<p>Absolutely. It’s a bit of a sliding scale, although I know a recent Harvard Law School grad who is working for Blue Cross Blue Shield in Massachusetts. Gone are the days when just graduating from a top law school guarantees a great job.</p>
<p>Agrree with An I do; even going back to 2008 it was clear that H/Y/S grads in the bottom 3rd of their class were not getting GREAT jobs but maybe medicore to ok jobs that pay under 80k. A fordham top 25% is better off financially than a harvard bottom 30% because one gets into top firms or at least the chance but the other grades are too low to be considered. So you might be better off getting As in fordham than Cs in harvard</p>
<p>Well, a number of top law school grads go into public interest law, which is why they’re not making a ton of money; however, all the top schools have loan repayment programs for students who choose to do PI. So a lot of those guys aren’t actually having to pay off their debts as long as they continue working for nonprofits. Not everyone wants to work for a firm.</p>
<p>As for unemployment, it’s not exaggerated. The situation really is awful, esp. for people at non-T14 schools. The advice I always hear is “if you can’t get into T14 don’t go,” unless you know where you want to live/work and can get into a top regional school there (e.g. you want to live in Texas and can get into UT).</p>
<p>You guys really believe that the bottom 75-80% of law school students will have wasted their time in law school? No matter what you do you have a leg up on EVERY college grad out there…and people with undergrad degrees are unemployed at around 5% these days. How does it make sense that going to law school leaves me worse off than if I had gone and found a job with my B.S.? At the very worst we should be getting jobs at the top end of the entry level undergrad pay scale. The stories about people waiting tables and cleaning houses are ridiculous, these people have absolutely no other marketable skills? If we’re useless then how does anyone in a paralegal program ever get a job? I have a theory, and its just a thought, but I think the problem is entitlement, people aren’t willing to start at the bottom and get their hands dirty. They want 200k off the bat and pass up everything “below them” until they end up washing cars…</p>
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<p>No, you don’t. You can’t get a job as, say, an engineer with a polisci degree and a JD.</p>
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<p>Why? And do you think that no recent college grads are waiting tables?</p>
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<p>Maybe not; that’s probably why a lot of them went to law school in the first place. They shared your assumption that a TTT JD would give them some kind of huge advantage.</p>
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<p>I would assume the ones cleaning houses are getting their hands pretty dirty. It’s sort of bizarre to criticize people both for having a huge sense of entitlement and for taking menial service jobs. In law, if you start at the bottom, you generally stay at the bottom. You are almost certainly not going to work your way up from doc reviewer to associate. </p>
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<p>What exactly do you think they’re passing up? What law jobs do you assume are out there that people are turning down in favor of manual labor?</p>
<p>To Fly The Helo: You are considerably worse off if you have incurred $100,000 plus in debt not counting what you might already have from your undergraduate education. The legal market is saturated. Having said that, the cream always rises to the top, so the top 15% at their regional law schools will probably be fine. I have to agree with the folks who say you need to go to a T14 school (and still need to do well there), or to the leading regional school where you plan to practice and do REALLY well, e.g., law review, if you want to justify that kind of indebtedness.</p>
<p>I would also like to add, it’s clear you are worse off as a JD in a lot of situations. Unemployment for college grads in their twenties is actually worse than you say (around 8-9% actually, which closely aligns with overall unemployment) but unemployment for people with a JD is around 12-13%. You are also, either in debt, or have lost three years of your life in a now meaningless masters degree. And, there are quite a few stories out there about employers for entry level jobs that require a bachelors, denying the person with the JD because he/she is over qualified and they worry it will be a liability.</p>
<p>ITE everyone has had to pare back their expectations. There are precious few fields where graduates can simply finish their degree and then expect to have just the job they were training and hoping for. If you think engineering is the ticket, then you haven’t spoken to many young engineers lately. Architecture is abysmal. A lot of recent MBA’s wish they could get a job. Medicine seems to be holding its own with plenty of promise going forward, although it has its problems, too. The point is, law is just one profession which is under threat. It is not unique. Today’s students have a lot of challenges and need to approach graduate education realistically and with eyes wide open. All along the way it is wise to develop plans ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’. There is no perfect solution about how to thrive in this recession.</p>
<p>^^^Architecture has been in trouble for awhile, but you are out of your mind if you think any of the rest of the things you mentioned are anywhere near as bad as law. Talked to new engineers? I see plenty of engineers with 2.0 gpa’s get 50k jobs, in fact, I just saw a kid from an unaccredited school get a 53k job. Engineering is as safe as it comes, in fact, there are more engineering jobs than there are engineers. If someone with a legit engineering degree is having trouble finding a job, they are unwilling to move. And the difference with MBA programs is that the graduates at the top schools have no real issues, where the JD graduates at top schools have issues finding jobs. Sure, there are plenty of ****ty MBA programs that compare to TTT law schools, but if you get into a top program, you are set.</p>
<p>I beg to disagree as to the MBA. While purely anecdotal, we know of a recent Columbia MBA who has had “issues” getting a job. Of course, she wanted to stay in NYC and has had to “settle” for a local position in a different sector from what she wanted.</p>
<p>It’s not over-exaggerated. Sub-median T-14 students are struggling too.</p>
<p>Anne, I get what you are saying, and i’ve seen some of that myself. Getting into a specific job or industry can be tough, depending on what it is. Even out of Columbia i’m sure there are people missing out on PE or BB who want it. But the difference between MBA’s and Jd’s is that MBA’s at top school can all find a good, well paying job. They may not get M/B/B or GS/Barclays but they can still find a good job. Jd’s, that isn’t always the case, or when they do find a job, it pays well below what their peers are making. That isn’t the case for MBA’s.</p>
<p>Please remember, too, that even for those newly minted law graduates fortunate enough to find the legal employment of their dreams, they may still end up unemployed a year or two or several years later. </p>
<p>Many, if not most, unemployed attorneys with “experience” (since one year of experience hardly makes one experienced as an attorney) are not unemployed because they lacked necessary skills or talent. Many “experienced” attorneys without jobs were in the wrong place at the wrong time – worked or the wrong partners, at the wrong company or in the wrong practice area. In my experience, having attended one law school versus another has little or no bearing on one’s likelihood of being laid off. </p>
<p>I regularly receive resumes from newly minted law graduates looking for their first jobs, not infrequently offering to work for free just to gain some experience, as well as very experienced attorneys with stellar resumes willing to take a huge salary cut and a significant step back in seniority just to find legal work. </p>
<p>In my opinion, law unemployment is not exaggerated.</p>
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<p>Life is not academic. Life is full of real consequences. No one wants to hire an over-educated and inexperienced person. In the end, you have to convince someone that you are the best candidate for the job. A “JD” behind your name isn’t that convincing.</p>
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Pretty amusing how an average police officer earns far more than an average lawyer and worked a lot less in college?
Books =/= monies.</p>
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<p>That is rather naive, or just marketing spin from local law schools. The simple fact is that law school grads have a leg up for jobs requiring legal education. Period. Why would an employer hire a LS grad for an entry level position in say, writing press releases, when that employer can hire an newly graduated English major or Comm major? (Hint: the employer would not even consider the LS grad for the job bcos they are more likely to leave once a legal job opens up. OTOH, the Lit major is less likely to keep looking.)</p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know about that. Even in the worst case scenario, you can always simply omit the law degree from your resume. There is no rule that stipulates that you must list every single degree that you have. </p>
<p>If the problem is that you then need to explain the gap on your resume, you can always come up with a creative explanation; perhaps the most straightforward one being that you actually were in graduate school, even law school, but you then decided that it wasn’t for you and so you left. There is no need to mention the fact that you actually graduated.</p>
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<p>Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far. According to the BLS, the median lawyer in the country made a whopping $110k a year, compared to the median cop who made $50-75k. </p>
<p>Granted, a strong dichotomy exists in the law profession where the lawyers in the top hump do very well, and those in the bottom hump do not. But that doesn’t obviate the point that, on median, lawyers are paid quite well, even after factoring in police office overtime.</p>
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<p>Yeah, but that’s true of practically everybody in this economy - particularly those with only bachelor’s degrees. Plenty of them are also laid off after only 1-2 years of working.</p>
<p>sakky:</p>
<p>while I don’t disagree with your post #36, your suggested ‘worst case scenario’ only strengthens my point: having a LS degree is not a ‘leg up’ outside of the legal profession.</p>
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<p>Um, no you don’t. You really really don’t. If you want to be a lawyer then obviously a JD is needed, but outside that it really doesn’t help that much… </p>
<p>Am I going to hire the person with just a bachelors and several years experience and proven track record or the rookie of the same age with a JD… obviously it’s a case by case basis but more often than not I’m going to hire the person with experience and a proven track record. </p>
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<p>It’s not quite as simple as ‘median salaries.’ Yes the ‘median salary’ is different but the cop didn’t have six figures of debt starting out. Also, the cop typically gets a nice cushy set of government backed benefits. Around where I live most cops retire in their late 40s or early 50s on full tax free pensions… so you have to consider that for 15-20 years (or more) of their career the cop is getting paid those sums without actually working whereas the lawyer is still slaving away. It’s a trade-off for sure, but you can’t just look at average salaries like that. </p>
<p>Please note, I’m not trying to be all doom and gloom here but this idea that you just go get a JD and will instantly be bestowed a six figure salary and be in high demand is pure law school marketing nonsense. The legal profession is undergoing seismic changes at the moment that, for one, means there are far more trained lawyers than there is demand for lawyers. Legal can be a very rewarding career but know what you’re getting into.</p>