be almost $1k in travel. Kill me.
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This sounds like a terrible decision.
 
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