<p>Amesie, your post re: Vandy is entirely consist w/ most T14 law grads not being in the running for top clerkships. If 10% at Vandy grads got federal clerkships, that means 90% didn’t (and don’t forget - -all federal clerkships are equal, but some are more equal than others). Also, I don’t think anyone said that ONLY Harvard grads get US Sup clerkships, but Harvard and Yale grads fill those slots more often than grads from other schools.</p>
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<p>arabrab, state court judges look for clerks w/ some experience.</p>
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<p>Keilexandra, you don’t really need to get a JD to be a law librarian.</p>
<p>Agree with Hanna overall – the difference between school ranking is huge right now, and I’m not clear if/when it’ll ever switch back. Up until 1-2 years ago, the well known NYC firms that so many covet were hiring from the top 14, as well as strong regional schools like Fordham. Now the hiring partners at those firms are openly saying that they’re down to hiring from about 5 schools; they’re not even taking resumes from schools like Fordham, BC, BU etc. even they have hired there historically. I think the competition was always there for federal clerkships but has become even more pronounced because before almost every top 14 grad could get a big firm job – now many who weren’t able to get one, who otherwise would not have clerked are applying for clerkships and creating more competition in that arena.</p>
<p>What I meant to suggest is that a prospective law student who does not get admitted to Harvard or Yale should not conclude that the chances of obtaining a federal clerkship are slim to none (which is what I read Hanna as saying, but perhaps I misunderstood). In my mind, ten percent is a decent chance.</p>
<p>In your mind, what do you think the chances are for the average applicant landing 10% in Vandy is? Not very high, right?</p>
<p>That is, if they 1) land median and 2) don’t get any callbacks, any potential law student is 150k in debt. Basically, if one doesn’t do better than every other gunner doing his best, the game is over and the prize is non-dischargeable hell. </p>
<p>In addition, the only reason some schools are surprisingly highly represented is due to regionalism.</p>
<p>MilitaryMom:</p>
<p>My brother is a lawyer. He has said to me time and time again that lawyers do not “help society”. If your daughter wants to do that, she should consider going into medicine or social work or health or something like that. Maybe even law enforcement. </p>
<p>Lawyers push paper around and make money, he says, and those that don’t make money wish they did. They, in his own words, “contribute nothing to society”.</p>
<p>Keile–looks like your brother needs a new career…</p>
<p>The fact is that probably 2/3rds of the law schools in the US should cease to exist. They are hideously expensive; their graduates take on too much debt for lousy job prospects.</p>
<p>nyc - Details please? I don’t have a good grasp on law librarianship as a career; it’s not much discussed wrt MLIS, and librarianship isn’t much discussed wrt law.</p>
<p>Jonri, if I am out of date, it has happened fast and not in the situation I described. I just called my friend’s daughter, and her law firm, a national firm in a major city still holds jobs open for those who get clerkships as do any number of firms. It is still standard. Only for the very top kids who land such offers, but, yes, this is still done as of today. Also a number of law firms reserve spots for the top students from local schools. In Boston, for instance, someone is chosen from each of a number of law schools. These programs do exist.</p>
<p>However, I agree fully, that this only applies to the very tiny number of kids who are at the top of their class. Even so, there are certain opportunities that are open only to the top of the class of what are considered the top law firms. A frank interview with a US Supreme Court justice made that very clear. He was asked point blank if a top state law school grad would be considered for such a position and he very bluntly and quickly answered, “no”. It would be news if it happened. Such situations exist for other positions as well.</p>
<p>Close down law schools? I don’t think so. Too many parents and students willing to pound salt to pay those bills. They are money makers. They don’t have to offer scholarships or financial aid or stipend. Grandmoms are willing to pay the bucks for a lawyer in the family, dads are willing to take out the loans as are the students. The market is there. Many a prospect hopes to beat the odds and get a living wage and more as an attorney.</p>
In this era of electronic research, may firms are downsizing their libraries and cutting back their staffs markedly. I think that trend will continue, so I’m not sure there is a good future in becoming a law librarian for a young person.</p>
<p>I believe I help society a great deal with my in-house legal practice. I contribute to the success and culture of a major corporation. That corporation is a good corporate citizen and important to our city both for providing jobs and supporting events. I believe I am a valued member of management and provide counsel on legal and ethical matters. I certainly do my part for society as much as a legal aid lawyer or a social worker.</p>
<p>I have no problems with law as a profession. I applaud it. I think that parents and students alike need to know the real situation in terms of job availability and pay scales, however, if they are to make an informed decision on this. I’ve known some families who have really broken the family bank in paying for a kid’s law school education, and the kid also borrowed up to the whazoo, only to find that the financial payback was not worth it and they could not afford it. This happens with expensive colleges as well. </p>
<p>We had dinner with friends last month, and the parents of a college student, who are our friends will be supporting and paying for their son’s law school experience when and if he is accepted. But they are adamant that it has to be a state school because it’s just too much to pay for a private law education. I am inclined to agree. If the kid had a shot at one of the very top law schools and was a top flight student, that would be a different story, but the differential in cost is just too much. Enough to really have families teetering on the brink of financial troubles. Especially if money has already been spent on an expensive college with loans out there.</p>
<p>But 3 years at a state law school isn’t a bad way for this kid to spend his next 3 years. He’ll learn a lot and it does open possibilities for him. If the family can afford this, and this is what interests him, great. I would do the same for my kid. Without hesitation. And, yes, though I would unrealistically dream that he finds a fulfilling job he loves from this, and that he is able to make a good living, I wouldn’t think of it as a loss if he did not. But I wouldn’t do it unless I could afford it. There are limits to what we could pay without it hurting us as a family, and those lines would be calculated and drawn. And if I had the money to be able to do it without hurting us financially, heck yes, I’d pay for any law school or really nearly any academic program that interested my kid. I’d love to be able to do that.</p>
<p>zoosermom - That’s good to know, too. Any thoughts on librarian vs. lawyer: 2-year MLIS with possible loan repayment by the state vs. 3-year JD assuming T14 or affordable in-state/scholarship? I definitely won’t go 50k+ into debt for a JD unless it’s for Harvard or Yale (with their loan repayment programs).</p>
<p>Keil, you are way too young to worry about librarian vs. lawyer. Your goals and interests are likely to change 10 times over the next year or two. Enjoy the journey; you don’t need to start worrying about getting into Harvard or Yale just yet!</p>
I totally disagree with the first part of this and totally agree with the second. Law has always had a low-threshold, high weeding-out entry process. Anyone who could graduate from law school and pass the bar exam was in. (There were even routes which did not require law school, although they were rarely utilized.) But once you were licensed you had to make the grade in the profession. Many people didn’t. (Actually, a lot of people don’t even pass the bar exam.) So they were allowed to try, but weeded out - only the fittest survived.</p>
<p>Medicine, on the other hand, had a high threshold, low weeding-out trajectory. Getting into Med school is incredibly hard (half of those who apply don’t get in anywhere) but once you’re in, over 90% will graduate and pass the medical boards, and emerge into a profession with a guarantee of a well paying job - pretty much everyone “survives.”</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with the law school paradigm. What I do have a problem with is charging med school tuition for a law school education. There’s no excuse for that. Legal education is no more resource-demanding than undergraduate education - in fact, probably less, on average. There’s no reason why law school tuition should cost any more than community college. But it does. That’s the crime. Young people should not have an artificial financial barrier against preparing for the profession. If they can pass the bar and succeed out in the world, that opportunity should not be denied them by financial demands which bear no relationship to the cost of preparing them for the job.</p>
<p>Again - I’m talking about the 99% of the lawyers in the country who aren’t clerking for the Supreme Court or devoting 99% of their waking hours working for “prestigious” law firms. But then - I don’t think they should have to pay artificially inflated tuition either.</p>
<p>kluge: That is an interesting comparison. As an aside, I think medicine should do a bit more weeding out than it does. People get into medical school because they are smart and know how to do the academic work and do well on tests. But they don’t necessarily make good doctors.</p>
<p>^ Average starting salary for a law librarian is about $45,000, a bit on the low side. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment for law librarians is projected to grow by 8 percent between 2008 and 2018, about the same as the average for all occupations. All that automation is a two-edged sword; it means there’s less demand for librarians to do some traditional tasks, but more demand for tech-savvy librarians to train others to use electronic databases and such.</p>
<p>By the way, the BLS also expects employment of lawyers to grow by 13% between 2008-2018. Much of that growth will be in small firms and solo practices in areas of the country with growing populations, and in-house counsel at corporations and government agencies. Many businesses are trying to control their legal costs by cutting back on the work they give law firms, negotiating for lower fees, or moving away from the traditional “billable hours” model in which law firms had an incentive to put lots of lawyer time into transactions because the client was paying the bills. It’s often cheaper to have salaried in-house attorneys do some of that work. A lot of the gloom-and-doom talk you hear about lawyer’s employment prospects comes from people at the law firms that have been hit by these new economic realities, and law students who in times past might have stood a fair chance of being hired by these firms. Not to say that there’s not a glut of newly minted lawyers coming out of 3rd and 4th-tier law schools; there certainly is. But good students from good law schools (NOT just the T14) will continue to have good employment prospects, so long as they don’t define career success by whether they land a $160,000 entry-level job at a high-priced law firm. Those jobs will be very scarce for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the latest BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for lawyers:</p>
<p>“What I meant to suggest is that a prospective law student who does not get admitted to Harvard or Yale should not conclude that the chances of obtaining a federal clerkship are slim to none (which is what I read Hanna as saying, but perhaps I misunderstood). In my mind, ten percent is a decent chance.”</p>
<p>^^^^ I think you’re mincing words. The more coveted the clerkship, the more likely it will be filled by a T10 (T6?) student, with the real plums most often going to Harvard/Yale. Either you agree w/ the premise or not - - if you agree, it doesn’t matter whether you characterize that likelihood as “slim to none.”</p>
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<p>“Just wondering: About what do legal aid lawyers make? DS has high ideals, wants to help people, etc., but also wants to make a living wage.”</p>
<p>^^^^ Public interest (legal aid/services) salaries vary depending on region and whether it’s a “living wage” depends on how well you want to live.</p>
<p>Legal aid lawyers are the scavengers here in NYC. They have their name of the lists are are assigned cases whenever their names makes make to the top. This does not happen enough to make a living wage here. Too many lawyers. So what many of them do is hang around the courts and look for business, handing out their cards and soliciting those who are not yet represented. Then when they get a client they have to haggle for the fee and then work on getting it from the person. It isn’t the type of work most people imagine when they sign up for law school.</p>
<p>Law school charge what they can get. Why should they lower their prices? One of the things that do make people hesitate about going to law school is the cost. We’d have even more lawyers if we reduced that cost significantly.</p>