Fantastic Front Page WSJ Article on Employment Prospects Post-Law School

[sakky]

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It’s relevant because there is no need-based financial aid for law school, and because the loans are taken out by the student, not their parents. So the initial claim that law school graduates were somehow in the same position as college graduates is unreasonable. The average college student has less than 1/4th the debt of the average law student. It is almost impossible for an undergrad to end up with as much debt as the average law student has.

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<p>The most important difference between undergrad and law debt is, what you said, you take out law loans, whereas your parents take out your undergrad loans. But so what? At the end of the day, somebody has taken out the loans. I guess in some sense, if you stick your parents with the loans, you don’t personally owe any money. But that’s just a game of accounting. I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t think it’s entirely kosher to think of yourself as debt-free when your parents took out loans for you. That’s basically throwing your parents under the bus.</p>

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think it’s pretty clear that graduates of four-year schools do not necessarily have more debt than graduates of three-year schools. You’re the one claiming the analogy; it’s not especially persuasive that your only evidence is that neither of us knows for a fact that it isn’t true.

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<p>Uh, I never said that they necessarily have more debt. I am simply saying that the evidence does not indicate that they don’t have more debt. More importantly, it gets to the the larger point which is that it is entirely unclear that lawyers really have the most debt of all of the professions save physicians. That is a baseless claim. {If you disagree, then fine, show us some evidence that lawyers really do have more debt than anybody else except lawyers. You have presented no evidence that would back such a claim, yet you ask of evidence from me.}</p>

<p>The salient point is that you asked in post #62 for several professions (besides physicians) thar carry as much debt as lawyers do. I identified several possibilities. Until somebody can show that they do not apply, then you must concede that it is entirely possible that some other professionals carry as much or more debt as lawyers do. In fact, I think you did that in a previous post. </p>

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And in any event, the debt itself isn’t the issue so much as the inability to pay it back. What is the un- and under-employment rate for pharmacists? How many pharmacy or optometry schools grade on a curve designed to fail out some percentage of the class each year? How many entering pharmacy and optometry students either fail out or fail to ever be licensed? How many of the ones who do graduate and are licensed simply cannot find work in their field? How many of them end up making $20 an hour with no job security, hope for advancement or benefits?

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<p>These are not the questions that were on the table. We were simply talking about debt. That is, after all, what you were talking about. You didn’t bring up any of these other points. You simply talked about debt, nothing else. </p>

<p>Now, if you want to bring up other points, that’s fine. But that leads to a different discussion. If you want to talk about lawyers who are doing poorly relative to, say, pharmacists who are doing poorly, then we should also talk about those lawyers who are doing very very well. The very top lawyers, i.e. the partners at the top law firms, make millions. How many pharmacists make millions? A highly savvy tort lawyer like John Edwards can amass an 8-figure net worth before age 45. How many pharmacists can do that? </p>

<p>The point is, if you want to bring up the downside of being a lawyer relative to that of other professions, then it’s also fair to bring up the upside of bring a lawyer. </p>

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How many is “lots?” Do you have even any idea how many law students are night students? It also takes them (at least) four years to graduate. You provide no evidence that part-time students, who are a small minority of all students, actually have less debt.

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<p>Uh, it doesn’t matter how many ‘lots’ is. What matters is that the OPTION to attend night law school exists. Many law schools offer it. In contrast, night pharmacy school is extremely rare, if not non-existent. </p>

<p>As far as ‘evidence’ goes, I provided the same sort of evidence that you provided in your assertion that lawyers have the most student debt of any profession (except physicians). Why do you ask others for evidence, when you don’t provide any yourself? If you are willing to invest the time to demonstrate what exactly is the student debt of the average lawyer, then I will be happy to invest the time to investigate the student debt of other professions. But don’t ask me for standards of proof that you aren’t willing to adhere to yourself. </p>

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The point is that lawyers who aren’t doing well are doing worse than pharmacists or optometrists who aren’t doing well. The average is completely irrelevant when you’re asking what happens to the people at the bottom, which is the subject of the article. And again, law school graduates who cannot find work as lawyers aren’t included.

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<p>I am well aware of the subject of the article. That is why I am offering perspective to the article. Namely, lawyers, on average, are still doing better than most other people, and in particular, other professionals. Nobody disputes that some lawyers don’t do well. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that the average lawyer does better than many other professionals. </p>

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No, you haven’t, because they simply don’t. In fact, thinking that law is just like these other fields is precisely the mistake that many people are making. If they believe the legal profession is anything like pharmacy or optometry, and decide to attend a low-ranked law school, they’re in for some serious disappointment.

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<p>I would think that somebody attending a low-ranked law school ought to know that he probably isn’t going to get a very good law job, and hence should be planning accordingly. Like I said, if such a person doesn’t know that, then I suppose it’s good that articles like this will alert him to this fact. </p>

<p>But like I said, these are things that people should know. Like I’ve been saying throughout this thread, just because you have a law degree does not automatically entitle you to immunity to financial problems, and I’m surprised that some people seemed to think that it would.</p>