Law School Looking Like Great Option for Seniors With No Other Options
http://www.everythreeweekly.com/law-school-looking-like-great-option-fo…
Really funny article for the Class of 2015. I was in a similar spot after graduation a few years ago, and luckily managed to break away from Law School after only a year(and minimal debt). Now have a successful career.
Hit Your Self.
Hell, You're Sexy!
Have You Shaved?
How's Your Sister?
Help Your Subordinates.
Hampton Yachting Society
Harsh Yellow Sticky ...
Or, Harvard, Yale & Stanford.
I'm guessing Harvard/Yale/Stanford.
March 24th, 2015 at 10:18 PM ^
I don't have specific examples of people I know going to Harvard, Yale, or Stanford law schools. I do have a MBA from Yale (it's not a top three school, but it's a great brand), however, and the degree has opened some doors for me. I'm self-employed, so it provides instant credibility in the eyes of new clients. It was very expensive, however, and I'm still paying for it. I think it's worth it in the long run.
My advice to anyone who is considering law solely because they find themselves without other, more preferable options is to tread carefully. This is a very competitive field (read: there's an oversupply of lawyers right now and for the forseeable future) in which you will be pitted against people who have a passion for the field. That could make for a miserable academic and professional experience for anyone pursuing law as a fallback option. I also have many peers who regret their decision to take on the additional debt load of a law degree. I implore you to sit down and do the math so you understand that burden. Typical law school tuition amounts to an additional $1,000 payment (over and above your undergrad debt) every 30 days for three decades. Think long and hard before you make that commitment.
Additionally, PSLF may be capped here soon which many people use to justify taking loans currently.
You're the same guy that posted about how you were reading Mgoblog while in open court in front of a judge. I'm not sure how much anyone should take your opinions about the profession seriously.
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/your-opinions-players-who-step-starting-spr… (Post #12)
March 24th, 2015 at 11:19 PM ^
If you know that you want to be a lawyer (especially if you want to do a specificaly lucrative field, like patent law), then a T14 law school like Michigan is a great idea. But if you're just investigating your options, then there are other, less costly ways to bide your time.
I loved my time in law school, and I love my job, but I also knew that I wanted to be a patent lawyer from undergrad and acted in accordance. I wouldn't recommend law school to starry-eyed seniors looking to delay the real world, but I'm not nearly as down on law school as most people are. Just know what you're getting yourself into.
March 25th, 2015 at 12:08 AM ^
patent law is the way to go. If you have experience in chem/bio/IT, the best way to get paid 200k+ is patent law.
The caveat though, is that those people with IT/bio/chem experience don't go to law school because they have jobs that pay 40-70k out of college. And understandably, they think tha's really nice for a 23 year old. As a guy who went the bio/stats route, I'm honestly starting to look at law school. I had the great fortune of doing a study on thousands of people given their age, income, and field (I'm in insurance, studying for actuary exams) and it blows my mind how much patent lawyers make.
Rounded numbers
median wage 40k
CPAs etc 60k
Engineers/Lawyers 100k (yes, lawyers make that much)*
Doctors 400k
Patent Lawyers 500k
Sample size for patent lawyers wasn't huge, but it was in the hundreds. I have no idea where they work, or how they actually make that money (hustling for clients, specific areas of expertise, etc.) but those guys are making crazy money.
bls.gov/ooh/lega/home.htm
Doctors don't make 400k on average. Some subspecialties might average 400k+(after 10+ years of graduate/postgraduate training) but all doctors on average? No way.
March 25th, 2015 at 10:38 AM ^
That's not true for everyone in patent law. If you have a EE or Computer Engineering degree, the market is absolutely fantastic. If you have a Ph.D in Chem or Biochem, the market is decent. If you have pretty much anything else, the market is pretty meh at this point. I, of course, am in the last group. The only people I know making 500k or more are BigLaw or midsize law partners.
Seriously, do your research before you even considering going. Ask yourself if it's something you really want.
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My advise is generally this:
- Decide whether you want to be a LAWYER, not whether you want to go to law school. Then do the math and make sure it makes financial sense. Then look REALLY hard at the school you plan to select.
- Probably don't go to law school.
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then my Pre-Law (Poli Sci) academic advisor's retort after looking at my report card:
"You should do something else."
So I did.
The vast majority of law schools, including Michigan, are nothing more than con artists. It's borderline fraudulent. They inflate job statistics and median salaries, tell you that you'll have tremendous and varied opportunities after school, and induce you to pay 60,000 a year to learn from professors who frequently have no idea how to teach law, all while giving themselves raises and increasing administrative bloat every year.
I used to smile at those clever, friendly emails from Sarah Zearfoss. After spending 18 months looking for a job after school despite graduating with a 3.6 from Michigan Law, I just want to punch her and everyone else at that hellhole right in the face.
If you're absolutely insistent on ignoring logic and going to law school, the silver lining is that a lot of people have figured out this racket. Applications have decreased dramatically in the last 5 years.
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You must have a terrible personality if you graduated from UofM Law with a 3.6 and couldn't find a job. You CHOSE that "hellhole" by the way. The dean and administration don't give you jobs.
You understand that there is actually ABA oversight on this now, right? Because if exactly what you described. Be bitter about what you experienced all you want, but please try to actually speak to the current environment.
March 25th, 2015 at 12:05 AM ^
The ABA is to law students what the NCAA is to student athletes. I'm exaggerating a little, but only a little. The ABA's lax oversight and speedy credentialing of new law schools, which make universities money while flooding the market with law school graduates who haven't even been trained in the actual practice of law, remains a huge part of the problem.
But why does the ABA do that? It seems self destructive.
The AMA on the other hand makes it almost impossible to open new law schools and heavily scrutinizes the ones that are currently open.
I've seen some of those types (i.e., not sure why they went to law school) become pretty good lawyers. Practicising law is a lot more fun, dynamic, and people-oriented than law school.
That being said, the combination of law school becoming more expensive and the job market shrinking has made for a scenario where it's not a good idea to stick around to find out if you may be one of those people. The job market has seen permanent, structural changes from the days Latham and Watkins had 200 summer associates.
This thread is really not helping me study for my Trusts & Estates exam right now.
:(
I'm basically in this crowd...went to law school, took on $175K in debt, and have been terminally underemployed since. I won't be able to buy a house for decades. I knew in the first month I hated it, and soldiered on stubbornly. When I did what I thought was well enough to land biglaw employment, I stayed on after 1L year and ultimate was proven wrong.
Now many years later, and I actually applied to and got into top business schools (Ross included), but am in the unfortunate position where I can't afford it because I have no borrowing capacity. I'm basically at the point where I am unemployable (in both legal and business roles) and my only remaining parachute is to hang a shingle probably (and struggle at that for the foreseeable future given the market, lack of firm experience, and fact that I pretty much hate legal practice generally).
Prospective law students, listen to this man.
You could always follow the lead of "Better Call Saul" and hang out at old folks homes doing Elder Law.
To be honest, with the Baby Boomers in the midst of retiring, that would be a pretty painless way to make good money nowadays. Obviously it's not what you dreamed of when choosing to undertake law, but it's making lemons out of lemonade.
I'm overstating it a bit--I have a fair amount of transactional experience in certain industries, and still have a couple clients I do side work for so I'm not 100% useless. Even 1 of the clients has offered to bring me on as a partner in his venture, but unfortunately I wouldn't earn any money for probably 18-24 months so it's pointless to pursue. That said, I would much rather start a non-law business than a practice, but finances pretty much foreclose the first option.
Honestly for me, if I went back, I'd still end up doing the same thing. I had no mentors, no family support or guidance, and really didn't have any idea on how to figure things out. Even now, the training is useful and I don't completely ignore the value of my degree. Above all else, it's the financial impact that's the problem. Aside from the usual consequences of not being able to buy housing, go on vacations, support a child, or do anything else due to poor credit--it also (as I've indicated) forecloses a lot of opportunities along the way, whether getting alternate training (biz school, MA/PhD, technical/coding, etc.) or starting a business/pursuing partnerships.
Law school might be fine, but only if you either a) go to the top schools like HYSCCN (I don't count Michigan as being one of them), or alternatively, b) go to the cheapest and highest ranked local/instate public/ you can find. If you can't get the prestige, it's absolutely CRITICAL to graduate with next to zero debt.
March 25th, 2015 at 12:38 AM ^
I agree Michigan is not perceived as equal to Harvard, Yale or Stanford, but do you really think that similarly credentialled grads have significantly fewer options than students from NYU?
Yes, NYU > Michigan and it's not close. NYU has far more (probably double) the biglaw options, far more interesting PI options (a focus), and of course many more meaningful clerkship opportunities.
March 25th, 2015 at 12:39 AM ^
I agree Michigan is not perceived as equal to Harvard, Yale or Stanford, but do you really think that similarly credentialled grads have significantly fewer options than students from NYU?
Lawyers produce nothing. They mostly shuffle paper around. Plus the profession is extremely high stress.
When that hits home and it hits home that it won't ever change, you'll jump ship. If your lucky and can afford to jump ship with no family counting on the paycheck you are making as a lawyer.
If they are, you are trapped. For life.
While I agree with you that young people should avoid the legal profession, I'm not sure it's fair to say that "lawyers produce nothing." Lawyers in many cases do produce a very valuable service for society, and a world without them would be a very scary place.
I was one. Lawyers produce nothing. But I'd love to see that world without them thing tried out for a test run at some point in time.
Okay, well your position is pretty easily proven false. Lawyers produce all kinds of things: Contracts, Mergers, Acquisitions, Plea Deals, Patents, etc. Brown v. Board of Education was won by a lawyer. Mapp v. Ohio was won by a lawyer. Gideon v. Wainwright was won by a lawyer. Unless you simply don't give a shit for protecting basic civil rights, it's hard to deny that lawyers are an extremely important part of society.
The problem is that there are WAY too many of them, and WAY too many of them acting as mouthpieces for corporations doing bad things.
people don't come see me when they win the lottery, they come see me when the feces has hit the fan. usually it is the single most important thing in their life, sometimes even more important than critical health concerns. i certainly produce for people, or try my best to do so. saving businesses, marriages, freedom, heck, that's just in one day sometimes. lots of other more talented lawyers do way more than that and i'm sure they would agree with my characterization.
I thought you were a farmer...lol. All your weekend posts talk about chores, barns, etc.
and the chores are done for the day. its the quiet season right now. addt'l livestock and crops/planting are still a month or more away.
also: what does the plane and the 'huehue' etc. mean?
it's a dumb smile meme with laughter
kinda like a sheepish grin/chuckle from me
now i know, too.
As a practicing attorney, I tried to dissuade my younger brother from law school (especially because he went to a degree factory) and actively campaigned against going to law school to all my friends that brought the idea up.
Law is, more than almost any other profession these days, based on who you know. Doesn't matter where you graduate (so long as you can pass the Bar); if one of your parents is partner in a huge firm and you've grown up around high powered lawyers at parties all your life, a good family friend runs a boutique firm that could use another young associate, or prior to law school you've built up a network in the legal world, then the odds of getting a good paying job out of law school are better than if you graduate in the top 5% of your class.
I was extremely lucky because I had some amazing connections, and even then, a bunch of pieces had to fall into place. I work in south Texas which, as I was graduating, hit an oil boom and I happened to be naturally adept at that area of law. In addition, the cost of living is extremely low which helps offset the massive student loan debt. I make a very respectable salary for a young lawyer, and it's still going to take me another 5+ years on an extremely aggressive plan to get debt free. After that happens, I am not certain I'll stay in the legal world for all the reasons mentioned by others above.
Back in 2006 I had a choice as a junior in undergrad of taking an adminstrative support job for a little company called Rackspace (now a billion dollar company and consistently in the top half of the Forbes Top 100 Best Places to Work list) that was just getting into managed web hosting and some newfangled "cloud computing" thing, or an internship for a U.S. Congressman. I chose the latter, and that is the path that led to law school. It wasn't a complete waste because I met some of the best people in the world through that job, in law school, and through professional association after, but I would definitely go back and change my choice if I had it to do over.
Finished law school but didn't take the bar as I had no interest in being an attorney and in spending the time necessary to study for the bar.
When I shared this news with my mother, she told me that maybe I should consider therapy because she couldn't understand this decision, based on the fact that I "always wanted to be an attorney."
I responded that it was actually she who wanted me to be an attorney...and that my position was that those who pursued a career in law were the ones who needed therapy.
Unfortunately, you can count me among those young Jewish males who felt obligated to attend either law or medical school...and given that my science classes consisted of "Plants, People and the Environment," the decision was pretty simple.
Not sure if things have changed at U of M, but I always felt as though there should've been more of an effort to provide career guidance for students...to avoid people like me making the decision to go to law school just because I didn't know what else to do after graduation.
(by the way, I'm not blaming my mother or U of M for me making the decision to go to law school)
Michigan still has a notoriously awful career counseling department both for undergrad and graduate students.
The career counselors at the law school get paid 70k minimum, and the extent of their services is sending you emails once a month with job postings that you can easily find on your own. They are literally worthless. So no, you're not crazy.