Top Law Schools

vanwinkle wrote:

ThomasMN wrote:If ten years down the line you are still making the same salary as when you came out of law school, then you must have been a fairly unsuccessful lawyer. Between inflation and work experience you should be making quite a bit more at the ten year mark then you were at year one.

The majority of people who go into BigLaw are making less ten years out of law school than they did their first year out. Does this make them "unsuccessful"? Yes, but that level of success is hard to attain, so there are quite a few "fairly unsuccessful" lawyers out there.

It's rare, in this economic climate, to be able to get into a decent-salary job and then get that salary to steadily increase. Layoffs, wage stagnation, and hiring/promotion freezes have hit the legal sector as hard, if not harder, than the rest of the economy. Not only that, the law often has a "once you're out, you're out" mentality. If you don't get a $160K/yr job when you graduate, it's not like you can work your way up to one of those jobs. And the public sector, which so many have regarded as some sort of backup, is starting to face layoffs and wage cuts as well. Even the DOJ is getting its budget cut this year.

There are a LOT of people in law school today who will make "unsuccessful lawyers", if you define success by substantial wage growth over 10 years.

Yes, but the fact is that the economic climate in ten years for people graduating from LS right now, who are in LS, and for those who are planning to begin net fall is going to be a lot different. If we suffer another major recession, or we continue to sit at this level of unemployment, then we ( we as in American society ) are going to have to worry about a lot more than T-14 graduates heavy debt load.

Again, they don't need to make substantial real wage growth to help finance their debts, simply wage growth in comparison to the principal of their loan. Again, if that doesn't happen we have a lot more to worry about than LS debt.

However, to be honest, there are a lot of people in the job market across multiple job fields that are getting skewered due to legacy beliefs about employment. One would hope that some of the people working in hiring could come to grips with the fact that a lot of people are out of work at the moment due to no fault of their own.

Salary growth across ten years is certainly not the only way to label success, but if you freely make the choice to go to law school and go into a large amount of debt that seems to somewhat hang over the head of the buyer. We can certainly gnash teeth and beat desks over ttt schools advertising extremely misleading jobs figures, but it seems a little off base to go after T-14 schools for not seeing the events of 2008 unfolding as they would. At the same time that doesn't excuse them for some of their practices at the moment. Regardless, it seems to me that a lot of people really don't like the reality of a route to big law. A lot of associates basically get used and abused. I am not looking to work for a NLJ250 or anything along those lines, but I do aim to get my law degree from the best school at the best cost. For all the misleading statistics that come from law schools, the one thing that they will tell you up front is how much they charge. You need to balance your liabilities against hopeful future prospects. If law schools purports to attract so many intelligent individuals, why do so many make extremely bad financial decisions?

Personally, I wish we made higher education free / extremely cheap as it is in places like Germany. I am very biased in this regard ( I am a German ).

Patriot1208 wrote:

dr123 wrote:

Patriot1208 wrote:

Danteshek wrote:I'd rather make 150k and have my freedom, than 400k and be somebody's bitch. Even partners in biglaw firms are somebody's bitch. I suppose the firm CEO or managing partner is the exception. But even he is accountable to the other partners, which makes him a bitch.

I'd rather have a porsche

you can get a porsche with a 150k salary

100k car with 150k salary? Man have fun in bankruptcy with spending like that

Most Porsches arent 100k, Boxsters are like 50k new and even less used

Most Porsches arent 100k, Boxsters are like 50k new and even less used[/quote]

I would rather own a BMW, even a 1 series, over a Boxster. Also, maintenance on a Porsche tends to be a BITCH (parts tends to cost a ton). However, having worked on some BMWs and Mercedes before they are extremely easy to maintain ( parts are still expensive, at least in the USA). Should I ever own a BMW I will probably be one of the few owners that changes his own oil.

Also, if the first thing you can think about using your "big law" salary on out of LS is a 50K plus car ( not to mention your sky high insurance ) then I have little sympathy for your future battles in bankruptcy court.

dr123 wrote:

Patriot1208 wrote:

dr123 wrote:

Patriot1208 wrote: I'd rather have a porsche

you can get a porsche with a 150k salary

100k car with 150k salary? Man have fun in bankruptcy with spending like that

Most Porsches arent 100k, Boxsters are like 50k new and even less used

Boxster is the cheapest model and even spending 1/3 of our salary on your car is a mistake. But anyways, I want a 911 turbo, I should have specified that to begin with.

Patriot1208 wrote:
Boxster is the cheapest model and even spending 1/3 of our salary on your car is a mistake. But anyways, I want a 911 turbo, I should have specified that to begin with.

In that case, enjoy your Matchbox car.

ThomasMN wrote:

Patriot1208 wrote:
Boxster is the cheapest model and even spending 1/3 of our salary on your car is a mistake. But anyways, I want a 911 turbo, I should have specified that to begin with.

In that case, enjoy your Matchbox car.

I'm confused, which makes me think you are confused and didn't read the exchange that was talking about making partner v. Going solo

Oh no, I caught that. But even making $400K a year, a $132K car is probably not a smart consumer decision. Especially under the context of big law, since I would assume that you would be living in a high cost of living city. So, if you want to blow 1/3 of your yearly salary on a car that you probably wouldn't commute in go ahead. I'm just being a dream hater. Hence, enjoy the Matchbox car.

ThomasMN wrote:Oh no, I caught that. But even making $400K a year, a $132K car is probably not a smart consumer decision. Especially under the context of big law, since I would assume that you would be living in a high cost of living city. So, if you want to blow 1/3 of your yearly salary on a car that you probably wouldn't commute in go ahead. I'm just being a dream hater. Hence, enjoy the Matchbox car.

Ya but I plan on being single so that helps

Not to mention partners make more than that

True that, and being single helps a ton. I'm married, and to another German no less, so to say that we are "fiscally conservative" might be an understatement.