hyperbole on my part? slightly. but it is basically the message i give people. I was in consulting in my career prior to law school and when the economy exploded in everyone's face in 2008 things were forever changed. from a corporate context, client firms finally realized that the service industry is basically a scam and there is no way they should have to pay so much for said services. The comparisons between different consulting fields and law are direct because while the subject matter of the work is different, it really is the same thing.1swift wrote:Not sure if 100% serious or not but I feel thats a bit unfair. This is clearly not a great time, we're all in this grey area and even those that did pass in July and years before it's not great but there is opportunity and reason to believe things can and will get better.fl0w wrote:i tell everyone i know that going to law school is the worst idea. i tell people currently there to drop out. i tell people graduating to get out of the profession immediately.a male human wrote:Thanks MURPH. I'm supposed to get my first project soon. Glad you were able to secure a source of income. It's ridiculous how hard (less so if it's a non-lawyer job) it is to find something that pays more than the already paltry sum I was paid before law school. Is it ethical to knowingly allow or encourage someone to apply to law school? I feel doing so would be malicious, kind of like the State Bar. An acquaintance told me she was thinking of going to law school, and I merely offered her to help with any advice she might need. I felt bad for not discouraging it.
Oh, I had a dream that I failed the bar because I didn't make the cut in the MBE. I actually believed it for a while until I realized it was really a fabrication of my mind.
I don't sugercoat or outwardly encourage anyone to go to law school or continue it, I tell them how things are that I had no clue about but I do that so they have a more informed decision not because I believe they shouldn't go to law school if they want to,.
"biglaw" was slightly more insulated because it truly is a necessary evil to most companies. but they realized they had more power to drive their legal services instead of letting biglaw dictate the terms. add all of this to the brain drain occurring in law schools since 2010-ish. newly minted graduates found no opportunity because of an excess supply of bodies when bliglaw needed to cull the heard. so the "smart bet" became not going to law school at all. The best and brightest are finally realizing that it is better and brighter to seek success elsewhere. Small firms are in a prime place to scoop up the scraps of best talent, so good for them.
"public service" just became incredibly scary (moreso) as well. If you didn't want to work for "the man" and wanted to be the peoples' champion, well now the whole loan forgiveness aspect is in critical jeopardy with the change in legislation. So you'll never be able to repay your loans. Oh, also there are basically no government jobs. The hiring freeze very recently started being lifted but departments are still struggling to find finding for positions.
So is law school a good idea? No. As always, I think being an engineer is really the ticket to true security. I happen to be both, and that has afforded me the ability to have a desirable skill set for patent litigation and allowed me to be employed in biglaw. I'm very lucky in that regard and this was not my original plan by any means.
If you can get out of the profession, should you? Yes. It's going to shit. Lawyers are typically the most unhappy in terms of job satisfaction. The ability to secure pay that is adequate to justify the pain and to pay back your loans is sharply declining. Again, i'm lucky that i actually find my work interesting and don't want to kill myself daily. But this is because I'm an engineer first and I enjoy the aspect of reading and arguing about patents in the tech arena. It's not necessary the legal part that gets my rocks off. Many of my colleagues, while they feel fortunate to be in their position, just don't like what they have to do in order to maintain it.
Also everyone I know that was able to free themselves of the belief that "things will get better" in this industry and went on to do something unrelated are infinitely happier. Sure it might be anecdotal, but it is still very real.
TLDR; am I really being that unfair? I don't think so. The profession is in sharp decline, everyone (including themselves) hates lawyers anyway, job security is gone, loan forgiveness is gone next, and I'll be damned if the "160k" mark isn't the subsequent thing to slide in biglaw.
