I’ve been reading so many negative things about law school, that I’m starting to have second thoughts about it. I’ve read ‘horror’ stories about the debt people have accumulated over the 3 years of their degree. Is the cost greater than the benefit at this point in time? Is it only worth it to go if you have financial aid plus get into a top 10? Thoughts?
It depends on each person’s personal circumstances. Generally speaking, law school is a bad idea for about 1/2 to 2/3 of entering law students.
I think if you can get out with little to no debt and attend a school in the top 40 or so, and assuming the student really wants to be a lawyer, it’s a fine choice.
My D is planning on law school. I think Law is still a viable career field but in order to have a good chance of getting a high paying job that actually requires a law degree you need to attend a highly ranked law school and you need to do finish high in your class. Most of the horror stories you read about students graduating with a massive debt load and difficulty finding jobs are students who attended a lower ranked law school and/or performed poorly in law school
@Wje9164be: For the record, “attending a lower ranked school” and “performed poorly” comprise the significant majority of law students. You can add “took on significant debt” to that list as well.
I definitely agree it takes a certain type of person to do well in law. The main trait would have to be an amazing work ethic in my opinion. Oh well, who knows, perhaps law schools will magically lower tuition when I get my Bachelor’s two years from now 
Work ethic has little to do with success in law school. Plenty of people just read some prior student’s outline and get an A. Plenty brief every case and get a B. Law school tests a specific skill that people just don’t use anywhere else. Including in law practice. Nevertheless, since grades are all employers have, that’s what they use.
Seems to me like those people who put in minimal effort would not make it far in the real world. At some point bs’ing your way through your life won’t work out. What happens when they are introduced to a whole new level of work at a big private law firm…
I get what you are saying though, some people would have the ability to do that but not all. If you combine this ability along with a work ethic then that’s when you are talking about the big bucks Can you describe this specific skill set that you’re talking about? @Demosthenes49
Is law worth it? What’s the alternative? If you didn’t go to law school, what would you do instead?
The alternative would be to graduate with an Economics degree and try to get a solid starting job/work experience and perhaps get an MBA down the road. I don’t know if law is worth it which is why I’m asking people in the “Law School” thread who might have some experience with this. I would personally love to study law. @roethlisburger
I graduated law school in the mid-80’s with 28K in debt, which is about 100K nowadays. I didn’t go to a top school and I didn’t get a job with a white shoe firm. I have never once regretted going to law school or pursuing a career in law. I went to a lower level law school that gave me an almost free ride (most of my loan money went to pay rent and board to my parents and for my other necessities of life) and from which I graduated second in my class. It helped that I never had the desire to work in one of the big firms and that I did have a desire to try cases. It also helped that I had solid grades. Once I got my first job, nobody ever asked again where I went to school, just when I was admitted to the Bar.
There is plenty of work for people who want to be lawyers and aren’t wed to the goal of going to a T-14 or a Wall Street firm.
Even at T14 schools, fewer than half the students will end up at Biglaw firms. Of those first-year associates who get jobs at Biglaw, the percentage who will make equity partner is in the single digits. Law is a bi-modal career field, with vast differences in salary between big law and everyone else. So from a purely financial perspective, I wouldn’t expect the JD to pay off more than the MBA, unless you go to a top 20 law school and graduate in the top third of your class. However, not everything in life is about money. Demonsthenes49 is the lawyer, and I’m not, and so can provide better advice.
Thank you for your insight @techmom99 that’s refreshing to hear after everything else I’ve been reading. All I’m reading is “T-14 or you’re screwed!!”
I absolutely agree. People that skate by in law school inevitably either turn it on for practice or get counseled out. That doesn’t help their harder-working compatriots though, who never got the opportunity to walk in the door due to low grades.
Sure! Although it probably won’t help. There are plenty of books out there talking about law school exams. Everyone reads them but they didn’t seem to make much difference when I went. Law school exams invariably test your ability to read a fact pattern, discern from that fact pattern every legally relevant point, apply the law as you learned it, point out where it could go either way, say which way it will go and why, and do all of this under extreme time pressure.
A good law applicant is someone that has a solid GPA, solid LSAT, and first-hand experience with law practice. That person can identify to a reasonable degree of specificity what kind of law they want (e.g., transactional or litigation; labor or M&A; etc.). That person has at least one year of work experience, hopefully in something relevant to the practice area.
@techmom99: It’s just not true that there’s plenty of work for those who don’t want T-14 or Biglaw. The BLS data shows only half of law grads getting legal jobs. Those jobs skew disproportionately toward the better law schools. This also doesn’t factor in debt, which can make a wide array of otherwise passable law jobs unreachable.
It may be that fewer than 1/2 of students at top-14 schools end up in Biglaw, but for many or most of them, it’s by choice. At HYS, I’d guess that pretty much everyone who wants a Biglaw job gets it, but a lot of people don’t want one.
I think it depends on your goals, your financial situation, and your tolerance for risk.
Are you ok working in a small law firm or starting a solo practice? This will typically mean practice areas like family law, personal injury, real estate, DUI defense, etc. If yes, did you get into one of the top 50 or so law schools? If yes, did you get a large scholarship or do you have family/ personal money to cover the cost? If yes, then sure.
If you’re shooting to work in BigLaw, in-house at a major company, or at a competitive nonprofit/ government agency, then the decision tree is different. Did you get into a T14? And do you have a realistic plan for paying tuition (scholarship, family money, LRAP, etc)?
Obviously, this is very simplified. Some public interest fields care more about connections and demonstrated passion than what school you went to. And some people from lower ranked schools still get competitive jobs — it’s just higher risk. LawSchoolTransparency has a lot of good stats on the employment outcomes and costs at just about every law school.
Law school is a bad investment for a lot of people. They take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to go to a school where fewer than half of graduates actually get jobs as attorneys, and most of the ones who do get jobs still don’t have high enough salaries to manage their debt.
That said, it’s not a bad investment for everyone. I heard so much doom and gloom about law school, that I put off applying for a long time after I graduated undergrad, even though I now think it’s the right choice for me. If you really want to be a lawyer and you have good stats, then I think it can be a good career (especially compared to a lot of alternatives for non-STEM people). And even if you don’t have perfect stats, as long as you work hard and are ok not working in the big firms, then I think it can be a good choice too. [Disclaimer that I’m still in law school, so not actually an expert yet on the legal market.]
On the bimodal distribution of law salaries: https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/the-toppling-of-top-tier-lawyer-jobs/
Maybe, though if someone’s taking out $200k in loans in addition to whatever they took out in undergrad, it seems like a lot of them would almost have to go after the money, at least until their student loans are paid off or else find some type of loan forgiveness program.
IF you can go AND graduate with little or no debt, law can be a useful skill set. I went to law school back decades ago and graduated with no debt (got lots of merit and need-based aid).
I would advise against accummulating significant debt. There are MANY folks who graduate with huge debt and determine they hate practicing law and/or can’t get a job in the field that can help them pay off their debt.
If I went to Law for an example at Florida State(not saying I am) I would get in state tuition, financial aid, and maybe some scholarships. I would probably walk away with 20-30k in debt for law. Maybe more. If I got accepted to a T-14, which is going to be likely for me because I’m going to finish my Economics degree in 1 1/2 year and take 4-5 months for studying the LSAT, that’s when the hard decision comes in. To accumulate 150k+ in debt and more opportunities or go with the T-50 and risk not even being hired. It just seems so risky to get into big law… I wish there were more guaranteed ways to earn a comfortable living after graduating with a law degree, seems like working your a** off for 3 years would grant that.
@roethlisburger, H at least (and likely Y and S) has a very generous low income protection plan program that provides loan forgiveness.
@mevans6, I see my friends in business and for the ones with comparable educational backgrounds/IQs (I’d guess), they work fewer hours and make more money, compared to us lawyers.
Law school does not necessarily involve “working your…off for 3 years”. I greatly enjoyed law school and recall it as one of the more enjoyable phases of life.