As if it had not misled the public badly enough with its "rankings", You Ass News has run an article promoting law school to people well beyond the typical age range.
Long-standing readers OTLSS will know that age-based discrimination is very real in the so-called legal profession. Old Guy in particular has written about his experience as a law student past forty: he came in at the top of the class at his élite law school only to find that he could not get so much as an interview anywhere—except for a federal clerkship that did not help him to find other work. He went through lengthy periods of unemployment before ending up in an unsatisfactory role as a lawyer.
Do not suppose that Old Guy's case is unusual. On the contrary, it reflects the reality of widespread age-based discrimination in the legal realm. But the article cited above mentions this little detail only in passing, near the end: "While you may face hurdles like age discrimination in the legal field, you may also benefit from greater life experience, more resources and connections, and higher clarity of purpose." You will experience age discrimination, and you won't benefit much from those other traits when the time comes to look for work.
Old Guy is an example of someone who Did Everything Right yet still turned out badly because of entrenched discrimination in law. A typical law student beyond age 29, without an élite law school or an élite law review or a federal clerkship or the other nominal advantages that Old Guy had, can expect to fare even worse. If you are over 29, law school is not for you. You can scream about human rights until you are blue in the face, but that will do nothing to land you a job. If you still go off to law school notwithstanding this baleful warning, do not come crying later to Old Guy.
"Law schools aren't looking for students to come in with detailed career plans."
ReplyDeleteYou can say that again.
"There are now multiple fully online J.D. programs, and even more hybrid online programs, that allow students to earn a law degree fully or primarily from home."
Let us know how that turns out.
"Many law schools have associations of Older, Wiser Law Students, or OWLS, to socialize, commiserate and share advice. "
They do? Is this guy getting a commission for everyone who reads his articles and applies to law school?
I know a person who works for EEOC; they admitted that they do pretty much zero when it comes to complaints about age discrimination.
DeleteWhy? In addition to the usual bureaucratic excuses-limited budget/not enough staff, etc etc-they said they have so many viable sexual harassment/discrimination complaints(which says what about our society?) they don't even bother with anything else. As they put it, the age discrimination complaints "get no traction" because nobody cares.
When I attended my Toilet at the ripe age of 32, there were indeed groups for older students. They were friendly and all, but that doesn't help you get a job after school. And many of my cohort never got jobs as attorneys.
DeleteMy situation is similar to OldGuy. I must have applied to every patent law job out there. Mistakenly, I thought my decade of engineering experience would make me valuable. I was about as valuable as a dried up apple.
On another note, there are very little articles on entry-level age discrimination in legal hiring. So it's difficult to know empirically if it exists, but it's my experience that it does exist. Law schools are pure evil. They're scams. Anyone over the age of 25, with VERY few exceptions, should not go to law school.
When I attended my Toilet at the ripe age of 32, there were indeed groups for older students. They were friendly and all, but that doesn't help you get a job after school. And many of my cohort never got jobs as attorneys.
DeleteMy situation is similar to OldGuy. I must have applied to every patent law job out there. Mistakenly, I thought my decade of engineering experience would make me valuable. I was about as valuable as a dried up apple.
On another note, there are very little articles on entry-level age discrimination in legal hiring. So it's difficult to know empirically if it exists, but it's my experience that it does exist. Law schools are pure evil. They're scams. Anyone over the age of 25, with VERY few exceptions, should not go to law school.
Besides age discrimination law schools discriminate against people with disabilities. Even though the law school websites claim the law schools comply with all federal and state laws pertaining to discrimination and they promote the lofty goals of diversity. It's a bright shining lie. They will accept people from all walks of life that brings them tuition dollars to matriculate. Upon graduating these same "protected classes" will be denied the career services. It won't be overt denial of the use of career services but very subtle. Career services knows certain groups have little chances of getting employment so they won't prioritize those groups and won't put in any effort except tell them to network then never reach back. Look at the tiny percentage of disabled attorneys at law firms versus in contrast to the percentage of law students matriculating at law schools paying tuition. A huge disparity. Even NALP and the ABA admitted this is alarming.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, people with disabilities are treated badly in the discriminatory legal world. It's disgraceful.
DeleteAt most law schools the placement/career services office only serves the top 10% of the class-in other words, the students most likely to get jobs. Everybody else is on their own-as in, no assistance at all.
DeleteI went to law school decades ago to a OG level 2 school; my excuse is that is was a state school and cheap in those days. Every job-every single one-that was listed by career services required top 10% and sometimes 10% plus law review. Every one else was forbidden from applying.
Top 10% and no damning qualities such as being past 29 or having a disability. Coming in consistently among the top of the top 10%, I got nothing from called Career Services.
DeleteEncouraging older people to go to law school is downright evil. There are many situations where people have established, well-paying careers, and often are raising children and/or support elderly parents who rely upon them--and they will decide to walk away from it all because law school "has always been my dream" or they have "passion" for it, or they "hate my job and want a change." They end up receiving zero income for three years, while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on tuition, books, and living expenses. Afterward, they cannot find a job practicing law, of course. Often they come crawling back to their old job. I have encountered many stories of this, many times. An idiot in his early 20's, responsible only for himself, can go off to law school and enjoy a 3Y all-expenses-paid vacation without hurting anyone else. . .but a man or a woman with a good job, supporting their children, perhaps supporting their parents or other elderly relatives as well, paying a mortgage--that person will do a lot of harm to a lot of people if he or she falls for the law school scam. People really do leave good jobs for this idiocy, and come crawling back 3Y later, you can learn about their plights if you do the research.
ReplyDeleteThe "dream" of being a lawyer is heavily promoted without regard to reality. Unfortunately, this society does not facilitate changes of career even though so many lines of work today are unstable and people often have to do something else whether they want to or not.
DeleteOlder people—and 29 counts as old in law—face all of the practical problems that you correctly describe and the additional one of age-based discrimination that keeps even academically successful older people out of a meaningful career in law. Beyond age 29, please, do not go to law school.
The law schools will make it sound like even if you crawled back to your old job after graduating law school that the law degree will help you climb up the corporate ladder faster. So if you go back to your McDonald's job your critical skills that you learned might help you go from working the fryers making French fries to working the Drive Thru. Or from Starbucks associate barista to
Deletehead barista
First of all, you cannot expect to get your old job back however much you crawl. Dilbert was presumably referring to good jobs, not McDonald’s-grade shit. A person who quits a decent job in her thirties or forties should not expect the red carpet to be rolled out if she goes seeking her job back a few years later after a failed attempt to break into law. Many people leave the legal flop off the résumé and try to account otherwise for the gap of several years.
DeleteThose who are able to continue working full time while attending law school at night can avoid the problem of trying to an employment gap since there isn't one. There are various opinions about the ethics of not disclosing such a major educational event on a resume. I tend to think it is a personal matter myself if the so called lawyer is non practicing.
DeleteYes, ethically it is questionable to omit that information. Sometimes it may even be dishonest, particularly if a full report is required.
DeleteWhere it is not dishonest, I too leave it to private discretion. People have long concealed degrees that would only lead to their being framed as "overqualified" and kept out of jobs. I cannot blame them. Unemployment is no laughing matter.
After graduating my Toilet, completely unemployed (despite doing my absolute best to network, get summer work, etc), I managed to get an interview for an engineering position through a personal connection. Once the interviewers found out I had quit being an engineer to spend 3 years in law school, they effectively shut me down.
DeleteI spent the next 2 years scraping by, trying to provide for my wife and baby. I had a crappy handyman "business," did document review, and worked for a patent search firm for Burger King wages. DO NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL. Doing nothing is better than giving your money to these thieves.
I have omitted it on resumes but not on online applications in the education section. I have disclosed law school for any job that I ultimately obtained. Usually, though other than maybe government applications, I haven't seen a specific instruction that all education must be included on the application. I think the assumption is that people would include all education rather than omit some.
DeleteBut again, unless someone is practicing I don't see why it is anyone's business. For one thing, I would not want coworkers to know and start approaching me with legal questions. It is akin to asking someone to state their religion.
Of course, I could see an employer saying, well if we knew you went to law school we wouldn't have hired you in the first place.
Someone who goes back to an old line of work after trying to break into law has obviously failed as a lawyer. That's not a feather in the cap, is it?
DeleteLawyers are also suspected of being litigious, another strike against us when we look for work in other capacities.
That is one way how it would probably be viewed. Despite completing law school and passing a bar exam, failure to establish a legal career would probably be the only thing considered.
DeleteYet, on the other hand the same HR people would consider 'some college' on a resume as an accomplishment.
So if the top 10% of a graduating class doesn't have any "legally protected classes" like blacks, disabled, etch. Then career services doesn't assist them and the law school helps perpetuate the disparities in the legal profession. It's a vicious cycle
ReplyDeleteEmployers just don't want older people, and few, I'm sorry to say, want Black people, disabled people, and others who have been kept down in this society generally. Even if the will to help us with employment were there, not much could be achieved.
DeleteMy law school was accommodating my physical disability only when I was enrolled and paying tuition. It's a muscular atrophy type condition. After I graduated and passed the bar exam the first time the career services refused to assist me with my job search. Phone calls were never returned and neither emails when I mentioned because of a physical condition I literally couldn't walk for networking events like bar mixers or golf outings. All I could do is drop off resumes. I do wonder if the career services realizes you are likely to negatively affect their employment figure anyhow so they will focus on more promising graduates?
DeleteLaw schools only publish their diversity indexes for enrollment but not what percentage of the diverse body were employed after graduation.
I am very sorry that you were treated so shamefully. I am not, however, surprised. A decent law school would disallow on-campus interviews by firms that engaged in discrimination against people with disabilities or older people. But that would mean doing the right thing and also standing up to every goddamn law firm that there is, except maybe a small one that is happy to sweep up an ugly duckling, so of course the rotten "career services" office takes part in the discrimination and doesn't give a tinker’s damn about us.
DeleteYou probably had a claim against them for not making arrangements so that you could attend events that realistically would be important for your job search. I never even heard about golf outings (haven't been golfing in my life), but you could have been offered a golf cart, and why not a chair at those bar functions?
Law schools exploit racialized people, older people, disabled people, and others outside the young, Aryan, able-bodied mold by luring us in for our money (borrowed or otherwise) under the signboard of "opportunity" only to abandon us.
We at OTLSS wish you a happy new year.
ReplyDeleteHow sad. I was just curious what is new at the toilet law school that I graduated years ago never able to find employment with the worthless law degree and checked its Facebook page. They were welcoming the new students at orientation for the new year and these students are completely oblivious to the predatory nature of the institution.
ReplyDeleteWhile it's unfortunate that these sheep are going to get sheared-with the taxpayers footing the bill with the soon to be unpaid loans-my experience is that the new students are not really oblivious. Instead, they're special. Some-indeed many-have probably been warned not to attend, but they do anyway, as the debt, poor job prospects on graduation, etc only apply to others. They're different; they'll get high paying BigLaw jobs. You can count on it.
DeleteThat's my experience, too. Most people going into law school are well aware of what we have been saying for many years. Far from being oblivious, they expect to do better than the norm. They're special snowflakes, unlike the tens of thousands of similarly situated people.
DeleteStudies have shown that often 60, 70 percent or more law school applicants believe that they will bet to the top 10 percent of the class. People just do not use common sense. Personally, I grew up with a father who did , in fact, graduate at the top of his class frow Law School, was an Editor of the Law Review, and went on to become a partner in a large law firm. His hours were awful, and his stress level was so high that he developed some stress-related health conditions. I had no desire to follow down his path. In addition, there is a reason he did so well: he was a very, very smart man with an insane work ethic. To give you an example of what kind of IQ/work ethic it really takes to get those grades and make Law Review, please understand that he earned a Degree in Electrical Engineering from a prominent college before attending law school to become a Patent Lawyer. Most people simply do not have the mental capacity to earn an EE degree, or any degree in Engineering. I knew plenty who tried in college, and most were forced out pretty quickly. My father found his undergraduate classes, in the Engineering Program, to be harder than his classes at law school; for him, unlike most, law school was actually easier, and less demanding than his undergraduate degree. So, from what I have seen, yes, you absolutely can go to a good law school, and make the top ten percent of the class, and make the Law Review if you 1) are deeply intelligent, meaning, perhaps, an IQ of 140 or higher and 2) you are perfectly willing to study, for many hours, every single day of the week for an entire semester. Most people won't come close to having the IQ or the work ethic to get there. I respect the few who do (even though I also believe that there is little correlation between doing well in school and doing well in the workplace. There are very different skillsets involved.)
DeleteThe Dunning–Kruger effect speaks to that: people often cannot tell how bad they are. I read of a survey in which most Korean students underestimated their math skills while most students from the US overestimated their own, even though the Koreans were better.
DeleteI too finished at the top of the class, without a background in law to help me. And I did it while working part time and doing other things unfamiliar to most of the class. Yes, I also made the flagship law review. I did not find law school difficult. But I could not get an interview for a job.
As you said, there is room for only 10% of the class in the top 10%. But a hell of a lot of students expect to land in that small space. It just isn't realistic.
Speaking of Korean. I just watched Squid Games season 2. Then realized if a Squid Game really existed you would be better off joining the game than going to law school. Your odds of making a lot of money are a better probability
DeleteSorry, you've lost me. If this is about television, I'm not surprised: I don't watch the stuff.
DeleteWhat if you are around 35-37 years of age, unmarried, no loans, no kids nor dependents, have a trust fund (life insurance from parents' deaths) and recently secured admission to: Harvard , Columbia, Penn, NYU & BC's dual JD/MBA with full scholarship (no loans) as well as Darmouth Tuck. The plan thereafter is a JD-adjacent policy role at an admittedly banana republic country (not American) where the above degrees would only serve as a formality but still carries connotations of status and prestige (postcolonially speaking). That is the situation I am in right now. What would you consider a T-10 non toilet MBA?
DeleteSorry about your parents' deaths. The trust fund makes all the difference. If you are a citizen of the banana republic in question and don't mind running a real risk of losing your nest egg, you may consider law school. I would recommend something sounder, especially because your plan seems to be contingent on remaining in favor and doesn't make meaningful use of the degree. Law school is likely to deprive you of your money and leave you older and poorer. But I have always said that different concerns apply to people with money.
DeleteBoston College is a horrible law school and an even worse MBA program. Don’t bother.
DeleteWith respect to the poster, and to everyone who posts here, this tortured rendition of "would it make sense to enroll in a US law school in 2025 IF you were a certain very specific age, and IF you got into Harvard or a similar school, and IF you got a full scholarship. . .shows again just how bad an idea it is to go to law school in the US today. A member of my extended family attended school for 2Y, got a great job, and still has it decades later, earning six figures. She is not bright, at all. She was literally working at McDonalds after graduating high school, and doing similar jobs. She went to school for 2Y, 4 semesters, to become a Radiation Tech, administering radiation treatment to cancer patients. Controlled, limited doses of radiation targeting tumors. I have had many clients with very similar stories--2Y schooling as a Dental Hygienist, great job, great salary, great job security, portability, all of that. Some of my clients are probably rocking an IQ well below 100, but they go to Trucking School, get a CDL, and make great money (until they get some DUI's and lose it). Going to law school in the US in 2025 is a bad decision, period, and smart people stopped going a long time ago, leaving dullards in their place.
DeleteYes, we can contrive circumstances under which attending law school wouldn't border on the suicidal. Rich kids may do as they please, without consulting Old Guy.
DeleteFor the ordinary hayseed of Old Guy type, law school is most likely a terrible mistake. That's true even of Harvard, never mind Cooley.
The "unless" cases are pretty easy to fit in. I usually just say "Top 14 or bust unless you either have a guaranteed job (e.g. inheriting daddy's firm) or are so rich that you don't need any job (doing this for personal enrichment/fun)." Doesn't capture every scenario but it captures the majority.
DeleteIt's not perfect, we can certainly quibble about the outcomes at the lower end of the top 14 and talk about age discrimination and a million other things, but ON AVERAGE it'll capture most of the few exceptions to "don't do it."
I definitely don't care about full ride scholarships. You still have to pay room and board and even if law school is free, it will still pigeonhole you as a lawyer and will actually hurt your chances, not help them, if you can't get a job as a lawyer and try to get into (or back into) another field.
@6:43 It seems that the choice is between Harvard and the free ride at BC. But would BC be recognized by the banana republic to the degree that the Harvard degree would be? Plus, is Harvard offering any financial aid? Is the trust fund so large that the scholarship doesn't really matter? Lastly, why do you have to be pigeonholed into a policy position in the third world? If the trust fund is ginormous then you aren't really taking much of a risk no matter what you do.
Delete@Dilbert133 4:21 When you say the Radiology Tech and Dental Hygenist aren't bright at all do you really mean that? Did they do poorly in their coursework? Is studying to be a radiology technician really that unchallenging? Just because someone worked at McDonald's doesn't mean they are stupid.
DeleteAnd as far as the supposed painless entry into these fields and the joy that the work brings the practitioners. I would think that an older person trying to change careers and jump in would experience the same age discrimination that they would for any other field.
But you did make an interesting point. Perhaps, young people should explore careers only requiring two years education or certificates. High schools should be promoting more of this.
Certainly plenty of people who are not stupid work at McDonald's. Lots of us have had McJobs.
DeleteOK 1) I respect people who start out working in very low paid jobs, I did that myself in high school and college. 2) Yes, when I say my family member is not bright at all I absolutely mean it. Ditto the dumb-as-a-stump Dental Hygienist I represented, who earned more than I did, with her 2Y degree, at the time I assisted her. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to get a 2Y degree as a Radiation Tech, as a Dental Hygienist, as a Nurse. I know for a fact, that at least in Nursing, you do have to study very hard, taking challenging classes involving science and math. You also have to work very hard, with practicing licensed Nurses, Doctors, Phyician's Assistants, patients, etc. It is dirty, unpleasant, physically demanding work. Most college students just want to party and screw around. Law school students are often dumb, gullible dreamers, who love the idea of only having to actually take a test once a semester. These folks would drop out of Nursing School in weeks. So no, you do not have to be particularly intelligent to get a 2Y degree as a radiation tech, as a nurse, as a dental hygienist, etc. . But you do have to work and study tough subjects, study very hard, and be tested and challenged with frequency. They will and do fail people out of their programs. It's kind of like working a tough job in this place called The Real World, that most law students have never heard of.
DeleteIt's worth noting that many nurses have much more than a two-year degree. But, yes, there are also those with a two-year degree that demands more diligence than academic potential.
DeleteOh, absolutely, in all likelihood most nurses have more than a 2Y degree. But here is the thing: people who go to Nursing School and work hard--not just studying hard, but working, in hospitals with licensed nurses etc. as part of the program--a degree that indeed requires far more diligence than studying liberal arts at college, or simply being a law student who only takes exams once a semester--that degree will, absolutely, lead to multiple job offers with good pay and cash signing bonuses. Nurses who take such a job can easily get their employer to pay for them to go to school for another 2Y and get a 4Y degree, and those nurses quite often go on to six-figure salaries, for 40 hour weeks. Again, one can also go to Trucking School, or Flight School , or become a Dental Hygienist, or do all sorts of things, in all sorts of fields, that require 2Y or less of education and have great employment outcomes. Law students tend to be unserious people who got worthless bachelor's degrees that lead to jobs stocking shelves at the grocery store nearest to their parent's house, where they now live after graduating college, and who then think "I can go to law school and be like Tom Cruise in the movie A Few Good Men!" I'm going to "help people" and work for "Social Justice"! Do I have sympathy for them, after they get their worthless J.D. to accompany their worthless B.A., the ones I see drifting around courthouses and local jails as I do my job, muttering about "part-time work for the Public Defender's Office" or "pro-bono work for the local Domestic Violence Shelter" because they can't find a job? Of course I don't. Scams only work when there are lots of gullible victims to fall for them.
Delete"So no, you do not have to be particularly intelligent to get a 2Y degree as a radiation tech, as a nurse, as a dental hygienist, etc. . But you do have to work and study tough subjects, study very hard, and be tested and challenged with frequency. They will and do fail people out of their programs"
DeleteIsn't this statement contradictory? Or are you only referring to a 4 y BSN program?
@6:43: Harvard over BC with full ride any day if you must get a JD. The prestige difference is just too great for any level of scholarship to make up for it, and all the more so if you have trust fund.
DeleteBut if not, you might want to do that Dartmouth Tuck MBA. I cannot overstate how much a JD (even if combined with MBA) pigeonholes you as a lawyer and it doesn't sound like you plan on practicing. MBA is far more versatile, and its more versatile alone than combined with JD.
There are presentable, normal BC law students in the top 10% who strike out with big law recruiting. Those who "make it" are usually in satellite offices or bad practice groups. Going to BC over Harvard NEVER makes sense.
DeleteOne must wonder why someone who has the capability of being accepted into all these elite schools, with the exception of BC, has to go on a blog and ask what decision should be made about which school to attend.
Delete@2:02 because they are also smart enough to recognize going to HLS at sticker can be a life ruining decision.
DeleteI honestly do not understand why some people still think that if you get into one of the top 14 law schools in the US you will magically get a great job, guaranteed, no problem, and be set for life. Factually, UVA was caught employing 15 percent of its own graduates in bogus short-term, school-funded "jobs" post graduation. That allowed them to falsely claim that nearly 100% of their grads were employed as lawyers within six months of graduation, because they employed so many of them themselves. They were forced to stop doing that after they were exposed, in fact a lot of law schools were using fake "school-funded jobs" to juice their employment numbers.
ReplyDeleteI have been clear about that: there are only 13 or so schools that are worth attending in principle, under certain conditions. That doesn't mean that those schools will leave anyone set for life with a great income.
DeleteI remember at my law school in the late 90's I saw graduates doing "school funded jobs" that were actually helping the janitors on campus cleaning up things.
DeleteWorse still is a job contributing to the promotion of the law-school scam. Years ago, we exposed here an unpaid "internship" of this nature.
DeleteOf course there are no guarantees in life, dilbert. But the ABA disclosures are pretty specific about school-funded stuff nowadays and with respect to UVA, for the class of 2023, 185 of them are at 500+ lawyer firms, and 39 are in federal clerkships. No outcomes are reported as unknown.
DeleteThat's 224 out of 282. Eighty percent of the class of 2023, in either biglaw or fedclerk.
Translation: 224 out of 282 may or may not have a life ruinous outcome in a dying profession. The remainder are royally done for career wise.
DeleteI do not trust the ABA--not at all--and do not believe numbers that come out of law schools, particularly a law school that purposely employed 15 percent of its own graduating class in phony "school funded jobs" because they couldn't find real jobs and the school needed to falsify their employment numbers to lure in new applicants. That said, even if I did believe these numbers--which don't even pass the sniff test--so what? Federal Clerkships can be meaningless. As Old Guy has pointed out, he aced law school, got a federal clerkship, and was unable to find a good job afterward. A clerkship generally lasts for one year, and the pay is not fantastic. As for big law, the average tenure of a first-year associate in a large law firm is 4Y. Burn outs in 18 months are not uncommon in sweatshops like Cravath. They pay is not, in fact that good--under the old 190K for a first year scale, working 70 hours a week, which is not uncommon for an associate in a large law firm that works out to about $50 per hour. That was a few years ago. While under todays scale that might come to $60-$65 per hour, due to inflation $60 per hour is worth much less than $50 per hour was 7Y ago. A whole lot less, in fact. Any way you slice it, spending 4Y in college, and 3Y in law school, and taking a 2-day Bar Exam, likely borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance all that, for a job that may well be over in 24-36 months is insane. It is absolutely insane, period, full stop. The odds of a first-year associate making Equity Partner at one of those firms hover around 5%.
DeleteFew will make partner, that is true. But most aren't gunning for that. They're in it for the "exit opportunities." The sweet spot where you have just enough years in biglaw (but not too many) when recruiters are interested. They pay off their loans and then jump ship in-house or to the feds or to some boutique firm. The big firms are sweatshops so few want to keep working those kind of hours anyway. It's like a doctor's residency: Get in, have no life but get loans gone and get what is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as the best training in the business, get out.
DeleteNow granted, its a tightrope. If the big firm shows you the door too soon, or if you stay too long without making partner or without a big "book of business," no one's going to be interested. As soon as you find out you aren't (or don't want to be) on the partnership track, the game is to leave at the exact right time, not too early or too late. So true, you are by no means set for life when you get that offer. But its about as good an outcome as it gets.
Well, I am glad we can agree on many things. You and I both understand that it is quite difficult to "make partner" at a large law firm, though it is certainly possible. We both agree that these firms are unpleasant sweatshops where one can put in a few years, make a lot of money, and then move on. Personally, I 100% agree with you that some associates in large law firms will in fact find good "exit opportunities" and move onto to jobs with more reasonable work hours and expectations, albeit at a lower rate of pay. I don't disagree that working in "big law" may, in fact, be about as good an outcome as it gets for many law students. All of that said, with nothing but respect, I still don't think it makes sense to spend 7Y in higher education, spending untold hundreds of thousands of dollars, to get a job that is over, on average, in about 4Y, four very unpleasant years at that. I concur with you, 30-40 years ago there were lots of great exit options for associates at large law firms, going in-house, going to work for the government, etc. That said, I think that the "exit options" for many of today's lawyers are far worse. All too many associates are summarily told by the Management Committee that they are off the partnership track, after 5-7 years working as an associate, and that they can take a much lower paid, and less prestigious job as a "staff attorney" or resign. Many of those lawyers will struggle for the remainder of their career. But again, we agree on much, you and I are on the same page about things.
DeleteAt the very earliest, you are 28 achieving neutral net worth (22 at ugrad graduation, 25 law school graduation, 28 after three years of big law). That is a very bad outcome when your hard-working peers with more foresight maxed out their 401(k)s and IRAs during those six (or more) post-ugrad years. They may also have equity packages if they are in tech. Even if you "win" the law school and big law game when not gunning for partnership, you end with $0.
DeleteIn addition, let's assume arguendo that a student gets into one of these magical "top 14" law schools, and does well, and gets a job in Big Law afterward. They're set for life, right? Wrong. The average tenure of a first-year associate at a large law firm is 4Y. That means that, mathematically, many people will spend 7Y of their lives (4y college, 3y law school, 2-day Bar Exam) and perhaps half-a-million dollars to get a job that ends in 24-36 months. 18 month burnouts are not uncommon in sweatshops like Cravath. Are the exit options golden for these lawyers after their brief time with a large law firm? No, not at all. Maybe they were 30Y ago, but not today. And mass layoffs at large law firms are so common that "Back in February 2009, Latham & Watkins laid off 440 people." Think about it: 7Y in higher education for a job that will likely be done with in 3-5Y, and perhaps less. Not much of ROI, is it?
ReplyDeleteEven partners nowadays are being tossed out on their ass.
DeleteNow that Trump is dismantling DEI hiring then law schools are going to have a tougher time convincing their "diverse" student bodies they will have jobs lined up in the federal government once they graduate unless it's cleaning toilets at the federal courthouse
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that community colleges paralegal certificate programs get ABA approval until I saw it advertised in my local newspaper. Probably the career services at the community college does a better job getting jobs for their graduates than most lawyers schools.
ReplyDeleteI have seen a couple of older law students who graduated and were successful. However one already had a thriving consultant business (something involving insurance) and got his JD because he found that he was already giving what was objectively legal advice. I knew one Doctor who retired from the law and became a medical malpractice attorney. Such examples are few and far between. If you are above 35 and want to go to law school I would ask, "How do you plan on becoming a successful lawyer working as a solo, because that's where you are heading.
ReplyDeleteAgree. I kept tabs on many of the older attorneys who graduated with me. I went to a Chicago-based Toilet. Out of 10 folks, 8 of them never got an attorney job. One worked for the PTO and transitioned to a Law firm and is quite successful. But she was the exception.
Deletelol I know someone who did the opposite, which I think was actually smarter. He surrendered his law license to sell insurance and investments. I don't mean going inactive (the bar still has jurisdiction over inactive members). Rather, he wanted to get rid of the license completely so that if anyone ever did make a UPL complaint, the bar would first have to establish jurisdiction, i.e. prove UPL which regardless of its theoretical definition is actually really tough to prove unless you either actually appeared in court or specifically held yourself out as a lawyer. So what he did is just stop paying dues until they summarily terminated his license.
DeleteIf he hadn't done that, the bar would have at least some potential jurisdiction over his non-law dealings. You know how that goes. You get a DUI you have to tell the bar about it. You engage in ANY conduct they think involves fraud or deceit they can discipline you regardless of whether it directly involved law practice. To some extent, being a licensed lawyer (active or not) regulates every aspect of your "character and fitness" in your general life. It's kinda stupid to get or keep a license that gives some agency jurisdiction over yourself if you're not going to actually use that license, IMHO.