JD Disadvantage

My take on the Law School Scam obviously comes from a non-traditional, so-called “JD advantage” point of view, but these warnings apply regardless of whether one is a non-trad or a K-JD.  And while I agree with the calls for more “direct action” and not sounding like a broken record, as advanced by other scamblog advocates, it is still important to keep the arguments alive (and the webcount increasing) on the internet.

As one poster once said, it is akin to tobacco warnings – you have to keep saying them, again and again, to get the message out.  There are always new people who haven’t heard the message.  And there are those who have heard it, who need to hear it again.   And again. 

My experience has taught me that there is no such thing as “JD Advantage.”  I say this even as someone who has been working in a so-called “JD-preferred” field, with my bar license, ever since I graduated in 2005.
 

As a non-trad, I wasn’t trying to score BigLaw – I knew that ship had sailed by virtue of not having been born a K-JD.  I wasn’t trying to be a balls-to-the-wall, shingle-hanging, entrepreneurial gunslinger advocate, either…some people are, some people aren’t, and I would say non-trads are split, at best, on this particular career aspiration.  Thus, the strawman arguments from the schadenfreudic haters of “you didn’t have what it takes,” or “you just didn’t try hard enough,” or “you were just wanted to be a rich, bigshot lawyer and you failed, so it’s all your fault” didn’t apply to me.  The fundamental assumptions behind these trollish accusations have been and continue to be false.  I was more self-aware than these simplistic views allow, and I wasn’t even trying to go down those paths in the first place.  But haters gonna hate, trolls gonna troll, and shills gonna shill, as we all know.

What I did do, unfortunately, was buy into the lie that a JD would be an asset to the other credentials and work experience that I already had, or that a legal education was a valuable proposition in the marketplace in its own right.  That it would be useful in landing contract management/contract administration jobs.  Or compliance positions that leveraged my prior experience.  Or consulting positions.  Or ADR-related industries. 

“Why of course it is, and more so,” replied the sparkling-eyed, smiling, Law School Administrators and Deans.  “Look at what our grads have gone on to do!  Read the testimonitals and brochures!  Look at our employment statistics!  Now, sign here.”

DJM did a nice piece on this, and it bears a second (or third, or fourth…) look.  Suffice it to say that employers of legally-related positions do not seek JD applicants, as ironic or as paradoxical as it initially sounds.  It is, in fact, quite difficult to convince employers that a JD is valuable – trust me, I know and I tried - I had, and still have (by the grace of God), a family to support.  And the pay you do get is not commensurate with the sticker-cost of a JD, let me assure anyone who would claim any hypocrisy on my part.

With 20/20 hindsight, the truth is that, considering my high undergrad GPA but modest LSAT score, the nature of my application overall, and my background at the time, an honest applications committee would have said “look, we like what we see here, but let’s engage in some full disclosure – what you are looking for is not what a JD provides, nor is it intended to do so in the final analysis.  This does not go where you think it goes, and we feel as though we have a duty to respectfully say so in the interest of fair warning.  Thank you for thinking of us, but you would be better served looking at other alternatives.” 

And I would have thanked them for it.  Trusting people “in the know” concerning the career field in question seems quaint, I suppose.  Perhaps the T14 do indeed have such scruples, but I did not apply to the T14 (assuming I could even get in) because I was not looking to completely uproot my life.  Neither was I seeking the paper-chase of prestige (see BigLaw discussion above).  I was looking for a credential, not unlike my prior experiences with higher education.  But did I get full disclosure?  No.  Never.  Everyone I applied to said “Come on board!  Your JD and your career aspirations await!”  Why?  Because it is about "getting them to sign on the line that is dotted."  That is all.

Thus, when I look at the NALP website and their canned JD-advantage success stories, or the hand-waving of Law School Deans on the same subject, I see red.  JDs are over-priced, under-delivering degrees for many, financed by student loans, and the law school cartel has no business touting JDs as a route to positive, alternative careers.  As always, it works for a few, and law schools are happy to claim credit and ride the coat-tails of their handful of "successful" graduates.  But for most, the cost does not justify the so-called benefit.  Better to just go do a job direct, no questions asked, than to get the JD and subsequently get turned down as a over-educated flight-risk, or to end up doing the job for less take-home pay than the co-worker who isn't basking in all the wonderous advantages of the JD.

Don't do what I did.  Don't believe in "JD Advantage".  It is a bait-and-switch ploy, pure and simple, in the line of LLMs and other scholastic revenue generators.  For those of us who actually have to work for a living, at non-professorial, non-Dean rates of pay, it's a sucker's bet.