Love all the non-lawyers commenting on the state of the legal profession. Let’s make a deal–you don’t do that and I won’t (at least in this thread) say bad things about people who read news articles and think they know the whole story and are qualified to give advice to others.
Then listen to me. 2009 grad. Top 10 school. Law Review editorial board.
Summered at a large firm that exclusively hired people who worked there as 1Ls and 2Ls in an attempt to give offers to those least likely to accept them. (I was only there as a 2L). Many of the associate editors (the year behind me) on Law Review didn’t secure a summer job through interview week.
It took me about 6 months to find a job despite exhausting every connection and having no shame nor too much pride. I know some of my classmates took twice as long to find a spot after having similar summer experiences.
So there, lest you think that only those not in the know are talking about the state of the legal profession, take it from me. Don’t go. Few jobs. More debt.
ETA: I hope that you aren’t viewing this as a law school v. status quo issue, despite the tone the thread has taken. We should all be constantly reevaluating what we are doing and why–you just happen to have it staring you in the face more than the average bear. There are an infinite number of options outside of law school v. status quo.
Non-lawyers do actually know people who are lawyers. I know two lawyers who graduated last year and haven’t found any work in the legal field. They’ve taken customer service or telephone polling jobs since they had to start paying their student loans in January. I know another who graduated 5 years ago and gets excited when his $30 an hour contract job lasts more than a month or includes dinner on days he works more than 10 hours. They are the real people who are part of the statistics the news articles report.
I agree with you to an extent, but the OP is asking for advice, and it doesn’t take a lawyer to understand the correlation between declining salaries and hiring rates for new graduates (which predate the recession) and the value of law school.
Yea, anecdotes! Surely someone knows a homeless lawyer and can share that story as if it has any bearing on the OP’s decision . . .
Giving advice to an individual based on the average is not always a good thing to do. It is a good thing when we are talking about likely outcome to a trip to a casino, because over time the individual’s results will tend to the average. But the outcome of going to law school is very different than that bvecause it depends not solely on chance but also on the nature of the individual, the facts about which are solely in his possession.
Sure, but I’m sure the OP is smart enough to realize that if he’s a genius, he’ll do fine no matter what (in journalism or law) and if he’s a simpleton he won’t.
waves frantically ME! ME ME ME! stands up slowly…
“My name is Lindsay Bluth and I’m a lawyer who has experienced homelessness…”
Well, that, and the 200 or so other individuals in his class, seeing as grades are generally on a curve. And most of those 200 people are likely to be highly intelligent and motivated people as well.
Depends where he goes. I was much less pleased about being admitted to law school when I met some of the other schmucks who got in (and who have passed two semesters’ worth of classes).
Didn’t you say you had to take a job as a taxidermy?
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A “taxidermy” is not a job (think you’re looking for “taxidermist” there tough guy).
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No.
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Shut up and take me to the airport, dermy.
I think it was a play on its sounding similar to “tax attorney.”
I don’t get the impression that anyone thinks the OP’s heading for a road of homelessness and poverty if he goes to law school.
Only that it won’t rescue him from debt like a magic wand, and like anything in life, it comes with risk. And that it is not exactly for the faint of heart.
Apropos of the OP’s question: Student Loan Debt: What's the Worst That Could Happen? - Above the Law
oh, a joke. i like jokes
What I’ve heard of law school is that it is a giant mistake. The market is oversaturated, and unless you are in the top of your class at a high ranking school and/or have connections to get a job after graduation you are looking at 100k+ in loans. Many law jobs now are supposedly just contract/temp anyway, and paralegals are being used instead in many instances.
38k really isn’t bad in this economy.
Sure, I’ve worked with lawyers just about every day of my working life for going on 20 years now, in fast-paced corporate-type firms, in-house at a large publicly owned company, and now in a midsized firm, I have lots of friends who are lawyers, and I am related to a fair number of lawyers, but I don’t know a damn thing about the state of the legal profession. :rolleyes:
Eva Luna, Paralegal
P.S. My little half-brother is going to law school in the fall, and if I didn’t have a sneaking suspicion that his parents are footing the entire bill, I’d tell him not to do it. I might tell him not to do it anyway, but a) he’s not asking, and b) I really have no idea whether he’s actually burning to practice law. Really, I’d tell just about anyone who’s not burning to practice law or at least do something closely related not to go to law school.
P.P.S. One very close friend of mine who was a partner at a highly rated IP firm, a guy with 10+ years with some of the best names in the business, was laid off nearly a year and a half ago and is, as we speak, moving his entire family more than 1000 miles away, because he finally got a job there.
I spent about six years consulting for the legal profession (computer forensics, forensic accounting, ediscovery, expert witness stuff). Most of my clients were AmLaw 100 Manhattan firms and in house counsel at various companies. Not to mention I know a lot of attorneys personally from all fields of law.
The industry has definitely been declining for the past 2-3 years. Then again EVERY industry has been declining for the past 2-3 years. But I have to say, it’s better to be laid off from a six figure job than a job that pays $30,000.
I would disagree with you about assuming you will make millions of dollars as an attorney. You are talking about the very top of the profession and the top of nearly every professional occupation makes large amounts of money.
The OP should look at the long term potential earnings, but it doesn’t hurt to look at the average starting salaries since that is typically what he will be making in the short term. CEOs make millions of dollars, but most MBAs have to spend years scraping by on hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lawyers aren’t any different.
Finally, the OP needs to decide if law his what he really wants to do. Because while the salary might be high, you can often work long hours with jerks doing work that is very “corporate” and unglamorous.