As if the effort to open a law school in San Jose while nearby Golden Gate rusts away were not appalling enough, now there is another attempt to start one in northwestern Louisiana. One writer says "Hell, No" to a law school at Northwestern Louisiana University:
The most overlawyered state in the union categorically does not need, and should not tolerate, a directional school starting up a factory for more middling attorneys.
Indeed not. A similar attempt in Shreveport a few years ago failed after a pilot project with a handful of so-called students. The dreary Pelican State has four law schools already for its relatively small population and can ill afford a fifth.
The proposed law school would be publicly funded. Regulators in Tennessee rejected the Trojan horse of Valpo, a law school in Indiana that failed despite a heritage going back to the nineteenth century, on the grounds that it simply wasn't needed and that it would harm the many other law schools in Tennessee. Now it is proposed to waste badly needed money from Louisiana's public coffers on this vanity project when the evidence of recent experience suggests that there is inadequate demand for another law school in that part of the state, or any other.
People would not flock to that dire corner of Louisiana for the sake of attending this proposed flash in the pan of an über-toilet law school. It would attract perhaps a couple of dozen local students of doubtful quality and potential who for whatever reason were unable to move out of the area for law school. It would be another Indiana Tech—and recall that that poster child of greed and stupidity shut up shop after four humiliating years. At least Indiana Tech blew only its endowment on the ill-fated venture; Northwestern Louisiana University would require funds from the state, and a lot of them.
It is difficult indeed to make a go of a new law school today. The only success has been the U of Irvine, which benefited from advantages that bullshit upstarts in Louisiana and the like just don't enjoy. Accreditation is by no means assured, and students could easily be left high and dry, as many have been at other hopeless über-toilets. Existing law schools, however shitty themselves, have much more to offer, and prospective applicants know it. Few people will gamble on an unknown law school of no reputation and questionable potential, particularly in a desolate place with little demand for legal services.
Let us hope that sane heads will prevail and put the kibosh on this would-be flop.
What makes this even more outrageous is the parlous state of K-12 public education in Louisiana. The most polite way to describe these schools is "disaster" so if LA has public money to throw around, it ought to spend it teaching children to actually read and write.
ReplyDeleteBut here's the ugly truth: the new local law school has become the vanity project for local politicians. They'll take credit for helping minorities, supporting the local economy, and just generally ensuring justice...and it will all be permanently memorialized in a nice bronze plaque right by the entrance.
northern transplant down here. the whole system was privatized, but continues to get public money, for charter schools--all failures. the crop of kids and broken families dont make good students or wealthy enough for lawyer services.
DeleteTo me, the question is simple: Will this proposed law school be allowed to participate in the Federally-backed Student Loan Program? If yes, then the law school will likely succeed, if no, it will fail, that's a 100% guarantee. If it is allowed to participate in the Student Loan Program than it will succeed for the same reason that 11 law schools are succeeding in Florida, 10 in Pennsylvania, 16 in New York State, and so on. There will always be dullards who say "I can't find a good job with my Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy, so I'm going to Law School." Think about it, no pre-requisites, as discussed earlier, and, even more importantly, 1) it allows students to put off repaying their student loans from college for three years and 2) it allows them to live large on even MORE student loans! Some folks, after living off government loans for 7 full years will go on to even more graduate programs afterwards, and why not? It beats working for a living.
ReplyDeleteEven with access to federal funds, this pig will fail for having too few students. It just won't be able to generate enough money to stay afloat. Remember that Indiana Tech had access to student loans.
DeleteExactly, OG. Until recently, the school itself had no reason to care about demand for graduates in the market, because as long as they get accredited by ABA then they can get student loans. Then it is only demand for SEATS in the class, not demand for graduates in the market, that matters. Because student loans give an absolute guarantee that your school will be very profitable IF you can fill the seats without too much tuition discounting and without failing the ABA's already-modest bar passage rate standard (or at least not failing it too many years in a row). That's pretty much the sole determinant of law school profitability.
DeleteNo one read the employment disclosures anyway, so you need enough of your kids to pass the bar and you need to do it without bribing your way to higher LSATs too much. That's it. The students also haven't cared because historically your offer gets them easily covering rent for 3 years while doing something that appears practical to you parents while also being darned EASY (I mean c'mon, there's no prerequisites and also no homework because your entire grade for each class is one exam at the end). And they don't need to care about the loans because they know they can just put them on income-based repayment.
But lately, some schools cannot even manage to sell this incredibly appealing 3 year funded vacation siren song. Even the least informed students seem to be catching on that there's no jobs. So the schools enter a death spiral of needing to discount the price more and more until it becomes a cost center instead of a cash cow. That is something the parent university (or investor owners in the case of a for-profit) will not tolerate for long. Good.
The person who is proposing in San Jose to create a new law school is
ReplyDeleteState Senator David Dominic Cortese and he wants to merge his alma mater Lincoln Law School with the nearby California State University campus. Sounds like he has a vested interest for future employment there.
I used to stay in that part of the state. There is very little talent on the ground. It's all pine forests interspersed by shacks and meth labs. You will occasionally run across a small town with a deserted town square and a Walmart. The only excitement most people have is going to church 3X/week. Why anyone with any prospects would go to law school there is beyond me.
ReplyDeletePer DOE-or what's left of it:
ReplyDelete"Currently, 42.7 million borrowers owe more than $1.6 trillion in student debt, with only 38% of borrowers in repayment and current on their student loans."
So DOE will begin collecting, or more accurately trying to collect, on defaulted student loans, beginning today.
This most likely isn't going to go well, if 62% of student loan borrowers are at a minimum delinquent on their loans.
A lot of people say that solo practice does not usually work out. My question is how would one fare if they dedicate their solo practice to family law and deal with divorce cases?
ReplyDeleteYou'll still go broke. Nobody pays for legal services. The only way to make money out of law is to have a third party payer (ie an insurer) pay the costs. Ultimately family law fees are coming out of client's pockets so they just wont pay for anything.
DeleteThis is the simple truth: nobody wants to pay a lawyer.
DeleteThis is exactly one of the problems with law and why working in the medical field is profitable for employees. Also, the demand curves are reversed. No need for one new lawyer, let alone the hundreds that are admitted from the larger states year after year. Conversely, their are shortages in the medical field year after year because people don't like to care for others and think the grass will be greener doing something else.
DeleteIf you start a solo practice, no matter what you try to go into, divorces are probably going to end up what you're gonna be mostly doing, at least in my town. I call it "door law." No matter what you advertise, if you're a very small or solo firm, that is almost certainly what's gonna walk in the door.
DeleteThey all advertise for personal injury as well, just in case that proverbial lotto ticket of a case walks in, but of all the solos in my town like 90% of them are actually doing 90% family law day-to-day, with some criminal defense thrown in either as contract public defender work, or the occasional criminal defendant that actually has money (usually because its a black sheep adult-child and their parents pony up).
Is it viable? Sure, maybe. Going rate is circa 10k retainer and like 300 an hour, and our judges are good about letting you withdraw even if the client ends up pro per when they can't replenish. Overhead is also very low, so if you can get like 1-3 new clients per month who can actually plonk that down (or at least run up a credit card that much) and you bill diligently, it can be viable. But its often soul-crushing, Jerry Springer type fights. Plus its a real magnet for bar complaints given the emotions and often unrealistic client expectations involved.
Family "law" is not really law at all; it's a lot of bitching about assets and children (often treated practically as chattels). Seldom does a real question of law arise, but a lawyer is needed for practical reasons. A friend calls it filth, and I have to agree.
DeleteAgree, OG @ 2:58. I did that stuff for about 5 years. It was legal aid so I didn't have to worry about the clients paying, but in a way, that made it worse: They didn't have any financial incentive to settle so I had to do "limited scope" retainers that ended my engagement at defined points in time, otherwise I'd never get out. Especially when they're poor because then the kids are the only thing they have to fight over.
DeleteEven if you go all the way to trial, they'll be back in court before the ink is dry asking for a modification of the custody order because they will always find something to call "changed circumstances." Constantly calling the cops or CPS on each other, that sort of thing. Those aren't appeals, they're new matters that have arisen so they can go back to the trial court an unlimited number of times. These cases never end until all the kids are grown. And sometimes not even then, since there could be support arrearages or disabilities that extend the support obligation into adulthood, etc.
As always, it depends. Depends on the location, pool of possible clients, and more than anything else, one's skill at running a business and bringing in new PAYING clients. Natchitoches LA where NLU is located has a 34.8% poverty rate and median household income is 38, 731. Shreveport--23.6% poverty rate and median HHI is 48,465 per the latest census. How many people in this area can even afford an attorney, even if they need one? And I doubt there are very many businesses there with deep pockets to pay legal bills.
DeleteThat's another reason to avoid falling for the lie about practising in Bumblefuck, Nebraska: few people can pay for a lawyer or want to. And Bumblefuck, Louisiana, is no better.
DeleteI see a lot of graduates who went to low ranked schools often give up on practicing law and work in jobs invoking some sort of “compliance”.
ReplyDeleteShitwork akin to "document review", sort of a consolation prize for not really being able to practise law.
DeleteHonestly, am starting to come to the opinion that the only real lawyers are trial lawyers of some kind. Corporate transactional is just paper pushing bullshit which doesn't actually involve the law in any meaningful way outside of the boilerplate.
DeleteInsurance companies love to hire failed lawyers, for some reason. Some of them end up working with people who have nothing more than a high school diploma and some experience in the field. It really is hard for me to sympathize with people who don't do their research before applying to law school. A person who is dumb enough to go to a low-ranked law school in a state with 10-11 such institutions 1) probably won't find a job afterwards and 2) isn't smart enough to be a competent lawyer anyway.
DeleteAppellate litigation is the area in which the practice of law truly shines. There isn't much of it, though, and few lawyers will touch it with a bargepole. Those of us who can handle an appeal with aplomb are rare.
DeleteSome trial-level work is serious; some is not. And I've seen horrors at trial (and, yes, on appeal, too). Incompetence in the legal field is widespread.
There is no excuse in 2025 to enroll at an über-toilet or even a toilet. The facts are readily available. People who ignore them have only themselves to blame and get no sympathy from Old Guy.
Readers may like to know that the training of lawyers used to involve much more than it does today. Rhetoric was still essential to legal education at the turn of the twentieth century but was quickly abandoned. Most lawyers now have no rail background in oratory or writing or much of anything else that not so long ago was expected of them. Now they don't even learn much law.
ReplyDeleteWere the logic questions (Now abandoned so I've heard) on the LSAT a vestige of the expectation of rhetorical skills?
DeleteI doubt it. They have little to do with rhetoric.
DeleteAs I understand, the so-called games were eliminated, after a blind person complained that he could not practically draw diagrams in braille within the allotted time.
Well, I see rhetoric as language expressed in a logical form. The mental functions involved in solving logic problems and the construction of rhetoric should be similar.
DeleteThe Lawertalk Reddit just posted an ad from yet another Judge seeking a highly qualified Attorney to work for him, full-time, for no salary whatsoever, no benefits, nothing. I am quite certain he will get lots of applicants. This whole thing disgusts me. When I was a clerk at the AG's office in law school, one of the lawyers talked about "phasing out the pay" due to the "prestige" of working for the Attorney General's Office while in school. I gave him a big toothy grin and said "Just let me know, because if you 'phase out the pay' I will 'phase out the work' and stop showing up here." That ended the conversation. I would literally have rather worked as a fry cook for McDonalds' for minimum wage than paid for dry cleaning suits and shirts, polishing shoes, packing a lunch, and driving to and from a full time job at my own expense. I had far too much pride to be exploited like that, even as a young man in school. Seriously, please, if there is some broader way to get the message out--despite the irony of me, as successful lawyer, imploring others NOT to go to law school--I honestly believe that this scam has gotten completely out of control. People's lives are being badly affected by spending three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, earning little or nothing during that timeframe, to getting a degree that is often entirely worthless. The US is quite literally going bankrupt, and funding worthless degree programs at colleges, law schools, and other institutions is a big part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteHi Dilbert113 (May 14th, 11:03 am)
DeleteSince at least the mid-90s, a lot of Federal agencies in Washington DC have hired law students and recent graduates as volunteer law clerks. I went this route, amounting to 1800 hours of work, although some of that was counted for law school credit. In an era of federal hiring freezes, government shutdowns, and level funding of agencies, this was the ONLY WAY one could get federal experience, and an entry point into the government, honors programs and other entry level hiring opportunities having been drastically reduced or eliminated.
As you might guess, I did not know this until it happened to me, after I had sunk an unbelievable sum of money into law school. I wrote up an account of this experience a couple of years ago. Give me a second to get the link.
Hi again Dilbert113 (May 14th, 11:03 am)
DeleteHere is the URL:
https://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2023/10/charleston-seeks-non-profit-status.html?m=0
This was the post on Charleston dated Oct. 25, 2023. There are 45 comments. My account is in comments 16-19.
My job situation was not as good as yours was, Dilbert, but even folks with better class rank and better schools had difficulty finding paid work in DC. Also, I had no interest in criminal law, whereas crime was still a booming industry in the 1990s in DC.
You mentioned the small size of DC, but the lawyer market there is not small at all because of the federal presence, which also spills over well into Maryland and Virginia. Of course, the hugeness of the government attracts law grads from everywhere making the job market difficult but not impossible like in many other places. There are actually 7 law schools, not 6, in the DC area. This includes George Mason, just a few subway stops outside the District.
Another factor contributing to the number of lawyers in DC is that the federal government will recognize the license of any state or territory as the qualification to practice.
DeleteState Bar Exams are run by retards who shouldn't be in charge: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/california-bar-says-three-exam-takers-scored-on-others-work
ReplyDeleteAssuming one enrolls in law school and realizes they don’t want to be lawyers anymore, when is it the best time to drop out and pursue something else?
ReplyDeleteImmediately. What purpose could there be in going on?
DeleteDepends on if it's an elite degree. A t-14 degree is probably still worth having depending on the debt required to finished the degree. If it's non -t-14 drop immediately.
DeleteYou can finish out the semester if it's too late to get any sort of refund, but otherwise as soon as you decide it's not for you, just run.
DeleteDo you think it is still a good idea if someone goes to a T14 law school intending to work in Biglaw? This is especially true in light of some Biglaw firms surrendering to the Trump administration.
ReplyDeleteIt is a bad idea to intend to work in Big Law. As we have explained repeatedly, jobs in Big Law seldom last more than a few years. Reportedly they are unpleasant while they do last.
DeleteThe plan you are describing is known as "Big Law or Bust." The great majority of people who enter law school with that plan bust as soon as they receive their first semester grades. Many people are smart, study hard, and do quite well in high school, on the SAT, in college, and on the LSAT. . .only to get C's on the brutal first-year law school "curve". This is because, while being smart and studying hard can lead to lots of A's in high school and college, law school is entirely different. Everyone at a good law school is smart, studies hard, and did well in undergrad. So being smart and studying hard, at a good law school, that and two dollars will get you a cup of coffee. In addition, as Old Guy pointed out, the "career" of most lawyers in Big Law is quite short. I have studied this extensively, the average tenure of a first-year associate in a large law firm is 4Y. Burning out from overwork and leaving 18M-2Y is common in sweatshops like Cravath. It turns out people don't like sleeping in their office, showering at the law firm gym, and essentially doing nothing but work and minimal eating and sleeping for weeks/months/years on end. In my eyes, spending 7Y in higher education (4Y college, 3Y law school), hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition/books/living expenses, passing a 2-day Bar Exam, doing all that for a job that may end in 2-3Y is a terrible ROI. Do yourself a favor, and don't go down the well-trodden road of Big Law or Bust.
DeleteThere's the very real possibility of not getting into Big Law at all. Old Guy never wanted to go into Big Law, but he also couldn't get an interview anywhere, despite top grades and top honors and law review and shitloads of other gold stars billed inaccurately as Big Law credentials. Big Law wants certain types of people only: young, sexy, upper-crusty, urban, wealthy, with the ability to bring in paying clients thanks to well-placed connections. And, yes, for the most part male and white. Straight or closeted queer only, thank you very much. Disability is frowned upon. Certainly no left-wing rants in the office or elsewhere. Appearance must be conventional: visible tattoos, piercings, and the like will keep you out. Any sign of scholarliness or intellectuality is damning. If you don't fit the mold, you need not apply.
DeleteNote too that Big Law gets rid even of people who have made partner. Recent years have seen lots of cases, along with the creation of many positions that are off the equity track.
"There's the very real possibility of not getting into Big Law at all."
DeleteThat says it all; the reality is that nobody-as in close to zero-from a trash law school would get recruited by BigLaw; it just doesn't happen. A very select few from the most selective law schools get recruited-and that it's.
So BigLaw may be a terrible decision with a terrible lifestyle but it's not going to be a problem for virtually 100% of the graduates of trash law schools. So if you're planning to attend a law school outside of OG's tier one, you've got no worries about sleeping in your BigLaw office. Your worry is getting a job, any job, at graduation.
Is there any benefit to putting in 4 years in Big Law as there is with Big 4 Accounting? With Big 4 Accounting the objective is to put in enough time to get the work experience for CPA licensure and then use the prestige of working in Big 4 as the foundation to moving into corporate finance. Is there any equivalent to Big Law?
DeleteI went to a toilet myself. I don't know of any grads that went into big law but there were a few that secured positions in smaller boutique firms. However, they had prestige undergrad credentials. A tiny number got JAG appointments.
No. Once bounced out of Big Law, you are out on your ass. Big Law doesn't lead to grander things in general; it leads to solo practice and small-time shit. To parlay Big Law into anything decent, you have to hit the timing just right—after you have some experience but before you get sacked.
DeleteBig Law doesn't recruit people from toilets, other than a few with connections (who would have had access to Big Law anyway). JAG is another pipe dream, not the kind of thing that many can get—nor that many would want.
Here is the public record of the pension benefits received by retired NYC police officers.
Deletehttps://www.seethroughny.net/pensions/nyc-police-department-pension-fund
You will notices hundred of pensions in the 200-250k range. You will notice thousands in the 150k ranges. You will notice a few over 300k. A pension means you get that payment, which is partially tax free, for the rest of your life without having to work again.
Most of those people get those pensions starting in their early 40s. All you need is a high school diploma, two years of community college and a clean criminal record.
This is one department in one part of the country. There are legions of places with similar payment structures and there are quite a few places that are even more generous.
The chances of you earning a 200k salary are extraordinarily small, let alone a retirement package like that. In fact, you will likely earn alot less than that.
I earn more than 200k a year and I don’t know if I am going to have a job tomorrow. I am one of the lucky ones. This is a good outcome in law.
Law is exclusively for three types of people: 1) law school professors, 2) rich kids that want to pretend they succeeded solely to individual effort, 3) people that have the balls to break the rules and not get caught and 4) sociopaths. It is absolutely catastrophic for everyone else.
Biglaw is a temporary and awful 4 years for most people (7 years if you are lucky). The money you make will be absorbed by taxes, rent and COLA and you will have nothing to show for the work and stress.
You aren’t going to listen- I know that. I’m just showing you the information just in case.
25-30 years ago there were decent exit options from Big Law. Sometimes Big Law Associates would become in-house counsel for banks and large corporations they represented during their time with the firm, that sort of thing. Today, however, the legal job market is profoundly oversaturated. Leaving your job at a large law firm may well mean leaving the profession of law altogether. Personally, I have never been impressed by large law firms. A first-year associate in a large law firm working 70 hours a week may well earn about $60 per hour, pre-tax. That is less than most Public Defender's Offices pay "Panel Attorneys" to handle cases for them that they are conflicted out of, or simply don't have the staff to handle. It is often hard to find lawyers willing to work for such low wages. Now, while, say, a third year associate at a large law firm may earn closer to $90 per hour, pre tax, a bored, disheveled, vaguely competent DUI lawyer with several years of experience can and will earn $1,200 in ten minutes doing a quick plea in traffic court. That is not an exaggeration at all, I am in courthouses on a near daily basis dealing with various traffic and criminal matters, some lawyers charge $5,000 or more for a DUI case that can be handled in 2-3 hours, quite literally, from initial client contact to sentencing. Ditto various other offenses, theft, assaults, etc. The way lawyers earn money, good money, in real life, has nothing whatsoever to do the way things are portrayed on TV shows and in movies about lawyers. It is still possible to do well practicing law, but it isn't glamorous, sexy, etc. It it a hustle, and requires skills you never learn about during law school.
DeletePeople of integrity and intelligence will probably find law stultifying. Old Guy spends much of his time changing diapers rather than doing real legal work. The main problem is the shittiness of bench and bar, largely a consequence of the low standards that now prevail.
DeleteI think BigLaw does lead to some exit options in govt. Its still overall a bad idea, but many govt jobs do give preference to BigLaw grads.
DeleteHow is Law compared to accounting? Is the pay and job market better for people with accounting background? I have heard that accountants with CPA's are needed and there are more job openings than people with CPA's.
ReplyDeleteOverall it is better than law but still competitive. The best route is Big 4. But only a relatively small fraction of accounting grads will be hired by Big 4. Academically, getting into a Professional Accounting masters program might be another possible way to get into Big 4. By working for a smaller firm the CPA designation can still be obtained. Trying to get up the ladder in corporate accounting without a CPA will probably be a struggle. Government Accounting such as IRS might be a good path to leading to a stable permanent career with retirement benefits. It is probably easier for accounting graduates to secure federal employment than law graduates. IMO that would be a much better route than corporate accounting without a CPA. Also, in many states IRS experience can qualify for the CPA.
DeleteI got a several questions. I know that NYPD and other officers from other New York police departments make a lot of money. For example, the Nassau and Suffolk county police departments in New York are some of the highest paid with average salaries including are over $200,000 a year. Despite these high salaries, many of these police officers live a more middle class lifestyle compared to people who are more "professional" than them. I know many police officers in the NYC area and many of them will live in more middle class areas such as Rockland County or Staten Island compared to people with law degrees from average or lower tiered law schools who prefer to live in affluent towns in Westchester County, NY or Northern New Jersey. Many police officers I know also do not take any substantial vacations away from the region. At best, many police officers and their families will often go to a friends house a few hours away in a place such as Lake George. This in contrast to many lawyers with degrees from average or lower tiered schools who will often fly to a place for vacation at least once a year. These places are often in Europe such as Greece or in the Caribbean such as Aruba. I am not trying to generalize all police officers, but what do you think accounts for this difference I have observed?
ReplyDeleteClass structure. The officers still see themselves as working class people whereas the Lawyers don't.
DeleteI think the lawyers that you are observing as living in places like Westchester County are the most successful of attorneys. I cannot quantify the number of attorneys who are that successful, I would have to leave that to people such as Old Guy and Dilbert who seem to be able to arrive at those amounts but I would think that the percentage is rather small and within that skewed heavily towards elite schools.
DeleteAs far as the police, not all are making $200,000 and even for those who do, a place like Staten Island is not really that cheap. Many NYPD would probably want to live within the jurisdiction of NYC also. As far as vacation preferences, it could be a variety of factors, time availability, preferences, vacation home location, etc. I'm sure many NYPD take the occasional European jaunt.
The answer is quite easy: white collar professionals, especially lawyers, are subject to life style creep and are under a higher degree of pressure to live a life style that matches public perception of what it means to be a lawyer. Cops are under no such pressure.
DeleteThis actually compounds the wealth disparity because the only way to make it in the US today is to own your own business or invest aggressively in the markets. The cop is dumping all his money in an S&P mutual fund, whereas the lawyer is dropping his money on a fake life style.
Side note: I feel bad for people in shitlaw in this regard because living that way is mandatory for success. If a shitlaw client sees you not having the trappings of material success- lights out. In other areas of the law, you might be made to feel uncomfortable, but there’s no obligation to have a Mercedes to get clients.
A particularly foolish illusion is that of wealth stemming from expenditures. The smart money goes into that S&P index fund; the dumb money goes into new cars and trips to Aruba.
DeletePeople see the fancy car and assume that the owner is wealthy. Very likely the owner borrowed money to buy the depreciating asset. Old Guy had sooner buy an adequate car at a small fraction of the price and invest the difference.
That is what I am thinking. I believe cops, nurses and to some extent teachers see themselves as middle class or even working class, so they do not need compete with other people. I believe lawyers, even the ones that do not graduate from top schools, need to spend a lot of money in order to show an illusion of success. I suspect that a lot of those spending is either family money, or is funded by debt and heavy borrowing.
DeleteWhy the extended discussion about biglaw? If you attend a scam law school-which is about 99% of them-there is no chance of you getting hired by biglaw. As in none, zero, zilch. So if you attend scam school-anything outside OG's tier one-you have no worries.
ReplyDeleteAnd the practice of law is geographic, I guess. In my jd the conflicts counsel list is a mile long. Yes, the hourly rate is terrible, but it's a government check. And the lawyers who just hang out at the courthouse are legion, just hoping to catch a stray who has money. Very very few are earning good money; most are scrambling to get by. They are the very definition of the scam; got that JD but not the money to pay off the loans.
Police officers in strong unions get good salaries. Also, they work a lot of overtime and holidays with premium pay.
ReplyDeleteFrom my area, it seems people can get decent jobs if they attend an elite ivy league schools regardless of major. The problem is, for the most of the students who attend a non prestigious college and obtain a generic bachelor's degree, their options are quite limited. What are they supposed to do? This why so many will attend any law school that accepts them.
ReplyDeleteThat wasn't the case for Old Guy, who struggled for years after getting a degree from an élite Ivy League school.
DeleteUntil the 1950s or so, bachelor's degrees were so rare that indeed a degree of any kind led to good employment. Then schools started popping up all over the place, and people went to various institutions calling themselves colleges, only to find that a degree from the East Bumblefuck College of Theology was practically worthless—certainly next to one from Harvard.
Seems to me the universities committed the same error they warn their students about: Confusing correlation with causation. Degrees used to be correlated with high earnings, sure, but the lesson to be learned is that this was never caused by anything inherent to the education itself. It was the relative scarcity (plus the preexisting privilege of the few who got degrees) that led to the higher earnings seen historically among the college educated. Student loans made it so everyone could get degrees, everyone did (at a newly inflated borrowed price), and the result was exactly the same as printing too much money.
DeleteThat's why the medical field remains one of the few exceptions. Health insurance, medicare and medicaid massively increase demand for these qualifications while the professions have simultaneously done a great job at restricting supply. Exactly the opposite has been done with more or less everything else.
Prestigious degrees are another exception...sometimes. Not always, as in OG's case. But the ibanks will often hire from almost any major if the school is prestigious enough and/or the person has sufficient pedigree in upbringing and is not old. Once again, the value is in the relative scarcity, just as with a currency. You can produce that scarcity on the supply side (with prestige) or on the demand side (with stuff like health insurance) but the law of supply and demand always prevails. The colleges confused correlation with causation and completely missed the fact that the relative scarcity of their credential is where its value always came from. Never from the substance of anything they actually taught.
This is, unfortunately, correct; much of the current mess is simple supply and demand. As in, too many law schools cranking out too many JDs for the market to absorb...hence grads working-if at all-at The Gap. And to add insult to injury, states are now allowing "legal professionals" to practice in limited areas, causing further dilution of the jobs market for attorneys.
DeleteSo the scam rolls on....
This "working class/middle class" lifestyle got me thinking, from my observations many of the kids of "working/middle class" parents are actually seem to be doing better than the children of affluent "professionals". I went to an event at a church that is attended by working class people from The Bronx, Queens and parts of Long Island. The kids seem to be getting stable jobs. I saw two people who were attending a local dental school, one kid just got a job as a Physician Assistant and another kid works as a New York City Police Officer at a precinct in Queens. This in contrast many kids of affluent professionals who reside in affluent suburbs of Westchester of Northern New Jersey. They often attend expensive out of state schools and get degrees such as Business Administration, Marketing and Political Science. Then they get basic sales jobs, financial planning jobs or attend lower tiered law schools. Many of these people also get apartments in Manhattan while working these jobs or attending a lower tier school.
ReplyDeleteNo, they're not. And despite the two examples you gave, they will never be. That's just more of the sleight-of-hand illusion of meritocracy in society. I guarantee that the affluent kids, with their $5000+ median rents, and probably much more, have less than zero to worry about because they are Trust Fund Babies with Elite parents who can afford whatever their kids might want. Just because the working class Poors don't see it, doesn't mean it's not the case, i.e. trees falling alone in the forest.
Deletedid you hear about the administrations new requirements for universities to show gainful employment as a proportion of their tuition? Let's write an article on that!
ReplyDeleteI am a sole prop attorney in San Francisco.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly the CA Bar is one of the most difficult.
One issue issue old practitioners hanging for too long.
I ran a hard stats number. California in general has about one lawyer per 170.
In San Francisco it is 1 lawyer per 40.
Compare this to CA active CPAs (1 per 600); or CA dentists ( 1 per 1300); or Electric Engineer ( 1 per 1390).
Finally, in Japan there is 1 lawyer per 2818.
But, the ABA and State Bars insist we must lower standards and that we need more dilution.
My wife worked at a Dental University. In 2008 financial crisis she said American Dental Association approved schools mandated incoming class cuts of about 20% to preserve the integrity of the practicing dentists during economic slow down.
These numbers, no doubt, apply across the country.
DeleteRegarding CPAs...it's one of the few jobs where there's an actual shortage. Takes a lot to slap CPA after your name, and you've got to want to be a CPA in the first place.
Regarding dentists: way back when, dental schools were actually closed eg Georgetown Dental School. So yes, other professions are much more concerned about the economic climate their graduates step into.
Dental schools, medical schools, and accounting schools where one learns to eventually pass the CPA exam aren't scams. Law school is a massive, predatory scam and it is disgraceful that this has not been more widely exposed. There are 11 law schools in Florida, 10 in Pennsylvania, 9 in Virginia, and the list goes on. There should be one law school with a moderately-sized graduating class in each of those states. One is all that is needed. If there was 1 law school in Florida, and the other 10 were closed, it would be very, very difficult to get into that one school--only the very best and brightest would study law in Florida--and the graduates of that one school would have little trouble finding a job, especially as the years went on and more and more graduates from the ten closed schools retired. Part of the reason the US is going bankrupt is because we cheerfully hand out "student loans" that will never be paid back so people can spend 7 years in school, 4Y college, 3Y law school, while the rest of us have to work for a living.
DeleteDid Old Guy ever consider running for office?
ReplyDeleteOld Guy wouldn't stand a chance.
DeleteI see frequent comments on this site about becoming a police officer. I have a job as a civilian in a police department. My comment is that Lawyers need to be book smart while Police Officers need to be street smart. If you become an officer as verses an FBI agent you will spend the first part of your career doing traffic stops, attending domestics, and dealing with drunks. You will need to be verbally fast on your feet and be able to handle yourself in a fight if a suspect decides to resist arrest. Many law graduates couldn't handle dealing with these challenges which sometimes requires bravery. Not insulting cops or lawyers, but not every prospective law student could handle being a street cop or make it through their psychological testing or polygraph exam that police departments employ.
ReplyDeleteThis bullshit has to stop. This site is primarily geared towards helping young people, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds, to avoid life altering and catastrophic decisions. I know it is a national religion to say cops are heroes, deserve their pay, etc. No one here is advocating reducing cop pay, benefits, etc.
DeleteHowever, this BS that the average law grad can’t get those jobs is just ridiculous. The majority of guys I know who chose police jobs were average dudes that understood (and in many instances did not understand) the fundamental alterations to the US economy. They weren’t physically robust, morally brave, or street smart to a greater degree than anyone else. Many of them are ridiculously out of shape. The base skills are learned to an adequate degree on the job.
The guys that have those skills inherently before joining and then hone them further on the job are detectives and specialists that do even better (eg 300k comp and pension). The regular guy doing the job just has to have a clean record, high school diploma and two years of CC. Nothing else.
Am I telling a potential third tier law grad that he’s going to be a lieutenant of the sniper unit in the NYPD cranking out 500k a year and retiring with a 600k pension? No. That guy is special. (Just like someone that makes partner at big law, special). Can a potential third tier law school grad become an average cop or maybe even move up the ranks a bit and crank out 200k with overtime and retire at 40 with a six figure tax reduced pension and health care for life? Absolutely.
I know an elite 50 year old cop with an eight pack, 25 year old girlfriend, 500k compensation package and five businesses on the side. He’s navy seal level bravery, brains, guts, street smarts and cunning. You know who else I know? I know a desk sergeant who is obese with type 2 diabetes that cannot fight his way out of a paper bag. Inequality exists in all fields. The measure is what does the average person make. The scam persists because law schools sell apex outcomes for law and point to bottom of the barrel outcomes for everything else.
Regarding the difficulty of the job, we are in post industrial, hyper globalized, America. Nothing is easy. Yeah dealing with people’s BS is hard. You know what’s harder? Paying 50 percent of your income in taxes, no job security, not being able to buy a house and not knowing how you are going to retire.
What you are referring to may be law's highly unusual "bimodal salary distribution" whereby the pay graph looks more like a two-humped camel (biglaw vs everything else) than the normal bell curve type distribution you'd see in any other profession, whether it be police or nurses or CPAs or docs or whatever.
DeleteI know of no other job where the bottom is so utterly disconnected from the top and where there really isn't even a "middle" to speak of, where's there's two totally different markets so distant from each other that the one has literally no effect on the other.
In your example of the elite cops and regular cops, both are still cops and their outcomes (though significantly different) are not completely unconnected. Both still have the same basic ability to put in their 20 years and get that pension, for example.
But corporate biglaw lawyers have absolutely NOTHING connecting their world to that of the ambulance chasers and insurance defenders and solo family law/DUI defense outfits. They are two completely and totally different careers that happen to share the same licensing board and the market for one has absolutely zero effect on the market for the other. I know of nothing else like it, really.
Police officers tend to be lunkheads with little real ability. A number of them have lectured me on the law, thinking that the dumbed-down bit of rudimentary law that they are taught is on a par with my knowledge of the subject. They let their little tin badge go to their heads.
DeleteAnyway, the advice to become a flatfoot in New York City or some other metro area is worthless for people like Old Guy who come from Bumblefuck, because those jobs go to local people, especially those with connections in the police department. Pigs in small towns don't get anything like the cushy deals that go to their urban counterparts.
Also, intelligent people are actively screened out. One police department set a *maximum* score for an entrance exam; it survived a challenge by someone who had been rejected for doing too well.
Bimodal distributions exist for sexy lines of work, such as music and sports, where an élite gets a fortune while the overwhelming majority barely scrape by or even find something else to do for money.
DeleteLaw is hardly sexy, despite the impression that outsiders may have. I wish that I had done something else.
I don't think its analogous to chasing fame. Most people know it isn't like TV, I just think for too many liberal artists, it is the path of least resistance. Almost anything else would basically require them to go back to undergrad to get prerequisites, and there wouldn't be unlimited loans with which to pay rent.
DeleteOf course, that limitless borrowing is set to be reigned in by OBBA's abolition of GradPLUS loans. And while I don't often agree with anything this administration does, I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day:
https://www.cato.org/blog/good-riddance-grad-plus-student-loans
I seriously wonder what is going to happen to law schools once gradPLUS goes away. Before it came online around in 2006, private lenders simply stepped into the breach, assured that bankruptcy wouldn't protect people thanks to BAPCPA's inclusion of private loans within the definition of student loans. But who knows, maybe lenders will be more risk averse now, parents less willing to cosign, etc. One can hope.
Cuz one thing is certain: Without gradPLUS, more law schools are gonna close unless private lenders are willing to lend just as much, just as easily.
Someone should do an article about OBBA and its implications for the law school scam. It's mostly bad for people who already went and who are in debt for it. But it could have some positives for people who have not yet taken the disastrous plunge.
Law came to be ruined because it was so easily accessible, with no prerequisites. If after getting a degree in underwater basketweaving you want to go into medicine, you have to take a couple of years of chemistry, physics, and the like. To go into law, however, you don't have to take a damn thing.
DeletePerhaps we should require an exam in Latin or the calculus for admission to law school, just to separate the sheep from the goats.
Our election system is designed to shake-out the best candidates early in the process.
ReplyDeleteI was looking at the Hofstra law school website and on it said that a semester long clinic was one of the opportunities for a student to “practice law” in law school.
ReplyDeleteI posted a link to this blog on the Bogleheads forum in response to someone asking for law school advice:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8426774#p8426774
"That blog is really about third and fourth tier law schools which have had a poor job placement history going on decades now. Little of it is applicable for someone deciding between Berkely and Stanford. The job market is fine for Stanford graduates and always has been."
No doubt Stanford Law School's career services will work hard to assure every single graduate gets a law job, including the student who is ranked last, because even one unemployed graduate will be very damaging to their prestigious reputation. A toilet law school's career services will only assist the top 10% and let the rest hang out to dry. Even though the toilet law school's career services webpage will say all this puffery about their commitment to work hard to assist all graduates, they will ignore the mediocre students in very subtle ways. These career services know mediocre graduates are a lost cause and a waste of resources and time. Read a lot of anecdotal accounts on blogs of unemployed mediocre law graduates from toilet schools whose career services offices refused to reply to their emails to requesting assistance especially after the ABA required 10 months out survey was submitted. The career services knows they already damaged the employment figures so no incentive to assist them.
DeleteOutside top 10% and law review, the misnamed "career services office" at my law school offered zero assistance to all other job seekers. And they weren't subtle about it; if you didn't have those credentials, they'd tell you you were forbidden from applying for the few OCI conducted at the school.
DeleteMine was happy to help the many rich dum-dums near the bottom of the class but had nothing to offer me at the top.
DeleteA lot of people deciding to enroll in law school simply are not very bright. I read posts on other forums, a recent graduate will complain that he can't find a job, and the market is flooded. Upon further inquiry, it will turn out that he attended law school in Florida, a state that has eleven law schools. Now, if you are dumb enough to attend law school in a state with 11 such institutions, and aggressively stupid enough to be surprised when there's high competition for jobs practicing law after you graduate. . .someone that dumb never should have set foot on a college campus, let alone get a JD. I have no sympathy for over-educated dummies. Giving massive student loans to people who can't read or spell very well is part of what is bankrupting this country. . .most of those loans will never be repaid.
ReplyDeleteQuite true, I'm sorry to say: lots and lots of people in the legal realm are just plain dumb. At least they are nothing like the intelligent people that the public fancies lawyers to be. Maybe there was a time when lawyers in the main were erudite and intelligent. That time certainly is not today.
DeleteWhat is your opinion on Fordham law school in New York City? A lot of people I know are willing to pay full price for a chance to work in New York City biglaw.
ReplyDeleteTier 4 (of seven, ranging from the empty Tier 0 to the appalling Tier 6):
Deletehttps://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-seven-tiers-of-law-schools-update.html
The only thing going for it is its location in New York. That's not enough to justify attending the toilet.
Do you consider Fordham law a toilet?
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteI don't think Fordham is a toilet, but rather a "trap school." Trap schools are in some ways better and in some ways worse than toilets.
DeleteThey're better in the sense that you have a real shot at biglaw from these places, somewhere between the top 25-33% of the class usually bags an offer at OCI. A toilet, by contrast, ranges from 0-10% of the class getting offers this way, which I must stress is the ONLY way (and the only chance you will ever have) to get on the good side of the bimodal salary distribution. Miss it and the outcome is basically the same as Cooley but with more debt because the trap schools are prestigious enough to charge more and discount less.
And that's the "trap" in "trap school." Better odds are still not good odds. 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 still means you PROBABLY won't get it, and you're going to pay a hell of a lot more to roll those dice.
Fordham's median LSAT is 167. That's the 91st percentile. Those kids are smart enough to have done something else that has way better chances of success than 1 in 3 or 1 in 4. But a JD on your resume with no biglaw is like a doctor failing to match into a residency slot: Screwed for life and pigeonholed out of any other profession to boot. What a tragedy and a waste of good minds, and that is still gonna be the outcome for something like 2 in 3 or 3 in 4 of those grads.
I’d rather go to Cooley. It’s such a dump you can’t take it seriously and can drop out or pursue other careers while pretending to be a student (get a real estate license, learn to code at night). Students at Fordham, BC, GW, USC and other trap schools are cosplaying attorneys and the schools have barely enough credibility to keep the charade going.
DeleteWell, 10:28, the question fundamentally boils down to this: People with a mid 160s LSAT can usually go to a trap at full price or a toilet on a full ride. I actually think you'll be just as pigeonholed either way, as the general public (including people hiring for nonlegal jobs) aren't really aware of toilet law schools. Look at Better Call Saul. They had to pretend there was a law school in American Samoa to get the point across.
DeleteSo: Is it worth 200k to increase your odds from 1% to 30%? You only get one shot at OCI in your lifetime, and OCI is the only chance most will ever have to be on the good side of the bimodal distribution, and it is massively better odds. But even thirty times better STILL doesn't equate to "good" because what you're comparing it to really is THAT bad.
And that really sums up the dumpster fire that is law.
That's exactly where familial wealth makes a big difference. Church Mouse Chad has to choose between Michigan at full fare and Vanderbilt at a big discount, or between Vanderbilt at full fare and Ohio State free of tuition, or between Ohio State at full fare and Brooklyn at a cut rate. Trust Fund Teresa, getting into the same schools, chooses Michigan, Vanderbilt, and Ohio State without a second thought, since the cost doesn't much matter to her.
DeleteFordham is a toilet that is elevated just because it happens to be in New York. Transplanted to Omaha, it would be universally regarded as a toilet. Location is the only thing going for it. Soon enough people will come out to sing its praises and glorify its award-winning program in Talmudic aerospace law or comparative dolphin-saving law or whatever. Old Guy doesn't give a damn: it's a toilet with proximity to big law.
If you can get Fordham heavily discounted, you should be competitive for NYU and able to land a Michigan or a Virginia. People who want Old Guy's blessing for attending Fordham tend to be New York bigots who would consider it so far beneath their dignity to live and study outside the Big Apple that they don't consider even Yale (which, let's face it, is in a suburb of New York), never mind Michigan. Well, if you're hellbent on staying in New York and can't get into NYU or Columbia, do as you please, as long as you promise not to come crying to Old Guy when it ends disastrously. Fordham is a hell of a risk, but maybe you also come from money and don't mind the price.
And if you're hoping for me to approve of Cardozo, Brooklyn, Pace, and the like just because you can't get into Fordham but still insist on staying in New York, please don't bother to post here: I'm not going to dignify the question with an answer.
A lot of people I know with good GPAs in in undergrad and serviceable LSAT scores decide to go to Hofstra law school on Long Island after getting a "free scholarship. As stated earlier, Hofstra law claims that a semester long clinic is one of the few times a student can actually "practice" law in the three years they are in law school.
ReplyDeleteI posted a link to this blog on the fednews reddit in response to someone asking for law school advice:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1lxje5u/fed_attorneys_should_young_lawyers_still_pursue/?sort=new
More of the same old same old misguided advice.
Agree that some of the advice is misguided. But the genuinely bizarre part is that people responded at all. OP doesn't name the "top law school" and it's a rare incoming law student who is going to be able to chart their own path. As in, big law v federal job, etc. Frankly, this college senior can plan all they want, but law school is a different animal and they are getting a bit ahead of themselves. And as a practical matter-who knows what the federal job outlook for attorneys is going to be four years from now?
DeleteYeah, if that poster really is at a top law school then the advice is to go biglaw, and then exit to whatever else he may be interested in after 3-5 years of that. Unless he gets a federal clerkship, but everyone who gets those already has a biglaw offer, and the firm just has them defer it til the clerkship is over. So that's basically still biglaw.
DeleteSo the point is, always go biglaw if that is an option for you. Most people aren't in it to make partner, and most won't. But unless you get Lathamed or something, it will give the best exit opportunities there are. And hopefully the combination of high pay and no life will get you out of debt by the time you leave.
Biglaw: If you have the option, its the only option. And if you don't have the option, there's very likely to be no options. That's law in a nutshell.
Old Guy got a federal clerkship without any offer (or even interview) from Big Law. But Old Guy is something of an anomaly.
DeleteWho needs rural Nebraska-Hawaii is calling you!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.courts.state.hi.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/order592.pdf
Old Guy, any thought on whether the 200k/50k total/annual loan limits in the BBB will affect law school spending or attendance? Or, perhaps I should ask, how will folks and institutions get around these limits, e.g. private loans at high interest rates from their foundations or elsewhere, four year degrees?
ReplyDeleteWell, they are creating that limit by increasing existing limits for Stafford, but making those limits "real" by eradicating grad PLUS loans which had been unlimited.
DeleteI went to law school before gradPLUS but after BAPCPA. This matters because what BAPCPA did was extend the same "bankruptcy-proofing" that federal student loans had, to private loans. The result was that people just went massively into debt for the amounts in excess of the Stafford limits via private lenders. And of course, with private lenders, there was no IBR and PSLF and whatnot, and if they thought you were an underwriting risk they might even demand a cosigner from parents.
Eliminating gradPLUS is a positive, but we do need to do something to stop private lenders from just stepping into the breach. I saw how that went down before. Anyone else remember Access Group and all those?
While I certainly don't support any new law schools anywhere, as I don't really think anywhere is under lawyered, I'm wondering how the cited writer in the OP concluded that Louisiana is "the most overlawyered state in the union?"
ReplyDeleteI mean, I'm sure it is over-lawyered. Everywhere is. But how the heck can it beat out places like California, New York and the DC/VA/MD /Delaware area? I'm sure its saturated, but could it really be even MORE saturated than they are? If so, how?
Because Louisiana is Louisiana—a dump with little call for legal services. Really, what goes on there? Divorces, wills, criminal stuff, the occasional personal injury or small claim, traffic tickets and parking tickets, a bit of litigation and transactional work in and around New Orleans. That's just about the end of it. New York and the area around DC have far more need for lawyers.
DeleteI agree that the entire US has too many lawyers already, which is also why the handy-dandy solution of moving to Bumblefuck, Nebraska—touted by law-school scamsters—will not work. But the need for lawyers per capita is greater in heavily urbanized New York or California than in Louisiana (a rural state with one real city—which, incidentally, is one more than, say, Mississippi, South Carolina, Wyoming, or Vermont). And the claim that dreary Shreveport must have a law school of its own has no merit.