Websites to Research Before Going to Law School Forum

[90s Nickelodeon]

Good thing I have absolutely zero interest in working at a law firm! (That layoff tracker is terrifying!)

[legalese_retard]

EXERCISE
http://www.craigslist.org/
Another reality check. Pretend you already went to the school you got accepted to and are thinking about attending. You graduated medium or around the bottom half of your class and are unemployed at graduation. After exhausting all resources, you have to start looking on your own. Visit the craigslist site for your city or the city you want to practice in and see what jobs are available. As an unemployed law graduate, I can say that this is one of the last places where there are job postings available right now. Look to see if you are willing to and don't mind working at these places whether as a contract attorney or an Insurance Defense Attorney. Typically these firms pay $30K-$50K/year and STILL require decent grades, law school, law review, moot court, mock trial, etc.

[williamholden1]

On this subject, does anyone have any information on law job growth in various cities/regions? I'm weighing several different regional schools and my choice will greatly depend on whether I'm entering oversaturated markets or notoriously competitive markets.

[90s Nickelodeon]

EXERCISE
http://www.craigslist.org/
Another reality check. Pretend you already went to the school you got accepted to and are thinking about attending. You graduated medium or around the bottom half of your class and are unemployed at graduation. After exhausting all resources, you have to start looking on your own. Visit the craigslist site for your city or the city you want to practice in and see what jobs are available. As an unemployed law graduate, I can say that this is one of the last places where there are job postings available right now. Look to see if you are willing to and don't mind working at these places whether as a contract attorney or an Insurance Defense attorney. Typically these firms pay $30K-$50K/year and STILL require decent grades, law school, law review, moot court, mock trial, etc.

This is a good idea for all postgraduate students. People take heed to this advice.

[Kohinoor]

Yup. It sucks that law is failing while the rest of the economy flourishes. Oh wait...

[legalese_retard]

On this subject, does anyone have any information on law job growth in various cities/regions? I'm weighing several different regional schools and my choice will greatly depend on whether I'm entering oversaturated markets or notoriously competitive markets.

I don't know if there is such data, but you can go to the Infirmation Greedy Associate board for the regions you are interested in and see what are the current legal trends in that area. Some of the data (like the salary surveys) are outdated, but there are some useful stuff that is region specific.

http://www.infirmation.com/pvt/other/

[azlawlady]

EXERCISE
http://www.craigslist.org/
Another reality check. Pretend you already went to the school you got accepted to and are thinking about attending. You graduated medium or around the bottom half of your class and are unemployed at graduation. After exhausting all resources, you have to start looking on your own. Visit the craigslist site for your city or the city you want to practice in and see what jobs are available. As an unemployed law graduate, I can say that this is one of the last places where there are job postings available right now. Look to see if you are willing to and don't mind working at these places whether as a contract attorney or an Insurance Defense attorney. Typically these firms pay $30K-$50K/year and STILL require decent grades, law school, law review, moot court, mock trial, etc.

I think doing this in general is a really good thing in order to get a better idea of the kinds of jobs out there in the city that you want to work, but I can think of a bunch of better job sites to look at than craigslist.

ETA: OP this is really a great list of resources, thanks!

[pmunk]

National Jurist: Law School Ranking by Starting Salaries of Graduates
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... urist.html

This chart doesn't match up with his source. I was a bit incredulous when I noticed he had Chicago-Kent at #5, and BYU at #18, with Yale, BU, and BC nowhere to be found. This chart is malarkey.

[screech]

On this subject, does anyone have any information on law job growth in various cities/regions? I'm weighing several different regional schools and my choice will greatly depend on whether I'm entering oversaturated markets or notoriously competitive markets.

I don't know if there is such data, but you can go to the Infirmation Greedy Associate board for the regions you are interested in and see what are the current legal trends in that area. Some of the data (like the salary surveys) are outdated, but there are some useful stuff that is region specific.

http://www.infirmation.com/pvt/other/

I take it that it's a bad sign if your state is not even on the list? Not looking too good.

[Tacitus]

This site is truly the best resource for salaries, infirmation.com is a bit dated (some firms even have 1999 data listed):

http://www.alreadybored.com

[legalese_retard]

National Jurist: Law School Ranking by Starting Salaries of Graduates
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... urist.html

This chart doesn't match up with his source. I was a bit incredulous when I noticed he had Chicago-Kent at #5, and BYU at #18, with Yale, BU, and BC nowhere to be found. This chart is malarkey.

That chart is actually from National Jurist. Schools like Yale place 30-40% of its class in prominent clerkships that pay less than $60K/year and a high number will go into entry-level academia positions. So even if 60% of Yale's students go into biglaw directly after graduation, it's average salary is probably going to be less than a school like Kent where most of their class may not get biglaw but will probably get private law jobs that pay more than $60K. It's all about the fine print.

[doyleoil]

National Jurist: Law School Ranking by Starting Salaries of Graduates
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... urist.html

This chart doesn't match up with his source. I was a bit incredulous when I noticed he had Chicago-Kent at #5, and BYU at #18, with Yale, BU, and BC nowhere to be found. This chart is malarkey.

That chart is actually from National Jurist. Schools like Yale place 30-40% of its class in prominent clerkships that pay less than $60K/year and a high number will go into entry-level academia positions. So even if 60% of Yale's students go into biglaw directly after graduation, it's average salary is probably going to be less than a school like Kent where most of their class may not get biglaw but will probably get private law jobs that pay more than $60K. It's all about the fine print.

doesn't explain the conspicuous, shocking, utter-credibility-destroying absence of columbia, the biglaw machine par-excellence

[Snooker]

To be realistic, most good professions have these issues: low starting salaries, hard to get your foot in the door, crushing hours at the "elite" level. From my experience in health care, I can tell you a medical technologist* takes two years to train, half fail to get jobs, and those who get them will earn in the mid-30s. Many have college degrees. Nurses can make good money, especially if specialized, but the stress they're under conjures stories of biglaw (except that demented patients occasionally assault them), and they burn out and totally leave the profession at alarming rates. I don't know as many physician assistants, but if it's anything like nursing, it's a shitty prospect as well.

Doctors require 4 years of med school, and then your starting salary is a princely $40,000 (2/3 of law), which we call "residency". If a Doctor does residency for 3 years, then works for 100k for 3 years, he'd have made 220k to pay his debts. A lawyer starting at 55k for 2 years, making 60k another 2, and 65k another 2 will have made $365k over the six years - 50% more than the doctor, with 2/3 the debt!

When I bring up the trials and tribulations of lawyers, health care people LAUGH at me. Put it in perspective. Lawyers, even TTT grads, are social elites. Any median student at a JD institution will out-earn, by around 15%, the median student of a similarly ranked MBA program. But the lawyer unemployment rate rarely hits 1%, and when it does, we call it a recession.

What does this tell us about the legal profession? First, half of you are morons for attending TTT schools charging 40k a year when there's plenty of schools charging 10-15k at the TTT level. Second, our attraction to the legal profession has made us a bunch of whiny whores who don't know a good deal when we have one.



*Anyone who operates medical equipment on behalf of a doctor, especially in medical imaging.

[presh]

.

[Snooker]

Note of caution about perusing JD underground; every profession has its own cadre of losers and washouts. I know a guy who went through 2 (or 3?) years of nurse training, got a job for 6 months, was incompetent and now works some entry level blue collar job at a chemical plant from 2pm to 3am shifts. I know a guy who was a top-shelf investment banker, but chose a lot of otherwise rock-solid oil investments right before the oil industry crashed in the 80s, and nobody would trust him to handle their grandma's little stock portfolio. Later on, he did pretty OK in real estate investments, but was still making less than TTT South Texas College of Law attorneys. From Harvard Biz, to Goldman, to TTT?

When you read JD underground, you're reading about people who got a JD and managed to fall to the bottom .5% of the profession. But that's not the fate of a TTT school. Anyone applying to one of these should take three steps:

1. Ask local people about the school's reputation
2. See if the local market is saturated
3. Calculate how difficult the debt will be to manage earning 60k a year.

Granted, 60k starting ain't too shabby. Mechanical engineers after 3 years, on the median, expect what - 70k? And their salaries plateau very quickly. A lawyer starting at 60k has lots of room for growth.

The JD underground whining is not a good indication of anything except that lawyers are skilled and eager complainers. It's the only profession on earth that prides itself on filing complaints with federal courts for "spilt milk" (or hot coffee). Law is a FINE profession. Choose the right law school. You can have fine career even with an LSAT in the high 140s - Joe Biden, anyone? (mainly because so many small biz legal consumers have no clue what makes an attorney good, and many think that some TTT schools compare with T20 schools)

[A'nold]

can provide some alternative perspective. I visited forums when I was applying to law school and there was definitely a "pro-law school" bias - everyone on the forum was going to law school and no one was trying to convince people otherwise.

HAHA to all of the above. Trying a different angle, eh?

[Palsgraf]

Great thread!

Does anyone have a collection of links (either just info, or blogs/chat) for areas of law, like patent, IP, criminal law, tax law, etc.?

[sba314]

EXERCISE
http://www.craigslist.org/
Another reality check... Visit the craigslist site for your city or the city you want to practice in and see what jobs are available.

Another reality check: look at the same listings to see what jobs are available for a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

[pdennis1000]

This is a great thread. I'm all for adding extra resources to my law school/career research. Thanks!

[CWF V]

OP, good links. Thanks.

Snooker, well said.

[invictus]

EXERCISE
http://www.craigslist.org/
Another reality check... Visit the craigslist site for your city or the city you want to practice in and see what jobs are available.

Another reality check: look at the same listings to see what jobs are available for a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

Or a BA in English.

Seriously, as long as I don't rack up over 100,000+ in debt, I think I'll be ok. $60,000/year entry level isn't bad at all, and there's a lot of room for growth.

[legalese_retard]

EXERCISE
http://www.craigslist.org/
Another reality check... Visit the craigslist site for your city or the city you want to practice in and see what jobs are available.

Another reality check: look at the same listings to see what jobs are available for a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

Or a BA in English.

Seriously, as long as I don't rack up over 100,000+ in debt, I think I'll be ok. $60,000/year entry level isn't bad at all, and there's a lot of room for growth.

That's exactly why I recommend an exercise like this to put your future in perspective. $60K/year is awesome after graduation; but couple that with loans in the $140-160K range and your COL is the same as after college or even right after high school.

[sbalive]

EXERCISE
http://www.craigslist.org/
Another reality check... Visit the craigslist site for your city or the city you want to practice in and see what jobs are available.

Another reality check: look at the same listings to see what jobs are available for a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

Or a BA in English.

Seriously, as long as I don't rack up over 100,000+ in debt, I think I'll be ok. $60,000/year entry level isn't bad at all, and there's a lot of room for growth.

That is the correct perspective. If you're starting with $0 or even up to $30-40K in debt, in the end you'll still have as much debt as an Engineering major & have similar salary prospects (setting aside inflated salaries during various bubbles). You'll also still have as much debt as an Architecture major and have much better salary prospects. And if you already have $100K+ debt after getting a BA in English, then why the hell not take on more, since you're already pretty much screwed.

[bigben]

Yup. It sucks that law is failing while the rest of the economy flourishes. Oh wait...

Good point, all markets are contracting and law is no different in this respect, in fact it's better than some. But law is fairly unique in having an overabundance of schools. They just can't seem to stop opening up law schools because they are so profitable.

Anyway, great thread.

[dapoetic1]

If you have $100k in debt just think of the same way you would a mortgage.

Obviously peopel that make less than $60,000/year are able to afford mortgages that are easily $100k+
The payback terms are essentially equal.
So it's not impossible to make that amount of money and pay off the debt.
Obviously you will not live lavilsy taking multiple exotic vacations evey year, driving the Aston Martin or having a summer house in the Hampton.
But if you have job satisfaction and realize that you will probably receive pay increases yearly you could be just fine.