The crash of a decade ago triggered changes that have turned out to be permanent. As I mentioned above, clients are deciding what they will pay and what they won’t. They often won’t pay for paralegal time, which had been a money-maker previously. Same with time for first-year associates. They now expect alternate billing rates and scrutinize every penny spent. There is now an industry-wide use of contract attorneys, and many partnerships have either de-equitized partners or have moved to a two-tier partnership. Outsourcing is now huge and before around the time of the downturn, that was not common at all for lawyers, as well as what Blossom said - using non-lawyers to perform tasks that had previously been handled by lawyers. There is huge money, it’s not that. It’s just that the downturn triggered changes that have made very large differences that need to be considered when choosing a career. But law has always been tougher than many people think, particularly at the Big Law level. Think of it as a long-term and high-stakes survivor and you aren’t far off. But, again, it’s a great career. It’s just not a great option if you have a lot of debt, have a degree from a lower-ranked law school (rankings are God in law), or don’t have some special reason for knowing you will get a good job.
The legal field has restructured post 2008 as Zoosermom points out, and I don’t think the old days are coming back.
There was a time where someone in a small city or town could hang a shingle and make a nice living on real estate- closing, title searches, etc. That’s been a race to the bottom financially-thanks to the internet, consumers now realize that they don’t need a lawyer for many of the steps (and in some states, they barely need a lawyer at all).
There was a time where doing wills and divorces meant a nice living. I know people who have pretty much done “do it yourself” divorces- downloaded the forms, why pay a retainer if you and your spouse are in agreement over the property issues? Yes- when millionaires split up and there are multiple properties involved and crazy issues over estate planning and kids, still plenty of money in that. But for average assets and incomes- save yourselves the legal fees and do it yourself. Same with simple wills. It may be prudent to have a lawyer review what you’ve downloaded to make sure it’s error free but that’s a fraction of the cost of preparing a will. I know someone who handled a parents estate start to finish without a lawyer. Appeared in probate court carrying thirty lbs. of files and “Probate for Dummies” or something like that, the judge laughed and said “if I use a term you aren’t familiar with, raise your hand and I’ll explain”. Entire process took an hour in court, maybe 50 hours of admin work after that. Why pay a lawyer if someone with good reading comprehension skills can do it themselves?
At the higher echelons, the consolidation is less about downloading forms, and more about big corporations being judicious about what they’ll spend money on. A huge, global IP case? Yes- they’ll go to the mat. They want the top, they’ll pay for it. A simple case of an employee claiming unlawful termination? Likely not worthy of calling outside counsel and all the hours they’ll bill for endless depositions. A few hours of an HR person’s time doing fact-gathering, and a quiet meeting with an in-house lawyer and the former employee to sign a few forms, cut a check, and make it go away. Back in 2005? We’d have called outside counsel immediately. Now? It’s just on an Employee Relations person’s to-do list.
My HR team knows a LOT more about law than we did 10 years ago. Immigration? Non-competes/non-disclosures? Allegations of a hostile work environment? Pay disparity/discrimination? We may need a lawyer (in-house, very rarely outside counsel except for something which is potential dynamite) for a quick check-in, but the bulk of the work can be handled by non-lawyers. Back in the day, you had an application for an immigration case- an O-1 visa (someone exceptional… a PhD or someone famous from overseas that you were trying to hire in the US). We’d pay an outside immigration firm to do the entire application, start to finish. Guess what- most of that is filling out forms and xeroxing. You need supporting materials-- publications, citations in scholarly works, awards, etc. We don’t need a law firm to Google!!! It’s all out there. We can put together the application, use a lawyer for a ten minute review of the documentation, and off it goes.
@doschicos: I think it’s a combination of several factors.
- Massive oversupply. As bluebayou mentioned, we produce double the demand in JDs per year. (Note to the OP's daughter: she will be one of them.) Most of them are never in the running for the top law jobs, but they sure weigh down the bottom and--to some degree--the middle.
- Technological advances. You don't need 50 attorneys doing discovery/due diligence anymore. You can do it with 5 and some decent computers. Same with filings, or records searches, or anything information-gathering oriented. Reliance on forms works well for the lower-end work too (i.e., setting up uncomplicated wills, starting a corporation, small claims), though it doesn't work for anything particularly complicated.
- Increased in-house hiring. Companies have generally increased their internal law resources. Why pay retail when you can do your commodity work wholesale? Bigger ticket items like mergers or larger litigation is still usually outsourced. While you might expect the increase in in-house jobs to offset the decrease in demand for outside counsel, it hasn't happened, partly because in-house positions often demand BigLaw resumes (so it's the same pool of top applicants) and because of #2.
- Squeezing the middle. The middle class hasn't seen wealth gains comparable to the state of the economy. That means less money to hire lawyers, and so most people don't. They do without, which mostly works fine, and pay the price when it doesn't. Law firms have also gotten into the game, realizing that the top equity partners can squeeze non-equity partners because where else are they gonna go? Companies do the same, refusing to pay for various things. They're willing to do without, so firms cut whatever they can't get paid for.
Also don’t overlook all the legal positions with the federal government. Those jobs pay well, have excellent benefits and more reasonable hours. There is a long process to get hired say by the Department of Justice or Securities and Exchange Commission but there are some good locations around the country for federal attorneys and judges. Many men and women are discovering that federal jobs leave more time for family as well.
best path in the meantime?
Study for the LSAT.
Governmental positions are fantastic. My current firm is practically a pipeline to the DOJ. Many people start their careers in such law firms knowing they want to have a career in the government. So they make sure they use their time here to pay down all their debt because the salaries at governmental jobs are 1/3 to 1/2 of what they were making here as mid-level and senior associates. Most of those jobs want experience and are averse to significant debt, so as Demosthenes49 mentioned, it’s the same tippy-top pool of applicants.
quote you are black and receive admission to one of the top 14 law schools.
[/quote]
I’m sorry…what?
Ordinarylives, law firms have separate recruiting paths for black students and some Hispanic students. Those students are so highly coveted that in my opinion, debt is worth it because they are pretty much guaranteed excellent employment opportunities. As, I think, they should be.
^Not even going there.
I used to teach Literature and the Law. Lots of students asked for letters of reference. When they were weak, poor writing, low GPA , I would explain that the letter would not be strong and maybe law wasn’t for them. Many asked for one anyway. I would write things like “X is developing the ability to create a logical argument.“ Most got in.
I asked a law professor about admissions. She said law schools were not getting sufficient applicants to support the structure. She said that even the elite schools were very open, though they admitted to the spring semester to keep the stats up (ratings are based on fall admissions). According to her, the worst thing about it was that LSAT scores predict passing the bar exam. Schools are admitting students who had little chance of passing.
This is all anecdotal, but I started warning UG students. Buyer beware
^Yes, I think you need to highly intelligent to handle a position in law handling complex material. I suspect that more than half of JD graduates are just not capable of doing the work.
Excellent point about debt. These young lawyers have some debt, but not crushing debt. They took the lower cost options and
It is not just law that recalibrated after the crash. I work in civil engineering consulting and things are much tighter than pre-2008. Every penny is scrutinized and there are more individual practioners and companies who are willing to work for much lower prices. Having computers has eliminated secretarial positions, as we type everything ourselves (rather writing it out for someone else to type!).
^^ph, puhleeze. Most legal stuff is not complex at all. It ain’t rocket science.
^Well, as I referred to the stuff that IS complex…
Sorghum, bb regularly weighs in on the legal profession. although s/he is not a lawyer and has never attending law school. My guess is that not being burdened by actual legal knowledge or experience makes one an expert in this area.
Exactly. Somewhere around 50% of law school grads will never get a job that requires a JD. There are simply too many law schools that will admit students who haven’t done their due diligence and as long as they have a pulse and a checkbook, they’re in.
Sylvan8798, she should:
- Take a personality test and keep track of what she chooses to do when she can choose what to do: is she an introvert or extravert, a morning person or night person, one who learns by talking or one who learns by reading, etc.? And what are her interests? Knowing herself will help her know what type of practice she will want. Please also keep in mind that the number of people who do after law school the exact thing that they planned to do before entering law school is about zero.
For example, I am a morning person and don’t care for abstract ideas. Thus the 10 years I spent in a finance law practice (late nights of drafting documents to move money around from one account to another) were a waste and I could have avoided it if I had known myself better before falling into it.
- Intern or otherwise work in a law firm. Or at least spend time with lawyers.
- Take a practice LSAT and look at law school admissions info to see what schools she can end up at with her grades and estimated LSAT.
Blossom is correct: decent in-house jobs require law firm work experience.
My niece worked for NGOs for a few years after graduation and was considering law school. She was not interested in big law or big money. She took out loans over $200K to pay for her T14 tuition and living expenses but after graduation, reality set in and she has been working in big law to pay down her debts and to have some savings. Her fiance also works in big law and they have delayed planning a wedding because they hardly see each other and have no time for planning.
Another sobering thought, an associate deputy public defender’s salary in California is $67K/yr.
OP wrote: “Daughter is two years out of college, working for a marketing research firm. She is considering law school…”
LSAT prep is the single best use of her time if headed to law school. Once she has an actual LSAT score, then it is time to decide whether she should retake the LSAT, apply to law schools or consider another career.
What did your daughter study in undergraduate school ? Does she like market research ? These are important questions to consider as there are other options for her depending upon her answers to these two questions.
^D has a double major in Communications and Business with a marketing concentration. The firm she works for does research for hospitals, medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc. She is doing well there but doesn’t find it particularly interesting or meaningful. She graduated with a 4.0 GPA, and I think she is a pretty good writer.