This report from Canada would apply to the US, too: lawyers find that they never learned basic business skills during law school.
Indeed, who would teach such skills? Scam-professors look down their noses at the practice of law. Few of them have any real experience in it. No course on anything practical was offered throughout my time n law school.
Imagine medical school without any practical training: graduates would not know rudimentary first aid. That is reality in the legal realm: people are thrown into the practice of law with no experience, no guidance, nothing. And most of them do not even know very much law.
Not learning basic business skills is the least of the problems for law graduates. It's an article of faith that upon graduation, no law school graduate knows how to practice law. It's almost unbelievable but it's the reality.
ReplyDeleteThis is very true, and has been a well-known problem for over a century. The really shameful thing about it is that US law schools are three years long, and the third year is widely known to be entirely unnecessary. Law schools could and should use the otherwise worthless and redundant third year to have students enroll in internships with government agencies, law firms, and even working for solo practitioners. In real life, as matters now stand, law students often use their 2L summers for either paid work or unpaid internships with, say, a local prosecutor's office, in hopes of learning the ropes, making a good impression, and securing a job their post-graduation. The problem is one of money. Greedy law schools want sanctimonious professors, who do not know or care how to actually practice law, to be highly paid for three full years of "teaching", and that way they can squeeze over $150,000 tuition dollars, typically student loan money, from their hapless students. Factually, these professors don't teach at all, of course. They just drone on, blabbering all semester, and at the end hand out one exam, often recycled from the year before, and that is it. Even teaching is beneath them, apparently! Graded papers, quizzes, midterms, they can't be bothered with any of that. There are so many problems with US law schools, they're too long, they don't teach practical skills, and grades/journal/class rank are literally fetishized. . .I am thankful every day that I was, after many years in low paid jobs, finally able to monetize my law degree, at least to the extent that justified the time and expense of attending law school in the first place. My secret was opening my own solo practice, instead of laboring endlessly for other lawyers, in arrangements where associates do all the work, and partners reap 90 percent of the profit.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that two years of law school would suffice. Already most students don't learn much law in three.
DeleteBut that has to do with the poor quality of the students and the decadent curriculum. With only capable students, a law school could pack basic legal training into two years and add a year or two of practical training, something like that of physicians.
Even at an élite law school, good students are less common than many people suppose. Friends and I concluded that only 5% of the class at our élite law school was capable.
They even told us in law school, on the days you take the bar exam (and presumably pass) you will know more about the law than you ever will, but little about being a lawyer as you ever will. Which for many is forever.
DeleteBut I tend to agree with Dilbert about the third year of law school in a classroom setting as being unproductive. The courses are all electives. Most, although probably some, are not covered on the bar exam. It would be better if the time were spent in an actual internship setting, even if tuition had to be paid but with some nominal salary returned. Human beings should not have to pay to work or work for nothing. Maybe we can compromise and make the last semester internship. It won't work well for the night schools though. Some people might have choose between quitting an already decent paying job or the internship.
I certainly agree that nobody needs a year, or five minutes, of Law and Popular Culture or Hip-Hop and the US Constitution. I don't agree that the curriculum without that crap is just fine.
DeleteA jail house lawyer knows more about the law in a practical sense than 99% of law school graduates
ReplyDeleteBusiness skills? LOL. At least in Canada they have articling (paid) where you learn how to actually practice. In the USA you know neither the business NOR the actual practice when you graduate. Contracts? You don't look at any contracts. Torts? Not a word about taking depositions or doing discovery. Property? Well I guess you become something of a medieval historian.
ReplyDeleteAbout the only thing US law school does is teach you appellate work. Anything that has anything to do with disputed facts and you have no idea what you're doing. OK fine there's the occasional optional clinic or whatever, but its entirely optional and really just pays trial level work lip service. Transactional stuff, same.
So yeah, I'd settle for an apprenticeship system where you learn how to at least practice. Getting to the point where you're griping about not learning how to run a business is a few notches up on the ol' maslow's hierarchy.
I applied to law school and only got two options. One was Cardozo Law school in the city for $42,000 a year while another option was Pace for free. I am not happy with both of these options and I am thinking about not going to law school and doing something else.
ReplyDeleteBoomer lawyers still tell stories about getting paid summer clerkships and earning enough to pay for their last 2 yrs of school. The number of students hired as summer clerks has decline by more than HALF since 2000.
ReplyDeleteI think part of the problem is that two many college students at non elite colleges stud worthless degrees like English, Philopshy and History. When they can’t get a job they just use law school as the default. If I have kids, I will tell them they can study what ever they want if they get into an elite IVY league or equivalent school. If they can’t get into a school like that, they then will attend a state school where they will either study something in the health sciences or engineering. If they can’t study anything in STEM then I will tell them to study accounting and try to get a CPA.
DeleteThere's the time lag again. Boomers could indeed get a bachelor's degree in anything and be hired on the management track at some company. That was in a day when not even 10% of the public had a bachelor's degree. Now no degree will land anyone on the management track anywhere, and many majors are of no real use for finding a job.
DeleteI think you are right about the changing nature of the labor market. In the 80’s I was a double major graduate of one of the two top ten schools that give athletic scholarships. I was poor without parents in my life and needed that scholarship. I was a successful D1 athlete. Our law school adviser was extraordinary and really gave us a dose of reality. I majored in history and economics (my late identical twin became world class PhD economist and giant in institutional finance). I was in an honors program in history which was much harder than anything in law school. I did well at my tier 1 law school, second in the class along with a number of other fluffy credentials.
DeleteI had three years business experience before law school. I know you Old Guy excoriated me in the past for this, but I was a futures trader with P and L responsibility at age 23. Lots of reasons for this but I agreed to go to Iowa to learn the business, coming back to operate the trading desk (mostly hedging, although I did trade on my own account in select futures areas). I bought a condo and paid cash for tuition for law schools with the trading money. I never thought of a student loan - I generally am skeptical of banks and certainly didn’t trust the Government to treat anyone right. Law school was in part easy because the competition level was a fraction of that in D1 athletics. Quite unwittingly I was very prepared for law school. Being poor and from a rough background, my editorial board colleagues generally resented me - they as progressive elitists did not like social mobility from a non-minority person. You had to be very tough coming from where I came from, and my Teamsters union stints in summers certainly taught me to fear nothing. But they conceded my business skills were welcome as that subject matter was foreign to them. I never conceded to them that my Econ major was largely a waste of time (for me) and that I gained far more from the study of history. I had a mentor in the honors program who would be ostracized today. A Harvard engineer and Harvard PhD in history, there were no safe spaces around him. Learning was all about how much ego damage you could sustain - and he said it repeatedly - just the kind of thing a poor kid at a rich kids school needed to take the excuses away - especially since scholarship athletes were permitted to often cut corners.
I have had a long and successful career with my last job reporting to the CFO of a Fortune 20 corporation. It did suit my skills, but I missed my legal colleagues. I had a stint managing and developing the company’s young lawyers, and those relationships stick and are worth more than any compensation or promotion I have received. Mentoring them over the years destroys my lunch budget, but heck what a nice problem to have.
By the way over the years I have not found fault with any of your positions (except for your negative comment about my trading - it was a good job for me in my 20’s and I didn’t spend what I made). And I would certainly not expect anyone to do the insane things I did. It was my adventure (I sent my kids to Ivy League schools by spoiling them, and took pains not to tell Dad stories about walking 10 miles in a snowstorm to get to school!).
Both options are indeed very poor. Your LSAT score was around 155, so you should have been able to get various other law schools for zero tuition. But you were interested only in the New York area. Anyway, those other law schools would have been lousy, too.
ReplyDeleteYou should do something else with your life. Law school would be a mistake.
My LSAT score was actually a 162. I applied to Fordham Law, Brooklyn Law and Saint John’s law school. I got rejected from Fordham, got waitlisted at Saint John’s and have not heard anything about Brooklyn. Pace is allegedly a “free scholarship” but I heard that Pace law school is very predatory.
DeleteI haven't posted here in years but I feel this needs a response. I think because law school applications are up a whopping 20% these fucking law schools can be even more picky about whose LSAT scores they take in their efforts to climb the US News rankings.
DeleteYears ago, with your score you would've nailed a T20 and maybe a Top 14, but definitely one or more T20 schools would've taken you. Pace is absolute dogshit. St. Johns is also dogshit and Brooklyn is somewhat less dogshit.
Mark my words: Even making Law Review at any of these schools will mar your future for life and that is by no means a certainty. By definition, 90% of the class can't be in the top 10% and you will have students there with parents who are lawyers helping them with the subject matter during 1L. You WILL be competing on a very uneven playing field that is cut-throat.
Fordham? No guarantees there either.. even if you had gotten in. Jobs are now so tight in law that there's really only room for people with connections.
Beyond all of this, your long term future as a lawyer is poor in general. Most lawyers work in 5-10 person firms or pay for their own "job" as a solo.
Doesn't sound good, does it?
Do something else where there's a demand. Anything else, really.. Law has an inverse demand and has for decades. And this on;y ever gets worse with each yearly graduating class.
And lastly, do you really want to accrue $250,000 in non-dischargeable student loan debt, with interest compounding each and every year, for life? Look at Trump's actions with the Dept. of Education and Google what borrowers are saying about their payments skyrocketing.
Now is not the time for law school. That time was in the 1960's for Boomers. And-I'm serious.. They benefitted from it, by and large. Education costs were minimal and the field was not supersaturated at that time. There was a time when lawyer incomes were on par with doctors. But that was even further back in the 1950's.
Unfortunately, that image still persists in the public's mind, highly untrue as it is. Any doctor, last in his class, will make 150-300k+ or more, depending on specialization, for life. A lawyer is lucky not to be underemployed and out of work by his 50's.
I have seen NYU graduates working for soles out there, in 2-person shops. I have met lawyers driving for Uber. This will NEVER happen to any doctor. Never. Not in America.
I'm not exaggerating here. NY is a joke state with far too many law schools and not enough jobs for the numbers of graduates from all of its various schools that are admitted each year - not by a long shot.
No wonder Pace is trying to bribe you, with that 162. Cardozo is being rather stingy; if you really wanted to attend, you could ask for more money. But you should not attend either of those toilets.
DeleteYou know that law school is a bad idea. If your heart is set on it, get your LSAT score up to 170 or so and try for Columbia or NYU. You can do it. Should you? Very different question.
I agree with most of what 7:13 wrote above. Don't even think about Pace and other über-toilets. But also avoid law school, period. It was a good choice for the Baby Boomers; it's a bad idea today.
DeleteIndeed, university itself is not what it used to be. The Boomers got it very cheaply; now it costs the earth. And shitloads of people with poor academic potential pack the universities. There just aren't jobs for so many graduates, which is why people with bachelor's degrees and more end up pouring coffee or doing other unskilled work.
Old Guy didn't come from a family of lawyers; he first met a lawyer around age 25. Yes, he succeeded academically. But he has struggled to work as a lawyer. And few graduates will have his academic advantages. Coming out of Fordham, never mind Pace, he might never have made money as a lawyer.
Brooklyn's 25th to 75th percentile range for the LSAT is 157 - 162 and it has a high acceptance rate so 12:54 should get accepted unless there is a serious problem with the GPA. The admissions committee is probably still sorting through all the applications. But what would make going to Brooklyn a good decision? Full ride? St John's median LSAT is 162 so again there is still a good chance of being accepted from the wait list barring a low GPA. It's the best of the bunch other than Fordham but still not that great. But maybe barely good enough to establish a legal career. If lucky. Any thoughts about St John's Old Guy?
DeleteOK. . .I went to a large state university with a powerful football program and all that, from 1988-1992. Yes, lots of graduates ended up pouring coffee an working menial, very low paying jobs then as college grads do today. That is exactly what they deserved, though, and the fault of the university, their parents etc. At that time, at that particular school, it was common for 2/3-3/4 of the class not to show up for lectures on Friday, because they were sleeping off a hangover from the night before. They drank, and partied, and engaged in casual sex--they had a ball! And, of course, they spent the rest of their life paying for that idiotic mistake. I worked very hard, to 1) get into a good law school, back when doing so made sense, and 2) to earn a Commission as a Lieutenant in the US Army through the ROTC program, while already serving as an enlisted man in the Army Reserve. I did not screw around and have much fun in college: I used Spring Break to research, write, edit, cite-check and re-write Term Papers, and to prepare for Mid Term Exams. I often spent so much time studying and participating in my weekend drills and the Army ROTC program, all at the same time, that I was exhausted, nearly falling asleep on my feet. I ended up getting straight A's one semester, one B the next, and scoring in the 95th Percentile on the LSAT. I achieved my goals, after years of struggle and personal sacrifice (studying straight through Superbowl games, spending Homecoming weekend at a Fort doing a Drill Weekend, and so on). There were lots of good jobs and great opportunities for college grads then, and there are now, IF the student ignores the "college is a 4 year long party" programming that permeates this. . .society of ours, here in the US, which is very different from the rest of the world. Students who work hard, and do well, and don't party away their college years, go on to great success after college, while the party animals end up stocking shelves at the local grocery store, which is exactly what they deserve.
DeleteI am sorry if my post was too long. I am now in my mid 50's, and in my neighborhood it is the absolute norm for 18 year olds, male and female, to go to college, screw around, and sometimes drop out after a few years, but more commonly graduate, move back in with mom and dad, and go to work at one of our local grocery stores. I also represent clients with that exact same story. These young people are lazy and foolish and they deserve their fate. I was very familiar with the concept of delayed gratification when I was 17 years old, and just starting out at college. Oh, and, BTW, my father, now deceased, was a very successful, very hard-working lawyer who made partner at a large, prestigious D.C. Law Firm. He brought myself and my sister to work many times, we would study, for hours on end, in the firm's Law Library while he worked. He also would take us to sporting events with tickets from the firm, and show us the nice side of practicing law. I knew, with great clarity, that law school would be a LOT of work, and that the practice of law bore no resemblance to the stupid TV shows and movies about it. My parents made sure that my sister and I had the reading skills, the writing skills, the ability to do research, and the math skills we would need to succeed. I got a good 2L job and was wearing a suit and tie 40 hours a week, and functioning as a proto-lawyer, like junior lawyer, immediately after finishing my second year. That job did not surprise me, and my jobs out of law school did not surprise me either. If you are like me--if you have parents who are lawyers, if you understand their work, and if you really want to follow in their footsteps, than work hard, study hard, and yes, by all means go to law school. If, on the other hand, you want to go to law school because you "like to argue" "it has always been my dream" "I want to help people" blah blah, go into a field that actually needs new workers, like nursing, or Accounting, or become a commercial airline pilot. They can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, working 40 hour weeks. For 9/10 law school applicants today, it is just a waste of money and a waste of time.
DeleteNo to St John's. Even Columbia and NYU are questionable.
DeleteWell, I'm not sure that it is that easy. I graduated from university at a time when jobs were scarce, and I struggled for years even though I had done well academically and certainly had not spent my days drinking or fucking or glorifying some damn football team.
DeleteHere is the thing: a person who studies Nursing for 4 semesters, and gets an Associate Degree, will have multiple job offers with cash signing bonuses and employers eager to pay for further education. Many Nurses end up making over 100K per year, without working ridiculous hours. On the other hand, someone who spend 7Y in higher education (4Y college, 3Y law school) and then takes and passes a 2-day Bar Exam that, for most, requires a lot of preparation--that person may have great difficulty finding any kind of decent job at all. Florida has 11 law schools, Pennsylvania has 10, etc., so there is a massive flood of JD's, and not nearly enough jobs for them all. People interested in law school either know, or reasonably should know, these things, but they still keep going to law school, and end up heavily in debt and unemployed. I have little sympathy for them.
DeleteAn undergrad student may want to reconsider even if one is in a high demand field such as nursing or accounting if their GPA is lacking. The big 4 doesn't hire anyone with a GPA below 3.5 sometimes higher. If a student has say a year and half in and the GPA is below 3.0 they should really reassess whether to continue since landing a desirable job after graduation is going to be near impossible even in fields with high demand. If the only objective of university is to get into law skule, then the best strategy would be to major in what will deliver the highest GPA since law skules are only interested in maximizing the average GPA of the class.
DeleteOld Guy is prepared to write people off as unwilling to face the facts. Law school nowadays is a terrible idea for most people. It may work out well for those who have a parent who is a partner in a big law firm. Just about anyone else should find a different line of work.
DeleteIt is probably true that law schools today care mainly about the raw GPA. They claim to consider that GPAs in engineering tend to be lower than those in some such bullshit field as communications or criminology, but the dumb "rankings" use only the number, without regard for the major.
DeleteA lot of universities have dumbed down the humanities majors by offering a BS degree in the various humanities. At one time a BS in one of the humanities was unknown and only a BA or AB was granted. The BA requires a foreign language typically three years. The BS replaces this with something like Intro to Computer Science which teaches important skills like how to turn the computer on how to save a file and how to send an e-mail.
DeleteThree years of a language? That surprises me. Even doctoral programs have been dropping the weak requirement of a reading knowledge of a relevant language.
DeleteUm, Dilbert its not as simple as that anymore. The hypersaturation of law graduates means many hardworking and highly accomplished graduates have been cast out on the unemployment pile. Good for you, but please dont assume your experience means others who work hard will also succeed- most wont in this economy and with this number of law grads.
DeleteIn the late 1970s, boomers could work in the summer as grocery clerks or telephone operators and save money for the next year's tuition. Try doing that today.
ReplyDeleteLaw school applications are up 20 percent.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newsweek.com/what-surge-law-school-applications-says-about-economy-2046146
We did what we could for people. There’s nothing more that can be done by blogging, etc. This problem will end when non-boomer cultural icons like Joe Rogan or Tim Dillon make a movie about how bad it is to be a lawyer. Until that happens, lemmings are going to take the three year break from life, enhance their dating options for 3 years, get a slap on the back from older relatives in that same time period, and deal with the ruinous reality. When the culture shifts based on actual portrayals of lawyer life in film and other media, that’s when law schools will be toast. I predict this is coming in the next few year.
There’s a more acute problem here though. People have to stop thinking about getting ahead with a wage, and start thinking about acquiring wealth. This issue has broader societal implications.
Let’s say it goes aces for a you in law school. You go for a reasonable coast, you get big law, you keep big law for 7 years (this is a top .5 percent outcome for most lawyers). Your income has probably peaked at 33 years old, but I’ll go further. You land an in house gig and still make a reasonably decent income until your early 50s, where it’s either you become an executive or you are probably underemployed for life.
Here’s the trick- who did better here? The guy who started working earlier, with a guaranteed pension from the city or state, bought a house young (because he or she knows his job is guaranteed and they can take the risk with a lower down payment and a higher monthly payment), and invested earlier or the guy with the higher income after years of no income (and a higher tax bracket when he or she achieves said income)?
I make more than all of my friends now that went in the trades or work for the city. They are all vastly wealthier because they started investing early and bought a house far earlier than me. I am subject to any economic instability and when I’m aged our (probably early 50s), if I haven’t figured out how to do a business, I’ll be screwed- no pension, etc. When the scum bag law school administrators tout my salary to prospective lemmings they omit these detail. However to be fair, this is a broader problem than just being employed as a lawyer. It’s a structural change in the US economy.
You have noticed that postings have slowed to a trickle. Old Guy is now the only one posting regularly, and he has little desire to tilt at windmills.
DeleteOthers have said that the government should restrict student loans and regulate admissions. I agree, but there are few signs of change.
Well, things may be a-changin'. The current administration has announced its plan to end PSLF which many law schools tout as a good way to save the whales while getting your loans forgiven. And it has also made clear its disdain for student loans in general.
DeleteSo get ready for a whole new generation of the clueless who are shocked, just shocked that they actually owe a cool quarter million dollars for a worthless JD.
Old Guy is old enough to remember layaway. People would put a deposit on an item in a store and make further small payments until they had paid the full cost and could collect the item. This was common in the 70s.
DeleteThen credit cards came into widespread use, and people could take what they wanted immediately—and pay high interest.
The US has a malign culture of borrowing: people get things now and don't worry about paying. That attitude extends all the way to the government, which has amassed unpayable debt.
Here’s the thing. I actually want to get an ABSN in nursing or a masters of accounting instead of law school. The problem is my parents will not have it. They think being a nurse is beneath me and that being a lawyer is a much more “professional” career that will make more money. I know this is a bad idea but my parents will not listen.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you letting your parents tell you what to do? Are they paying for this?
DeleteNursing would be better far than law. Tell them to read this Web site.
Licensed attorneys work for $22.00 per hour doing "temporary document review projects." That is not an exaggeration, in the slightest, it is a cold, hard fact. You would make more money than that driving a Garbage Truck around the neighborhood with a crew of men emptying out the trash cans into it. The very idea that becoming a nurse, and eventually earning over $100,000 per year for working 40 hours a week is "beneath you" is insane. Respectfully, you already made a big, expensive, time-consuming mistake getting a worthless bachelor's degree. Please don't double down on that error, and make a similar mistake getting a worthless JD. I have a successful solo law practice--which is very much the exception, and not the rule, for lawyers in 2025--and I run into unemployed, and severely under-employed lawyers all the freaking time. They will mumble something about "part-time work for the public defender's office" and scurry away in shame when they encounter successful attorneys in a courthouse. That may be your fate, if you attend law school (although some lawyers can't even get those part-time gigs, there are just far too many lawyers competing for scraps these days).
DeleteYou should take the GMAT ASAP and see what business schools you can get into. Columbia, NYU and Fordham all offer an MS in Accounting.
DeleteWho is paying for this?
Delete2:04 PM,
DeleteI’ve commented on here before. I graduated unemployed with a worthless tier 2 law degree in the mid 2000s before the crash when the economy was supposedly good and law schools claimed 99% of grads had jobs. Some may claim I was just some loser rejected by big law, big fed, judicial clerkships, s—t law, prosecutor offices, public defender offices, and state governments despite good grades and editor on law review. I even went to a legal job fair in which big law firms refused to even accept my resume rather than politely take it and pitch it in the trash. I realized though the problem was not me, it was the legal profession. So I became a physician. I’m in a specialty that is competitive to get into and I am in academic medicine.
With all due respect, that is extremely offensive for your parents to disparage nursing, a highly paid skilled profession. Nurses are on the front lines caring for patients. The average salary of an RN is in the mid $80k range.
Moreover, nurse practitioners earn an average salary in the $120k range. There are not enough physicians in this country. Go to any hospital, including the academic center I work, and you will find Nurse Practitioners seeing patients in the ED, outpatient clinics for a variety of specialities, rounding on patients on the various inpatient services, and assisting physicians in the OR. My department even allows nurse practitioners to perform minor procedures unsupervised. They are very good. Look on the US Department of Education College Scorecard Website. Look up the data on Masters in Nursing degrees. They are making six figure salaries with half the debt of law school.
Then there are nurse anesthetists, the pinnacle of nursing making an average salary of over $200k. There are not enough anesthesiologists. So when I have a procedure with anesthesia, the anesthesiologist is present with the nurse anesthetist for induction. After that the anesthesiologist leaves. It is just me, my assistant, and the nurse anesthetist in the room. Sedation and airway management of the patient is the responsibility of the nurse anesthetist at that point.
Talk to a nurse anesthetist. I’ve seen their luxury items. They wear Rolex watches in the OR. They drive luxury cars. They will tell you about sending their kids to fancy prep schools. They have a more professional career and make more money than the typical lawyer.
Your instincts are correct to pursue nursing over law school. I did choose medicine over nurse practitioner and physician assistant. I was willing to go through the training to have the added responsibility. But I had to spend 10 years total in medical school, residency, and fellowship. The benefit of pursing the nurse practitioner, nurse anesthetist, or physician assistant route is that you can be done with training much sooner.
I agree. There is a Master of Nursing Program at Columbia University that I am interested in. It seems to have many students that have also pursued humanities degrees like I did.
DeleteWell, at least my experience wasn't unique; I also went to woefully mis-named "job fairs" sponsored by my law school where they wouldn't even take my resume. As in nobody; one explained "my boss is friends with the dean so he made me come here and I don't feel like carrying them(the resumes) around looking for a place to throw them away."
DeleteNursing is definitely better. Most nurses sit and monitor a patient and administer medications. There is some responsibility, as patients in a hospital die, but most of the gross work is done by LPNs. Nursing has many non-clinical roles, too.
DeleteMy GPA is a 3.9. I did not apply to any T14 as I didn’t think I would get again. I am 25 years old and my parents are putting pressure for me to just grow up and start law school.
ReplyDeleteWhat is so great about law? I'm a lawyer, and I'm advising you against it.
DeleteGrowing up involves making careful decisions based on the available facts. So refusing to attend law school would in fact be a grown up decision.
DeleteUnless, of course, you've rationally decided that it's worth the cool quarter million in debt to roll the dice and see if you'd actually get a job as a lawyer paying a living wage(keep in mind those monthly loan payments).
From the options I have Biglaw is realistically not going to happen. At Cardozo, I believe that in this economy only the top 20 to 25 percent will have a chance at biglaw. At Pace, I believe only the student with the highest gpa has a shot at biglaw. I have to pay $42,000 a year to attend Cardozo while I have a “free” scholarship to attend Pace. I know deep down inside my options are not good, but as a 25 year old with a worthless political science degree what else can I do?
ReplyDeleteLots of things. Nursing is one.
DeleteNobody should attend Csrdozo or Pace. Nobody.
7:13 PM again: With all due respect, your parents know nothing about law school or law, especially current conditions in the legal field. They are trying to entrap you with the "professional" nonsense because they think they know better.
DeleteThey do not.
If they truly did, they would advise you to get into a T20, a T14, a T10 - OR NOT AT ALL.
They are being willfully ignorant and drinking the law school / legal field Kool-Aid.
As I wrote, in years past, in used to be T20 or bust. I don't even think that works today, as the lawyer oversupply continues to increase, as it does year after year unabated.
If you go, you'll essentially be wasting a 3.9 GPA that could've served you as a springboard to .. anything else.
EVEN IF you were to go debt-free - including living expenses - you are still foregoing 3 years of something else AND pigeonholing yourself into a dying, supersaturated, hyper-competitive field.
I suggest going back a few posts here and reading about how one older student with a full ride wisely quit after her 1L at her school and is now gainfully employed in finance. That posts talks about how the #1 kid in the class couldn't even land a 1L Summer gig. And the posts further states this was at a competitive law school.
In fact, that is one article back: Scam-fostering publication promotes law school to older people
Read through the comments. You will find it.
In sum, your parents don't know shit. But the outcome will fall squarely on your shoulders for life, not theirs, barring some rare Miracle where you can do a hard 180 and have the opportunity to re-train.
You have been warned.
Tell them to fuck off, nicely. And go get that AAS Nursing degree. That's all you need, not even a full R.N.
None of the schools you are considering are remotely in the T20, T14, or T10. T3 is Yale/Harvard/Stanford, btw. Just an FYI. That, quite simply, is the beginning and end of the analysis based on what I laid out above.
7:13 PM one last time: In fact, let me give you some homework.
DeleteGoogle "jobs" "AAS" or "nursing" near me
Note the shockingly high number of available, well-paying jobs.
Next, Google law firms in your area you might be interested in if you were an attorney. Look at the bios. Notice anything? Notice that the structure is an inverted pyramid? Lots of Partners but very few Associates.
What does that tell you?
Look at the Associate bios. Look at their schools, grades, rank.
Do this for all the firms, from large to small you might be interested in. Note the shockingly low number of associate positions available at the firms near you,
Now, go back to looking at nursing jobs. Notice the salaries. But wait! There's more..
You can work per diem and travel. You can "grind" and work as much OT as you like. And you will be paid for it. For every hour, every dollar. The "professions" - don't work this way.. Think about that.
And again: You have been warned.
Don't let me see you back here again in 3 years.
I just want to say that is an excellent post and I thank you for agreeing with what I said about working in practical fields vs. chasing a dream and going to Law School. I do not regret my decision to get a JD, but I made it very carefully, with close guidance from my father, who was a partner at a large DC law firm, and other knowledgeable people. I attended the best law school in the state, in a state with just two law schools, and a population of around 6 million people back in the early 1990's. . .so I carefully positioned myself, from the very beginning, to get an ideal outcome on the job market. 2 law schools/six million people back in 1992, when I started, that equation equaled 100% employment for my graduating class, or very close to it. I did not know a single person who passed the bar exam, and character and fitness, and was serious, who had difficulty finding a job practicing law. Not one. The people I attended law school with were very smart, hard-working and very serious. We tracked the employment outcomes of upperclassmen throughout our years in law school, the folks I attended law school with would have dropped out On The Spot if they learned that our grads could not find jobs. I mean folks from the very top of the class to the very bottom, they all got jobs, without difficulty. Sure, the salaries weren't always great, but back those days, a good lawyer who did well could double his salary in 4Y or so. I know, I did that, literally doubled my salary in 4Y as a prosecutor, and made very good money, providing for my family, working perhaps 35 hours a week, at a young age. It was a very different era.
DeleteIt's me again, 7:13 PM.
Deletehttps://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/money-talks-lsat-gpa-tuition-salary-data-for-the-t100-law-schools/
Powerscore has changed this slightly since I looked at it years ago but the main thrust is the same: Outside of the T20 or so schools, salary becomes speculative and what is known in legal circles concerning starting salary as a bimodal distribution.
Look that up using Google. It's simply a statistical term.
In short, what it simply means is: Don't go to law school unless you get into a T20 or better. However, as Old Guy might tell you: Even that becomes a gamble. I'd say T10 or not at all at this point. And-with solid connections to boot.
I think the biggest obstacle for people who already finished college going back and doing nursing is the prerequisites and the student loan rules.
DeleteNeeding the prerequisites is going to mean spending a year or two trying to find and take the courses you need to apply to the nursing school, which isn't a degree program, gets no financial aid, and you get last priority because you're not matriculated at the school. Whole lotta hassle trying to find those classes one at a time.
Then when you finally can apply to the nursing program, you have to contend with the fact that undergrad loans (unlike Grad school loans) have both annual and LIFETIME caps, and they're quite low. You won't be able to borrow enough to pay your rent like you can for law school (or any graduate school for that matter), and you won't be able to borrow at all if your first undergrad go-round hit the lifetime limit.
Not saying it can't be done. In fact its probably the best thing a lot of people possibly could do, the ease of getting a job once you have the license is AMAZING. But its MUCH more hostile to career switchers than a lot of people realize. I know several people who did it. It ALWAYS takes them significantly longer than anticipated to get the prerequisites, and even after you have them and get admitted to the nursing major, paying for it is a challenge because doing a second undergrad degree is something for which there is very little financial aid, and the number of clinical hours expected makes it hard to work full time while going.
I know people who have gone into nursing long after another line of work. It can be done.
DeleteOf course it can be done, OG, as I said. But it is not easy. Far harder than going on to law school where there are no prerequisites and they'll cut you a blank loan check for whatever your school wants to charge PLUS all your living expenses.
DeleteThat's law school's most devious allure: It is the path of least resistance for a liberal artist. But absolutely, if you can find a way to do it, do it. The prospects for an RN are monumentally better than a JD, except at the top law schools. Just be aware that you can't just roll out of bed and apply to nursing school one day: If you already have a bachelors degree and it didn't include them, then you're going to have to get prerequisite courses (which there isn't usually an organized program for) and find a way to pay for it (which isn't as straightforward as just filling out a FAFSA and signing a promissory note, especially if you borrowed for undergrad previously).
I agree. I believe with Pace, the local law firms will only hire the student who is at the top of the class. If you are not in the top of the class, you will have a hard time finding work and will probably have to find some solo who is willing to take you on.
ReplyDeleteNote to OG; while this is the last blog standing and it can get discouraging, keep in mind that this blog has had 4 million page views(!). It's clear that many are stopping by to get unfiltered information about law school, so while it is a lonely task, there are others-many, many others-who regularly read what you've posted.
ReplyDeleteAlmost 4 million of them-that's an incredible accomplishment.
Thanks for your encouragement. Perhaps this is the leading source of anti-scam information today.
DeleteThere are some people who post on youtube about what a scam law school is, folks who started at garbage law schools with GPA-conditional scholarships and then dropped out after their grades weren't high enough for them to continue getting a free ride. So there are a few other sources of info about The Law School Scam, if you look hard enough for them. Here is the thing: elections have consequences. The days of unlimited "student loans" for "living expenses" and tuition at college, law school etc., with the common knowledge that this is just free money, for students to party on Spring Break with, money that they would never have to pay back--those days are finally coming to an end. Law School grads are already shocked that they are now being told they must actually repay what they owe, and can't hide behind "Income Based Repayment" and similar scams anymore. In time low-ranked law schools that pay their professors hundreds of thousands of dollars a year with "student loan" money will be told that they are no longer eligible to participate in the Federal Government backed Student Loan Program, because they cannot demonstrate that their degrees help students get good jobs post-graduation. That will shutter these schools. In addition, Trade Schools are already being promoted, and will be funded, to direct students away from getting garbage degrees and towards getting a real, and brief, education, that leads to a good job, instead. College attendance has been dropping for years, since COVID. The Law School Scam has probably already begun to fade away, it just isn't (very) noticeable yet. The College Scam, that has been fading for years, in an obvious and apparent manner.
DeleteCampos was a grand-standing, soft-subject "intellectual" looking for a cause. First it was obesity/body positivity, then it was law school scamblogging. Then he caught TDS. Now he's just another stuffed shirt cashing a fat paycheck for doing nothing.
DeleteI would not recommend a bachelor's degree anymore, except for certain careers: medicine, nursing, engineering, and a few others. Trade school may be a good choice for many.
DeleteI'd like to agree with dilbert, but applications are up 20% this year so it's obvious that a very large number of applicants aren't paying attention. They still gobble up the swill the law schools are serving up and completely ignoring the apparent end of PSFL and other loan forgiveness programs.
DeleteAnd in the current political climate there's no chance of trade schools-or any schools of any type-being funded.
So three years hence fully expect a whole new crew of deeply indebted-$250k or more-new law grads to appear who are shocked, just shocked, that they can't find jobs or pay back the loans.
There is limited hope; it's clear a lot of people do view this blog-again, with 4 million views-and are convinced not to attend law school.
6:33p brings up a good point: many of those railing against the scam were rank dilettantes with no real interest who simply moved on to some other "hot" topic. Many, if not most of these erstwhile scam investigators had no experience with the scam and really didn't care, as evidenced by their disappearance and/or moving on to new "hot" topics. What makes this blog unique is the actual experience with the scam.
DeleteEven if applications are up 20% this blog still might be effective to warn people of the scam because probably without this blog applications could have been up much higher. And if that is the case think how many potential lemmings dodged the proverbial bullet.
DeleteIn fairness, dilbert @8:09, this administration has done nothing to change the IBR plan as of yet. The SAVE plan was axed by the courts and the new administration will of course not appeal, and some aspects of some other plans have changed in ways unfavorable to borrowers, but the core plan that makes this possible (IBR) remains untouched.
DeleteOld Guy, you are the man and stayed the course. I look forward to seeing every post.
DeleteAs for the kids, this cohort has had a huge drop off in terms of reading comprehension, information searching, etc. vis-a-vis the cohort reading this blog in 2014 (when the current kids were in middle-school). This may hurt the blog. From teaching these kids, I have no idea where they get their information or how the integrate it.
Additionally, for those not wanting the trades (is that even a thing now with all the illegal immigration?), a state school bachelor's degree still has value--with low expectations.
I respectfully disagree with your statement that "a state school bachelor's degree still has value--with low expectations." Sure, that's true if a student majors in something practical, like Nursing, or Accounting, or Engineering. . .but those majors are hard, and require dedication and a lot of studying. Most college students just an opportunity for a 4 year long party. Our culture is deeply anti-intellectual, and we promote college as a party with stupid movies like Animal House, Old School, etc., MTV Spring Break coverage, NCAA Football and Basketball, and so forth. I went to a large state school where most of the students didn't even bother showing up for class on Friday, and it was very, very common for them to party hard for 4Y and then get a menial, very low paid job after graduating. I am now in my 50's, and in my neighborhood it is very common for kids to go off to college, either drop out after a few years or, more frequently, graduate, move back in with their parents and go to work at one of our local grocery stores. A guy with a Film Degree works the cash register where I shop, while a Philosophy Major stocks shelves. . .these folks never should have set foot on a college campus in the first place.
DeleteI just got around to reading the linked article and it what it calls business skills is actually management skills as far as leading and directing lower level employees. But these kinds of skills are never taught in school. Even management courses approach the subject from a 20,000 foot view discussing organizational structures, etc. No course can teach someone how to be a boss. How to get the employee who shirks work to get the job done? What to do about the employee who is always calling in for family leave? Having the skills to be a manager are mostly inborn.
ReplyDeleteThe consensus appears to be that 2:12 should go to nursing school.
ReplyDeleteMany people think that law is a path to riches. We have discussed that false notion.
DeleteMany people also associate law with intelligence. That, too, is a mistake. Maybe a hundred years ago lawyers were generally intelligent, educated, and sophisticated, but not many are today. Standards have fallen far.
As F Lee Bailey said: "the public regards lawyers with great mistrust; they think lawyers are smarter than the average guy but use that intelligence deviously. Well, they're wrong. Usually, they are not smarter."
DeleteAnd, I might add, he said that way back in 1972.
I fully agree. Certainly there are smart lawyers, but far fewer than the public supposes. Heaps of lawyers are fucking stupid.
Deletebefore we give accolades to medical school education, be aware that it's mostly useless minutiae, memorizing amino acid structure and random factoids. When the time to be in the hospital comes, it's pretending to know things and studying independently of any curriculum at home to do 'pimp ing', the medical version of the socratic method.
ReplyDeleteMeh; at least medical school marginally trains students to actually, you know, practice medicine.
DeleteLaw school takes a great pride in having students attend for three years and not know anything about practicing law.
Medical education is not what it used to be, but it certainly surpasses law school, where the so-called professors openly disdain practice.
DeleteWe are less concerned here about what is learned in school than the outcomes as a result of that schooling. Medical school provides a very good chance of actually practicing in the field being studied. Law school other than a small number of those at the pinnacle, does not.
Delete"Professional" degree programs such as medicine, engineering, nursing, etc. aside, one will not gain "essential skills" in America's institutions of higher education. Somewhere another commenter observed that this is why we end up with "woke lunatics" who have no appreciable life or occupational skills and don't know how to do anything other than smash windows and set cars on fire. What most of these programs seem to want is to glorify their own fields such as "________ Studies" or to produce fresh fodder for useless graduate programs.
ReplyDeleteAs for medical education--When I went to medical school in the early 1990's we learned frighteningly little when it came to clinical skills. I sat through far too many lectures that should have been titled "My Own Research" and did clinical rotations supervised by specialists who could not have cared less about managing hypertension or type II diabetes. (At one point in our basic neurosciences class we heard about some sea slug for about two weeks!) The graduates I supervise now as residents seem to have graduated with better practical skills than I had as a new first-year resident. So, maybe they end up with less knowledge in basic clinical sciences but at least can order insulin without killing a patient...