JD Unemployment Reaches New High (15%) Forum

[smaug]

JCougar has some of the best posts I've seen on TLS in this thread. I wasn't a fan before, but I am now.

confession: Jcoug is one of my fave. he does a good job in scaring people away from the law school scam. keep going dude

You're a 0L, right? Listen to him, then. Don't go.

[A. Nony Mouse]

This seems extreme. Most law grads did not go to t14 schools. Are you trying to say that everyone else flames out of the profession and only t14 grads are left fighting over jobs?

Most people not from T14s learn pretty quickly that it's a waste of time to apply for the "good" law jobs out there. And there's still thousands of T14 graduates around the country that struck out and are looking for something. Hell, Georgetown alone graduates about 300 of these people per year.

The last job I applied for had over 1,000 applicants, and it didn't even pay six figures.

Many people not from T14s aren't going for the "good" jobs (by your narrow definition) to start with.

[r1tlv50]

JCougar has some of the best posts I've seen on TLS in this thread. I wasn't a fan before, but I am now.

I love it haha. Don't get me wrong, the general points about the legal job market being bad, most schools being a bad bet, etc., are obviously valid, but the hysteria and links to stories about doc reviewers doing cocaine at 2 AM while they were on the clock are hilarious. In a way, it kind of reminds me of how the Justin Bieber fights on youtube spun out of control three or four years ago and basically dominated every comment section for a while.

I guess the next thing we can look forward to is when people who speak s$%tty english start posting about the law school scam..."I graduate top of Stanford law but can no have job!!!"

[Saddle Up]

As I understand it, there are 35-40 thousand newly minted JDs every year trying to secure one of the 20-25 thousand openings.... given those stats 15% is a lot lower than I would have guessed.

[JCougar]

As I understand it, there are 35-40 thousand newly minted JDs every year trying to secure one of the 20-25 thousand openings.... given those stats 15% is a lot lower than I would have guessed.

There haven't been 35-40 K graduates yet...those classes are still in school.

The other thing is that out of those 20-25K "openings," only about 6K or so offer you enough pay to repay your loans on your own accord without help form your family or government assistance. As for the other ~15K law jobs out there most of them start out at like $40-50K in the big legal markets, and $30-40K in the more mid-sized cities. Like I mentioned in another thread, I briefly worked at one of the few small firms that is even willing to consider hiring new grads in my city. It paid $40K with no healthcare, and he had a stack of at least 500 resumes on his desk from people wanting to work there. The average associate there quit/got fired after about 6 months. Not that he cared...he'd just pull another resume out of the pack (usually a magna cum laude graduate from the local TTT) and hire them on the spot. Some of these people even went to Ivy League undergrads. They would always accept, because most of them were either volunteers somewhere else or completely unemployed.

[sparty99]

As I understand it, there are 35-40 thousand newly minted JDs every year trying to secure one of the 20-25 thousand openings.... given those stats 15% is a lot lower than I would have guessed.

There haven't been 35-40 K graduates yet...those classes are still in school.

The other thing is that out of those 20-25K "openings," only about 6K or so offer you enough pay to repay your loans on your own accord without help form your family or government assistance. As for the other ~15K law jobs out there most of them start out at like $40-50K in the big legal markets, and $30-40K in the more mid-sized cities. Like I mentioned in another thread, I briefly worked at one of the few small firms that is even willing to consider hiring new grads in my city. It paid $40K with no healthcare, and he had a stack of at least 500 resumes on his desk from people wanting to work there. The average associate there quit/got fired after about 6 months. Not that he cared...he'd just pull another resume out of the pack (usually a magna cum laude graduate from the local TTT) and hire them on the spot. Some of these people even went to Ivy League undergrads. They would always accept, because most of them were either volunteers somewhere else or completely unemployed.

JCourgar speaks the truth. A legal degree sucks. The jobs suck if you don't get Big Law. The government, one of the few legit jobs outside of Big Law, is really hard to get.

[Saddle Up]

As I understand it, there are 35-40 thousand newly minted JDs every year trying to secure one of the 20-25 thousand openings.... given those stats 15% is a lot lower than I would have guessed.

There haven't been 35-40 K graduates yet...those classes are still in school.

The other thing is that out of those 20-25K "openings," only about 6K or so offer you enough pay to repay your loans on your own accord without help form your family or government assistance. As for the other ~15K law jobs out there most of them start out at like $40-50K in the big legal markets, and $30-40K in the more mid-sized cities. Like I mentioned in another thread, I briefly worked at one of the few small firms that is even willing to consider hiring new grads in my city. It paid $40K with no healthcare, and he had a stack of at least 500 resumes on his desk from people wanting to work there. The average associate there quit/got fired after about 6 months. Not that he cared...he'd just pull another resume out of the pack (usually a magna cum laude graduate from the local TTT) and hire them on the spot. Some of these people even went to Ivy League undergrads. They would always accept, because most of them were either volunteers somewhere else or completely unemployed.

Maybe the data is available somewhere but I have never seen stats that only involve those with top 25 LS JDs. I would not be surprised if their unemployment percent was in the very low single digits. My guess is that their income sufficiently covers their tuition debt with enough left over to enjoy life.

[r1tlv50]

As I understand it, there are 35-40 thousand newly minted JDs every year trying to secure one of the 20-25 thousand openings.... given those stats 15% is a lot lower than I would have guessed.

There haven't been 35-40 K graduates yet...those classes are still in school.

The other thing is that out of those 20-25K "openings," only about 6K or so offer you enough pay to repay your loans on your own accord without help form your family or government assistance. As for the other ~15K law jobs out there most of them start out at like $40-50K in the big legal markets, and $30-40K in the more mid-sized cities. Like I mentioned in another thread, I briefly worked at one of the few small firms that is even willing to consider hiring new grads in my city. It paid $40K with no healthcare, and he had a stack of at least 500 resumes on his desk from people wanting to work there. The average associate there quit/got fired after about 6 months. Not that he cared...he'd just pull another resume out of the pack (usually a magna cum laude graduate from the local TTT) and hire them on the spot. Some of these people even went to Ivy League undergrads. They would always accept, because most of them were either volunteers somewhere else or completely unemployed.

Maybe the data is available somewhere but I have never seen stats that only involve those with top 25 LS JDs. I would not be surprised if their unemployment percent was in the very low single digits. My guess is that their income sufficiently covers their tuition debt with enough left over to enjoy life.

This is one of the huge issues with law school: there isn't any mid-career information on graduates from different schools, even though it seems certain the job market treats them differently.

[A. Nony Mouse]

This is one of the huge issues with law school: there isn't any mid-career information on graduates from different schools, even though it seems certain the job market treats them differently.

I mean... yes and no. Obviously the job market treats entry level people from different schools differently - very very few TTT grads have a shot at biglaw, for instance, while quite a lot of T14 grads do. And it seems clear from what biglaw people here who have been involved in hiring report that at least some biglaw firms will still only hire laterals with qualifications that would have got them the entry level job there, too (though that may or may not be purely school - it seems someone who graduated #1 from Fordham and did biglaw would be able to lateral almost anywhere, while there are some firms who might pass on the median Fordham grad, even if they snagged biglaw through connections or whatever, if that person doesn't make their cutoffs).

But if you get out of law school and get a job and get experience, I don't think in most circumstances (and when I say most, I don't mean most biglaw, I mean most, period) your school matters as much as the experience you get. I have met lawyers from all kinds of schools in all kinds of positions, and it's true that in the past it was easier to get jobs yada yada yada, but this includes fairly recent grads. Again, there are some biglaw firms that adhere to their school/grade cutoffs forever and ever, amen. But I don't think that's the most common experience.

So mid-career success is going to be governed by a ton more than just what school you go to. I think the bigger problem is getting shutout right out of the gate, than not being able to get something later down the road based on the school on your resume.

Don't get me wrong, it would be great to have more info about what happens later in people's careers, but I think untangling the factors going into people's success (or lack thereof) is going to be way more complicated than law school.

[Tiago Splitter]

Look at Saddle Up's post history and you'll quickly realize she can be ignored. She thinks Emory is a one way ticket to biglaw.

[r1tlv50]

This is one of the huge issues with law school: there isn't any mid-career information on graduates from different schools, even though it seems certain the job market treats them differently.

I think the bigger problem is getting shutout right out of the gate, than not being able to get something later down the road based on the school on your resume.

Yes, but how often do these amount to basically the same thing? Graduates of better schools are able to get better experience earlier in their careers, and frequently that leads to better (more lucrative or more rewarding) career opportunities later on.

[NYSprague]

You guys might be interested in reading this article giving empirical evidence of employment outcomes of the Class of 2010 in Ohio. Professor Deborah Merritt sees evidence of the structural changes in law that people have been discussing the past few years.

Note: she looks at the public record of about 1200 people who passed the bar in Ohio in 2010 and compares it to data from 2000.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=2577272

I found it referenced on the Faculty Lounge

http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2015/03 ... l#comments

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Some people do everything right and get shut out. That's a fact. Couger seems to have played the cards he was dealt in a very reasonable way and still nothing. He seems like a good person and I sincerely hope his luck turns around. After his PSLF slave labor runs its course, you would think so long as he is bar licensed and applies broadly within his state, even to rural offices, that he could get something, eventually.

But maybe not. There are always going to be outliers.

But they are outliers. I know, I know, 40k graduates and only 25k jobs, yadda yadda, but this is far from reality. Even at my T1 school, there were tons of people that had no idea if they wanted to be lawyers. They spent their weekends and many weekdays partying or spending time and energy outside of their alleged future career. They had no real reason to attend law school in the first place.

There are thousands of students like this all over the country, especially at lowly schools. The underlying problem is that it is ridiculously easy to go to law school and many peers consider it a socially acceptable thing to do. Many of us could obtain a score of 155+ on the LSAT without any study, and that score will now get you into MOST law schools in the country. When you are 24 and working a boring job that neither impresses your peers or your mother, you go to law school.

But the good news (unless you are one of these people) is that you can beat out most of these folks in the job hunt with a strategy and substantial effort. Here are some anecdotes. In my law school class, everyone I know who worked an internship during the school year is employed. Every single person. The people who are unemployed consist of people who failed the bar exam or people who would have been voted most likely to be unemployed after law school during orientation week, + 1 or 2 true outliers.

The T1 and T2 true employment rate (long-term, full-time JD required) is probably 60%, plus or minus a few points? This rate seems to shock most on this site (especially the regular posters, who overwhelmingly went to T20 schools). This rate sounds about right to me. At least 40% of these students had no business enrolling in law school to begin with. I may not blame couger for his specific position because I don't know his story, but I blame many similarly situated people for their own predicaments. They can't all be outliers.

[A. Nony Mouse]

This is one of the huge issues with law school: there isn't any mid-career information on graduates from different schools, even though it seems certain the job market treats them differently.

I think the bigger problem is getting shutout right out of the gate, than not being able to get something later down the road based on the school on your resume.

Yes, but how often do these amount to basically the same thing? Graduates of better schools are able to get better experience earlier in their careers, and frequently that leads to better (more lucrative or more rewarding) career opportunities later on.

Sometimes, but not invariably. I think the paths to non/post-biglaw careers are less set or clear cut than people here assume. Someone who graduates Seattle U and goes to a small PI shop isn't likely to end up as a biglaw partner, no. But most biglaw associates don't make biglaw partner, either. The Seattle U person could end up in the same place as a lot of former biglaw associates, just without doing the biglaw part to start.

I'll concede this probably doesn't hold true for the tip top most unicorn jobs. But frankly most T14 grads don't end up in those, either.

[Johann]

This is one of the huge issues with law school: there isn't any mid-career information on graduates from different schools, even though it seems certain the job market treats them differently.

I think the bigger problem is getting shutout right out of the gate, than not being able to get something later down the road based on the school on your resume.

Yes, but how often do these amount to basically the same thing? Graduates of better schools are able to get better experience earlier in their careers, and frequently that leads to better (more lucrative or more rewarding) career opportunities later on.

Sometimes, but not invariably. I think the paths to non/post-biglaw careers are less set or clear cut than people here assume. Someone who graduates Seattle U and goes to a small PI shop isn't likely to end up as a biglaw partner, no. But most biglaw associates don't make biglaw partner, either. The Seattle U person could end up in the same place as a lot of former biglaw associates, just without doing the biglaw part to start.

I'll concede this probably doesn't hold true for the tip top most unicorn jobs. But frankly most T14 grads don't end up in those, either.

I agree with this.

[NYSprague]

FYI: structural changes in law are reported in the 2015 version of annual Georgetown report on the profession.

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/academics ... 1-7-15.pdf

[r1tlv50]

This is one of the huge issues with law school: there isn't any mid-career information on graduates from different schools, even though it seems certain the job market treats them differently.

I think the bigger problem is getting shutout right out of the gate, than not being able to get something later down the road based on the school on your resume.

Yes, but how often do these amount to basically the same thing? Graduates of better schools are able to get better experience earlier in their careers, and frequently that leads to better (more lucrative or more rewarding) career opportunities later on.

Sometimes, but not invariably. I think the paths to non/post-biglaw careers are less set or clear cut than people here assume. Someone who graduates Seattle U and goes to a small PI shop isn't likely to end up as a biglaw partner, no. But most biglaw associates don't make biglaw partner, either. The Seattle U person could end up in the same place as a lot of former biglaw associates, just without doing the biglaw part to start.

I'll concede this probably doesn't hold true for the tip top most unicorn jobs. But frankly most T14 grads don't end up in those, either.

I don't know. I still see having school-specific, mid-career employment data as being one of the most useful things we could have to evaluate where (or if) someone should get a JD, at least as long as entry-level employment outcomes remain heavily correlated with law school prestige. I can't really argue with the fact that some people from less prestigious schools can and do get good jobs (or that people from better or worse schools can wind up in the same place), but that doesn't really seem like all that strong of a point to make when the employment data we have now confirms that graduates from better schools are much more likely to make enough to pay their loans off and have a position that requires a JD when they're 9 months out. To see whether that correlation holds up later, we would need better mid-career data. Otherwise, we're left with anecdotes/speculation, and to me that doesn't justify the cost of most schools.

[NYSprague]

I don't know. I still see having school-specific, mid-career employment data as being one of the most useful things we could have to evaluate where (or if) someone should get a JD, at least as long as entry-level employment outcomes remain heavily correlated with law school prestige. I can't really argue with the fact that some people from less prestigious schools can and do get good jobs (or that people from better or worse schools can wind up in the same place), but that doesn't really seem like all that strong of a point to make when the employment data we have now confirms that graduates from better schools are much more likely to make enough to pay their loans off and have a position that requires a JD when they're 9 months out. To see whether that correlation holds up later, we would need better mid-career data. Otherwise, we're left with anecdotes/speculation, and to me that doesn't justify the cost of most schools.

What year are you talking about as mid-career? I just linked to a study of grads almost 5 years out.
It seems that anyone who had time could follow her methods for any state to see where people admitted to the bar are working 5 or 10 or more years out. It isn't a huge mystery, just no one has done the work.
How relevant that data will be given the obvious changes happening in law is another question.

[r1tlv50]

Haven't taken a look at the study yet but the faculty lounge blurb said there's no specifics on income. I would be looking for that, more or less the ABA and NALP disclosures firms give out but for people ten years out from a given school with type of work, firm size, and 25th-median-75th salary (I'm not holding my breath on that being made available haha).

Obviously, there is the BLS data on average salaries for lawyers, but that doesn't seem like it'd be much use given the bimodal salary distribution and how many JD's leave legal services altogether. The 9 month reports we have now seem to indicate whether or not graduates have a shot at paying their loans off more than what their income over their career is likely to be

[Tiago Splitter]

Problem with DJM's study is that it's for a state, not a school

[NYSprague]

Haven't taken a look at the study yet but the faculty lounge blurb said there's no specifics on income. I would be looking for that, more or less the ABA and NALP disclosures firms give out but for people ten years out from a given school with type of work, firm size, and 25th-median-75th salary (I'm not holding my breath on that being made available haha).

Obviously, there is the BLS data on average salaries for lawyers, but that doesn't seem like it'd be much use given the bimodal salary distribution and how many JD's leave legal services altogether. The 9 month reports we have now seem to indicate whether or not graduates have a shot at paying their loans off more than what their income over their career is likely to be

She does discuss incomes. Incomes aren't included in bar information but the employer is named. A problem is that the large number of people in small firms with widely variable income makes it impossible to pin down. She doesn't have exact income data.

To me it seems reasonable that salary follows the job. You really just need to know the size of the employer.

You could probably find the list of grads from a school 10 years ago and then Google them. Find out what the grads are doing.

But again, I don't know how much that will help you. Grads from before ITE are in a different world than you will be entering. Plus, they paid significantly less tuition and most likely had significantly less debt.

[NYSprague]

Problem with DJM's study is that it's for a state, not a school

Yes, but bar admission shows the school. She considers the difference in outcomes based on school prestige starting on page 47.

[JCougar]

Some people do everything right and get shut out. That's a fact. Couger seems to have played the cards he was dealt in a very reasonable way and still nothing. He seems like a good person and I sincerely hope his luck turns around. After his PSLF slave labor runs its course, you would think so long as he is bar licensed and applies broadly within his state, even to rural offices, that he could get something, eventually.

But maybe not. There are always going to be outliers.

But they are outliers. I know, I know, 40k graduates and only 25k jobs, yadda yadda, but this is far from reality. Even at my T1 school, there were tons of people that had no idea if they wanted to be lawyers. They spent their weekends and many weekdays partying or spending time and energy outside of their alleged future career. They had no real reason to attend law school in the first place.

There are thousands of students like this all over the country, especially at lowly schools. The underlying problem is that it is ridiculously easy to go to law school and many peers consider it a socially acceptable thing to do. Many of us could obtain a score of 155+ on the LSAT without any study, and that score will now get you into MOST law schools in the country. When you are 24 and working a boring job that neither impresses your peers or your mother, you go to law school.

But the good news (unless you are one of these people) is that you can beat out most of these folks in the job hunt with a strategy and substantial effort. Here are some anecdotes. In my law school class, everyone I know who worked an internship during the school year is employed. Every single person. The people who are unemployed consist of people who failed the bar exam or people who would have been voted most likely to be unemployed after law school during orientation week, + 1 or 2 true outliers.

The T1 and T2 true employment rate (long-term, full-time JD required) is probably 60%, plus or minus a few points? This rate seems to shock most on this site (especially the regular posters, who overwhelmingly went to T20 schools). This rate sounds about right to me. At least 40% of these students had no business enrolling in law school to begin with. I may not blame couger for his specific position because I don't know his story, but I blame many similarly situated people for their own predicaments. They can't all be outliers.

Thanks for the kind words, but like I said, it's not just me.

You would cringe if you worked with me on my previous volunteer-ship--for a while spending hour upon endless hour with a pair of T6 grads pulling files out of the HR department of a government office and making photocopies. Listening to their stories about how they blew their bidding strategy was just downright sad. I mean, I was stupid enough to attend a trap school and think I could at least eek out something making $60K worst case scenario. But the higher school you attend and strike out at, the more difficult it is to explain to your family how a government secretary with a neck tattoo is ordering you around and telling you where the extra reams of paper are to restock the copy machine.

Back then, I was living in a roach-infested tenement where the heating gas was shut off because the slumlord wasn't paying the bill even though it was "included" in the rent. We later got bedbugs, and I had to spend my entire weekend wrapping all my belongings in garbage bags so the exterminator could come in and apply the treatment. At least my friend let me sleep on her couch while the place was getting fumigated so that I wouldn't get cancer inhaling all the fumes. That was when I was getting my sub-minimum-wage stipend from my school to count me as LT, FT, JD-required employed. A stunning success story! I can now be portrayed as such to the next wave of hapless suckers about to send in their FAFSA promissory notes and sign away their lives so Stephen F. Diamond's and Brian Leiter's peers can write intellectually-vapid-yet-superficially-Marxist "research" to be published in journals run on the slave labor of a hopelessly-indebted underclass.

But I digress. The real point is that I can't be wrote off as some "rare exception." Like I said, in addition to my previous experience, there are 4 other people on this project are my trap school peers. One quit her shitlaw job because doc review was actually more lucrative, if you can believe that. Another got into one of those "decent" small plaintiff's firms that actually does more than just cut n' paste shitwork. But then his boss went nuts, fired a bunch of people, and then committed suicide--thus, no more firm. That's not his fault either, but it doesn't matter. You see, there's so many people applying for any other job that pops up in this industry that anyone without a job--whether their fault or not--is immediately and easily filtered out and dismissed as a loser because it is automatically assumed that it's your fault for not having anything.

I clerked for a small two-attorney firm my second year, but those guys barely had enough to scrape by themselves. The first one didn't care, because his wife was a teacher and they could retire on her pension--plus he was formerly a government attorney and could retire on that. He was in his 60s and seemed somewhat happy. But the other attorney there was chewed up and spit out by the small firm down the street. He was the best associate there for 8 years, but instead of letting him become partner, his bosses dropped the hammer and took all his clients. His wife divorced him, and he limped across the street to partner up with the other guy. They were both great people, but they were grinding it out and billing between 1-2 hours a day. At least they got to go home at around 5pm and see their kids. I doubt either of them were pulling in much more than $60K after 20 years of practice or whatever. The second guy was totally stressed out and ready to snap at any moment. There was no way they had any room for a schmuck like me to eat into whatever meager overhead they had for a year or two while I learned the ropes.

Divorce and suicide are common in this industry. Either you make shit money and your spouse is mad at you, or you make good money but you're never home. The only exception is maybe people who manage to score government jobs--as dead-end as most of them may be intellectually. I need more than two hands to count the number of people who privately alluded to me the fact that they entertained thoughts of suicide because of this shitty industry. Some of them eventually made it, but others are still scraping by. You really have to develop a sense of humor about this shit quick, because if you start taking it too seriously, you won't last long. I am still worried about some of these people.

You see, this locus of control stuff is like walking a tightrope. If you blame it all on yourself, you'll quickly jump off a bridge. If you blame it 100% on the scammy way legal education and the legal industry are set up, you will probably be to angry to still bust it out in the trenches and try and make something of your life, and will sit around getting high and playing video games in your parents' basement for the next 5 years. It's very important to parse out what you can control from what you can't, otherwise you'll start circling the drain pretty quickly. I keep a copy of the quote from Slaughterhouse Five handy with me for the rough times:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I think they use that at AA meetings.

[Tiago Splitter]

Problem with DJM's study is that it's for a state, not a school

Yes, but bar admission shows the school. She considers the difference in outcomes based on school prestige starting on page 47.

Right but people want to see the data by school for comparison. Even if we look at the primary state into which a school feeds you might find just a small percentage of the state's grads there. That's why taking this data and making it into a school by school thing would be quite the accomplishment.

[NYSprague]

Some people do everything right and get shut out. That's a fact. Couger seems to have played the cards he was dealt in a very reasonable way and still nothing. He seems like a good person and I sincerely hope his luck turns around. After his PSLF slave labor runs its course, you would think so long as he is bar licensed and applies broadly within his state, even to rural offices, that he could get something, eventually.

But maybe not. There are always going to be outliers.

But they are outliers. I know, I know, 40k graduates and only 25k jobs, yadda yadda, but this is far from reality. Even at my T1 school, there were tons of people that had no idea if they wanted to be lawyers. They spent their weekends and many weekdays partying or spending time and energy outside of their alleged future career. They had no real reason to attend law school in the first place.

There are thousands of students like this all over the country, especially at lowly schools. The underlying problem is that it is ridiculously easy to go to law school and many peers consider it a socially acceptable thing to do. Many of us could obtain a score of 155+ on the LSAT without any study, and that score will now get you into MOST law schools in the country. When you are 24 and working a boring job that neither impresses your peers or your mother, you go to law school.

But the good news (unless you are one of these people) is that you can beat out most of these folks in the job hunt with a strategy and substantial effort. Here are some anecdotes. In my law school class, everyone I know who worked an internship during the school year is employed. Every single person. The people who are unemployed consist of people who failed the bar exam or people who would have been voted most likely to be unemployed after law school during orientation week, + 1 or 2 true outliers.

The T1 and T2 true employment rate (long-term, full-time JD required) is probably 60%, plus or minus a few points? This rate seems to shock most on this site (especially the regular posters, who overwhelmingly went to T20 schools). This rate sounds about right to me. At least 40% of these students had no business enrolling in law school to begin with. I may not blame couger for his specific position because I don't know his story, but I blame many similarly situated people for their own predicaments. They can't all be outliers.

Thanks for the kind words, but like I said, it's not just me.

You would cringe if you worked with me on my previous volunteer-ship--for a while spending hour upon endless hour with a pair of T6 grads pulling files out of the HR department of a government office and making photocopies. Listening to their stories about how they blew their bidding strategy was just downright sad. I mean, I was stupid enough to attend a trap school and think I could at least eek out something making $60K worst case scenario. But the higher school you attend and strike out at, the more difficult it is to explain to your family how a government secretary with a neck tattoo is ordering you around and telling you where the extra reams of paper are to restock the copy machine.

Back then, I was living in a roach-infested tenement where the heating gas was shut off because the slumlord wasn't paying the bill even though it was "included" in the rent. We later got bedbugs, and I had to spend my entire weekend wrapping all my belongings in garbage bags so the exterminator could come in and apply the treatment. At least my friend let me sleep on her couch while the place was getting fumigated so that I wouldn't get cancer inhaling all the fumes. That was when I was getting my sub-minimum-wage stipend from my school to count me as LT, FT, JD-required employed. A stunning success story! I can now be portrayed as such to the next wave of hapless suckers about to send in their FAFSA promissory notes and sign away their lives so Stephen F. Diamond's and Brian Leiter's peers can write intellectually-vapid-yet-superficially-Marxist "research" to be published in journals run on the slave labor of a hopelessly-indebted underclass.

But I digress. The real point is that I can't be wrote off as some "rare exception." Like I said, in addition to my previous experience, there are 4 other people on this project are my trap school peers. One quit her shitlaw job because doc review was actually more lucrative, if you can believe that. Another got into one of those "decent" small plaintiff's firms that actually does more than just cut n' paste shitwork. But then his boss went nuts, fired a bunch of people, and then committed suicide--thus, no more firm. That's not his fault either, but it doesn't matter. You see, there's so many people applying for any other job that pops up in this industry that anyone without a job--whether their fault or not--is immediately and easily filtered out and dismissed as a loser because it is automatically assumed that it's your fault for not having anything.

I clerked for a small two-attorney firm my second year, but those guys barely had enough to scrape by themselves. The first one didn't care, because his wife was a teacher and they could retire on her pension--plus he was formerly a government attorney and could retire on that. He was in his 60s and seemed somewhat happy. But the other attorney there was chewed up and spit out by the small firm down the street. He was the best associate there for 8 years, but instead of letting him become partner, his bosses dropped the hammer and took all his clients. His wife divorced him, and he limped across the street to partner up with the other guy. They were both great people, but they were grinding it out and billing between 1-2 hours a day. At least they got to go home at around 5pm and see their kids. I doubt either of them were pulling in much more than $60K after 20 years of practice or whatever. The second guy was totally stressed out and ready to snap at any moment. There was no way they had any room for a schmuck like me to eat into whatever meager overhead they had for a year or two while I learned the ropes.

Divorce and suicide are common in this industry. Either you make shit money and your spouse is mad at you, or you make good money but you're never home. The only exception is maybe people who manage to score government jobs--as dead-end as most of them may be intellectually. I need more than two hands to count the number of people who privately alluded to me the fact that they entertained thoughts of suicide because of this shitty industry. Some of them eventually made it, but others are still scraping by. You really have to develop a sense of humor about this shit quick, because if you start taking it too seriously, you won't last long. I am still worried about some of these people.

You see, this locus of control stuff is like walking a tightrope. If you blame it all on yourself, you'll quickly jump off a bridge. If you blame it 100% on the scammy way legal education and the legal industry are set up, you will probably be to angry to still bust it out in the trenches and try and make something of your life, and will sit around getting high and playing video games in your parents' basement for the next 5 years. It's very important to parse out what you can control from what you can't, otherwise you'll start circling the drain pretty quickly. I keep a copy of the quote from Slaughterhouse Five handy with me for the rough times:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I think they use that at AA meetings.

Good luck. I sincerely wish you well. Your career search sounds really shitty.

I went back and read some of your earliest posts. Back then you said you didn't buy that people in doc review were "making the most of their opportunity by looking for jobs anywhere they can find one..."

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 5#p2248774
Skimming the thread it looks like you then felt that people could find jobs if they tried hard enough, even as others were explaining about deferrals, Harvard closing down its program to pay the 3rd year of tuition for public interest students, lack of jobs.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 0#p2249708

I think you have tried as hard as you can.

I am not quoting those posts to make you feel bad and I hope it doesn't.

I quoted those to show that it can be almost impossible to get 0Ls to accept the reality of the lawyer oversupply.