<p>bluedevilmike makes a good point. biglaw lawyers make big money, but it's peanuts compared to what those in the finance industry make. However one also has to understand that getting a job in finance, the good areas, and moving up the ladder is extremely hard. Whereas we can all get good grades + lsat score and wind up at a law school that can almost assure us of a biglaw job there are only a few schools where you stand a good chance of landing a big ibanking job.</p>
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Whereas we can all get good grades + lsat score and wind up at a law school that can almost assure us of a biglaw job. . .
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<p>Wow. I had no idea it was so easy.</p>
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I have to agree with Mr. Payne here. The monthly debt service costs associated with the amount of student loans that many law students incur is hardly a workable option.
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<p>Well, I would say that if you can't get into a top-tier law school, then go to night school. Sure, it will take longer for you to graduate. But at least you'll be able to hold down a full-time job in the meantime and hence potentially avoid a large debt load. Granted, you won't be able to save any money either, but at least you'll be able to minimize your debt. There are quite a few respectable law schools (i.e. Georgetown) that offer night programs.</p>
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Wow. I had no idea it was so easy.
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<p>It is relatively easy. If you really want it all you have to do is study....</p>
<p>Are law salaries really so dismal? </p>
<p>Some have said that $60K is a respectable salary for young adults and I agree that it is, but after all that education, it seems kind of low. Most engineering majors can make that right out of school with just a bachelors. </p>
<p>I'll be a senior engineering student this fall and have planned on law school for a while. I'd like to do a dual urban planning/law program but all this talk about unemployment and dismal salaries has me a little worried. The reality is that right out of undergraduate I should be able to get an engineering job at upwards of $70K. This is in a major city but the cost of living isn't ridiculously high. As I've said many times on these forums, I'm not wanting or expecting a high paying law career but if my salary isn't going to be any higher than engineering, I question whether or not it's worth the investment. I won't incur the $200,000 debt because I have gotten a generous gift which will cover most of it, but I also don't want to waste money. Then theres the issue of unemployment of lawyers...</p>
<p>There is always a place for lawyers, especially those from T1 schools. The 60k figure I quoted was from a very low cost of living city (Bakersfield, CA for those that are curious). </p>
<p>The difference between the law degree and a BS for an engineer is, in my mind, the wage/salary ceiling. While a BS/JD might start relatively near each other (assuming the JD works in a small legal market), a JD will continue to generate a larger salary every few years at, what I believe to be, a faster rate than "just" a BS.</p>
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The difference between the law degree and a BS for an engineer is, in my mind, the wage/salary ceiling. While a BS/JD might start relatively near each other (assuming the JD works in a small legal market), a JD will continue to generate a larger salary every few years at, what I believe to be, a faster rate than "just" a BS.
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I've wondered about that. Practicing lawyers vs. practicing engineers, sure. However, that doesn't account for the vast number of law graduates that simply can't find work due to the massive glut of JDs. There is no such glut of engineers.</p>
<p>If one found the median salary of all JD holders and the median salary of all BS (and only BS) holders one would probably have an interesting data point.</p>
<p>if i were you, with an undergraduate major that qualified me for a job paying $70k right off the bat (my prospects were closer to the $30-$40k range for work i'd enjoy), I would've worked for a few years and saved some money. then, if i still wanted to be a lawyer, i could've taken the LSAT and seen where I was likely to get in. </p>
<p>once you know how your non-law career is progressing and what your legal employment options are likely to be at the law schools you can get into, it's a LOT easier to figure out if you're going to have a pay raise or a pay cut after law school, and if it's worth it to you. plus, if you live frugally now, you could borrow less and be less constrained by debt after law school.</p>
<p>anovice,
if you're an engineer, you could also consider doing patent law, which is in high demand, pays well, and should be a growing sector of law in the future.</p>
<p>Lawyer salaries are a reflection of supply and demand. </p>
<p>From ABA website:
195 law schools with about 49K openings per year</p>
<p>From AAMC website:
125 schools with about 17K openings per year</p>
<p>Judging by lawyer salary data the country needs only one third as many lawyers as doctors (as opposed to 3 times as many). Thus, if you graduate from outside the top 20 or so schools, your income may be similar to someone with a bachelor's degree. </p>
<p>In contrast, a pediatrician from the lowest ranked medical school makes the same salary as a pediatrician from Harvard medical school. In fact, even foreign medical graduates will make the same salary if they can get a job.</p>
<p>Solution: reduce law school enrollment by 80% or more through a combination of closing law schools and reducing class sizes. That way every graduating lawyer can have an income and job expectation in line with reality.</p>
<p>Well, but markets are supposed to have different prices for different goods. The fact that pediatricians from Nowhere State make the same money as Harvard grads is a reflection of a market failure, not a market success.</p>
<p>Specifically, it's a sign that the market is utterly incapable of filling even a small fraction of demand.</p>
<p>Of course, it's also a sign of payment schemes being very universal as well thanks to monopsony power and third-party payment as well as very hard-to-assess quality, but adequate supply would force some physicians out of the market if prices are all the same anyway.</p>
<p>The problem isn't (necessarily) too many lawyers. Bluntly, there's no such thing as too many of anything until you see more than frictional unemployment.</p>
<p>The problem is that there's too few doctors. Ridiculously too few doctors.</p>
<p>There are plenty of market forces to reward those who study hard and go to top ranked medical schools. Those people are more likely to be specialists and more likely to live/work in a desirable area. They are also more likely to be in academics.</p>
<p>However, the market forces against lawyers are so skewed that most are just hoping to land a job as a full time lawyer. This leads to questionable practices that have made this the most litiginous country in the world.</p>
<p>The point is not that medical students don't have an incentive to go to high ranked medical schools. The point is that these indicators tell you that there's a dramatic shortage (read: monopoly power) of physicians.</p>
<p>In other words, if you're trying to argue that there's too many lawyers, you need to pick a different profession to compare them to.</p>
<p>The distribution of physicians is more of an issue than a shortage of them (plenty in urban areas but too few in rural areas, plenty of specialists but too few primary care). </p>
<p>When you are in practice dealing with insurance companies you will realize that the "monopoly power" resides with the insurance companies. Even large medical groups are at their mercy.</p>
<p>Alas, let's give this thread back to the lawyers. You can continue this argument on the Pre-Med board if you wish. I don't think anybody will say there are too few lawyers in this country.</p>
<p>what if someone gets into harvard, columbia, etc. law school, but is ranked in the bottom half of the class. is that still enough to land a biglaw firm job? i mean it should be enough just getting into harvard law, without having the added pressure of graduating on top, right? or does it matter?</p>
<p>Hanna, a CC member that was in Career Services at HLS, said that even most of the students that had fallen through the cracks (those obviously not in the top half) were placed into T100 law firms if they wanted it.</p>
<p>Actually, there are too few lawyers in certain geographic areas and for certain populations - the same situation as with doctors. The Appalachian School of Law was formed as a non-profit in the '90s to address the severe shortage of lawyers in the Appalachian region.</p>
<p>"is that still enough to land a biglaw firm job?"</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>Bottom half of the top law schools may be enough to get you into "biglaw" right out of law school, but the grades could still come back to haunt you. I have worked with many, many candidates over the years who landed jobs with top firms out of law schools, but the grades were a real problem in a lateral move. I have seen Cs on a transcript work as a non-starter at many firms. With the grade inflation at some law schools though, you can fall out of the top of the class with Bs. I used to joke that I had never seen a transcript from UVA law school with a C on it. The toughest thing about the school seemed to be getting in. If these same law schools don't rank, then no on ever knows you are in the bottom half.</p>