Reading these threads just makes me laugh. You’d think that the only lawyers who are making are living went to the top 5 schools and work in Biglaw. The rest are apparently in debtor’s prison. There are thousands of lawyers across this country working in medium-sized cities who have perfectly nice lives. You have to be smart about your investment, but some of the statements on here are extreme. I guess it’s to be expected on College Confidential, where people seem to have an interesting view of the world and the meaning of success.
OP - my husband is a patent attorney who does litigation. We live in a medium-sized city. He works hard but enjoys the work. We have a nice living. He was an undergrad engineering major and had no desire to be an engineer. Why would you spend your life doing something you don’t want to do?
No doubt, but there are also thousands of lawyers across the country who just passed the bar and cannot get ANY legal job. Hint: the US graduates 2x as many JD’s as it needs. Thus, on average, 50% of recent grads are unable to find a job requiring the degree that they just spend 3 years of their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars for.
Are you suggesting that those ~50% were not “smart about [their] investment”?
Yes I am. There are plenty of law schools that are not worth the investment. But my point is that there are plenty of law schools outside of the “T-14” where graduates are having fine careers.
My sister went to a smaller, non-T14 school (probably 100 spaces lower). She was a partner at a big NY firm (but not in NY). Brother’s girlfriend went to the same no-name school and she’s a patent attorney making big bucks.
I worked for the government and most attorneys didn’t go to Ivys or big name schools. We worked, we were promoted, we traveled to exciting places.