<p>A</a> Tuition Secret: In Law School, It Pays to Be Above Average | ABA Journal - Law News Now</p>
<p>$160,000 starting salary, 50% of people at top 1 schools go to biglaw? Sounds mad nice...</p>
<p>Another secret - water is wet.</p>
<p>Infinite_truth, there is nothing nice about big law. 75 hour workweeks, not all of which are billable hours and include weekends, very high cost of living in NYC and the stringent NY taxes which cut the $160k way down. Not to mention the $150k debt you bring with you from a top law school.</p>
<p>There is plenty of Biglaw outside of New York - in Chicago, DC, LA, San Francisco, Silicon Valley etc. </p>
<p>If any firms have 75 hour weeks, it's very few, maybe Wachtell (which pays 320k, though) and Cravath. You'll never have a light load, but there are market firms which are 50-55 hrs/week - according to an ABA survey, 53.2% of associates at large firms work fewer than 60 hours/week. </p>
<p>And as is the central point of the very article which this thread is about, you don't need to take on that 150k of debt if you are willing to compromise prestige a bit. My school is paying me to attend. </p>
<p>Now, that's not to say Biglaw is "nice", and it's certainly not for everyone, or even most people, but no job is heaven, and satisfaction among lawyers is actually pretty high.</p>
<p>It's not the number of hours -- it's the lack of control over one's life. If you are a reasonably smart and dilligent person, it's not too hard to work long hours at your own convenience. It's much harder to work long hours at someone else's convenience.</p>
<p>lskinner has made an excellent point.</p>
<p>In addition, the reality is that one doesn't consistently work XX number of hours per week (by whatever survey you read). You work whatever number of hours is required of you by the partners and the clients. If that number is 90 hours one week, then that is the number of hours you will work, regardless of any family or social obligations you had that particular week. You might be slow a different week. Typically, you don't stay slow for long as someone will take notice that you are slow and make you busy quickly. If you stay slow, even if your practice area is simply slow as a result of the overall economy (like structured finance attorneys right now), you may wish for more hours in order to protect your job.</p>
<p>Of course, if you graduate from Crap School of Law then you can expect long hours and low pay...if you find a job.</p>
<p>^hahahahahahaha</p>
<p>Unfortunately, previous posters have not fastened on the main points of this article, which are:
[quote]
If you want to save money on law school tuition, your best bet may be to gain admission to a school where your LSAT and GPA scores are above its median.</p>
<p>Admissions officers have increasingly redeployed student aid in an effort to attract students with better credentials who will boost their rankings in U.S. News & World Report, two law professors assert in an article for the National Law Journal.</p>
<p>About half of the students at large law schools receive student aid, and those who get it tend to be above the median, say the authors, law professors William Henderson of Indiana University and Andrew Morriss of the University of Illinois. The schools often make up for the aid by charging full tuition to those below the median. These students will graduate with more debt and, if they go to a lower-tier school, limited ability to earn big salaries to pay back the money.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>and </p>
<p>
[quote]
For the vast majority of students who are not admitted to top-tier national law schools, these figures lead to a simple conclusion,” the authors write. “Slavishly following the U.S. News rankings will not significantly increase one's large-firm job prospects. And the excess debt that students incur is likely to undermine their career options.</p>
<p>By focusing on price rather than rankings, they will have the financial freedom to pursue jobs that will build valuable professional skills and mentoring relationships or leave the law altogether, without debt, to pursue other life ambitions
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Dadofsam is making an excellent point-</p>
<p>Last year, GW and to some extent for this admission cycle WUSTL (Both top 20/25 schools ?), seem to give ALOT of scholarship money out to kids who have fairly solid T-14 stats. It may not sway a HYS applicant, but I'm sure this might be a very tempting offer to some who are applying to lower T-14 schools.</p>
<p>Sure it's good to save the money- but to me the better benefit is that the LS grad with little debt may have more employment options than a 26 year old who has $180,000 loans to pay off. And don't even think about it- but if you find the love of your life in law school, and they too are $180,00 in debt--OH MY!!</p>
<p>You may find more LS grads going into public service law or work for non-profits if their debt level is low.
The flip side is- if you are greatly in debt, you may look to BIGLAW to help pay back student loans. And Biglaw hours and pressure doesn't seem to lead to a very balanced life style.</p>
<p>It is an important decision for each and everyone of you to make .</p>
<p>But some of the law schools that don't hand out merit money have FAR better loan forgiveness programs, which is something to factor in too. This means that if you decide to take that public interest job, some or all of your law school loans--and in some cases, even undergraduate loans--will be forgiven. And some of them actually do give need based financial aid that isn't all in loans, so that's a factor too.</p>
<p>same way geographic diversity plays a role in UG admission, that may still hold true for law school admission too.</p>
<p>just spent a little time on LSD/LSN and tried to see how kids with similar stats to my d fared this cycle. I always categorized her stats as "cusp of T-14 acceptance" 167 LSAT 3.7+ GPA. Kids with those stats are being accepted to T-14's- but more waitlists and rejections than acceptances.
but what I did notice, is that for many of the accepted kids, their homestates were Alabama-Georgia and other less represented states.</p>
<p>Oh Well !!</p>