We at OTLSS wish you the best for the holidays and the coming year. If you are unemployed on account of the law-school scam, remember that Santa Claus shares your plight:
The law-school scam has gained its second wind, with high levels of applications after a long period of decline. Law school remains a bad choice for almost everyone, whatever the fawning media may say. Stay away from law school if you don't want to get a lump of coal in your stocking for the rest of your life.
My own tale should be cautionary. I quit being an engineer in 2006 to go to a TTT. Graduated in the middle of the Great Recession and never found a job as a lawyer. Lost $300,000+ in engineer earnings and paid $100,000 for law school.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm desperately trying to hang on to my JD Advantage job, knowing that I will have difficulty finding any job at my age. Maybe if I get let go I can go back to what I did after graduating law school without a job: Home Depot.
Yes, your tale is a good warning to others. "JD-advantage" is Itself ridiculous: which other field of study upholds the benefits of working outside the field? But it seems that you could not find better work after a loss of $400k or more. That's a very steep price to pay for the alleged advantages of a JD.
DeleteOld Guy did eventually succeed—after a fashion—as a lawyer, but not without a great deal of trouble, and he is far from happy with his decision to go into law.
pharmacy does. it's 14 hour shifts, 1200 prescriptions filled, no seat, constant electronic and metric surveillance, 0.001 error rate allowed.
DeleteImagine if medical schools advertised their degrees as providing MD Advantage jobs?
DeleteYes: you wanted to become a physician, but at least you can parlay your medical degree into an "MD-Advantage" job selling cosmetics at the local pharmacy.
DeleteIt actually does happen, OG. Every year there's a very small percentage of doctors who fail to match into a residency program. Then there's something called the "scramble" and most of them find one there. But for the small number that get frozen out of both the match and the scramble, they might need to go work in a lab or as a pharma sales rep or something. It does, actually, happen. Much more rarely than with JDs, but "MD advantage" jobs do exist. It generally only happens to Caribbean grads (and NOT the ones from the big 4 Carib med schools at that), but it does occur.
DeleteSome of those who don't get a residency went only for the most desirable ones, in the hottest fields or the choicest locations, or else were not competitive for what they were seeking (which applies in particular to those from the Caribbean scam-schools). As you said, many of those will find positions in the second round. Those who are left on the shelf will have to do something else.
DeleteWhat does not happen in medicine, as far as I know, is the promotion of "MD-Advantage" as a viable and desirable category in its own right. The law-school scam has been touting "JD-Advantage" for ages, not as a backup plan for the rare people who cannot find work as lawyers but as a desirable thing in itself and a totally acceptable alternative to legal work.
The fact that nearly every MD from a US school gets placed indicates that there is some kind of social compact between the medical education system and the health care provider system. Almost everyone gets at least a chance, whether they like you or are connected, etc. Nothing like this exists with law.
Delete10:37: I’m sorry that I did not start a blog after graduating unemployed from a TT in the mid 2000s to warn you of the risks. But even if I had, I don’t know if people were ready to believe a blog, before the great recession, that law schools were lying and a total scam.
DeleteWhen I was looking at law schools in the early 2000s, they all had identical data, 99% employed after graduation, private practice salaries averaging $100k. Admitted student days were so scammy in retrospect. The deans said everyone gets a job. And don’t worry about repaying six figure loans if you want to do public interest law. Just start out in private practice making $100k then switch later. Of course, there is no average salary of $100k. There were the top in the class who landed big law making $170k and everyone else making 30 or 40k if they got a legal job. I had good grades and law review. Several of us struck out at OCI with the Big Firms and Big Fed after 1L year. Over the next year and a half, I was rejected by Big Law, Big Fed, s—t law, states attorney offices, public defender offices, judicial clerkships, and government. I went to a legal career fair and a big law firm, rather than accepting my resume and pitching it in the trash, flat out refused to even accept it.
The problem is not you or me, the problem is the lying schools and the trash legal profession. After that I took the MCAT and went to medical school. Now I’m in academic medicine. And it is not like these lazy law profs. Last week I taught a lecture at the medical school. I was excused from clinical services that morning. But I was back performing clinical work that afternoon. Later in the week, I was showing up at the hospital at 645 for a procedure in which I trained a resident and fellow. This is no cush life of teaching a couple 10 AM lectures a week playing hide the ball with the socratic method, to sort out the top 5% to be hired by Big Law. I also have to work on research and presentations on my own time. Projects I’m presenting at conferences with resident/fellows and medical students soon - a lot of work is on my own time.
Continued from above:
DeleteOG, you are exactly right. There is no “MD advantage.” When I was a medical student, one of the MD professors lamented on more than one occasion, that Stanford MDs were skipping the match and taking jobs in silicon valley with medical tech companies. This was not because Stanford grads couldn’t get a residency spot - they are highly sought after. This was because silicon valley was offering a lot of money. This professor was upset because there is a shortage of MDs and these students were not filling the shortage. When I was a resident, I rotated at one of the Harvard teaching hospitals. I met a young MD, MBA attending there who was on the way out of medicine to join a health tech company. There was also once a resident in the program I work who already had some type of medical company operating at a significant profit. Eventually they dropped out because residency was interfering with their lucrative business. They were a good resident too! I’m not one to complain like professor I mentioned above. But med schools are not selling these so called MD advantage opportunities. Some people in medicine do get upset with these stories. The preference is you practice medicine. Compare that to law, where law profs love to claim there is a shortage of lawyers and that’s why we need more law schools and larger classes. But not a single one complains that grads take “JD advantage” jobs.
Also OG, you are right about the match rates. I went to a pretty good state med school. 100% of my class matched. Before the match, the deans met with us individually to discuss our match application. They made clear to us that we need to be sure we were competitive for the specialty we were applying, and that we applied to enough programs to match. There are more than enough residency spots for graduates of American medical schools. But if you have below average board scores and apply only to MGH for neurosurgery, you are not going to match. If you apply primary care, you are assured of matching. I applied to a competitive specialty and interviewed with maybe 20 programs just to be sure I would match.
Unfortunately, the Caribbean school grads do face challenges of matching. But I have said this before, look at the numbers of some of the good Caribbean schools. Those schools are much more legit, presenting better opportunities than the scam law schools.
Some other MD advantage jobs, lol:
DeleteIf you don't care about being branded a traitor, you can work for an insurance company as a "medical director." Really all this means is that you sit in an office "reviewing" (denying) prior authorizations all day. But unlike doc review (its closest analogue in law) it pays quite well.
I guess it's not technically MD advantage because you actually do have to have a license (and in some states, you must also be board-certified in whatever specialty you are issuing auth denials for), but everyone knows it isn't REALLY practicing. More for the people who burn out or who are on thin ice with the licensing boards (but who have not yet actually fallen through that ice, of course).
As OG referenced and the facts support, if you are a US medical school graduate, you can get a residency slot. Maybe it will be in family practice instead of dermatology, but there is a job for you. That flat out isn't true for law school. My experience was the same as the lawyer turned physician above: it wasn't just OCI-there was no job for me, period. I even had the identical experience at a job fair at my state law school-instead of doing the onerous work of accepting my resume and then trashing it, numerous "employers" would literally refuse to even accept my resume. It's almost impossible to describe how crushing that was.
DeleteIt's interesting that the deans in medical schools meet each student to discuss prospects for finding a residency and offer guidance. Old Guy got very different treatment in law school: the dean spent 45 minutes trying to talk Old Guy out of becoming a lawyer at all, since the chance of finding a job as as a lawyer seemed very poor. Old Guy was up at the top of the class at an élite law school, one of the most prestigious; yet the only guidance that he got, in his last year, was to give up on becoming a lawyer.
DeleteThe idea that law school is a viable option and road to riches for most young students is a blight on society. The constant production of TV legal dramas doesn't help and just keeps the law school scam alive - giving false ideas and hope to those graduating with worthless BA degrees and nothing else to do. Because of these TV shows, people think that all lawyers are making tons of money and they all have awesome and exciting careers. Even Saul Goodman, a University of American Samoa Law school JD graduate, in the show Breaking Bad becomes rich (just watch the offshoot show Better Call Saul).
DeleteEven if law school were a road to riches for some, it would not necessarily be a road to riches for all. It is well understood that not everyone can become a professional athlete, musician, politician, or actor. Why, then, is it widely believed that every Tom, Dick, and Harry can be a lawyer?
DeleteOld Guy, I have never heard you tell the story about the dean telling you that you'd basically wasted 3 years at his esteemed institution. Can you tell us more? Did he/she exhibit "duper's delight?"
DeleteI would have been furious.
It was on Valentine’s Day in my last year of law school. I told the dean that I had applied for more than 300 jobs but had only four or five interviews, none successful. The dean came up with a "JD-Advantage" line of work and pressed me to pursue it instead of becoming a lawyer. He said frankly that my age (I was well past 40) was the reason for not being considered anywhere and urged me not to take any bar exam. He knew damn well that I was regarded as the best student in the school.
Delete@6:58 the show there are some exceptions to popular entertainment showing any law degree as a path to riches. There was My Cousin Vinny. "All you learn in law school is theory" And in the show The Practice, Jimmy was struggling and I think Bobby or one of them told him a bar license doesn't guarantee success, it only gives you the opportunity to practice law.
DeleteWhich shows how crass and corrupt-and stupid-the dean was. One of the only (relatively) objective data points is bar passage-and you were a lock(!). Sure he didn't care that his top student couldn't get a job-but it was to his and the school's benefit for OG to pass and pad the bar passage numbers.
DeleteThey're all ridiculous-the administration, the profs-the whole damn bunch.
And indeed Old Guy sailed through the bar exam, and even had time to write a letter on the spot reporting errors in several questions before leaving early.
DeleteThe dean was right: finding work as a lawyer was going to be an uphill battle for Old Guy's middle-aged ass. And it was. I regret going into law. And I'm quite "successful", from many people's point of view.
I spent the entire day on really, really stupid shit. That's what the practice of law has become: changing diapers.
I never understand why people with good, well-paying jobs quit those jobs to go to law school. I have read posts and stories about people crawling back to their old profession after they can't find a job with their JD. That said, even with student loans, I don't know anyone who could afford to put their lives on hold for three years and pay the rent/mortgage, all their bills, living expenses, possibly child support while earning zero income for three years. In fact, if any of the people I know even tried, they would likely end up divorce court, and then their house would be foreclosed on. . .do people save money for years on end to "invest" in a legal education?
ReplyDeleteNot everyone can. Old Guy could: he thought that it was his last chance to do something with his life after his previous line of work had dried up. He had no mortgage or other great obligations, though he certainly had to pay the rent. It was not easy, and he does regret the choice. Other students were travelling or otherwise spending familial wealth while Old Guy was working at odd jobs and scraping by.
DeleteThis is why night school was invented by law schools; work your job so you can get your TTT JD. And yes, I"ve met several people who follow this path; they have full-time jobs but are willing to roll the dice as night school graduates.
DeleteI went part time nights as well. I had the loss of paying tuition which could have been much better invested but at least avoided the loss of income.
DeleteSo in my case, my job was in the process of being outsourced to India, I was in a declining industry, and law seemed like a good fit for me. I did my research. Also, I was able to pay tuition without taking out student loans and my wife worked. I did not realize the extent of age-related discrimination in entry-level attorney hiring and I did not anticipate how little my life and engineering experience counted. I did try to crawl back to my previous job while working at a minimum wage patent searching job, but they said I would leave because I was a lawyer. Now I work in a weird limbo of patent law and engineering manager. The pay ain’t great but I’m just grateful to have a job in this economy.
DeleteOld Guy, too, was forced out of his previous line of work because of outsourcing to India. That didn't happen to the baby boomers.
DeleteThe fall 1L grades should be coming out in another month or so. Hopefully some will have the courage to drop out and go another way.
ReplyDeleteAt my Toilet, I think they deliberately delayed publishing the grades until after the deadline to drop out without losing your tuition fees.
Anyone doesn't make the top 5% of their class when grades are posted should drop out. They won't have access to On Campus Interviews and will fend for themselves for the few jobs available. So essentially 95% of the remaining class should drop out.
DeleteThis is exactly correct. Exactly. No punches pulled and no "maybe this, or maybe that" bullshit. If you are outside of a T10 school, less than top 5% will mean you're likely screwed for life. Because law is a lock-step career. Your 1L grades determine your first job, your first job determines your second, and so on. Your school and rank never go away and play into the above.
DeleteSecondly, as another anonymous poster wrote, AI will decimate the legal profession. Remember document review projects? That's searching through material to identify, code, and analyze information. Seems like a perfect fit for AI. In other words, those will be gone soon as well, along with many, many jobs in other areas.
Finally, referencing the engineer in this thread: You would not believe, or maybe you will, the amount of dumbfucks out there practicing law while OP got shafted. Most are (or were at the time..) attractive females who got their foot in the door and something else inserted later on while our smarter, more hard-working engineer got the shaft up his backside from law school. Law is a glorified sales job and, last I checked, the PD and DA jobs in my local area look like a fashion show. As with everything else, just be an above-average attractive feefail and you'll get something..
Stay far away from law if you're not at a T10, not GQ, a male, have no connections, or are otherwise a resident of the Island of Misfit Toys. Law is not for you. HVAC or the trades are. End of discussion. Full Stop.
Honestly, bypassing college and going to Trade School instead is a great way to start a well-paying career with no student debt. A person who begins training to become an electrician at age 18 and goes straight to work afterward will probably have a lot more money in the bank, vastly less debt, that a 25 year old newly minted lawyer who went straight through college and law school. The electrician will charge over $150 per hour for his work, while the new lawyer struggles to find "temporary document review projects" that pay $23 per hour. College is beginning to lose its luster, and more and more young men are going to Trade Schools after high school instead of college. That said, the lure of a four-year long, all-expenses paid party at college will still draw many in, and working in the trades is not glamorous and requires hard manual labor that many people want to avoid. Many people in their late teens and early 20's are entirely out of touch with reality, and are shocked when they discover that their Bachelor's degree in Philosophy is entirely worthless on the job market, so they decide to go to law school.
Delete@12:10, the reality is that an attractive young woman will beat out a pasty, dough-shaped male any day of the week. In my case, the attractive young women were all incredibly smart and parlayed their looks into incredible careers. They got better grades than me.
DeleteAnd you’re right. Success largely depends on you being able to sell yourself, regardless of profession.
syracuse does this.
DeleteAnd 8:29, because of AI those doc review jobs are drying up-and the ones that still exist pay the same $25/hour they were paying 10 years ago.
DeleteThere is a risk that AI will miss a vital document, but that risk also exists when document review is done by a human.
Delete8:29, Old Guy has been saying for years that trade school is generally a better bet than university. People who need a BA for medical school or similar can reasonably pursue one; others should probably stay away.
DeleteI would say that even a STEM degree is questionable since half the courses are humanities or soft science electives that have nothing to do with the STEM major. When you think of the dollars spent by an engineering major taking electives in English literature or Intro Spanish or Astronomy to be more well rounded or to be looking for a gut course, it is ludicrous.
DeleteTime was when a bachelor's degree suggested education. There were no majors, just a prescribed curriculum in the liberal arts. Then majors were introduced, and elective courses to maintain a veneer of liberal education.
DeleteNow that university has become so horribly expensive and also takes every mouth-breathing moron, even a major in a STEM field is not usually worth pursuing.
@6:10, My school, Almostprestigious University, also deliberately delayed Fall 1L grades. They did this not only to keep the low-ranking from dropping out ahead of the Next Semester tuition payment Due Date, but also to keep the top-ranking students from transferring out to higher-ranked schools before classes began.
DeleteTypical behavior of a trap school. Those that are almost prestigious have to hang onto their better students but also their worst. The former are likely to move up; the latter, to quit.
DeleteOld Guy, did you see this https://cardinalnews.org/2025/12/15/appalachian-school-of-law-considers-merger-with-roanoke-college-amid-financial-challenges/
ReplyDeleteThank you for drawing that to my attention. I had been wondering what had happened to über-toilet Appalachian School of Law. Years ago we frequently published about it. Long plagued by financial troubles, it has seemed a prime candidate for closure. Now it has enough money to sustain operations for only a few months.
DeleteSee this old analysis of Appalachian:
Deletehttps://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2019/05/why-tiny-law-schools-cannot-surviveand.html
I’ve been following the scam blogs since the early days, even before Campos came on the scene. Now Campos is long gone as are the others like Nando and Esquire Never, leaving Old Guy as the last man standing. All these years, one of the main themes has been that the free flow of loan dollars is the very foundation of the scam and what has allowed a back woods dumpster fire like Appalachian to keep the lights on. So it was nice to see in the article that one of the things that has brought Appalachian to the brink of its long overdue demise is the restrictions on loans that the Feds have recently put into place. Hopefully we will be seeing more of this.
DeleteI don't know how Appalachian has held on as long as it has. It's a tiny little rustic shithole with nothing to offer. The nearest city is three hours' drive away—and that's if you count Charleston, West Virginia, as a "city". LSAT scores are abysmal, and enrollment cannot possibly sustain the place. It seems to have a pretty building, but more than that is needed for a law school.
DeleteOhio Northern, Southern University Law Center, and Vermont are other dumps that should be shut down, and there are easily a hundred more.