If it is biglaw or bust, you've answered your own question. I think you should talk to reasonable man about smaller firms, though. It should also be noted that right now =/= forever, with the exception of biglaw.

Before people freak out, my roommate used to work at a very well known legal nonprofit here in the city. She said they routinely hire from NYU down to Brooklyn, and they even took someone from CUNY. I'm sure Harvard students take precedence, but there really aren't enough of them to take every single job in existence.

EDIT: You are at CLS. Do you really feel that there are not enough legal jobs for all your classmates? I'm not speaking of biglaw here, but of some minimally interesting position in which a JD is required. I mean, Columbia is not known for dumping a bunch of unemployed people out into Morningside Heights. If things have changed to the point that you will never find such a job as a CLS grad, we should all kill ourselves now, lol.

Several people I admire very much are 1Ls at CLS now. (Columbians are lovely people, FTR. They were so welcoming when I went drinking up there.) They're worried, but they're not on the verge of dropping out.

I hope you stay, but if biglaw is truly what you wanted, I can understand why you made this thread. What you've said is certainly true at this very moment (absent the existence of boutiques, and firms like reasonable man's.)

But keep in mind these are the shit jobs that where you might end up making $60K a year, and that $140K+ debt you will be accumulating will never be paid off.

But keep in mind these are the shit jobs that where you might end up making $60K a year, and that $140K+ debt you will be accumulating will never be paid off.

Is it impossible to pay off debt without a six figure salary? No.

Is it impossible to pay off debt without a six figure salary? No.

Almost. Let's say you make 50k before taxes. For simplicities sake, we'll be conservative and say you take home 36k. If you have 160k in debt at 7% interest, if you paid 1k a month, you'd never touch the principle, but only be covering the interest. 1/3 of your post-tax income just to not fall deeper in the hole.

Even paying it off 160k when you make 90 is not exactly fun.

People get raises, people get new jobs, people change careers.

Is it impossible to pay off debt without a six figure salary? No.

People get raises, people get new jobs, people change careers.

Almost. Let's say you make 50k before taxes. For simplicities sake, we'll be conservative and say you take home 36k. If you have 160k in debt at 7% interest, if you paid 1k a month, you'd never touch the principle, but only be covering the interest. 1/3 of your post-tax income just to not fall deeper in the hole.

Even paying off 160k when you make 90 is not exactly fun.

Umm. OK, well post tax that 60K is about $40K, and 8.5% interest on $170K (let's assume OP paid $30K for his first year and there was no interest accrual across the three years for simplicity sake) is $14.5K a year. So you would need to pay more then $14.5K a year just to pay down your loans. So OP paid $20K each year and lived off the remaining $20K, then all that would be paid off is about $5K off the principle of $170K. So do that for another 8 billion year and live like a homeless person (or actually be homeless), then yes, his loans may eventually get paid off.