Tuesday, March 11, 2014

What a Difference Two Years Makes...


...twenty-four little months. The message is getting out there, and it is changing minds.

A dominant meme in American culture is that if you have fallen on hard times, then somehow it is ultimately your fault. Not long ago, when the scamblogs were nascent and major print media articles concerning the law school scam were rare as unicorns, a deluge of criticism was the meat and drink of struggling law grads. You should have done your research. Stop being lazy and entitled. If you stopped complaining, maybe you could get a job. You deserve what you got, because you tried to get-rich-quick. Pay back your loans and get out of your mom's basement, slacker.

The cheap shots and sucker punches were abundant. Some, in their tear-downs of others, placed themselves on a pedestal and held themselves out as paragons of virtue. Actual economic data, actual law school data, and actual anecdotes of people in the trenches were all dismissed out of hand. When people were trying to identify the problem and warn others, or tried to point-out that other actors were complicit in the bad results that so many were laboring under, the resounding response was "shut up, loser more-ons!"

Even those who agreed there was a problem overall still scorned those who fell on hard times and the scam, as evidenced by this not-so-early post from Jack Marshall over at Ethics Alarms:
 

[October 26, 2011]

It is true that many law schools have been exposed lately for inflating their employment statistics. The American Bar Association announced last month that it was drafting a rule including sanctions for law schools that intentionally falsify jobs data, possibly including monetary fines or the loss of accreditation. That is as it should be.

Nonetheless, I am dubious about the sign’s 99.9% claim, especially in the absence of a named institution. Promising 100% employment to any group seems excessive, and a person of normal intelligence would, or certainly should be skeptical. Thus, after only the first line, I am dubious about the candor and/or judgment of the sign-holder...[b]ut I am especially dubious about anyone with a law degree who isn’t a drooling idiot and yet says he has "no job prospects." Impossible. A law degree is the most versatile and useful degree there is. It is just as useful for getting management jobs in business and politics as it is in law. It is considered a credential for consulting, negotiation, public speaking, and lobbying. I once was hired to run a health care organization that required a medical degree: they couldn’t find a doctor they liked, so the Chairman of the Board said, "Eh, a law degree’s just as good," and hired me. No prospects? None? What’s wrong with this guy?


 

The take-home message: I'm going to take this student's hyperbole and make it even more hyperbolic so as to strawman the argument. It's the student's fault for being (1) stupid and (2) lazy, even in spite of false information from the Cartel, because JDs are versatile. I got a job once with my JD, so there.
 

[July 8, 2012]

First, there are many more JD’s, and many more JD’s who are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, not to be excessively unkind. A lot of mediocre to poor students manage to become lawyers; PhD programs are more discriminating...Second, the scientists entered their fields for the right reasons: they were interested in science, and good at it. Many of today’s out-of-work lawyers prepared for a profession, a calling, for purely financial motivations: they wanted to be rich...[f]inally, lawyers are trained to be advocates, and to argue for positions most beneficial to their clients’ interests. Disillusioned, indebted, worried lawyers without clients have been trained in the art of deflecting accountability and blaming others for misfortune, so it should be no surprise that their training and mindset lead them down the dark alleys of conspiracy theories, class action lawsuits and confirmation bias. They are their own clients now, and are seeking miscreants and tortfeasors who made their dreams of big houses, fancy cars and law firm partnerships go up in smoke: the law schools, the TV hype, the loan programs, the degree itself... 




The take-home message: Many law graduates are stupid (as detailed before), and they additionally deserve their fate for being dishonest and trying to get-rich-quick. STEM graduates, in contrast, (1) aren't and (2) didn't. Although STEM grads complain about very similar circumstances as do JD grads concerning debt and employment, let's ignore that and focus on the stupid law grads who think they deserve better.

 

 

[October 15, 2012]

Nobody ever told me that a law degree guaranteed a high-paying job as an attorney, and if we understood that decades ago when law was booming, I don’t see where the confusion set in. I worked in the administration of Georgetown Law Center, and that school never made such a representation. In addition, Third Tier Reality goes further, as its brethren blogs do, to insist that a law degree from less than a "First Tier" school is actually an impediment in the job market. I hate to kick this particular hornets nest again, but this is a self-serving rationalization for failure.

A good law school education improves your writing, speaking, analytical and problem-solving skills, as well as giving you a versatile knowledge base that is useful in not just many other fields, but every other field. "Third tier" law schools are certainly capable of providing this; it doesn’t have to be a "top 8 school. (If you want a scam, try the law school rating system. As with colleges, there just is not that big a difference between the top ten and the top 50.) If you go to law school and can’t get a legal job or a professional job in another field where a knowledge of law or the skills or a lawyer are useful (which is to say, most of them), then the problem isn’t the law school, or the "scam" or that a legal degree isn’t respected by employers.


It’s you.

It literally drives "Nando," the author of this website, and his fellow Toys-R-Us clerk/law grads crazy when I say this, which I have said before. On "Nando’s" site, I am accorded full villain status for the post I wrote last October, chiding an Occupy demonstrator for hanging out in the park with a sad, hand-lettered complaining that his law degree didn’t get him the job he thought it guaranteed. Maybe that was Nando. You see, we don’t need conspiracy theories or the sudden, mythical unpopularity of law degrees in the workplace or even the recession to explain why he can’t find a job. All we need is his website.



 

Again, the brutal cost to obtain this "versatile" degree is an important, side-stepped issue, along with the well-known signaling value of a top-tier degree. The take-home message: Although I worked in Law School administration for a while, that has no influence on my current views regarding the lazy, entitled scambloggers. Nando, and other bloggers/graduates, need to stop being so angry all the time. JDs are versatile, even if no one is finding that to be true currently. Nobody like a complainer. Suck it up.

 

But wait, there's more!

[December 28, 2013]
 

Do not lump Ludo with "Nando" and the other bitter, unemployed or under-employed recent law grads who have had their ire aroused by my observations about them on Ethics Alarms (also here). He is doing exactly what he should be doing, using his unique talents to open up new opportunities while presenting himself to the world of law and elsewhere as a likely asset. As he writes in a recent post rebutting criticism of his blog…
"I don’t feel entitled to anything. Is it just a knee jerk reaction to throw that word into anything that has to do with younger generations and employment? I never said anywhere in my blog that I thought the world owed me a better job. I worked my ass off to go to law school, to do well, and to try to get a job. I failed. Part of that is my fault and I readily admit it. Am I not allowed to say that it fucking sucks? Sorry boomers that I’m not on my hands and knees thanking God that I have two poor paying jobs that barely pay enough to live on. I don’t feel like I’m entitled to anything, but I’m not going to pretend that this situation isn’t shitty."


And that is fine. [emphasis added, and, by the way, given the earlier posts, WTF? ed.] He is not claiming that his top 50 law school scammed him by promising him riches and automatic entry into a mega-law firm. He is not arguing that his law degree is some kind of anchor around his neck. Ludo continues,
"…This blog is not about self-pity. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I want people to get some joy out of my pain, to get some catharsis out of reading what I’m going through. It’s supposed to be funny. If you don’t think it’s funny, that’s fine, but it’s not supposed to be a documentary about the plight of law grads. 3. This blog is not about complaining that I can’t get a legal job. Where in the fuck did I ever say that? I haven’t taken the bar so I’m not even trying to get a legal job." 

 
During the last of several stretches when I was unemployed for an extended period, part of my "severance package’ from my previous employer included a so-called "out-placement firm." This involved alleged expert counseling and job-hunt coaching, which was, in my experience, depressing, uninspired, annoying and useless. After several months of frustration, I wrote, designed and published a satirical 4-page newsletter called "The Jack Marshall Job Search Journal," with tongue-in-cheek editorials, news reports about disastrous interviews, and an advice column, "Ask Jack!", for discouraged job-hunters. I mailed it to everyone I new, professionally and personally. (This was, of course, before Al Gore invented the internet.) To say my coach at the outplacement firm didn’t get the joke would be an understatement. She berated me in her office for a half hour. She said my newsletter came across as angry and cynical (it came across as honest and realistic, as anyone who has ever looked for work knows exactly how stressful, unsettling and arbitrary that process is), and relentlessly negative (because everyone knows what a life-affirming, exciting, uplifting and enjoyable process seeking employment is), and that I had just torpedoed my chances of being employed in anything close to the kind of position I sought. There was only one process proven to get results, she said, and I had just shattered the mold.

I left her office and the firm that day, for good.

Six days later, in direct response to the newsletter, I was called up for an interview for a duel position as Marketing Director and General Counsel for a small but thriving litigation support firm, and yes, part of my responsibilities would be writing newsletters. I got the job.
 





The take-home message: When I do satire, it's OK. When scambloggers do satire, it's not OK. However, Ludo gets a bye because he resonates with me, but the other people I complained about doing the exact same things don't resonate with me and I don't like them because they are, well, complainers. Also, I took my own hand at informal "scamblogging" when it came to my job search, and I got negative feedback, too! But it worked for me, and I got a job at a Doc Review shop because of it, so...don't scamblog...? The other non-Ludo scambloggers doing the same thing, however, are totally different and consequently deserve their fate.

 

The point here is that no one is as objective and data-driven as they claim they are. The scambloggers certainly have their bias, and that bias is stated fairly clearly: the debt loads are excessive; there is too much competition due to wanton JD overproduction; connections and social capital matter. The scamblogs would agree with the Marshallites in saying doctored placement statistics are bad and that too many (underqualified) students were admitted to law school which contributed to overproduction and bad results.

Furthermore, in my own reading of the scamblogs over the years, I don't see Nando or other bloggers saying they don't want to work or work hard. In fact, many of them are actually employed, thanks, yet still feel the need to speak truth to power in spite of their "remunerative" careers and significant debt loads. No one claimed they were "promised" or "guaranteed" a job (a favorite strawman), but they did reasonably expect a reasonable correlation between salaries and debt load.  But they do their best and go to work, regardless. 

The scamblog thesis is that instead of blaming thousands and thousands of individuals with imperfect information, the reality is that law school itself is a sucker's bet so it's best not to get involved in many, many cases. I personally consider it "ethical" to warn others away from a similar fate.  Perhaps that conclusion, though, is my own personal bias at work.

At the same time, the critics and detractors are not free from their own biases, either. From what I gather, anti-scambloggers of the Marshall variety seem to not like complainers. I can understand that; however, there has to be a place for complaint or free speech is threatened - was the "Declaration of Independence" supposed to be the "Declaration of Nice, Sanitized, Ideas for Potential Consideration" so as to not ruffle feathers? Furthermore, they also seem to be saying "an entrepreneurial, can-do spirit is de facto ethical - and if your are ethical, then you will therefore be successful". I'm not sure that stands alone as a logical proposition, but it is clearly the bias of the anti-scam crowd. Go "network," as the say.

In years prior, disenchanted law graduates like Ludo were "lazy", "unintelligent", and "angry." Fast forward to today, and folks like Ludo are now "proactive", "clever", and "hopeful", to utilize my own word choice. Notice that the situation in between 2011 and 2013 did not change - law schools continued to pump out graduates at twice the rate required, tuition continued to skyrocket, the Cartel still vacuously touted the value of a law degree, the legal market has been stagnant, Marshall was not trying to make a living as a lawyer in private practice, etc. Furthermore, Ludo is working a series of, ah, non-remunerative jobs, just like the scambloggers that Marshall chides above. Somehow, JD grads working not-so-great jobs deserved their fate until Ludo came along, but now Ludo is an example of "what to do." Ludo, in my opinion, is also defiantly "telling it how it is" as much as a typical scamblogger, in that he's not happy (dare I say "angry," given some of the language choice) about Boomers, the job market, and everything else. 

Nando's story came before all the data came out, and Ludo's story came after. Ludo, however, is showing pluck, at least according to Marshall, and Nando hasn't, again according to Marshall. Therefore Ludo deserves praise and Nando deserves condemnation, while both have similar messages, both work, and both continue to deal with for the same trying circumstances. I would say more power to Nando and Ludo, both.

It's all a point of view. In years past, I personally think Ludo would have been wrongfully lumped in with Nando, the other scambloggers, JD graduates, and the aforementioned "Toys-R-Us clerks" for being lazy, angry, entitled, and trying to get-rich-quick. In many ways, I suspect Ludo already has been lumped in with that crowd. As we all know, blaming the victim has always been the historical response to the scamblog movement.

However, that point of view is clearly changing, to which we as scambloggers say "amen". Friends and supporters, keep up the message, because as applicants drop, LSATs dry up, and more and more people are speaking out, we are enjoying the fruits of data pushing back on the anti-scam biases.



 

106 comments:

  1. I have been waiting a while for the next take down. Thanks for delivering.

    Scammers gonna scam but it is a lot harder now so progress is being made.

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  2. I left a looooooooong reply in comments - any takers on whether or not it will get through 'moderation'?

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    Replies
    1. It looks like some of your comments got through, and Jack Marshall responded immediately. (He DOES know what he is talking about, after all).

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    2. He did allow things through; I apologized to him for suggesting that he wouldn't. That puts him one step above Steven Diamond.

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    3. (motherf-ing Google has eaten the last two motherf-ing comments)

      I've got to give him a little credit; he did allow my comments through.

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    4. Don't give him so much credit that you let the moron have the last word. (Then again, any argument with Marshall can turn into an endless conversation.)

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  3. I didn't know the ability to afford rent, car payments, groceries, and modest entertainment was "getting rich quick."

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    1. This is the nonsense that passes for "logic" in the twisted world of Jack Marshall. First he'll state that no one looks at salary statistics when applying to law school. Then he'll argue that victims of the law school scam all went to law school in order to get rich quick. Apparently they weren't paying attention to employment statistics while they were applying to law school with hopes of landing a high-paying job?

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  4. Jack Marshall, a.k.a. Uncle Fester, is merely trying to defend the indefensible. Maybe in his diseased mind, that is "ethical."

    http://www.crimeandfederalism.com/2010/04/jack-marshall-of-proethics-flunked-legal-ethics.html

    "It's obvious, then, that Jack Marshall lacks any understanding of ethics and legal ethics. He cannot comprehend that his opinions on how humans should behave is not the totality of the subject. He does not understand that one's duties as a lawyer are subject to enforceable rules - laws, in every sense of the word.

    Anyone who charges people to attend his lectures on ethics after Marshall's display of ignorance, is unethical. After all, Continuing Legal Education must involve education. Jack Marshall is a de-educator."

    http://mylawlicense.blogspot.com/2010/04/ethics-alarms-go-off-its-jack-marshall.html

    Now, Brian Tannebaum bitch-slaps Jack Marshall.

    "I had never heard of Jack Marshall until he made clear he believed Eric Turkewitz to be the scourge of ethical lawyers everywhere by, um, playing an April Fool's Joke that snared the New York Times.

    Jack is the most ethical person in the universe, just ask him. Anyone who disagrees with him, is.... not-ethical. He's right, he's right, he's right, and everyone else is wrong. If you ask Jack a question, he will fully respond."

    http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/04/jack-marshall-the-elmer-gantry-of-ethics.html

    Dallas lawyer Mark Bennett on Marshall:

    "His facts?

    Jack Marshall didn’t just state his theory as an assertion; he belligerently tried to defend it against all comers. I asked Marshall via email, “What facts made the difference?” and got no response."

    http://myshingle.com/2010/04/articles/ethics-malpractice-issues/ill-take-turkewitz-on-ethics-over-jack-marshall-any-day-of-the-week/

    In sum, Jack Marshall's reputation - among his peers - is lower than crocodile piss. What an accomplishment, huh?!?!

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  5. Happy USNWR day! Should be interesting to see what shenanigans the schools are pulling with the rankings this year.

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    Replies
    1. There must be a mistake: Cooley isn't in the top two.

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  6. Entitled? Get rich quick? Oh, yeah, that's why I spent almost two hours at the food bank last night. (This time, incidentally, some of the food had already been cooked [at a cafeteria, it seems] and frozen again. I'm not sure that it is safe to eat.) Only a job paying millions per year is good enough for me.

    Lazy? Oh, sure. Only a lazy bum like me would spend seven days a week searching for work of all kinds. Why, if I weren't so damn lazy, I'd take a leaf from the boomers' book and snap up a job running a health-care organization, since, as everyone knows, "a law degree's just as good" as a medical degree. And certainly I'd readily secure sheaves of offers with my "writing, speaking, analytical and problem-solving skills" and "versatile knowledge base" (all of which I had before going to law school).

    Pffffffffffft.

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    1. If you're lazy then the recent HYS grad I know who is taking classes to get a real estate license is lazy, too.

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  7. JDs are versatile! Because his Dad said so!: http://www.dcbar.org/bar-resources/publications/washington-lawyer/articles/september-2005-leaving-law.cfm

    "His father, who also holds a law degree, had used it to work in various managerial positions and to start his own company. 'He was always talking about the fact that people misused a law degree. They used it as a limiting degree, whereas he felt that it was the most versatile of all graduate degrees,' says Marshall."

    Also, don't forget that Jack's own son is on record referring to his father as a "jackass": http://familyonbikes.org/blog/2010/05/are-we-self-absorbed-parents/

    "I know my father is a jackass, I didn’t learn it through the internet."

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    1. Big surprise that "[h]is father … also holds a law degree".

      Yeah, a JD is so fucking versatile. I can use mine to become a pilot. After all, everyone with a JD can afford such expensive hobbies as flying aircraft. I should have asked about flying lessons last night when I was at the food bank.

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    2. 1:50 if you can't find a career in aviation, it's because of YOU and nothing else. Your time spent at the food bank is just a convenient excuse.

      And if you can't become a pilot, just become an "ethicist."

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  8. Don't blame Jack Marshall too much. He truly believes what he says. Granted he is about as myopic as can be, living in a fantasy world of his own making. Still, his reality is his reality regardless of the fact there is zero evidence supporting his opinions.

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    1. My problem with Jack Marshall is that he repeatedly broadcasts his message even though it has been demonstrated over and over again that he is wrong and that has no idea what he is talking about. His nonsense just further endangers the lemmings.

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  9. Law school applications decrease year after year and the objective numbers illustrate the overcoming of pro-law school conjecture, hyperbole, opinion and absurdity. Any degree that needs to be marketed with versatility, providing entreprenuial skills or gateways to opportunities you would not have without it speaks of desperation. Predictions that 2014 will see another drop in law school admissions only gives merit that the word is out.

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    1. Why on earth would a law degree be versatile? I've never understood the rationale.

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    2. A law degree has the same versatility as an English MA.

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    3. Less, actually, given their respective price tags.

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  10. I just finished a two hour meeting with my ad guy to discuss my declining calls and market share. He told me that I now need to spend two times what I spent two years ago to keep the same market share. You know what he said when I asked why. The market is becoming saturated. Hmmmm. Whose fault is that? I having to fight the market over saturation after 28 yrs in practice. How is a young lawyer suppose to break into this business?

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    1. Did your ad guy define "becoming saturated"?

      Unreal.

      Spend 2x for the same share. Obviously, that means a lower net income and std of living.

      Law is a shrinking, declining, "Bad Bet" proposition.

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    2. By networking, of course!

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    3. Perchance, did you consider moving to Nebraska? See Trish, TN is not rural enough, and thus isn't as "underserved" as Nebraska. Those cornfields in NE are actually legal fields of gold. Head out there and reap the harvest before recent graduates beat you to it //sarcasm off.

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    4. I know a number of recent grads who have hung out a shingle and are trying to make it solo. Without exception they have either parental support or a spouse who makes a good living and doesnt mind paying most of the bills.

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    5. Forget Nebraska. I hear North Dakota is the place. Anyway, I'll be okay. But really, where does a young lawyer get $180k to run an ad campaign, before he or she has paid a dime in overhead, much less student loans? I really understand why young millineals (sic) want to inject many of us boomers with cyanide. This country went from the greatest generation to the worst generation in one cycle. I'm so sorry.

      Anyway, contrary to what Fool Marshall says, it's not the fault of recent (aka last 20 years) graduates. If you have served in the trenches as long as I have, that point becomes blindingly obvious.

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    6. By the way, 5:45, I'm loving your tongue in cheek comment "TN is not rural enough"! 'Nooga is 45 miles from the site of the Monkey Trial (where the Bible still is taught to the little schoolchildren), 40 miles from where the sound of banjos wafts through the air at the film site of Deliverance and another 40 miles from a real snake-handlin' church. Yes 5:45, opportunities to practice "rural law" abound. By George 5:45, you've hit upon something! We must join together and submit a law review article on this burgeoning area of the law! The Univ. of Tenn or Belmont school of law will snatch it up like a Dean grabbing government loan money! We shall make our reputations!

      Delete
    7. Well, it's true that the cost of advertising in rural Nebraska is very low. Simply post a message on the bulletin board of the Tractor Supply Co in the next county.

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    8. Maybe your ad guy lost another client, and is trying to get more money from his remaining clients.

      Delete
    9. AnonymousMarch 11, 2014 at 1:52 PM

      "By networking, of course!"

      And gumption, grit, good ol' American know-how, guts, glory, God, guns,.....

      All of the g-words.

      Delete
    10. Don't forget Generation X. We too want to inject many of the boomers with cyanide.

      Or maybe all of Generation X should assemble for a Kool-Aid–drinking session.

      Delete
    11. Gen-Xers, unite! I've spent my whole life laboring under Boomers, and I've heard enough of "lazy, slacker Gen-Xers" to last several lifetimes, long, long before the law school scam came up. I'm in my 40s now, thanks, with a family and a mortgage, so I know a thing or two about life, believe it or not. Yet, somehow I'm still "lazy" and "entitled", to say nothing of the scorn millineals get. I've noticed lately that Gen-X is getting lumped with the Boomers in print articles as being "The Man" holding people back, to which I say, woah, woah, woah, Gen-X has yet to have any reigns of power to speak of.

      Seriously, though, Boomers like Tricia restore some of my faith in humanity. I was starting to wonder how a whole generation could fundamentally misunderstand the time-value-of-money, or wholesale ignore how relative percentages in the average family budget have morphed badly over time. But many do actually get it.

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    12. Yes, there are some decent, responsible boomers such as Tricia who freely admit that their generation has blighted its successors—especially Generation X. Unfortunately, neither decency nor responsibility has ever characterized the boomers, that generation that slid from free love to disco to yuppie consumption without ever thinking of anyone but Me.

      I'm in my forties with neither a family nor a mortgage, nor yet any prospects of having either. I probably wouldn't buy a house if I could afford one, as I'd be afraid of ending up out of work again and losing the house to foreclosure. Anyway, could I realistically expect to be able to make payments until my late seventies?

      Reins of power, my ass. When shall we ever get to hold the reins of anything? I'm just trying to find a goddamn job. And getting nowhere.

      Delete
  11. It has been successfully argued that law graduates suing their alma maters cannot demonstrate reasonable reliance on admittedly false employment and wage statistics the schools published.

    But, what about false LSAT and GPA statistics? Is it true that students do not reasonably rely on such in deciding where to apply; what schools might be "worth it"; and, in determining their apparent eligibility for scholarships? Clearly all rely, because they must. It is flatly false and absurd to claim otherwise.

    Schools trade directly on their apparent prestige as measured by these metrics that are not audited by neutral third parties, and about which they have been repeatedly caught lying. They induce applications and attendance based upon fraud. They obtain student loan funds based upon fraud. This is properly considered proven, because the guilty parties have admitted it. See, Villanova, Rutgers, etc.

    There's no conspiracy in the legal educational industry?
    In 1996 the ABA was forced to enter a still-in-force consent decree with the Department of Justice wherein it admitted to ***conspiring*** with existing accredited institutions to price-fix the cost of legal education via restricting accreditation. In 2006, the ABA was held in civil contempt and fined for violating numerous provisions of the consent decree.

    You might want to re-title the post: "Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them."

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    1. Admittedly the employment and salary info from many schools, while misleading, was not actually false (e g x percent employed at x reported average salary never actually claimed they were employed as lawyers, and salary was based on a small minority which actually reported that). So the law schools which lecture endlessly abiut ethics and professionalism are held by the courts to the same standards as used car lots. Caveat emptor!

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    2. Actually lower standards than used car lots - have you read the lemon laws and customer protection cases involving used car salesmen, the truth in lending legislation applicable to them?

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    3. Ok 5:41 your point is well taken. Im still trying to figure out who is held to such low standards of truthfulness as law schools. Politicians? Fortune tellers?

      The courts will not allow any suits against law schools to succeed, for various reasons. The internet is a wonderful thing and the information is getting out there.

      Delete
  12. Been practicing close to 30 years and 22 years on my own now. I advertised in the phone book for years with a quarter page add and got good results. Then everybody started with the full page adds, so I paid up to compete. Then they started with Double Trucks (two page adds), triple trucks, Tabs, front and back covers, etc. The phone books fed off of lawyers competing with each other. I said the hell with it. I concluded I was working for the phone company and not myself, and the cases I was getting from the advertising were falling in quality. It just wasn't worth it. More work, lousier cases, less money. So I pretty much rely on word of mouth, referrals and my web site at this point. Still making it . . but never would I try to do so today. There are guys who advertise non-stop on TV, radio, taxi-cabs, bill-boards, pop-up adds, etc. It is about as pathetic as I have ever seen, and unless you want to meet them dollar for dollar . . which is virtually impossible . . . you just can't compete with them for the most part.

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    1. 1:35, so, so much truth. God be with you.

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    2. What in the hell is a "phone book?"

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  13. "Furthermore, in my own reading of the scamblogs over the years, I don't see Nando or other bloggers saying they don't want to work or work hard. In fact, many of them are actually employed, thanks, yet still feel the need to speak truth to power in spite of their "remunerative" careers and significant debt loads."

    Yup. I'm not a scamblogger, but I am one the practicing lawyers who have been sickened by the scam (which is the perfectly appropriate term for it) and are 100% behind what the scambloggers have been trying to do. I'm glad that application numbers are declining, although I wish they were declining a lot faster. We're still nowhere close to the "right" number of law students.

    - One of the Lucky Ones

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    1. 1:35 PM and 3:38 PM, thank you for your comments. We especially appreciate the stories you, Tricia, and others share who have significant experience in private practice and "succeeded," yet would not do it again and/or would warn others away due to systemic changes. This is about much more than disgruntled grads nine months out, although the Cartel will continue to spin it that way.

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  14. No one considering law school knows who Jack Marshall is. No one considering law school knows who Brian Leiter is. No one considering law school reads (or understands) the Simkovic study.

    They do, however, remember hearing their neighbor bitch about how broke his son is, who's a newly-minted lawyer. They may also read TLS, and possibly, abovethelaw. So the overwhelming conclusion is that lawyers are broke assholes. Not too far off base.

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  15. "I mailed it to everyone I new, professionally and personally."

    Who the fuck would want a toolbag like this in their social network?

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  16. Law school has been a scam for the 23 years I have been observing. At risk of being redundant, as bad as the initial 9 month employment statistics post graduation are, that is as good as it ever gets. I worked in biglaw for many years and am now at a small boutique. A large percentage, approaching 50% of my colleagues from years past are UNEMPLOYED 10, 15, 20 years out of law school.....that includes t14 graduates (hear Stanford, Michigan, NYU, etc.) I get sick of seeing excellent resumes of top credentialed students seeking work from us in my email in box. There is no work for them. The field is totally saturated and has been for more than two decades.

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    1. That's really strange. I went to a T50 law school and my former classmates are all doing very well. They have an assortment of jobs at big law firms, inhouse counsel departments, governments, and boutiques. I had lunch with a solo yesterday who's doing pretty well. He nailed a million-plus jury verdict a year or two ago.

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    2. I find it interesting how grads from some schools seem to do fine while others, even those from higher ranked schools, don't. Ludo for example also went to a T50, was on LR, summered for a large firm, and then ended up in retail before finding his current low-paying job. I went to a T25 and, aside from those who got fed jobs or biglaw and didn't later get laid off, most of my friends from school are scraping by. Yet I've also become friends with a group of local TTT grads who have done pretty well for themselves. Maybe a lot of it has to do with whom one associates with. Having gone to a LS where half the class easily found good jobs and the other half was pretty much screwed, I noticed that the half with jobs didn't notice how dire things were for the other half of the class.

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    3. Hello Mr. Infinity!

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    4. Anon at 6:45 AM,
      How about providing us with some more specific information? Those who have jobs and are doing well are the first to advertise it. Those who don't have jobs or are struggling often do not advertise it. I would love for you to actually provide some quantifiable data so we can better evaluate your comment.

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    5. Yes, it comes from the fact that a person's associates do not form a representative sample—the same sort of problem that led to "Dewey defeats Truman". The rich and well-connected students tend to associate with one another but not with people like me. Since the rich and well-connected are also far more likely than others to be "doing very well", their circles are not typical of law graduates in general.

      Similarly, 6:45's classmates come from a single year. Apparently 6:45 finished law school years ago, at a time when it was far easier to get a job in law than it is today.

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    6. 6:45 here. I wasn't rich and neither were many of my classmates. However, we do live in a city and state that isn't a sinking hellhole. The local legal market is not saturated. The closest shit private school produces graduates who can't get jobs. The rest of us are perfectly fine.

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    7. And further to 3:26's point, a dozen years ago I got a $150,000 personal injury verdict. The phone was soon ringing as lawyers from around my state called to see what insights they might gain from my success, which was a very rare kind of result. Great, one lawyer 6:45 knows scored a seven-figure verdict. That has always happened and always will. But you know what? If they started churning out ten times as many JDs every year there wouldn't be any more seven figure or $150,000 verdicts than there are now. For the umpteenth time this is a big game of musical chairs. The chairs are the available files and it impossible for everybody to win. The people who throw around anecdotes are full of crap and they know it.

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    8. The size of the verdict does not by itself imply the lawyer's excellence. A self-represented litigant could get a seven-figure verdict.

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    9. Exactly, 7:45. As 4:22 pointed out even a $150,000 verdict is unusual. Anyone who gets a seven figure verdict is just lucky that the client called them. Making a living buying lottery tickets is still not a good plan.

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    10. Which city and which state do not have a saturated legal market?

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    11. Whether the people you know are doing okay is quite related to years out of law school. The farther out, the worse the results.

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  17. I'm "one of the lucky ones." I have a prestigious government job that pays well and is fun as hell. But I have a family friend who's an undergrad who applied to law school recently, and I couldn't believe the things he told me. First, I told him to accept an offer from our higher ranked state law school over the lower ranked private law school in another state, and he refused. He wanted to go to school in the much cooler city the private school was in. When I argued that he should worry about the debt load, this was his response: "I'll work at a big law firm for a few years to make up for the extra debt. And once I've done that I'll go back to what I really love doing." What he really wanted to do was criminal defense at a PD. He was especially passionate about the death penalty. But somehow he figured he'd just automagically land a job at biglaw, from his no name private school, and everything would be cool.

    I was stunned speechless at this level of delusion. And, I'm sorry, but this story conflicts 100% with the gist of your post that you are all a bunch of hardworking blameless victims of a giant scam. People believe what they want to believe, at the end of the day.

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    1. I hear your point, 5:11 AM, although I would add that your family friend is living in the "pre-scam" world currently, where everything is magical fairy dust and unicorns.
      It's hard to reason with people in that state, which is one reason we all try to put the message out there.

      Also, I think "blameless" is too strong a word - Ludo above, as well as myself and others, will admit to some degree of fault in making a bad choice, and that is another reason people blog. The fact that the Law School Cartel preys on the delusional thinking you reference and does nothing to manage expectations, however, makes them complicit. They aren't helping; they are in actuality trying to convince your family friend to make bad decisions.

      As least at a used car lot, you end up getting a car. Right now a JD is an even worse vehicle for most, if that is possible.

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    2. I'm also one of the lucky ones, though my job isn't funded by taxpayers.

      The fact that we were once starry-eyed dreamers who believed that we could "work at a big law firm for a few years" to pay off debt - a notion that law schools played a large part in creating - doesn't change the fact that, now faced with reality, most of us are working hard, whether we're working biglaw, government, shitlaw or retail. The point is that we have to work hard as we have no other choice; the notion that we're all just sitting around whining about how we're not getting rich quick is B.S. perpetuated by bumbling morons like Jack Marshall.

      Also, anyone currently applying to law school is in a special class of idiocy.

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    3. 5:11 here. Agreed on all points.

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    4. Emphatically we are NOT all innocent victims. Some of us, such as your acquaintance, are goddamn fools. Others are incorrigibly lazy. I won't be found shedding crocodile tears because morons from Florida Coastal or Indiana Tech can't find work, let alone corner offices in Big Law.

      Indeed, I don't even regard myself as an innocent victim—and I'm diametrically opposite the C-minus-from-Cooley majority. Every day I torment myself with the thought that I should have known better than to go to law school.

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    5. These lemmings are vulnerable individuals. They are being preyed upon my law schools. But who is enabling them? The federal government who is loaning them all this money. Just out of pure laziness. It would take hard work to deal with all the controversy if they tried to cut back loans. It would take hard work to try and work out proper actuarial controls for loans. Easier to just blindly trust the law schools and loan out whatever they decide is appropriate.

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    6. "I hear your point, 5:11 AM, although I would add that your family friend is living in the "pre-scam" world currently, where everything is magical fairy dust and unicorns.
      It's hard to reason with people in that state, which is one reason we all try to put the message out there."

      In retrospect, when people are writing the history books (in 2050), the change will have happened 'suddenly'. That will mean over the course of a decade, with some people *never* finding out until afterwards.

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  18. I have a job now, but I know I'll be fired in the future as the market saturates further and wages gets worse. I look at my friends in the trades and can't help to feel deep regret and envy, but the truth is that it's my fault for choosing naively.

    My only hope was that kids would wise up. Sadly though, that's. Ot the case, and the reason that is not the case is young kids don't know what to do, and because of this, applications are rising:

    http://www.jdunderground.com/all/thread.php?threadId=66400

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    1. That the number of people taking the test is rising doesn't mean that the number of applications is rising. People could be taking the test multiple times.

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  19. I went to law school. Was a waste of time. Offers out of law school were horrible. Lucked into tech industry (gotta know math, how to code software, work hard, work harder, work hardest -- more/better/smarter than your boss or his boss). Got a few years work experience, went to top 10 business school... and then... the skies opened up. It's truly amazing what a great network does for you. All luck... (and sleeping at the office)

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  20. I can't hold my tongue any more.

    If you entered law school anytime after 2010, and are now complaining about not being gainfully employed, you're an idiot. I told you so. I have been telling Lemmings for 5 years about the perils of law school.

    There were lots of scamblogs even in 2008 when I graduated. By 2010, the scam-blogosphere had reached a fever pitch and alarm bells should have been ringing in every Snowflake-flecked Lemming's ear.

    Everyone knew by 2010 that the employment stats put out by law schools were total lies. The economy had tanked and taken thousands of legal jobs with them. Biglaw was laying off and ending their summer classses left and right. Doc review jobs and rates had gone into the toilet years before that. State and local governments had massive hiring freezes. The scamblog websites JDunderground, Temporaryattorney.blogspot, third tier reality, etc were all out there. I remember all this. I lived through it.

    I'll repeat this: the facts were out there. How did you not realize this Lemmings? Does it take a few NYT articles for you to accept a truth? Did you really need ITLSS (as good as it was) to see the truth?

    So now, as the graduating class of 2014 starts sending me emails plaintively begging for help, what am I to do? I can't help these poor, desperate suckers. There is a vast surplus of newbie attorneys out there. In my part of the country you can't throw a rock without hitting a desperate young solo.

    So now another 20,000 graduates are about to enter the legal marketplace and will belatedly realize there's nothing for them and they will have to take up work at their local Starbucks or JC Penny. If they're really lucky, they might transition into another career entirely. Some will try to bury their sense of shame and depression with drugs or alcohol, some will come to a reckoning and move on, some may eventually find real legal work, and some will carry the flame of the scamblogging movement. But none of them needed to be in this place.


    And meanwhile, the scammers continue along a path of essentially open enrollment. This won't end until the supply of Federal dollars dries up. The Swine who run law schools only care about getting those dolla$, and very very soon, they will be admitting Downs candidates, elderly candidates, those who score sub 130 on the LSAT, a lot more LLM foreigners, etc. I think we will eventually see outright enrollment fraud at some of the bottom dwelling schools.

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    1. I applied to law schools in 2009. Third-tier Washington University in St Louis, apparently using a bulk-mail list from the LSAC, recently sent me e-mail about its LLM programs ($50k a pop), which supposedly would "take [my] career to the next level". Just getting a job at the local grocery store would take my career to the next level, but I see no reason to think that an LLM would help even with that.

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    2. I agree. You are right. Even when I enrolled in 2006, the info was kind of out there, but I still can't believe how bad things got. I can't believe I'm worse off than people with high school equivalency diplomas. It's just staggering to me.

      And the thing that is killing me is that things are getting worse and worse. Every year my place of employment is getting better and better candidates for lower and lower pay. I just can't understand it. I mean, it's not that things have been bad and they remain the same. IT'S GETTING FUCKING WORSE AND THESE KIDS ARE STILL GOING. I DON'T FUCKING UNDERSTAND.

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    3. Again, I'm not going to defend law school at all; I insist that it's a colossal mistake for almost everyone but rich kids.

      That said, there just aren't very many good options of any kind these days. Municipal pig and North Dakotan truck driver (discussed here ad nauseam) are fine for those who can get them, but what exactly are the rest of us to do?

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    4. Doc Review --> eDiscovery career?

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    5. There are a lot of big city municipal jobs, not just "PIG" as you so crudely and inappropriately characterized that important and lucrative profession. In NYC, city plumbers, carpenters, emts, firemen, electricians, toll both collectors, etc make anywhere between 6 5 - 100k with no overtime after 5 years. Port authority cops average 150-250k. I'm just throwing stuff off of the top of my head. For those that don't believe me, search engine the NYC civil list and take a look at the compensation for blue collar city workers of all sorts (note that overtime may not be listed).

      This isn't including pensions and lifelong benefits, and most importantly: you can't be outsource or insourced. In fact, you are even exempted from regular market forces.

      But I digress. The question isn't what we should do with our lives. We made our bed and are going to have to sleep in it. The question is guiding young and naive kids into the paths with the highest liklihood of success in relation to the risk posed by those paths.

      Law school is the worst of all of the higher ed paths because it is extremely high risk for a small chance of success, and success is fleeting and diminishing day by day. However, all white collar private sector jobs (and blue collar jobs as well) outside of Wall Street (and for a few more years Medicine) are on the way out. You will be outsourced or you will be insourced or the government will subsidize things to create a surplus when those two techniques don't work (see Law School Loan guarantees). Period.

      As such, the best option for young kids is working for big city governments in jobs where political protection awaits.

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    6. Not everyone can get these "protected" municipal jobs though.

      The best advice is to live frugally, minimize debt (and probably avoid student debt given how toxic it is), take any reasonable job you can get. Do not assume the economy is going to "recover". Do not assume that any degree, even a STEM one, will give you of a job.

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    7. It's frightening when the best option for young people is to work for the government. What a hindrance on economic growth, with the next generation putting essentially nothing into the economy and instead becoming wage slaves to state and federal overseers. Collect from the government; pay the government; hope that your pension doesn't disappear.

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    8. Many years ago I was having one of those weeks - worn out, head in my hands - and my managing partner came in and asked what was up - and I responded vis-à-vis 2 or 3 clients - "can't they keep themselves out of trouble for at least a week or two."

      He answered "no - and if they did they would not need us. If people did not do foolish things they probably would not need lawyers very much. Be happy that you are the person they call... but yes, a few weeks of quiet would be nice."

      To say that there is no excuse for going to law school in 2010 - or 2014 is not really what perhaps someone "thinking like a lawyer" should do. After a long time in practice I have learned that most of the time blame-storming is pointless and that you really cannot judge people's decisions very well, because the information that people have seen, the way in which they assimilate and trust information, the way in which they see things is highly variable.

      Take the USNWR itself - the very fact that it devotes an entire issue to law schools and another to business schools, but no other graduate courses get such treatment in of itself suggests to kids applying to law school that it is a big deal, that law schools are important. Then consider the messaging that students get every day of the week from sources like television - the way in which lawyers are portrayed in dramas like Law & Order, the Practice, Shark, etc. - good looking, expensively dressed, nice offices, good cars, always making dramatic statements in court or at meetings - always with a hot girlfriend or boyfriend, amazing home - and consider that these are 22-24 year olds who have internalised these messages their entire lives from adolescence forward. Then consider the slick materials the law schools send - even in the 1980s I was stuck by the very high quality of production of the materials from the law school I was applying to, the heavy paper, the printing quality. Look at the law school buildings - they emulate courthouses and banks in their architectural style - solid, lots of stone, pillars, panelling, brass, marble - subliminal messages "this is an institution." This is all these kids see about law school.

      In contrast, while giving credit to the scamblogs - they are - well decorated with images of toilets and turds, not formally associated with any university, run by dedicated amateurs - who deserve praise for their work - but are amateurs none the less.

      In everything the scamblogs are trying to achieve they are fighting cognitive dissonance on what the kids applying to law school think they know, think they understand, the message they have received from the law school, the authority of people with titles like professor, dean - the images from popular media - and the scamblogs are saying that this is all bullshit ... who at first glance looks more likely to be a reputable source of information?



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    9. The tragedy is that things are just not going to stay bad. Every year they get worse. It's getting to the point where you need to be top of the class and on LR to get an insurance defense job that pays 60k. This is what baffles me. You would think that at some point there would be a rock bottom, but there isnt. It's a bottomless pit. And this is why I don't understand these kids: even if you say"fuck the scamblogs, I will beat the odds," what's good enough to beat the odds to day won't be good enough tomorrow.

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    10. anon @4:22,

      Yes, you make some good points. Those most likely to "think like a lawyer" are those who are actually avoiding law school these days. Above The Law made this precise point a while back. And it has been pointed out ad nauseum that the ones who are most likely to get f*$ked by the law school cartels are those most likely to never get jobs as lawyers.

      I don't know how you reach the Lemmings, I really don't. I'm not 22 any more, but I was raised with the understanding that personal debt was something to be avoided. I self-financed my way through law school. I think a lot of it boils down to mathematical illiteracy among the Lemmings. They don't grasp what it will be like to have $150,000 in debt accumulating interest. Maybe it boils down to Lemmings having a cossetted undergraduate life and not wanting to leave it. I know when I left undergrad I wanted to make money and prove myself in the business world.

      I have spent time in the last 5 years earnestly and quietly trying to stop people from going to law school. As I said in my previous post, it didn't work and now all 5 former Lemmings are either unemployed, doc reviewers or working in different fields.

      That's why I always say the lawyer brand itself is what has to be destroyed. That's where our long-term fight must be. Make no mistake; the scambloggers have a hard fight. If I won the lottery tomorrow I would quickly put up about 50 or 60 websites all designed to compete with the worst toilets though. Someone who is considering going to a Toilet would have my site pop up right underneath the Toilet's website with the cold hard facts.

      In the meantime I'm going to continue to fight the fight.

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    11. I agree with the point about the blue-collar muni thing--most such employees are in better shape than most law school grads--but even that cannot go on forever. The political pull of the muni employees' unions notwithstanding, "debt that can't be repaid won't." E.g. even though retired govt employees were promised lavish pensions, health care, etc, if the money is not there, then it's not there. Just look at Detroit. Ask the retired employees of that city what's going on with their pensions. And it's not just Detroit either. That city is the canary in the coal mine (along with the bankrupt cities in California).

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    12. Typical lemmings don't even think about the debt; it's just Monopoly money to them.

      As I said here recently, I'd require every applicant to demonstrate how she intended to pay for law school. Those that did not have a plausible plan would not be allowed to borrow money at all.

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    13. Pretty much every law school is a toilet these days. Even Harvard and Yale are bad choices for many people.

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    14. @BamBam,

      Right, but we are talking the best option of a set of bad options. If NYC, LA, etc. Go under and can't pay out pensions, what do you think the private sector is going to look like? When those promises are broken, No one will be safe.

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    15. Cushy municipal employment, like law and so many other things, will turn out to have been the province of the baby boomers.

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    16. Harvard LS cum laude/, HYP undergrad/ phi bet/ summa/ art 3 clerk in most competitive district court/ 1 v5 law firm job after that for many years/ substantial expertise and experience in a major practice area/ unemployed and unable to get any interviews for over a year. - coming from the v5 firm or after leaving. Making application after application. Not URMG. Not female.

      The oversupply of lawyers is beyond what anyone can imagine. Law school is a poor decision for most people.

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    17. Just very difficult to believe given your qualification, credentials and experience that you can't get a job... unless you simply have a very introverted personality. You still need to be able to speak to and get along with people. If you can't do that, you will not be successful in this profession no matter what your credentials.

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    18. 2:28 here We are talking someone with years of work experience and a promotion within a major law firm. We are talking about not getting interviews and not failing on an interview. This is not uncommon for lawyers over age 45. This is a result of acute experienced lawyer oversupply and not personality.

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    19. To the poster: you are right, but for 90%+ of law school graduates, what else are they really to do? Most are political science/history/English (etc) majors. Many picked those majors because math/science/engineering, etc, does not come naturally to them and, at the end of the day, not everyone can be a math, science or computer science major anyway. That's the problem with this country: most jobs in almost every other profession have dried up too (unless you are good at science and want to become a PA/Nurse, etc.)

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  21. Who cares if the student loan conduits are motivated or lazy, smart or dumb? If there aren't enough jobs to go around, there aren't enough jobs to go around.

    As long as the schools are paid whether their graduates are employed or not, they'll keep right on admitting them. I'm sure the law profs would prefer smart, good-looking, personable loan conduits -- those qualities will make their jobs more pleasant on a day-to-day basis -- but a great many schools will take nearly anyone with a pulse. After all, they are paid whether the student is qualified or unqualified.

    I guess it's convenient for the schools to point fingers at their grads, but at the end of the day it's taxpayers funding these income based repayment programs and/or absorbing the loan defaults. If the schools are admitting unqualified applicants who are totally unemployable, they're ripping off the taxpayers. If they are admitting great students but there are no jobs, they are ripping off taxpayers.

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  22. On the point of admitting anyone with a pulse... Yeah, I think that's the case now.

    I'm a 3L, and a lucky one (I can admit it was largely due to luck), but I have empathy, and so I see the misery in my fellow classmates. A LOT of people don't have a job of any kind lined up for after graduation... This isn't good at this point... Come May, we'll be studying for the bar, not applying for jobs, so that's another two months not able to get on with job searching... After that... It doesn't get any better. I'm at a school where less than half of graduating students get a full-time, long term position requiring bar admission (See, luck, flip-of-a-coin chances)... It's bad out here... There are MANY MANY schools that place less than half of their students in real LAWYER JOBS 9 months after graduation... That's crazy. At that point, the next graduating class is waiting in the queue ready to fill all the positions you want... It's a compounding problem, and schools will close, it's unsustainable, especially in light of soaring, crippling debt... Anyway...

    So back to what I started to say before that little rant... Like, literally, some of these kids look borderline autistic or at least asberger's spectrum. I've talked to a few and they're actually not there. They're living in a fantasy land. Some of them have zero social skills... They're NOT GOING TO GET HIRED BY ANYONE, let alone a biglaw firm or fed. gov. agency. These aren't mature people (no matter how many worthless law reviews they edit, or how many moot competitions they win). Even after all the information that's been out there, they've been completely duped... Some of these guys probably had no other prospects, and with falling standards, literally everyone is getting in. I don't think they realize, you need to be a functioning human being, you can't be a completely inept child, no matter how "smart" you are (which is debatable given that you've chosen to throw away your life). Going to school isn't going to magically get you where you want to be, unless where you want to be is deeply, depressingly in debt up to just below your nose so, although you are still able to breathe, you realize every waking moment how completely F%$^ed your life is now that you're $200,000 in the hole with NO WAY out (i.e., no way of paying your bills).

    They have no idea what they're in for. I didn't, although I had some good tips going in, so I knew my number one focus was job job job, and I LUCKED into a good position 1L summer, which catapulted me to the next position (it seems like some of these kids just talked to their parents who said "Yeah, go for it tiger, you can do anything you put your mind to..." - NO). If I hadn't gotten that job, and I was currently without employment, I literally don't know what would be motivating me to get through school (I hate classes so much, it's hard to describe, I put on an "I'm focused and ready and studious" face, and I contribute to discussion in my BS seminars, all the while thinking how utterly wasted my life is at this point, and how much I just want to NOT be in school). I see it in people's eyes. They know they're screwed but they think OK i'm in school, if I work hard someone will hire me... At this point, it's too late honestly...

    I have multiple friends who went $200,000ish into debt, and now don't have jobs. I'm really deeply scared for them, and I care about them a lot, so I will be there for them if they need me, it's just sad to see your friends destroyed by this whole ordeal (that's what law school feels like to me, it's really been a fiasco, or a prolonged hazing experience).

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    1. You have some good points there about law school now being where unsociable people lacking in self confidence hide out from having to looking for work for 3 years. Although I hope you aren't making the same mistakes as your fellow students. How much debt have you taking on? Are these summer positions you've taken really going to lead to a full time legal job after school? Reading this site and its comments I get the strong impression few people coming out of law school have truly successful long term outcomes now.

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    2. I'm OP 3:26 PM.

      The 2 summer gigs led to an offer for a full-time job after graduation. I have under $50,000 debt (not necessarily good, but far better than some), and salary clearly isn't some ridiculous fairy-tale, magical BIGLaw salary but it's more than enough to pay that down, and I won't have to work 80 hour weeks.

      I wish I didn't have any loans, and I would have loved to get some high flying job but at my school just wasn't possible.

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    3. People think they are set for life if they get that first legal job.

      In no way true. Law is very rocky, even for those with good entry level jobs.

      You have maybe a 25% chance of avoiding long-term unemployment or underemployment after your first job ends.

      Don't be so smug.

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    4. I agree the OP sounds smug, but not exactly for the same reasons. He's in okay shape if he really only has less than $50,000 in debt. The issue I have is his apparent excitement about his first law firm job.

      Law firms are environments where psychologically imbalanced, narcissistic assholes with no management skills tend to thrive. In most corporate environments, such people are weeded out and wind up in a small minority of corporate leadership. But law firms care only about billable hours and one's book of business, so management skills or people skills are irrelevant. In addition, the business model of law firms has become severely addicted to billable hours, so very little else matters. Some firms try to give laughable lip service to various bullshit ploys like "diversity" and "pro bono."

      To this 3L OP I can only say: You know yourself better than anyone else. If you believe that you have certain personality traits that allow you to prioritize billables over ABSOLUTELY everything else in your life, including your now or future wife, now or future kids, family, aging parents, a social life, a life enriched with hobbies and charitable pursuits, etc., then you will thrive at a law firm.

      If you are a normal person, it may take you several years but you will soon come to the same conclusion I am suggesting to you here: life in a law firm is a life of misery, which is unsustainable in the long run. If I were you, I would angle this job you have to landing a position in the public sector somewhere, where lawyers are actually needed and actually appreciated for their services.

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    5. OP here. Still don't understand the "smug" comment.

      So, funny you should say that...

      It's a public sector job. I COMPLETELY AGREE, I could NEVER MAKE IT in biglaw, or at any law firm. I've heard the horror stories, and see friends doing that. They're thrown their lives away. I'm not that kind of person, and like I said, I definitely lucked into this gig, and I know that I could get down-sized or whatever depending on the budget, I'm just happy to have something...

      If this doesn't pan out, I'd leave the law first before going into the private sector. I don't want to sell my soul. Absolutely agree on that point. 100%

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  23. What is the difference the amount of debt? IBR limits your payments to 10% of your income, or nothing if you are not working. I'm not saying law school is not a scam. Everything in the country is a scam. And I'm not saying its not bad to have large debt. But if you are not paying it back anyway, what's the real difference? Think of it as bankruptcy on the 25 year payback plan.

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    1. "What is the difference?"

      The issue is, our higher education system is broken. We've somehow allowed ourselves to slide into this "take on a lifetime of non-dischargeable debt to pay for school" model, and it doesn't work. Not only does it not work, but it's a financial millstone around the necks of our young people. It's horrible public policy, and we need to change it. Yesterday.

      IBR is not an answer to the problem. IBR is like covering a bullet hole with a band-aid.

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    2. This has been covered, here and elsewhere.

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    3. Sorry, I was replying to the person who brought up IBR.

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    4. So you will never be able to own a home, never be able to get credit to lease a car, will not have a credit line on your bank account, and your credit rating will be low. Of course, every employer gets a credit report on potential hires.

      What difference does bad credit make? Maybe none if you plan to try to live on welfare.

      Delete
  24. "Think of it as bankruptcy on the 25 year payback plan."

    Yes, exactly! Think of IBR as a bankruptcy where the "fresh start" happens five years from retirement, and results in a huge bill owed to the IRS. What's the big deal?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And from what's said around the blogs, the fact that you'd have $100K - $200K of unsecured debt will be a credit problem. Remember, the IBR program has to be renewed by Congress every few years, and there were problems last time.

      Delete
  25. Don't celebrate yet! The number of February LSAT-takers came out recently. Guess what, it showed an increase!

    http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/lsats-administered

    It is possible this could be the beginning of the reflation of the law school bubble.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A minor increase, roughly 1% over the previous February. One swallow does not a summer make.

      Delete