Is Law School a Losing Game? Forum

[HazelEyes]

I was completely on Mr. Bohn's side as an innocent person caught in a press melee until I checked out his LinkedIn.
The way it is set up, one would assume he graduated from Columbia Law. He hides University of Florida in the middle of all his Columbia and NYU education.

Seeing it like that, it becomes a little more evident how a journalist could imagine he went to Columbia, because he probably SAID he went there, leaving out the fact that it wasn’t his main law school, even if he did take classes there.
It seems to me he could use a little pride in a good ol' state school.

However, I will say, I think Columbia U looks like bunch of d-bags.

[Miracle]

[/color]

Miracle, you might need to brush up a little bit on some personal finance. Those who land biglaw SAs are, as others have said, not typically the at-risk debtors (although, permanent offers aren't as forthcoming as they once were). When you have a lot of debt, it very well might be more reasonable to keep $15,000-30,000 liquid until your financial position is more secure.

As others have said, making the transition from law school into permanent employment can require significant cash. You're saying, "What would you need with $15k?" That's not the right question. If you don't need it a few months after graduation, then you can use it to pay down principal. The point is that if you sink it straight into principal after 2L summer, you may end up cash-strapped during the transition (e.g., if you need to start a new job search and make loan payments during that time, which might be over $2000 a month; if you need to make a down payment; if you need to buy formal clothing, which might cost a thousand dollars or more; if you need to buy a vehicle).

Does that make sense?

All I said was that was a lot money, no need to criticize me on my personal finance as if I don't know what I'm talking about. Geezzz I can spend 50,000 in less than 1 hour, trust me. There is a lot of things that I would like to have but do not necessarily need. Formal attire certainly is not going to cost you over $1,000. How many black formal pants, and skirts, or blazers can you have? Mine would cost 2,000 but I don't think I need that many blazers etc. It just means I have to move them around as a move from one apartment to another (or should i say better) lol Just kidding! But i do hope you understand my point.

[Bronte]

All I said was that was a lot money, no need to criticize me on my personal finance as if I don't know what I'm talking about. Geezzz I can spend 50,000 in less than 1 hour, trust me. There is a lot of things that I would like to have but do not necessarily need. Formal attire certainly is not going to cost you over $1,000. How many black formal pants, and skirts, or blazers can you have? Mine would cost 2,000 but I don't think I need that many blazers etc. It just means I have to move them around as a move from one apartment to another (or should i say better) lol

Didn't mean to criticize you and shouldn't have included the personal finance note, but I do believe you're still not fully grasping the issue. The main expense is not clothing, but your loan payments. If you borrowed to pay sticker for law school, your monthly payments would be around $2,500. Do you see how, if you didn't get a long-term offer, $15,000 might come in handy while you were searching for a job and need to make these payments?

Even if you get a long-term offer, you will have expenses that won't immediately be covered by your salary. Moving expenses could easily be $2,000 with flights and down payments. Business formal attire can be quite expensive. If you have a typical law school wardrobe (t-shirts, etc.), you will need to scale up. High-paying firms will want you to dress professionally. This may require buying three suits in addition to your interview suits, buying many more shirts and ties, etc. It could easily be a $1,500 investment. But again, that's not the main point, and it's a bit of a red herring fallacy to point out that but ignore the bigger potential outlays.

[Miracle]

All I said was that was a lot money, no need to criticize me on my personal finance as if I don't know what I'm talking about. Geezzz I can spend 50,000 in less than 1 hour, trust me. There is a lot of things that I would like to have but do not necessarily need. Formal attire certainly is not going to cost you over $1,000. How many black formal pants, and skirts, or blazers can you have? Mine would cost 2,000 but I don't think I need that many blazers etc. It just means I have to move them around as a move from one apartment to another (or should i say better) lol

Didn't mean to criticize you and shouldn't have included the personal finance note, but I do believe you're still not fully grasping the issue. The main expense is not clothing, but your loan payments. If you borrowed to pay sticker for law school, your monthly payments would be around $2,500. Do you see how, if you didn't get a long-term offer, $15,000 might come in handy while you were searching for a job and need to make these payments?

Even if you get a long-term offer, you will have expenses that won't immediately be covered by your salary. Moving expenses could easily be $2,000 with flights and down payments. Business formal attire can be quite expensive. If you have a typical law school wardrobe (t-shirts, etc.), you will need to scale up. High-paying firms will want you to dress professionally. This may require buying three suits in addition to your interview suits, buying many more shirts and ties, etc. It could easily be a $1,500 investment. But again, that's not the main point, and it's a bit of a red herring fallacy to point out that but ignore the bigger potential outlays.

I understand everything that you said, however your loan payments don't start until 6 months after graduation, and I specifically said that I would pay off some of my school debt with that money. If you have $2,500 loan payment and you give 7,500 you just prepaid your loan payment for the next two months-that can only help you. You have plenty of money left for yourself. You can buy a brand new car unless you plan on buying Mercedes Benz for the amount of $10,000-15,000 which means if the payment will be around$200-300 a month. It could be just difference among lifestyles, and that's why we share different point of views.

[Bronte]

I understand everything that you said, however your loan payments don't start until 6 months after graduation, and I specifically said that I would pay off some of my school debt with that money. If you have $2,500 loan payment and you give 7,500 you just prepaid your loan payment for the next two months-that can only help you. You have plenty of money left for yourself. You can buy a brand new car unless you plan on buying Mercedes Benz for the amount of $10,000-15,000 which means if the payment will be around$200-300 a month. It could be just difference among lifestyles, and that's why we share different point of views.

Our discussion is getting pretty tangential, but I'll just make a few more points: Your point about the six month buffer is a good one that I was ignoring. I think (and maybe this is where I need to brush up on my personal finance) that there's a difference between making a payment towards principal and making a prepayment. If you make a prepayment, you're effectively doing something very similar to what I'm talking about, which is giving yourself a buffer. If you pay down principal, you still have to make monthly payments on the existing principal, which would hardly be reduced at all by such a minor repayment. The point is just that paying down principal might not be wise in such an unsure market. If you're out of a job for a year, you could easily burn through $15,000+ when you factor in living expenses, rent, and loan payments (prepaid or otherwise) and without buying a luxury sedan.

[observationalist]

Just on the point of finances, and how it plays out in a different situation:

I happen to have a lot of debt (north of 200K), but I'm a public-interest grad enrolled in IBR. Thanks to IBR I have consolidated my loans and will soon be entering repayment, where I will start out making a monthly loan payment of $0. Previously my loans were in forebearance, otherwise my monthly payments would have been higher than I could have afforded. Under IBR's public interest forgiveness plan, if I can make it 10 years the feds will forgive the outstanding unpaid balance of my loans. This means I could end up paying only a fraction back, assuming IBR doesn't disappear (which it could... see here for periodic updates: http://www.ibrinfo.org)

The $0 is unusual, but I also did something unusual by moving to Chile, where the cost of living is significantly lower (so I'm living comfortably despite being poor). I'm currently working part-time for one nonprofit thanks to a grant and part-time for another nonprofit I co-founded in law school, which is unpaid. By all accounts I am not making a lot of money, but I'm happy, enjoy a great quality of life, and am getting some excellent work experience doing the things I want to do.

As far as post-grad funds goes, I self-studied for the bar exam which saved a few thousand compared to many people. Most importantly my law school awarded me a 7-month stipend of $1,200 per month, which gave me the opportunity to relocate, sign a lease, pay rent, and start networking for a full-time job. Even with IBR's cap on monthly payments (15% of your AGI for income above 150% of the poverty line), I would not have been able to pursue this career path without additional funds, even though I self-studied. Without the additional help from my law school, I likely would have aimed for a loan comparable to what Mr. Bohn took out after graduation.

The six-month grace period is really not enough once you consider that it takes about that long just to find out if you passed the bar exam, after which you're still not admitted to practice in many states. The grace period didn't really suit law school grads in a normal economy, and now with the hiring retraction it makes even less sense. We've heard from a lot of career services deans who are saying that making them report the employment status of their graduates 9 months after graduation isn't fair, because in this market it's taking many of their graduates up to a year to find paid legal work. They argue that the 9-month reporting deadline favors the top schools where large percentages of the class have jobs at graduation. You might respond by pointing out that we would want to favor the schools that help graduates get jobs by graduation, but you're also probably not a law school dean who's more concerned about your institutional reputation than the welfare of your graduates.

Point being: if you graduate with a lot of debt, you probably need to either reserve funds for after graduation or plan on taking out a loan like what Mr. Bohn did. The exception would be if your law school provides post-grad assistance, which more and more are doing these days. If you're a current student and worrying about all of this, I strongly recommend you contact the school and try to petition for some sort of assistance. If they know it's taking you up to a year to find work, they should theoretically be concerned enough about your welfare to try and scrounge up some sort of program.

[TyrodTaylor]

how much debt is too much. What owuld a monthly payment on different amounts of debt ballopark around. If one had 50? 100, 200K?

[things fall apart]

I think there is a huge problem of eliminating law schools:

What happens to their alumni? If I have a resume with Rhode Island State(im guessing thats not a school) on it, and it doesnt exist then what value does it have? I mean you are delegtimizing thousands of students and hundreds of millions of dollars.

I personally know a lawyer who graduated from Dayton who founded a successful practice in Chicago. I think more importantly the LSAC should put a 5 year ban on new schools.

They should also cap the number of students or find some way to effective in 6 years(so that this effects at the high school juniors deciding their future)

[gwuorbust]

how much debt is too much. What owuld a monthly payment on different amounts of debt ballopark around. If one had 50? 100, 200K?

for Florida Coastal even $1 is too much.

for Harvard, I could be comfortable taking out ~350k. It is all a sliding scale of ROI.

[ResolutePear]

how much debt is too much. What owuld a monthly payment on different amounts of debt ballopark around. If one had 50? 100, 200K?

for Florida Coastal even $1 is too much.

for Harvard, I could be comfortable taking out ~350k. It is all a sliding scale of ROI.

This.

There's a good reason why Harvard has such a huge endowment.

[androstan]

I think there is a huge problem of eliminating law schools:

What happens to their alumni? If I have a resume with Rhode Island State(im guessing thats not a school) on it, and it doesnt exist then what value does it have? I mean you are delegtimizing thousands of students and hundreds of millions of dollars.

I personally know a lawyer who graduated from Dayton who founded a successful practice in Chicago. I think more importantly the LSAC should put a 5 year ban on new schools.

They should also cap the number of students or find some way to effective in 6 years(so that this effects at the high school juniors deciding their future)

If you graduated from a LS when it was accredited, your degree is still accredited. Also, the university will usually still exist, it just no longer offers an accredited JD program.

Also, closing 100 law schools wouldn't happen suddenly without warning. Those schools are publicly put on probation for a year. Students can decide if they're going to take the risk or not.

[HarlandBassett]

from SMS
--LinkRemoved--

Bob Morse, the man behind the rankings, blames the ABA for not taking a stronger leadership role in controlling how law schools report their employment statistics to the magazine. Today, in his blog, Morse Code, in a post entitled, "U.S News Challenges ABA on Law School Employment Data Standards," he writes (emphasis mine):

At the early January 2011 annual meeting of The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), I was similarly asked about the reliability of the law schools' employment statistics and why U.S. News doesn't do more to make sure the reported figures are accurate. It's clear that some law schools are being very aggressive in their reporting practices and are, in effect, gaming the rankings via their accreditation data. Currently, in our employment calculations, graduates who are working either full or part time in legal or non-legal jobs or pursuing graduate degrees are considered employed.

It is very important to remember that U.S. News is using the standards and definitions of employment that have been developed and are used by the NALP and ABA. In other words, U.S. News is reflecting the standard set by the legal industry. These are also the same groups within the industry that need to take the lead to develop new and stricter standards to increase the validity of the placement data that schools report. It's easily within their power to do so. It's not U.S. News's role to set industry definitions and regulate data quality. If the ABA and NALP adopt new reporting standards and definitions of what it means to be employed, U.S. News would readily follow those new standards and definitions.

Honestly, I can see Morse's frustration. He's being blamed for not investigating the accuracy of the information contained in the annual rankings, but he's simply reporting statistics that the schools themselves are providing. And those stats are, apparently, fine by the ABA and NALP.

It seems unlikely that any sort of meaningful change will come to the legal education industry without some strong external pressures to force it to happen. The rankings will continue as long as thousands of eager prelaw students gobble them up, and the law schools will continue to create the illusion that the JD degree is a worthwhile investment despite all the credible evidence to the contrary.

[Miracle]

I think there is a huge problem of eliminating law schools:

What happens to their alumni? If I have a resume with Rhode Island State(im guessing thats not a school) on it, and it doesnt exist then what value does it have? I mean you are delegtimizing thousands of students and hundreds of millions of dollars.

I personally know a lawyer who graduated from Dayton who founded a successful practice in Chicago. I think more importantly the LSAC should put a 5 year ban on new schools.

They should also cap the number of students or find some way to effective in 6 years(so that this effects at the high school juniors deciding their future)

If you graduated from a LS when it was accredited, your degree is still accredited. Also, the university will usually still exist, it just no longer offers an accredited JD program.

Also, closing 100 law schools wouldn't happen suddenly without warning. Those schools are publicly put on probation for a year. Students can decide if they're going to take the risk or not.

I think they should close them down, and start with the process soon!

[observationalist]

from SMS
--LinkRemoved--

Bob Morse, the man behind the rankings, blames the ABA for not taking a stronger leadership role in controlling how law schools report their employment statistics to the magazine. Today, in his blog, Morse Code, in a post entitled, "U.S News Challenges ABA on Law School Employment Data Standards," he writes (emphasis mine):

At the early January 2011 annual meeting of The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), I was similarly asked about the reliability of the law schools' employment statistics and why U.S. News doesn't do more to make sure the reported figures are accurate. It's clear that some law schools are being very aggressive in their reporting practices and are, in effect, gaming the rankings via their accreditation data. Currently, in our employment calculations, graduates who are working either full or part time in legal or non-legal jobs or pursuing graduate degrees are considered employed.

It is very important to remember that U.S. News is using the standards and definitions of employment that have been developed and are used by the NALP and ABA. In other words, U.S. News is reflecting the standard set by the legal industry. These are also the same groups within the industry that need to take the lead to develop new and stricter standards to increase the validity of the placement data that schools report. It's easily within their power to do so. It's not U.S. News's role to set industry definitions and regulate data quality. If the ABA and NALP adopt new reporting standards and definitions of what it means to be employed, U.S. News would readily follow those new standards and definitions.

Honestly, I can see Morse's frustration. He's being blamed for not investigating the accuracy of the information contained in the annual rankings, but he's simply reporting statistics that the schools themselves are providing. And those stats are, apparently, fine by the ABA and NALP.

It seems unlikely that any sort of meaningful change will come to the legal education industry without some strong external pressures to force it to happen. The rankings will continue as long as thousands of eager prelaw students gobble them up, and the law schools will continue to create the illusion that the JD degree is a worthwhile investment despite all the credible evidence to the contrary.

Every sign we've seen recently is that Mr. Morse actually cares about fixing the problem, despite the enormous amount of criticism levied against his organization by the law schools. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with next.

[HowdyYall]

not sure if this has been posted yet, but a correction to the original article:

--LinkRemoved--

EDIT: yep saw it posted a few days back

[ISTAND]

I was completely on Mr. Bohn's side as an innocent person caught in a press melee until I checked out his LinkedIn.
The way it is set up, one would assume he graduated from Columbia Law. He hides University of Florida in the middle of all his Columbia and NYU education.

Seeing it like that, it becomes a little more evident how a journalist could imagine he went to Columbia, because he probably SAID he went there, leaving out the fact that it wasn’t his main law school, even if he did take classes there.
It seems to me he could use a little pride in a good ol' state school.

However, I will say, I think Columbia U looks like bunch of d-bags.

Did you even read the article? It clearly states he got his JD from Florida and his school loans from undergrad and his masters.

"Jason Bohn, who received his J.D. from the University of Florida, is earning $33 an hour as a legal temp while strapped to more than $200,000 in loans, nearly all of which he accumulated as an undergraduate and while working on a master's degree at Columbia University."

[DoubleChecks]

I was completely on Mr. Bohn's side as an innocent person caught in a press melee until I checked out his LinkedIn.
The way it is set up, one would assume he graduated from Columbia Law. He hides University of Florida in the middle of all his Columbia and NYU education.

Seeing it like that, it becomes a little more evident how a journalist could imagine he went to Columbia, because he probably SAID he went there, leaving out the fact that it wasn’t his main law school, even if he did take classes there.
It seems to me he could use a little pride in a good ol' state school.

However, I will say, I think Columbia U looks like bunch of d-bags.

Did you even read the article? It clearly states he got his JD from Florida and his school loans from undergrad and his masters.

"Jason Bohn, who received his J.D. from the University of Florida, is earning $33 an hour as a legal temp while strapped to more than $200,000 in loans, nearly all of which he accumulated as an undergraduate and while working on a master's degree at Columbia University."

i could be wrong, but i think they edited the original article because it was misleading and there were some complaints all around

anyways else see Jason Bohn and either think James Bond or Jason Borne?

[sundance95]

i could be wrong, but i think they edited the original article because it was misleading and there were some complaints all around

You're not wrong.

[ggocat]

Did you even read the article? It clearly states he got his JD from Florida and his school loans from undergrad and his masters.

"Jason Bohn, who received his J.D. from the University of Florida, is earning $33 an hour as a legal temp while strapped to more than $200,000 in loans, nearly all of which he accumulated as an undergraduate and while working on a master's degree at Columbia University."

--ImageRemoved--

[robotclubmember]

I was completely on Mr. Bohn's side as an innocent person caught in a press melee until I checked out his LinkedIn.
The way it is set up, one would assume he graduated from Columbia Law. He hides University of Florida in the middle of all his Columbia and NYU education.

Seeing it like that, it becomes a little more evident how a journalist could imagine he went to Columbia, because he probably SAID he went there, leaving out the fact that it wasn’t his main law school, even if he did take classes there.
It seems to me he could use a little pride in a good ol' state school.

However, I will say, I think Columbia U looks like bunch of d-bags.

What do you mean? I thought it was normal to list your degree-granting institution last on a resume, and the one where you took a less than a handful of classes first. You mean that's not how it's supposed to be? Lol. Clearly his resume is finessed to suggest something that isn't true.

What's even stranger is that, despite being about a quarter million in debt, his LinkedIn profile says he's enrolled at NYU for a LLM in international tax. Is this guy addicted to degrees? He already has a BA, MA and JD. I don't think a fourth degree is going to make his penis any bigger. It may however make his quarter million dollar debt bigger.

I have zero - and I mean absolutely zero - sympathy for someone who lets himself be featured in an NYTimes article as a victim, whining about his bleak job prospects and quarter million of debt, and yet is STILL PURSUING MORE DEGREES. Undoubtedly on borrowed money. Clearly, he should have learned a lesson by now, he's a smart guy, but he is CHOOSING to do this to himself! He's no victim! This kid is insane. One of his bullet points for one of his contract positions is: "Maintained a record of my billable and non-billable hours." Is this kid for real???

[AreJay711]

I was completely on Mr. Bohn's side as an innocent person caught in a press melee until I checked out his LinkedIn.
The way it is set up, one would assume he graduated from Columbia Law. He hides University of Florida in the middle of all his Columbia and NYU education.

Seeing it like that, it becomes a little more evident how a journalist could imagine he went to Columbia, because he probably SAID he went there, leaving out the fact that it wasn’t his main law school, even if he did take classes there.
It seems to me he could use a little pride in a good ol' state school.

However, I will say, I think Columbia U looks like bunch of d-bags.

What's even stranger is that, despite being about a quarter million in debt, his LinkedIn profile says he's enrolled at NYU for a LLM in international tax. Is this guy addicted to degrees? He already has a BA, MA and JD. I don't think a fourth degree is going to make his penis any bigger. It may however make his quarter million dollar debt bigger.

I think he said this was to keep his loans in forbearance. But the rest of your post is right on -- don't talk to reporters if you don't want your story reported.

[robotclubmember]

I think he said this was to keep his loans in forbearance. But the rest of your post is right on -- don't talk to reporters if you don't want your story reported.

The NYT is a national media outlet as far as I'm concerned. So this kid goes to national press, lamenting the woes of the legal field, plays the victim card, and then doubles down on this admitted folly? His strategy for managing debt is to accumulate more debt? It would honestly be a smarter financing strategy to just accept the hand he was dealt, and start working it off, even if he can't stay current on his loans immediately, even if he falls behind, even if his credit score gets beat up a little bit. I mean, once you're a quarter mil in the hole, odds are, your credit score ain't going much lower anyway, and since his debt isn't collateralized, the only risk I see of defaulting is the hit to his undoubtedly-already-rock-bottom credit score.

Doesn't pursuing the extra degree result in the opportunity cost of being able to work less too? Less income? So his strategy for managing debt is to take on more debt and make less income? Wow, this guy is an idiot. If forbearance is really the reason why he's doing that, then this kid has serious misconceptions about money. Probably the same ones that drove this guy a quarter mil in the hole in the first place. Completely irresponsible and inexplicable.

[Bronte]

Did you even read the article? It clearly states he got his JD from Florida and his school loans from undergrad and his masters.

"Jason Bohn, who received his J.D. from the University of Florida, is earning $33 an hour as a legal temp while strapped to more than $200,000 in loans, nearly all of which he accumulated as an undergraduate and while working on a master's degree at Columbia University."

i could be wrong, but i think they edited the original article because it was misleading and there were some complaints all around

You're not wrong.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what are you guys talking about? The original article did not state that Bohn when to UF. That's the entire genesis of the controversy. See:

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 11, 2011

An earlier version of this article misstated the educational history of Jason Bohn, a recent law school graduate. While Mr. Bohn took classes at Columbia Law School, his law degree is from the University of Florida. And while nearly all of his student loan debt was accumulated at Columbia University, it was incurred while he was an undergraduate and while working on a master’s degree, and not at Columbia Law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html, scroll down.

Also see: http://abovethelaw.com/2011/01/a-notabl ... aw-school/

[androstan]

I think he said this was to keep his loans in forbearance. But the rest of your post is right on -- don't talk to reporters if you don't want your story reported.

The NYT is a national media outlet as far as I'm concerned. So this kid goes to national press, lamenting the woes of the legal field, plays the victim card, and then doubles down on this admitted folly? His strategy for managing debt is to accumulate more debt? It would honestly be a smarter financing strategy to just accept the hand he was dealt, and start working it off, even if he can't stay current on his loans immediately, even if he falls behind, even if his credit score gets beat up a little bit. I mean, once you're a quarter mil in the hole, odds are, your credit score ain't going much lower anyway, and since his debt isn't collateralized, the only risk I see of defaulting is the hit to his undoubtedly-already-rock-bottom credit score.

Doesn't pursuing the extra degree result in the opportunity cost of being able to work less too? Less income? So his strategy for managing debt is to take on more debt and make less income? Wow, this guy is an idiot. If forbearance is really the reason why he's doing that, then this kid has serious misconceptions about money. Probably the same ones that drove this guy a quarter mil in the hole in the first place. Completely irresponsible and inexplicable.

I thought an LLM in tax was one of the few LLM's that employers look for. I think I read a poster say that NY firms seem "bananas" for the LLM in tax, although maybe that's just from NYU.

[HarlandBassett]

I think he said this was to keep his loans in forbearance. But the rest of your post is right on -- don't talk to reporters if you don't want your story reported.

The NYT is a national media outlet as far as I'm concerned. So this kid goes to national press, lamenting the woes of the legal field, plays the victim card, and then doubles down on this admitted folly? His strategy for managing debt is to accumulate more debt? It would honestly be a smarter financing strategy to just accept the hand he was dealt, and start working it off, even if he can't stay current on his loans immediately, even if he falls behind, even if his credit score gets beat up a little bit. I mean, once you're a quarter mil in the hole, odds are, your credit score ain't going much lower anyway, and since his debt isn't collateralized, the only risk I see of defaulting is the hit to his undoubtedly-already-rock-bottom credit score.

Doesn't pursuing the extra degree result in the opportunity cost of being able to work less too? Less income? So his strategy for managing debt is to take on more debt and make less income? Wow, this guy is an idiot. If forbearance is really the reason why he's doing that, then this kid has serious misconceptions about money. Probably the same ones that drove this guy a quarter mil in the hole in the first place. Completely irresponsible and inexplicable.

I thought an LLM in tax was one of the few LLM's that employers look for. I think I read a poster say that NY firms seem "bananas" for the LLM in tax, although maybe that's just from NYU.

in 2005,2006