<p>My compliments to recent posters for their thoughtful comments! Someone who is considering law school would be well-advised to read this thread!</p>
<p>I was also glad to hear that Woody’s nephew was doing pro bono work as he looks for a job. My best wishes to him.</p>
<p>One other point that should be mentioned regarding law school, just to make the discussion complete, is that legal training (if you can afford it) can be useful in many other arenas as well. I am fortunate to have been able to attend a top law school and hold jobs in large law firms before retiring to be with my children. I am still using my legal training, although I am unpaid, serving as attorney-in-fact for my elderly mother, informal legal advisor to family members and trustee of a trust.</p>
<p>I wonder also what role colleges have played in advising their students who are considering law school. Too often, high school seniors consider their classmates’ entering statistics, interesting freshman seminars and the feel of the campus without even inquiring about the campus placement office or counseling services. If anyone has experience with college counseling concerning graduate school, I would be happy to hear about it. Just as high school guidance counselors play a role in helping their students plan for the next steps, colleges could and should provide helpful and valuable information to their graduating seniors.</p>
<p>I will follow this discussion with interest, as my sophomore son currently thinks he might like to be a lawyer.</p>
<p>Actually, I am very interested in the answer to this question. Or rather, my daughter should be very interested in the answer to this question. </p>
<p>I know that conventional wisdom says you should attend the best law school you can get into. My DD1 is actually hoping to attend a tier 4 school where she will probably be in the top 10% of applicants. This school awards merit-based aid to 50% of their students so she is hoping that she would get decent FA from them. The school is a couple of hours from our home and she wants to end up in this general area so is this a completely stupid idea?</p>
<p>I agree that a Tier 4 law school is generally a waste of time if your goal is to get a good job practicing law. However, if your goal is not to practice law but to acquire a legal education <em>for free</em> that you plan to use to enhance your other career (like in real estate, for example), then it is probably worthwhile.</p>
<p>I’m very glad I have a law degree – but I am also very glad that I could attend a top ranked, public law school in the 1970’s paying less than $750/tuition a year. I graduated from law school without debt and could consider many options for employment, including public interest work or setting up my own practice. Those 1975 dollars would translate to about $3,200 a year now, and if my kids could attend law school for that cost, then I would be definitely encouraging it. </p>
<p>But there is no way that I can see paying full or nearly full cost at today’s rates. I think it’s a shame, because it really will hurt the profession. It’s bad for our country as well, because we need young people with strong legal training filling spots in government agencies and law enforcement, but the system now erects a huge financial barrier for individuals with those inclinations.</p>
<p>MOWC - thanks for the advice. I am completely uneducated on this subject. She had talked about law in the past but we really thought she was going to grad school. It’s apparently still been on her mind so now I’m trying to get up to speed. Does it change your response at all if I tell you that we’re in Ohio, the school is in OH and she really wants to live and work here after school?</p>
<p>A friend’s son graduated from De Paul Law school last May. He was just hired by a local litigation-only firm last month. Really lucky as his loans were coming due. A look his firm’s website (which has offices in a few US cities) reveals that most of the lawyers, including the founders graduated from lower tier law schools, (no one from T14) including many that I’ve never heard of. I guess there are many smaller, profitable and regional firms that hire those who can’t make the T14.</p>
<p>Someone said is it worth it, instead, to get MA/PhD in English? </p>
<p>Maybe the above alternative does not lead to better job prospects but the key here is that the tuition for ANY professional school is HUGE, especially compared to an MA (and especially compared to PhD where one is usually provided with a stipend and tuition). </p>
<p>The recipe for disaster is this:</p>
<ol>
<li>High tuition</li>
<li>A gigantic financial incentive for colleges to create law schools, without regard to the future of those they took tuition from, along with a big incentive (and ability) for them to provide warped statistics on job prospects to play the rankings game and mislead the next crop of students.<br></li>
<li>A poor understanding of personal finance and in particular, compound interest and the actual future costs to pay off the loans after law school.<br></li>
<li>Relatively few jobs in law, and even fewer paying the kind of salary needed to pay off the above loans plus interest.</li>
<li>The fact that anyone can get into <em>some kind of law school</em>, it provides prestige and the hope of a future job, when other options with a BA do not look so attractive.<br></li>
<li>The ‘illusion of exceptionalism’ (for oneself or one’s child) that convinces applicants that, despite all of the above, it will be different for them.</li>
</ol>
<p>A lot of firms have lawyers/partners from other than T14 law schools. The top 2 or 3 in the class from DePaul will get jobs. It is a fine school. There are just SO many fewer jobs to go around. Chicago jobs are going to Northwestern, UChicago and UIllinios grads, for the most part.</p>
<p>proudmom- She should see how many grads got jobs last year after graduating from that school. It’s not that you can’t get a good education. It’s just the reality of the market right now.</p>
<p>Around here you still see firms hiring from lower tier schools, but they don’t go deep in the class at all. They go deeper into the Vandy class, less deep into the Alabama, TN and Georgia classes and barely tap the top few for Louisville and Kentucky.</p>
<p>Starbright, what happened to number 5? The point that people are using their experiences of decades ago to form and share opinions and things have changed. I like that one. :)</p>
<p>This is a very interesting thread, and does make me worry. My D is a 1L student, who will end up with about 180K in loans. We paid for her undergrad, and she knew that anything after that was hers to pay for. She chose an expensive school, not in the top 14/20, but the only place she wanted to be (American). She wanted to be there for it’s strength in international law (she is getting the JD/MA), and because of its liberal bent. I would never try to talk her out of law school, because this has been her passion since high school. I preached to my children that you spend most of your life at work, so your career better be something you love. She competed in Mock Trial in high school and college (5th in the nation her junior year), and feels that this is what she is destined to do. She knows that she will incur a lot of debt, so she is doing something that quite surprised us - she is joining the marines with plans to be a JAG lawyer. She did a lot of research, talked to all branches of the military, and this summer she will go to officers candidate school. She will go active duty when she graduates. The amount of her loans she will have to pay back will be less, and she will get to practice law as soon as she graduates. I don’t know if this is the best plan, but she is determined.</p>
<p>^Dstark, I was editing because I had so many typos and mispellings (which is pretty common for me), and when I re-read #5, it thought people would find it insulting/start arguments from prior posters on the board, so I took it out. I’m trying to be more positive :)</p>
<p>This issue is clearly getting a lot of attention because it was in the New York Times (it’s currently their “most e-mailed” article), but anyone who knows much about the US legal industry has known about this issue for some time and it’s very real.</p>
<p>A lot of people are quick to point to the 2008-09 recession as the reason for the downturn in legal and suggest that things will pick right back up as soon as everything else does too, but honestly this is wishful thinking. The issues in legal go back to before the recession and although the recession certainly didn’t help legal it’s not the underlying cause of its current problems: </p>
<p>It all boils down to two issues:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>There are way too many lawyers in the US, relative to demand, with law schools continually pumping out more</p></li>
<li><p>Legal is in the middle of a stark transition towards a commoditized product. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>On the later point, so called BIG LAW firms are finding it increasingly difficult to convince their clients that their rates are truly justified when the vast majority of their work is quite routine and could be completed by someone charging half or even less. Many firms got away with such rates for ages, but clients are getting a lot smarter about their legal spending and subjecting it to the same level of scrutiny as any other product or service. </p>
<p>I personally could not, in good conscience, recommend that someone goes to any law school if they must take on substantial amounts of debt–unless they fully understand the financial implications and are fully willing to accept what that could mean down the line. </p>
<p>I believe a quality legal education can be a very valuable tool in ones educational toolbox, but given the long term outlook for the legal profession the debt often necessary to attend law school simply doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>A very interesting thread, and topic, for sure. My daughter still has some time - she’s only a junior - so we’ll definitely be doing a lot of research.</p>
<p>Under current rules student loans for newly commissioned officers will be repaid to the maximum amount of $25K and that is assuming a four year commitment. Enlisted can get up to $60K depending on MOS. And medical specialties have even more generous incentives. </p>
<p>A warning to those who figure that going to a lower ranked law school with scholarships will guarantee being at the top of the class. There are sites for law students such as top law schools where this myth is debunked frequently. While LSAT is supposed to be a good predictor of success, there is actually no way to predict with certainty who will excel at legal thinking/meeting any particular law professor’s expectations. You will recall the movie Paper Chase. Some students who may have been admitted off wait-lists for a particular school or who are transfer students may end up doing very well (S), and other students with stats at the top of their school’s profile may be average performers who lose their scholarships (S’s 1L friends). </p>
<p>Some law schools offer large first year scholarships, and then put the scholarship students in sections together so they compete on the curve to retain the scholarships. Meeting requirements to retain scholarships can be a lot tougher than in college. Some law schools have C curves, and some have B curves. Getting a 3.2 at a school with a C curve can be very, very difficult. Not all schools disclose their grading curve. At some schools, grade inflation is rampant in an attempt to assist students in finding employment. It might be easier to maintain a good GPA, but the school could tie scholarships to being in top percentiles of the class. Some law schools have eliminated class ranking and have moved to banding students in percentiles. </p>
<p>Either way, law students are competing against an entire class full of other bright, competitive students who think that academic success is the key to employment (unlike college where the level of competition is easier). Sometimes kids discover that the writing styles or the study habits that earned them good grades in college will get them low grades in law school. The majority of each class are NOT going to be in the top 5% or 10% of their class, by definition. At every law school there will be students who speak up in class frequently and are arrogant about their understanding of the law the first semester…who are quiet and withdrawn the second semester. The academic uncertainly, workload, competitiveness, and employment risks can make law school a very unpleasant and costly place to be for three years.</p>
<p>Proudmomof2, I would have your daughter research the firms in the area where she wants to settle and see from which law schools their lawyers graduated. She could definitely see if she knows (or you know) any of these lawyers and arrange to have an honest conversation about the market for lawyers in the area and how deep into the class they go when hiring. I come from upstate New York and if I had wanted to stay in the area I would have had many opportunities from my then T100 state school, whether at the top of the class or not. I spent my first summer working for a small local firm, one that did everything from real estate closings to minor criminal work. They ultimately hired students from my class who were not at the top of the class. I chose to leave and head to NYC, but had I not been near the top of the class I doubt I would have had any success finding a job during the early 80’s recession. If she’s interested in staying in the area, she is already on the right side of the equation, but if Ohio has so many law schools (I’m not that familiar with Ohio law schools) that her chances from that 4th tier school she is considering are unlikely, then she is better off knowing that now. To the poster who suggested that we “old” lawyers are relying on information that was valid many moons ago, I have a son who is currently in law school and I am familiar with the challenges facing current law students and recent graduates, even from T14 schools.</p>
<p>I’ve been in recruiting for BigLaw off and on for almost 20 years (depending on firm and year) and my advice would be never, ever to take on debt for law school unless you have a guaranteed job. These days, law firms are hiring smaller “classes” every year, so even the tippy-top students in the tippy-top schools need grades plus something else. Also, people who do get hired at that huge salary/bonus level must understand that being an associate in one of those firms is like a high-level game of survivor, with the ultimate prize of partnership. People get voted off every year and, since they’re all the best of the best, it could be you. Most partnership tracks are 7-8 years long and it often happens that the young lawyers have undergrad and law school debt, get the idea that they will be earning that money forever, and don’t pay off the debt right away. Then year six comes along, they are given the tap on the shoulder telling them that they can take all the time they need to find another job (but in no case into the next review year), but find another job they must with the debt still hanging over them. At their level of seniority, similar firms are not an option, so they can hang out a shingle and hope for clients, go to a small firm for a huge pay cut and no security, or hope for a governmental position that pays less than a big firm’s secretary.</p>