4 years of law school? Forum

[dominiquewilkins]

http://abovethelaw.com/2013/11/law-prof ... s-he-care/

Here's another idea:

If a law school graduate doesn't get a job at a certain level of income, then that law school is required to give the graduate the right to take one year of LLM classes (and earn a degree) tuition free (other costs would have to be borne by the graduate).

That way graduates get additional training and knowledge and the school gets the benefit of having a student with better chances of getting future employment.

[Ti Malice]

Why this bizarre obsession with useless LLMs?

[rad lulz]

m

[Throttle]

So instead of looking for a job, one should take a year out of their life and income earning potential, just to get an LLM which will help in no way.

[dominiquewilkins]

The best way to fix the current legal employment problem is if 50 law schools over the next 5 years shut down while the remaining schools maintain their current level of students.

That said, there are a number of law graduates who are going back to get an LLM. So this article discusses that.

[rad lulz]

k

[twenty]

Welp, you've figured it out. An LLM magically turns your law degree from Chapman into a POWERHOUSE RESUME INJECTION.

Like, if everyone just got their LLMs, everyone would be working in biglaw. If they weren't all swept up by SDNY federal judges, that is!

[dominiquewilkins]

1. Biglaw jobs are pretty much determined at the time of LSAT scores and applications. If you are at the top of the application class, meaning you have superb grades but went to a good college (not people who inflated their grades by going to garbage colleges) and you have a superb LSAT score, then you have some chance of getting a BigLaw job. If you don't have that, and you think you have a chance at BigLaw, then you are deluding yourself and putting yourself possibly 250K in student loan debt for no good reason.

2. This idea is that it is a VOLUNTARY choice by the students - if they don't want to do it, they don't have to go.

3. The biggest problem in the legal community is too many lawyers and too many graduates. That's why we need to eliminate 50 law schools within the next 5 years. Which may be possible considering the drop off in applications and enrollment the past 3 years and this year appears to be dropping down even more. And hopefully next year we will see another 10% drop in applications. Eventually cost will be too high and schools will go out of business.

4. Like I said, it should be tuition-free. And I am going to hazard a guess that some law schools may seriously entertain this idea as enrollment is going down and they will want to fill some seats in an empty classroom. Also this will help at least some of their students get employment or give specialization to set up their own shop.

5. There needs to be some serious LLM reform, and right now there is close to none of that by any organizations, be it law schools themselves, state bar associations, the ABA or anyone.

6. If you have to take out loans at more than 20% of the cost for three years (meaning you don't have scholarship money, family money, your own money, or some other source of money WITHOUT TAKING OUT STUDENT LOANS), then you should not attend law school. If someone has to finance school with 80% student loans, it is simply not worth going - the risk is too high.

Simply put, law school is too expensive and getting an MBA is a far better choice, both in terms of cost and employment after graduation.

[twenty]

If someone has to finance school with 80% student loans, it is simply not worth going - the risk is too high.

Surprisingly, I don't have a problem with a lot of what you're saying, but this is silly. How is the risk at 60%, say, 150k any more than the risk at 100% (250k)? Both are astronomically high and will require biglaw or a DoED parachute. Obviously less debt is preferable in terms of net outcome, (i.e, fewer years in biglaw until you break even), but it's not a matter of risk, it's a matter of getting the monkey off your back.

If you don't want risk, you should go to the best school you can get on a full scholarship (ideally living with parents) and drop out if you don't like where you are in the class.

[dominiquewilkins]

Welp, you've figured it out. An LLM magically turns your law degree from Chapman into a POWERHOUSE RESUME INJECTION.

Like, if everyone just got their LLMs, everyone would be working in biglaw. If they weren't all swept up by SDNY federal judges, that is!

If Chapman can't get their students at 90% employment for their graduates 11 months after students graduate in bar licensed or JD preferred jobs, then Chapman should go out of business.

[cotiger]

Welp, you've figured it out. An LLM magically turns your law degree from Chapman into a POWERHOUSE RESUME INJECTION.

Like, if everyone just got their LLMs, everyone would be working in biglaw. If they weren't all swept up by SDNY federal judges, that is!

If Chapman can't get their students at 90% employment for their graduates 11 months after students graduate in bar licensed or JD preferred jobs, then Chapman should go out of business.

Should and will are two different things.

[twenty]

Welp, you've figured it out. An LLM magically turns your law degree from Chapman into a POWERHOUSE RESUME INJECTION.

Like, if everyone just got their LLMs, everyone would be working in biglaw. If they weren't all swept up by SDNY federal judges, that is!

If Chapman can't get their students at 90% employment for their graduates 11 months after students graduate in bar licensed or JD preferred jobs, then Chapman should go out of business.

That's a little steep, but there's no question that they deserve to go out of business in the status quo.

The LLM stuff is silly, though.

[jingosaur]

If a law school graduate doesn't get a job at a certain level of income, then that law school is required to give the graduate the right to take one year of LLM classes (and earn a degree) tuition free (other costs would have to be borne by the graduate).

That way graduates get additional training and knowledge and the school gets the benefit of having a student with better chances of getting future employment.

The problem is that while said person is getting the LLM, they are not only paying COL expenses, they are also accruing interest on their current student loans. Additionally, there is absolutely no data that suggests that getting an LLM gives someone a better chance of future employment in the legal profession.

This debate has been made ad nauseum and here are the results:
1. There are 20,000 legal jobs available for law school graduates per year.
2. There are way more than 20,000 law school graduates per year (I believe around 48,000).
3. The law students who get shut out of said available legal jobs are generally not qualified for other lines of work and are unlikely to gain other kinds of work in such a competitive economy for younger people.
4. Law schools aren't willing to accept this because the solution to the problem is for them to stop existing and there is nothing that suggests that prospective legal students will completely stop attending said schools that need to stop existing to the point where they will no longer exist.
/debate

[cotiger]

4. Law schools aren't willing to accept this because the solution to the problem is for them to stop existing and there is nothing that suggests that prospective legal students will completely stop attending said schools that need to stop existing to the point where they will no longer exist.

I love hearing "50 law schools need to be shut down. All our problems will be solved!" Ya'huh.. who exactly is going to shut them down? Because law school deans/faculty/everyone are certainly not going to volunteer to be the ones to head to the unemployment line.

There will be a couple that shut down, but most companies don't go out of business after a couple of down years. You can bet that even the most TTT (and maybe especially the most TTT) will fight tooth-and-nail to keep their doors open in anticipation of the eventual rebound in applications.

[A. Nony Mouse]

There are certainly lots of problems with legal education, but I don't think promoting LLMs addresses any of them.

[20141023]

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[SteelPenguin]

1. Biglaw jobs are pretty much determined at the time of LSAT scores and applications. If you are at the top of the application class, meaning you have superb grades but went to a good college (not people who inflated their grades by going to garbage colleges) and you have a superb LSAT score, then you have some chance of getting a BigLaw job. If you don't have that, and you think you have a chance at BigLaw, then you are deluding yourself and putting yourself possibly 250K in student loan debt for no good reason.

Source about the absolute importance of a "good" college for biglaw? Is it because of the importance biglaw firms place on undergrad? Do you think the lesser schools don't prepare you well enough, or is it that you think it's much easier to get higher GPAs at lesser schools? I'm not sure if you realize this, but grades are often inflated the most at top private colleges.

Average GPAs:
Harvard 3.45 (2005)
Yale 3.51 (2008)
Brown 3.61 (2007)
Duke 3.44 (2007)
Rutgers 3.01 (2006)
East Carolina 2.92 (2007)
Texas State 2.83 (2007)

[hephaestus]

1. Biglaw jobs are pretty much determined at the time of LSAT scores and applications. If you are at the top of the application class, meaning you have superb grades but went to a good college (not people who inflated their grades by going to garbage colleges) and you have a superb LSAT score, then you have some chance of getting a BigLaw job. If you don't have that, and you think you have a chance at BigLaw, then you are deluding yourself and putting yourself possibly 250K in student loan debt for no good reason.

What are you trying to say here? Firms don't really care about your undergrad unless it's patent eligible or some especially applicable degree (eg finance).

[SteelPenguin]

.

[Tiago Splitter]

1. Biglaw jobs are pretty much determined at the time of LSAT scores and applications. If you are at the top of the application class, meaning you have superb grades but went to a good college (not people who inflated their grades by going to garbage colleges) and you have a superb LSAT score, then you have some chance of getting a BigLaw job. If you don't have that, and you think you have a chance at BigLaw, then you are deluding yourself and putting yourself possibly 250K in student loan debt for no good reason.

What are you trying to say here? Firms don't really care about your undergrad unless it's patent eligible or some especially applicable degree (eg finance).

The rest of his rant goes off the rails, but this point actually makes some sense. If someone wants to work in a Big law firm the most important thing they can do is get a high LSAT score.