OT Law school question

First off, everything said upthread about no jobs, six figures of nondischargable debt, brutally difficult and competitive profession- all true. Do not become a lawyer.

But another point - I see talk about treating it like a job, or effort. This is bullshit. You cannot "work" law school. One of the oddest aspects of law school is that the ability to get good grades is, essentially, random, and very poorly correlated with past academic experience. I was a diffident UG student with middling grades, got to LS, and basically could not get lower than an A- unless I tried to fuck up. I worked -1hr a day, got a great job, and am now a happy, successful lawyer.

All of my close friends were harder working than me -by multiples. All are as smart as me. All had better pre LS records. It didn't matter. LS exams don't reward hard work. They reward some ineffable knack which you either have or you don't, and if you don't, you're screwed.

Some people say that if you really want to be a lawyer, you go anyways. This is wrong. There are some thing you want to really do that you don't do out of consideration for the collateral damage you cause to those around you. You don't go home with the pretty young thing at a bar once you're married. You don't ride a superbike when you have a kid at home. And you don't go to law school and play the lottery, when the odds are you will be nothing more than a burden on your loved ones for years after.

I was at a top school, with my tuition paid for by an inheritance, no career and single. Maybe I could justify it. You so affirmatively cannot. Please, please, don't go.

I haven't read all the posts on this thread, and don't really have anything new to add, except that I think adding yet another voice does have value.  I agree with the initial opinions that say go to a (very) top-ranked school, or go for as close to free as possible wherever do you go.

About me: I graduated from a school in the 15-20 range, was on law review, and worked for a few years at a very highly-ranked east coast Biglaw firm.  I now work in-house for a company in Denver.  By most measures, I'm one of the fortunate ones, with a good resume, and a job I generally like.  That said, I still have a six-figure debt over my head that I think about constantly.  I'm lucky that I graduated at a time when the interest rates were still low enough that I was able to consolidate them at a pretty low interest rate, and although they are daunting, I should be able to pay them back as long as I stay reasonably well-employed.  But my debts still limit my options and will for a very long time.

I'm not as jaded as many lawyers I know, and I genuinely liked law school, but even now I question the decision to go.  I know a lot of people that don't have jobs (or at least not the type of jobs people who go to law school think they will have), and they are truly screwed by their debt loads. 

Basically, I would say this: if you have a true sense of what it is lawyers actually do, and you think you will enjoy the actual day to day of going to law school, then do it if you can go for basically free.  If you have a family especially (I don't), you need to be extremely careful about your decision.  Success in law school is very much a crapshoot, so don't in any way assume you will do well.

I'm not quite to the point of recommending people don't go to law school at all, but the profession has changed drastically from what it was even 5-10 years ago, so it's something you need to be very sure of before you start.

No matter the forum, these threads are always the same. T-14 or bust, work in big law or you're a fool, etc. As a counter-point, I will say that I went to (gasp) Cooley on a full scholarship so I graduated debt free. The majority of the people in my first-year classes should never have gone to law school (I thank them for going into debt to fund my scholarship) but everyone that graduated who I keep in touch with has found work. No, they are not working in large firms in NYC or Chicago, but most of us weren't in it for that sort of things. Most of us were planning to go back to our small home town and either start a solo practice or work for one of the three or four firms in that small town. Temper your expectations and there is work to found even in this economic climate, even in Michigan. You don't HAVE to go to a T-14. Going to a bottom tier school and graduating with greatly reduced debt is a perfectly valid option although you will have to lower your expectations accordingly. 

At the moment I am doing document review (work that a junior high school kid could do). I have been doing if for a few years now. I share the work space with grads (classes ranging from '05 to '11) from Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, Northwestern, USC, UVA, Michigan, Georgetown, George Washington, Washington U (St. Louis), Emory, and other schools in the top 50, in addition to schools from the second, third and fourt tiers. There are people here who did moot court, people who were on journals (including law review), people who were associates at large prestigious firms (and lost their jobs because of lay-offs), people who clerked for federal judges, people who worked for the government. In other words, the job market for attorneys at the moment is VERY VERY bleak.

Unless the ABA starts limiting the number of attorneys being pumped out every year into, what is already, a super saturated market (understatement) the problem of normal full-time employment will continue to compound. For many attorneys, these days, there are a few options: (a) doc review, (b) pitching their own shingle, (c) trying to join the military, FBI, or other gov't agency, in a civilian/non-attorney capacity, but in a position where one could at least be able to utilize some of the skills acquired in law school, (d) get out of law altogether. 

Just to illustrate how difficult it is to land a job, my friend who is an attorney at the DOJ used to review apps for the entry-level honors program. He told me that a few years ago, when he was doing this, they received close to 20,000 applications for 35 spots. Keep in mind that 10-15 years ago, there were more than enough jobs in the fed gov't to absorb new graduates, including at the DOJ. In fact, at some agencies, they had a hard time filling positions. Today, they are turning away people who are more than qualified, from top notch law schools, and with impressive resumes, simply because there are not enough spots. If you don't believe me and some of the other posters, just google "job prospect for attorneys" and you will find articles from the likes of Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, NY Times, etc.

I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer and disuade you from pursuing your dream, if being an attorney is really a dream of yours. If you really want to be a lawyer, have the luxury of rolling the dice (if it does not work out you can try something else without making a substantial change in your life and taking too much of a hit), and get a substantial scholarship, I don't see that much of a problem of taking a risk and seeing if you can make something of it. However, if risk is something you cannot afford, I would consider other options.