Why law school? (especially now)

Graduate School Law School
21

<p>Here are some facts that might be useful for those considering the legal profession. </p>

<p>ABA accredited law schools awarded 43,518 awarded J.D.s in 2007; the number of students who had entered ABA law schools three years before was 48,239: <a href="http://www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/charts/stats%20-%201.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/charts/stats%20-%201.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>6,487 students dropped out of ABA-accredited law schools in 2007 without degrees: <a href="http://www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/charts/stats%20-%2017.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/charts/stats%20-%2017.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This means that roughly 87% of the people who enter ABA-accredited schools graduate.</p>

<p>In 2008, 83% of the bar examinees who had graduated from ABA-accredited law schools passed on their first attempt: <a href="http://www.ncbex.org/fileadmin/mediafiles/downloads/Bar_Admissions/2007stats.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ncbex.org/fileadmin/mediafiles/downloads/Bar_Admissions/2007stats.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This means that about 72% of the people who enter ABA-accredited law schools graduate, and pass the bar on the first attempt.</p>

<p>The incomes of first-year lawyers fall into a bimodal pattern: Empirical</a> Legal Studies: Distribution of 2006 Starting Salaries: Best Graphic Chart of the Year</p>

<p>Wages for the profession as a whole don’t fall into that pattern, however. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for all lawyers in May of 2006 was $102,470; the 25th percentile was $69,910, and the 75th percentile was $145,600.</p>

<p>Sole practitioners aren’t salaried, so they’re not included in those figures. </p>

<p>This chart seems to indicate that sole practitioners account for about 27% of the profession: <a href="ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ep/ind-occ.matrix/occ_pdf/occ_23-1011.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ep/ind-occ.matrix/occ_pdf/occ_23-1011.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

22

<p>Y'know, I understand the point of this thread, and it's a valuable one. In my own experience, though, it can be overstated, so I want to add my two cents. </p>

<p>I'm absolutely loving law school. Law hasn't been my lifelong passion (didn't decide on law school until fairly late in undergrad), and I'm not much of a stereotypical law student (hate public speaking, fairly quiet, non-confrontational, friendly). In general, I had logical reasons for wanting to pursue law, but I encountered so much negativity during the application process that I was terrified I'd be bored to death by the material, a social outcast surrounded by Type A psychopaths, and completely overwhelmed by work. I came anyway. I'm certainly working hard, but it's not soul-sucking. The material is interesting, and I have fantastic classmates.</p>

<p>Go in with your eyes wide open--plenty of students/practitioners do have unfortunate experiences, and I'm certainly not denying that. Be realistic (particularly about costs/benefits), but if you still feel that the study/practice of law is right for you, and that your choices make sense, don't let all of the negativity stand in your path. The experience, academic and/or career-wise, doesn't have to be a miserable one.</p>

23

<p>The legal profession isn't going to hell because of the rest of the economy. That sped it up, sure, but the industry's problems were well on their way to disaster long before anyone was concerned with credit default swaps.</p>

<p>This isn't a cycle. It's the start of what could very well be a permanent change in the legal industry. There was just no way this industry could perpetuate itself with the churning out of fifty thousand new lawyers year after year after year with not enough jobs to employ all of them. You've got the ABA accrediting new schools every single year, because that's their cash cow, and the problem just keeps compounding.</p>

<p>The jobs that do exist are changing and becoming fewer in number. We outsource work to India. People are seeing fewer lawyers for matters like tax, divorce, and probate because of software packages and pre-built forms sufficient for 90% of the populace. Mandatory arbitration is taking a lot of disputes out of the courtroom and not letting lawyers participate.</p>

<p>Large firms stopped pricing attorney salaries at anything approaching a reasonable fashion and firms couldn't keep up. Lockstep increases are a huge cause of all of the recent firm failings and mergers. I think lockstep will disappear within five years, as a matter of mere survival, but it's somewhat a question of whether it's too late to go back to the good ol' days of merit pay.</p>

<p>At some point the dam was going to burst, and here we are. But we've still got three years of fledging attorneys in the hopper, and at least a few more years after that of undergrads who are still convinced that law school is the best thing ever, and so long as there's an industry built on selling that myth and an economy so far in the ****ter that graduate school becomes an attractive alternative to unemployment (at least for three years), it ain't gonna get better.</p>

<p>Want to fix the industry? Unaccredit the entire third and fourth tiers. And not because of some elitist statement of quality, but because we don't need 200 law schools in this country, even if they were all as good as Yale. Shrink class sizes in the remaining 100 law schools. Law school itself needs to become the barrier to entry, just like medical schools operate now.</p>

24

<p>Here's a nice article to go with it:</p>

<p>Law</a> Dean Says Schools ‘Exploiting’ Students Who Don’t Succeed | ABA Journal - Law News Now</p>

<p>Law schools are “exploiting” any students who aren’t successful, according to a law school dean who spoke at a program on law school rankings earlier this month.</p>

<p>“We should be ashamed of ourselves," said Richard Matasar, dean of New York Law School.</p>

<p>Matasar said schools need to take responsibility for the failures of their students, according to an account of his Jan. 9 remarks by TaxProf Blog. Matasar said a law school education can cost as much as $120,000 for a students who are making a “lottery shot” at being in the top 10 percent of their class so they can get high-paying jobs.</p>

<p>He spoke during a program sponsored by the Association of American Law Schools that is available in a podcast. TaxProf Blog noted Matasar’s remarks and highlighted a Forbes article that questions whether students are being misled into believing that large school debt translates into a life of economic privilege. The article featured a lawyer couple divorcing amid overwhelming stress because of $190,000 in student debt.</p>

<p>“We own our students' outcomes," Matasar said at the AALS program. "We took them. We took their money. We live on their money. … And if they don't have a good outcome in life, we're exploiting them. It's our responsibility to own the outcomes of our institutions. If they're not doing well ... it's gotta be fixed. Or we should shut the damn place down. And that's a moral responsibility that we bear in the academy.”</p>

<p>At 50 law schools, 20 percent of the students either flunked out, can’t find jobs or have unknown outcomes, according to another speaker at the program, Indiana University law professor William Henderson. TaxProf Blog also transcribed some of his remarks.</p>

<p>Matasar questioned whether students are beginning to understand that law school does not guarantee a good job. He said registrations for the law school admissions test are flat or below the norm for this year. “That's never happened in a downturn in the economy before,” he said. “They're catching on. Maybe this thing they are doing is not so valuable. Maybe the chance at being in the top 10 percent is not a good enough lottery shot in order to effectively spend $120,000 and see it blow up at the end of three years of law school.”</p>

25

<p>Tyrone - thanks for posting that. As a college freshman strongly considering a career in Law, I found both your post and the article interesting.
So, do you think that students who graduate from top law schools (meaning top 20 or so) also face this difficulty in the job market? If I do go to law school, I'll graduate in 2015, when hopefully the economy will be better. I understand that there are too many prospective lawyers in this country, and not enough demand for all of them, but will graduates from the top Law schools also face such difficulty? Or will it be the graduates from 3rd and 4th tier schools who will get weeded out?</p>

26

<p>Molly, in my OP I mentioned that law school is designed to "weed out" the individuals who don't have what it takes to be there. The first year is especially challenging because no one knows where they fit in with the whole bunch. Did I mention that law students, your fellow classmates, will be smart? The very nature of the competition between is that you will be questioning who has the most/least potentional to be at the top of the class throughout your first year.</p>

<p>The biggest shock to most is usually after the first semester, when law students first get their law school grades. Most will find they did well in some courses but horrible in others. The very very few who happen to manage to get through the first semester without a single bad grade feel wonderful about themselves. But, in my personal experience, I find that everything usually changes/shifts around after the first semester. So the most accurate indicator is not necessarily the first semester. Grading is, more often than not, very subjective.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the people at the bottom and many in the middle, strongly feel that they have no future in law so they simply drop out by themselves, cutting their losses. Others, below the minimum are forced out and are not welcome to return. </p>

<p>This is simply the nature of the game and this applies to EVERY SINGLE law school in the United States not just lower tiered schools (however, some have higher attrition rates than others). I had a family friend that went to Columbia law for a semester and dropped out simply because she felt that it wasn't for her. </p>

<p>So, in essence, that was whole purpose of my OP, to show that before you even start law schools, you should know what you're getting into. Unfortunately, it seems that some users in this thread didn't understand that or were simply refusing to recognize their own problems or misconceptions. </p>

<p>If you want more specific information of how this works in law school, go to the Official LSAC Guide to Law School and check the various attrition rates of each school. Good luck to you either way you choose to go!</p>

27

<p>“Unfortunately, the people at the bottom and many in the middle, strongly feel that they have no future in law so they simply drop out by themselves, cutting their losses. Others, below the minimum are forced out and are not welcome to return. </p>

<p>“This is simply the nature of the game and this applies to EVERY SINGLE law school in the United States not just lower tiered schools (however, some have higher attrition rates than others).”</p>

<p>The Kernel is assuming facts not in evidence.</p>

<p>Attrition statics are available for every ABA-accredited school in the country at this site: Official</a> Guide</p>

<p>As I posted earlier in this thread, the overall attrition rate for all ABA schools from start to finish is about 13%. At the top 14 schools, it’s about 2.9%. The range is from .5% at Stanford to 6% at Northwestern.</p>

<p>Last year, only four students left one of the top fourteen law schools for academic reasons (one Georgetown student, and three at UVA). That’s about 0.09% of the total number of students who matriculate at top-fourteen schools each year.</p>

<p>Here are last year’s total attrition stats for each of the top 14 (in alphabetical order):</p>

<p>Berkeley: 4 first-year students (1.5%); 5 second-year students (1.7%); 1 third-year student (.3%).<br>
Chicago: 2 first-year students (1%); 0 second-year students (0%); 0 third-year students (0%).
Columbia: 1 first-year student (.3%); 7 second-year students (1.7%); 0 third-year students (0%).
Cornell: 7 first-year students (3.7%); 3 second-year students (1.5%); 0 third-year students (0%).
Duke: 1 first-year student (.5%); 4 second-year students (1.8%); 0 third-year students (0%).
Georgetown: 5 first-year students (.9%); 8 second-year students (1.2%); 1 third-year student (.1%); 2 fourth-year students (3.3%).
Harvard: 1 first-year student (.2%); 3 second-year students (.5%); 2 third-year students (.4%).
Michigan: 2 first-year students (.5%); 5 second-year students (1.3%); 1 third-year student (.3%).
Northwestern: 1 first-year-student (.4%); 9 second-year students (3.3%); 6 third-year students (2.3%).
NYU: 2 first-year students (.5%) 6 second-year students (1.2%) 1 third-year student (.2%).
Virginia: 3 first-year students (.8%); 8 second-year students (2%); 4 third-year students (1.1%).
Penn: 2 first-year students (.8%); 9 second-year students (3.4%); 2 third-year students (.8%).
Stanford: 0 first-year students (0%); 1 second-year student (.5%); 0 third-year students (0%).
Yale: 3 first-year students (1.6%); 2 second-year students (1%); 2 third-year students (1.1%).</p>

28

<p>First of all, Wildflower, you really need to start doing something else with your time than arguing with other people and complaining to moderators about other users asking them to send warnings (sending junk to my inbox). I mean, seriously, is this where you live and how old are you? </p>

<p>And, of course, you never make personal attacks, right? I mean it's not like you ever insulted other users claiming that their writing is horrible and that, obviously, they've had a poor quality education. Well, how the heck would you know...all assumptions and, in fact, false assumptions by you. You think that you are the only person here who is intelligent and has had a good education??? How pompous of you! What is wrong with you?</p>

<p>And how come you never have ideas of your own, it's only that you want to debate other peoples' ideas, like this OP here. </p>

<p>Also, The Beard, is apparently misinterpreting information. I think you might be minsunderstanding TexasJKernel.</p>

<p>The top 14 is where you get your statistics. First of all, the number of spaces in the top fourteen is not at all representative of law schools in this country (It's like going to New York City and then assuming that is what America looks like). There are 200 law schools in this country and a lot of people fall out. In fact, attrition has become a serious problem at some law schools. Whitter reported a rate of 51% last year!
Furthermore, even according the information you cite, you are basically agreeing that all law schools have an attrition rate, which means that all law schools lose students. Well then, in effect, aren't you agree with Texas? Huh?</p>

29

<p>Shantytown,</p>

<p>What information have I misinterpreted?</p>

<p>I quoted TexasJJKernel directly: "Unfortunately, the people at the bottom and many in the middle, strongly feel that they have no future in law so they simply drop out by themselves, cutting their losses. Others, below the minimum are forced out and are not welcome to return... This is simply the nature of the game and this applies to EVERY SINGLE law school in the United States not just lower tiered schools (however, some have higher attrition rates than others)." </p>

<p>This claim is not accurate. Fewer than 3%, on average, of students who matriculate at the top fourteen law schools drop out before graduation, and fewer than one tenth of one percent of them flunk out. At twelve of the top fourteen law schools, no one flunked out last year. </p>

<p>The attrition rate for ABA schools as a whole is 13%. It's much lower for some schools, and much higher for others. The overall rate is higher than medical school attrition (91.3%receive degrees within 7 years of matriculating: <a href="http://www.aamc.org/data/aib/aibissues/aibvol7_no2.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.aamc.org/data/aib/aibissues/aibvol7_no2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;), </p>

<p>It's higher than dental school attrition (7%: Dental</a> student attrition -- DeMarais 94 (5): 817 -- The Journal of the American Dental Association).</p>

<p>But it's a lot lower than the attrition rates at four-year undergraduate schools (53% of the students who matriculated at four-year colleges in 1995 had graduated four years later: <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005156.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005156.pdf&lt;/a&gt;), and much lower than for graduate school in general (about 50% across disciplines: The</a> Chronicle: 6/29/2001: 10 Ways to Keep Graduate Students From Quitting).</p>

30

<p>
[quote]
First of all, Wildflower, you really need to start doing something else with your time

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Please go pick a fight and insult people elsewhere. By now I truly don't know if you actually realize that you have been posting simply to insult people. You have added no value whatsoever. That is, unless you believe insulting people adds value. </p>

<p>I shall not waste my time with you any longer.</p>

31

<p>
[quote]
I guarantee you that a chemical engineer is much more marketable today than your average lawyer.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think my response was interrupted by the paroxysms of laughter emanating from the ranks of the chemical engineers. Suffice it to say that while I have often times wished it were true that a chemical engineering degree is more marketable than is a law degree, I have to sadly admit that it is not so. </p>

<p>A large advantage that a law degree has over a ChemE degree: geographic flexibility. With a law degree, you can basically work anywhere in the country, or at least, anywhere that has enough people to create legal disputes amongst each other. A ChemE degree, on the other hand, can be gainfully utilized in only certain regions of the country - namely, those regions that have chemical processing facilities, such as the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast. If you want to live in those areas, you're golden, and in fact, I've always agreed that if you know you want to live in a place like Houston, Baton Rouge, Baytown, or the like, then a ChemE degree is arguably the most efficient college degree you can get. The problem is, what if you don't want to live in those kinds of places? Or what if you can't - i.e., you marry somebody who doesn't want to move there? Then you basically end up wasting your degree. You would have been better off with a law degree that allows you to be mobile.</p>

<p>Law degrees have another advantage: you can start your own practice at anytime. To be sure, this is not an easy road. You have to build your clientele, you have to assume the entrepreneurial responsibilities and risks of any small business owner, and many new law firms - just like any new businesses - will fail. But you can do it. It's always an option if you decide that you can't or don't want to take a job at a law firm. The nation has a long, well-worn history of lawyers starting their own practices and offering their services directly to the public. Former Senator and Presidential candidate John Edwards built his fortune through his own highly successful practice. On the other hand, how many chemical engineers are able to start their own successful practices? Sure, there are a tiny handful who are able to secure venture capital funding to start their own biotech or advanced materials firm, and another handful are able to start their own engineering consulting practices. But those are just drops in the bucket. The major difference is that no consumer market for one-off jobs for chemical engineers exists. Regular Americans never need to 'hire' a chemical engineer, yet they do often times need to hire lawyers. From suing doctors and hospitals for medical practice (as was Edwards's forte) to simply buying a house or even just fighting a traffic ticket, the average American often times will find that they need a lawyer for a simple one-off job, and a lawyer that has his own practice can compete for your business. Chemical engineers who start their own consulting practice have only engineering companies as their customer base, and rarely are the jobs one-off, which begs the question of why the customer wouldn't then just hire a permanent chemical engineer on salary rather than engaging your consulting firm. Put another way, there is no equivalent pathway in chemical engineering to produce somebody like John Edwards. </p>

<p>To be clear, by no means am I trying to minimize the difficulty of starting your own practice. All I am saying is that it is refreshing to have the option. It is reassuring to know that if you truly feel frustrated with working for somebody else, you know you can quit and try to start your own firm. Chemical engineers don't have that luxury because Chemical engineering lacks an entrepreneurial pathway.</p>

32

<p>
[quote]
Second, law school is a tremendous financial endeaver. While some of you may not be concerned with this aspect of law school yet, you will realize that the average law school debt of $100,000 is nothing to take lightly. Even though your parents may be glad to take out that second mortgage for you to be able to pursue your dream, in effect, it all comes down to a $100,000 loss or, rather, a $100,000 opportunity cost (i.e. $100,000 is plenty of money to, in fact, start your own business/company after college). It also boggles the senses, why professionals, in this bad economy, are willing to leave their jobs in order to get MORE DEBT for something that is definitely not a sure thing.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The counterargument to that is simple: many professionals nowadays didn't leave their jobs. Rather, their jobs left them, in other words, they've been terminated. Or, if they haven't been terminated yet, they know full well that they probably will be. If you're working for, say, Chrysler, there's a very high chance that you're not going to have that job for much longer.</p>

<p>Even if you do hold a job for a long time, that's not to say that you'll be making a good living along the way. Let's face it. Most jobs, even professional jobs, are not very high paying. There are plenty of people with college degrees and decades of experience who still don't make much at all. </p>

<p>What that means is that people who have been laid off, or are about to be, or even those who will keep their job but don't make much money anyway don't exactly have a lot to lose in terms of opportunity cost. Let's be honest: if you're working in the auto industry in Detroit, you might as well go to law school. Why not? Whatever are the problems of being a lawyer, it's still better than staying in the auto industry in Detroit.</p>

33

<p>
[quote]
I guarantee you that a chemical engineer is much more marketable today than your average lawyer.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>yeah-- at a chemical-related business. A JD would be marketable at a law firm or virtually any business. Chemical firms have general counsel. Law firms don't have general engineer.</p>

34

<p>Sorry, but it is absolutely false to say that "most lawyers are litigators" as the OP stated. This is one of the most common falsehoods of the legal profession. So many people see shows on TV that only depict lawyers as litigators. In reality, probably only 10% are actually in a court room on a regular basis. </p>

<p>The reality is that most lawyers spend their days sifting through files, reading, and writing. Just had to give my two cents because I have thought about the possibility of law school a lot, and had a big conversation about this exact topic the other day with my father, an attorney, and two other attorneys.</p>

35

<p>The California Bar Association did a survey of its members in 2006 that included the information shown below. (The complete survey can be found here: <a href="http://calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/reports/2006_State-Bar-Survey.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/reports/2006_State-Bar-Survey.pdf&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>Primary Area or Field of Practice </p>

<p>14% Business and Contracts
3% Insurance
7% Domestic/Family
2% Civil Rights/Discrimination
6% Real Estate
6% Criminal Defense
6% Labor and Employment
6% Intellectual Property/Copyright/Patent
16% Civil Litigation
6% Estate/Trust Planning
4% Personal Injury
24% Other</p>

<p>Income from Law Practice</p>

<p>Under $50,000 25%
$50,000 - $99,999 24%
$100,000 - $149,999 25%
$150,000 - $199,999 11%
$200,000 - $300,000 8%
Over $300,000 7%</p>

<p>Average Weekly Number of Hours Worked in Law Practice </p>

<p>Less than 35 hours 26%
35 – 40 hours 16%
41 – 49 hours 31%
50 – 59 hours 20%
60 or more hours 7%</p>