As is distressingly apparent from the tweets collected at
Law School Lemmings, a lot of incoming law students are extremely naive about lawyer work and lifestyles, and hold aspirations that are influenced, or shall I say tainted, by this or that movie
or hit TV show. Even worse is the unspeakably cynical law school propaganda designed to convince young idealists that an
expensive legal education will allow them to assume a leadership role in the struggle against intractable social or political problems, such as racism or environmental catastrophe.
Law School Transparency has a wonderful new series
of podcasts ("I am the Law") in which various kinds of lawyers are interviewed for
20 to 35 minutes. The podcasts are meant to provide kids contemplating a legal
career with some useful information about what legal practice in various specialties is
really like. Among the interviewees are a personal injury lawyer (Tricia
Dennis!), a former public defender, a family lawyer, a patent attorney, a real
estate attorney, an administrative appeals lawyer, and an immigration
lawyer. Several other podcasts are forthcoming.
http://www.lstradio.com/iatl/
http://www.lstradio.com/iatl/
I especially recommend the Tricia Dennis
interview, which was conducted by Prof. Deborah Merritt, Paul Campos’s co-dissident at Inside the Law School Scam. Tricia speaks with humor and verve,
and is clearly devoted to her work, but she provides some grim observations about a practice
area that once offered real opportunities for new grads, but that has been
devastated by tort reform and by lawyer oversaturation, which she deems "a profound, profound
problem, at least in this State." (26:40)
For instance, Tricia observes that lawyers
who can afford to advertise extensively on TV are putting out of business those
who cannot, a cautionary point for newbies who hope to hang out a shingle.
And Tricia makes another point, an even
sadder one, that lawyer oversaturation means that a newbie lawyer is far less
likely than a generation ago to find crucial local mentoring:
"Someone my age, we should be mentoring young kids who either by choice or by circumstances are not getting big firm jobs [or] government work. We should be mentoring these people. But we can’t! I mean, there is no way I could mentor a young graduate from UT simply because I cannot train my competition. I cannot stay in business and have somebody else learn my business model, and then compete against me. Now, when I was starting out in 1987, and it wasn’t quite so bad….I was mentored by a mean son of a bitch, but he knew how to teach me how to practice law and he was willing to do it. . . . .He could do it because there was still enough cases [that] I wasn't going to hurt his business."
(27:12-
28:15)
All of the "I am the Law" interviewees so far are enjoying more or less successful careers, and the questions posed to them only infrequently touch on legal education. Therefore, I hope that even academics who feel threatened by the scamblog perspective will recommend this series.
All of the "I am the Law" interviewees so far are enjoying more or less successful careers, and the questions posed to them only infrequently touch on legal education. Therefore, I hope that even academics who feel threatened by the scamblog perspective will recommend this series.
I too recommend Tricia Dennis's interview, for which I thank her. She generously shares some figures on income and expenses that show how difficult the business of law is today even for someone with an established presence and almost thirty years' experience. For example, she plunks down almost a quarter of a million dollars a year to broadcast a tacky television commercial. She would not demean herself with such hucksterism if there were a more dignified and reliable way to draw in business.
ReplyDeleteWill the lemmings listen? Or will they assume that they'll succeed where more capable and more experienced people struggle or fail?
Old Guy
Actually, Old Guy, I think what we are seeing, based on the falling admissions standards, is that the smart money is getting out and the true lemmings, the dumb ones, are not listening and never will.
DeleteI am in Tricia's range of experience . . . about 30 years, and I too have seen the huge advertisers scarf up the great majority of the Personal Injury Business and, most of their clients in the end are shafted because High volume business models are based on settling quickly and cheaply. Not only do these advertisers make lawyers look like used car salesmen, but the insurers are so used to settling so cheaply with them that they offer lots less when settling with the rest of us, which means more work preparing and trying cases that once long ago would have been settled . . . or alternatively, which means your client is getting far less than fair value in settlement.
DeleteWhen I started out, a quarter page add in the telephone book was more than enough to get decent business. But as the telephone books took advantage, it soon was necessary to pay for triple pages (trucks), tabs, magnets, all of the other stuff.
Tricia apparently decided to compete at the level of the competition. I went the other way. I decided I was not going to work my tail off to make the media rich. Higher advertisement costs meant a larger nut to crack and more advertising generally would also mean more crap cases, and larger staff and on and on and on.
So instead I worked on getting my Board Certification in trial law, which helps me sell myself, and I went almost entirely out of the paid advertisement field. I rely on word of mouth, referrals, past results, etc. I am not making as much as in the past, but I am paying my bills and I am small . . . which is the way I like it. Keeping the overhead down is all important. 250K in advertising expenses would keep me up at night, especially because I don't want to resort to the business model of the large advertisers, who quite frankly I believe are nothing but scammers and Narcissists.
Make no mistake. Your competition is often ruthless. They will say and do anything to get the business you by rights should be getting. and it is far, far harder to make it now than it was in the past. I would simply not even try if I were getting out of Law School at this point.
Just remember its not what you earn that is important, its what you spend. You can have a great life with a small practice and a decent income, or you can choose to have a much more difficult life by increasing your personal and business expenses far beyond what is reasonable.
I hear what you're saying. For Trish Dennis to spend 250k in advertising to take home 110k is crazy. I bet she has to deal with some real nut jobs too.
DeleteWill listen today, but sounds like a good way of getting some reality out there in a way the kids understand.
ReplyDeleteThey should then do a companion series of podcasts, in which they interview spouses, ex-spouses, and children of lawyers.
ReplyDelete- One of the Lucky Ones
I'm a little disappointed at what Tricia is probably making- something in the neighborhood of $110k/year, and she doesn't have job security. And she has to pay for her own medical benefits as well.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem right that someone with that much experience isn't making much more. Very educational. Makes me grateful for my own "JD advantage" job at Megacorp (also in TN).
Of course, that's in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Making 110K there is like making 600K in New York City. Not bad for someone who openly consorts with shady scambloggers.
DeleteShe probably looked at her net income and realized that the law school scam was ruining her life as much as it ruins the lives of the tens of thousands of JDs who will never practice law.
DeleteWell, that salary is fine for that part of TN. And Chattanooga is about the best part of TN, IMHO. But I would just have a tough time as a solo, worrying about finding clients, about wanting to save for retirement, etc.
DeleteI wish her podcast had a wider audience. She should do an interview on NPR. Too many Lemmings unrealistically think they can hang a shingle if they don't get a job and the reality is far from it. I had several law school classmates who couldn't get jobs and tried to solo, only to burn through money and fail spectacularly.
I have made this comment before, but I think it bears repeating. Private law practice is like selling wedding dresses. There are only so many weddings and so many injuries in one year. There is no way to expand the market, so anyone getting into it is going to have to steal business from someone who is already there, and the people with solid advertising budgets will have an advantage.
DeleteIn my state lawyers are taking on work they had never touched before, sometime as extreme peril to their clients. Experienced, mid-career lawyers are seeking $35-$50/hour court appointment work. I wish Tricia and everyone else all the best but things have been getting worse for 40 years or more and I think that they will get a lot worse before they get any better.
In the city where I live, I see so many ads for personal injury lawyers, and each one is sleazier than the next. There is one firm that advertises on the sides of buses, and each time I see a bus drive by with the six-feet high, smirking face of one of the partners emblazoned on it, it makes me sick. There's another firm that advertises on TV, and the smarmy-looking lawyer yells into the camera about how he will "Make them pay!" Why do these lawyers always look so absurd in these ads, with their cheap, ill-fitting suits and laughably obvious toupees? Doctors often advertise their medical practices, but it's always done in such a tasteful, professional way. Advertisements for lawyers just reek of sleaze and desperation. So much for law being a dignified, noble profession.
ReplyDeleteWhy nothing on Hamline's "merger" (closure)? This is a watershed event.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. It's been covered quite a bit elsewhere, but I'd like to see a good post here to put it all in context.
DeleteYou could write something on the subject yourselves rather than waiting for other people to do so…
DeleteThe face-saving use of mergers works best in areas with multiple law schools. Thomas Jefferson could not effect a graceful exit by "merging" with Vermont Law Skule.
Old Guy
Well, I'll throw out one observation on the topic. William Mitchell could have battened down the hatches, waited for Hamline to fold and then absorbed its market share. Their reputation, though not stellar, was still better and their enrollment hadn't fallen as much. I think this situation reflects a growing sense of panic among the faculty at independent law schools, none of which are particularly good to begin with, because they realize that when their toilet folds there will be no one left to pay their pensions.
DeleteNo doubt, the schools need to be in the same geographic area in order for a merger to work. I think their reputation/ranking has to be fairly similar as well. Thus, I could see Hofstra and Touro merging but not Fordham and NYLS.
DeleteAlso, as long as people are suggesting topics for possible posts, it looks like trouble is brewing over at Washington & Lee Law School. Campos already has a couple of posts up at LG&M.
Thanks @10:37. I read Campos' posts and clearly it is the same situation at W&L and Hamline. An institution that long saw its law school as a cash cow suddenly found itself having to subsidize it. Kind of like a woman who comes home earlier than expected and finds her husband dressed in women's clothes. A sudden, shocking paradigm shift. "Wait a minute! I'M supposed to be the girl here!" "Wait a minute! YOU'RE supposed to be giving US money!"
DeleteGod willing W&L and Hamline are just the tip of the iceberg.
Fordham and NYLS? Well, they're both fourth-tier institutions, by my standard. I agree though, that Fordham would deem that an undignified marriage. Then again, if it absorbed two or three classes from New York Law Skule, Fordham would suffer no direct harm on the bogus ranking put out by You Ass News: as with transfer students, their LSAT scores and GPAs would not enter into the calculations. So maybe that "merger" could happen after all.
DeleteThe isolated toilets—for example, Vermont Law Skule, Indiana Tech, and Appalachian—can forget about "merging" themselves out of trouble. Vermont Law Skule has apparently been begging the U of Vermont to buy it out. But what would the U of Vermont want with a collapsing toilet located in a remote rural area (the nearest grocery store is a half hour's drive away—in New Hampshire)?
Old Guy
Old Guy, I think the real issue with VLS is what @6:34 pointed out. The U of Vermont would have to start pumping cash into the toilet that would have to be diverted from other priorities, and for what? Vermont has about 627,000 people with about 109,000 in the Burlington area, a college town that is closer to Montreal than any large American city. Vermont's economy cannot begin to absorb VLS' graduates so you'd have the taxpayers paying for Vermont kids to go there and then leave the state and people from out of state going there for three years and then going home. As they say in Hollywood, what's my motivation?
DeleteThis blog needs to devote a full post to "Why Dolphins Cannot Hire You To Be Their Lawyer."
ReplyDeleteBecause today idealistic kids are still applying to TTTs with >145 LSATs and $50,000 annual tuition fees. These "kidults" may actually believe that dolphins have US currency, will flop into their offices, and hire them to sue polluters. LSAC made that dolphin poster because they knew it would appeal to a certain demographic *cough* kidsontop-law-schools.com*cough*fansofLegallyBlonde*cough*.
This is the Spongebob generation, need I remind you. Especially the under-145 crowd. They may overestimate dolphins' sentience and cash savings rates.
Look people are still applying. And its getting to the lowest of the low with the silliest ideas. Dolphins will not even be able to bring salvaged pirate chests of gold doubloons to your TTT office in some ghetto of Toledo. They will not offer your lavish Neptunian treasures of the deep when they get divorced. A dolphin-focused practice will not enable TTT-grads to collect Lamborghinis.
"And may there be no moaning of the bar / When I put out to sea."
DeleteWell, the Wunderkinder with LSAT scores below 145 are unlikely to be called to the bar, whether it moan or not. But they certainly are out to sea if they expect to make a career as advocates for dolphins.
That's just the trouble, though: almost every lemming fancies herself doing glamorous work. Hardly anyone goes to law school with the goal of writing wills or doing document review. Well, it should be obvious that not everyone can do glamorous work. In addition, there is hardly any work at all in the so-called fields of "environmental law" (suing on behalf of dolphins), "sports law" (hobnobbing with celebrities), "entertainment law" (ditto), "international law" (hobnobbing with diplomats in five-star hotels), and "aerospace law" (suing Martians, I suppose). And if there were any such work, it wouldn't go to a mooncalf from Indiana Tech.
Old Guy
My grandfather made bank doing wills. He called it "the cream of the crop." Of course, he worked ten hour days, except for Sundays, was a solo, had no over heard, and retired in 1996 after 58 years of work. In those days, you were allowed a percentage of the will and he outlived all of his clients...
ReplyDeleteIn my state you are still allowed to charge a percentage of an estate but finding clients who are dumb enough to pay on that basis is getting to be almost impossible. You can thank Al Gore, the inventor of the internet. In fact finding clients at all is getting harder and harder.
Delete