I was just curious. I hear over at JD underground and even on this board to some degree that going to law school is a one way ticket to unemployment and debt. I've also heard that if you aren't top 5-10% at a tier 2 school then you are fucked for life. But I haven't seen the evidence of this. I know plenty of people at my tier 2 state law school who just graduated and are making decent money at non-big law firms. The MEDIAN starting salary for graduates of this school is 70,000$ with 65% reporting. Ok, so only 65% reported their salary, but even assuming everyone who didn't report that salary is making substantially less than that, it still expresses a more optimistic picture than I see everyone else on this board painting. I don't think a 50-70 thousand dollar job is too bad considering I'll probably only be coming out with 50 thousand dollars worth of debt due to in-state tuition. Whats with all this T14 or bust mentality??

Doom and gloom if you want to make 160k as a 25 year old, otherwise I think it's overrated.

I don't think it's overrated. A quick story: I work with an attorney whose wife is currently at Stanford Law. She is worried about finding a job. Think about that.

It's a really bad market and you have the class of 2009 and 2010 who are hit pretty hard. Loads of qualified lawyers are out of work. The legal market is contracting with alot of corporations hit hard and the financials too, business are trying to be much more conservative with the way they spend capital - one way to do that is to find cheaper legal services or do most legal work in-house.

That being said, it's going to be tough for most people, esp if they don't do well in school. If you don't distinguish yourself/have marketable skills you're going to be unemployed.

You really should think about, is this what I want and back-up plans if you don't get BIGLAW.

well biglaw was never a consideration for me. I'd rather work at something I enjoy, such as public interest or government work, than make big bucks hating what I do. But I don't see how a 50 or even 40 thousand dollar salary is all that bad. I mean how many people in this country make a 6 digit salary, much less a 25 year old??

A lot of the JD underground people went to T2-T4 in or near major markets, paid full price, and where expecting to be a big wig corporate lawyer.

A lot of people here, want big law jobs in major cities. In this case its truly is T14 or bust.

Going to a local T2, with a small amount of debt looking to get a small firm job in your local city isn't a bad idea. But plenty of people go to T2's expecting to be rich, and they won't be.



Without scholarships (or prior savings) how are you only going to have 50K in debt? Are you not counting living expenses?

with living expenses and tuition it adds up to about 25K a year. so without any scholarship at all it would be about 75K. I'm being a bit optimistic and hoping for a small scholarship which I have read that about half of the students attending the school receive. But you're right, It would probably end up being more like 60-70K a year

So $50k is well above the median salary, but I'd imagine many of the people going to law school expected to have better prospects than that. There are a decent number of people who could've made $50k just with their UG degree.

I don't want to discourage you but keep this in mind. The non-profit and government work is great but the competition for those jobs is fierce right now. BIGLAW isn't hiring much, so alot of the t14 people are applying to these positions as well.

Don't take it for granted that just because they don't pay much, there isn't a line of lawyers waiting for a position. Many people from the top law schools are waiting for these positions as well.

It’s not total doom and gloom, but it’s a very tough market out there. It used to be you went to law school and you could count on people coming to your school looking to hire you, it did not take much effort on the students part. People assume that was how they would find a job. So they did not actively look for one on their own.

Those days are gone, even at top schools, if you’re going to law school now just know you need to be proactive about your job search from day one, next to grades it should be your top priority. Get out of school, networking with lawyers, intern, get you name out there and make connections. You just can’t rely on the school’s name to get you a job anymore. The students who are very proactive from the first day of 1L will have better end results than those that aren’t.

A lot of T14 students would be really happy to get a $50-$70k PI job ITE.

[quote="rayiner"]So $50k is well above the median salary, but I'd imagine many of the people going to law school expected to have better prospects than that. There are a decent number of people from ivies, other top undergrads, and those with engineering degrees who could've made $50k just with their UG degree.[/quote]

Fixed. People on here need a reality check---it is extremely difficult to get a job paying 50K plus with just an undergrad degree if it's not in engineering or from some sort of top undergrad. People keep saying things like "don't go into law right now it's awful, it's better just to take other options" What the hell are these "other options" that people are lining up to give away? I'm not sure were all these awesome options are that exist outside the law that people say you should go into instead of attending a non top 14. The simple truth is that it is hard out here in every field short of medicine---and that compared to a lot of jobs law is really a much better option. The only options that are really all that "better" are so hard to get it isn't even funny.

I gave up a $50k/yr job to go to law school. Yes, ITE. A lot of jobs that pay that well without requiring advanced degree suck. There's a reason they pay so well and yet still go unfilled--nobody wants to work them! I'm finding law school less stressful than my old job, even given the whole "ITE nojobs" thing. I'd rather have the chance at a better job than a lifetime sticking to my old one because "it paid well".

The flipside to that is, I also went to a T14. I'm not advocating being entirely stupid.

Before you go to law school, assume the worst case scenario. Are you comfortable with working at temp agency doing document review in a basement for $25/hour for your first few years of practice? Are you OK with working part-time at a McDonalds while doing free legal work at a clinic after graduation? Can you live in the city you want to move to a with $1K+/month student loan payment on a salary paying less than $50K/year?

That is the reality facing law students/new lawyers TODAY. I'm assuming it will get better when you graduate, but maybe not. The commercial real estate market is about to experience an interest rate adjustment that homeowners were facing several months ago. Depending on how risk averse you are and if you have a "plan B" in mind will determine whether or not you should go to law school - even at a tier 2 instate school.

That $65K median stat is probably based on 2007, when the market was begining to collapse. I wouldn't be surprised if the school's employment rate decreased 10-20% and the median salary getting close to $40-50K/year.

Frankly though, what plan B are you thinking of?? If the legal profession is hit so hard, don't you think its that much worse trying to find a job straight from undergrad with an English degree??

You probably fit into one of the above bolded categories---for most other people these ubiquitous 50K+ jobs open to recent college graduates are not available.


Bingo. The problem with this website though is that a lot of people with English degrees on here got them from Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Berkeley, Michigan, Amherst etc. and thus can get a great job straight from undergrad with just an English degree. It heavily twists their perceptions of what one can do with an undergrad degree in a non engineering or accounting major.

I don't think not being able to find a job is a good enough reason to take out a mortgage on your life and go to a second-tier law school.

If you want to go to actually study law and that's what you want, i think that's great. But to go to law school because you can't find a job, doesn't seem like the wisest choice.

...

Having an English degree and being able to write well is a very marketable skill. There are tons of law firms who would be willing to hire a paralegal who could write well. There are jobs around, you just have to work hard to find them.

You probably won't find your dream job but being realistic in this economic enviroment is a virtue.

If you think not being able to find a job now is bad, think about not being able to find a job after law school with over 50k - 150k in loan debt.

Remember, it's not just law school but also the bar that you need to pass to be able to work as an attorney.

Not a pretty picture.

I think some degree of "doom and gloom" is appropriate, because the job market is undoubtedly worse than it was a few years ago. I legitimately feel bad for people today who are not getting Biglaw offers who would have in 2007. I'm not worried about myself, though. I got my undergrad degree in political science at a little liberal arts college nobody's ever heard of and then worked for two years at three different jobs with sub-30k/yr salaries (culminating in 3 months of waiting tables over the summer before law school). I'll be about 25k in debt at most when I graduate (thank god for free tuition) so things can really only improve.

I can certainly see the calculation being much different if someone is leaving a fairly high-paying job and/or going into deep debt for the prospect of making 160k+, though. They definitely picked an unfortunate time to switch careers and/or borrow 200 grand.

The sky is falling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you go into it with the understanding that you aren't going to be doing biglaw there is nothing wrong with going to a T2 with in-state tuition that is strong in its region. 50-80k in educational debt isn't that big a deal, easily repayable on a 40k+ salary, especially if you don't live in New York or San Francisco. Not everyone can make 50k+ straight out of UG, and even for those who do, the ceiling on what they can make in their field may be quite a bit lower than that of even a lawyer working in a small firm or for state or local government.

The only real difference between a T15-30 and a T2 is that if you do well you can get biglaw/federal clerkships/prestigious government, whereas at a T2 you would really have to be at the very top of your class for those opportunities. That may be a big difference, but similar in the sense that anyone going to a school outside of the T14 (maybe higher ITE) should know that biglaw is by no means a guarantee.

Personally, I will be going to a T30 with in-state tuition. I currently make a little better than 30k per year and there is no real room for advancement where I work, I could probably move around and eventually work my way up to a 60-80k salary, but that would be over the course of a career. I'll be taking out about 80k in student loans to go to the school I am headed to, which, based on my calculations, will turn out to be an immediately worthwhile financial investment if I am making better than 50k per year after school. As long as I don't really screw up in law school that should be quite doable. I will be perfectly happy, and have greater earning potential than I do now, if I end up working for the state AGs office, or at a small firm, or someplace like that. On top of that, I do have a shot at big law and other prestigious career options, even if that is not the most likely outcome it is fare from inconceivable, and that is pretty awesome, those career options are so far from what is available to me now that it is hard to even imagine.

Keep in mind that we have not experienced a legal market dropoff this bad before. I know the depression was a lot worse, but big law firms didn't exist back then. With a lot of the firm's clients demanding lower rates and providing less business, big firms will have a holding pattern on law firm hiring. When there were minor recessions in the past, big firms would still recruit knowing that they will be undertaking a short-term loss. They did this because they didn't want to take a hit to their reputation and for future law student recruiting. Today, all firms are shedding jobs, instituting hiring freezes, and decreasing salaries. There is no negative stigma attached to firms that don't recruit or are laying off people.

Traditionally, if you were unsuccessful at obtaining a big law firm job at graduation, your chances of getting into big law firms further down your career was slim. Big firms inbreed and will only really hire within the big firm network. When the legal economy turns around in 5-years, who knows if big firms will hire folks who had the initial credentials for big firms but never got the chance at a big firm job due to the economy. Will firms give these folks a pass because of the economy or just look at the big firm refugees still glutting up the market?

Biglaw is really where the biggest problems in the legal market right now smaller firms have not been hit nearly as hard, so as long as you don't go to school counting on biglaw it shouldn't be too bad, especially since the economy will in all likelyhood be considerably better in a year or two. I would argue that there are very few schools you can go to and really count on biglaw, probably just HYS, if you don't get into one of those, it is probably advisable to not count on biglaw and to go someplace where your debt is not going to be unreasonable.

Actually I didn't. There was no requirement for an engineering degree or any other specific type of degree. I was actually working a job that didn't require a degree at all, you could substitute a sufficient amount of work experience and still get it. Essentially it was a manager-level position that you could earn by starting at the bottom and working your way up if you didn't have a degree. With a degree and one year of experience I was an easy shoe-in for the promotion.

But they were consistently understaffed. Nobody wanted the job, it just sucked that much. That's how it is with jobs that make that kind of money. I mean, without a college degree at all you can go out and make $100k a year as a car salesman, but not everyone is satisfied with that kind of work and what it takes either. There are just some jobs where the money is not worth what the job does to you.

There's no doom OR gloom. It's all just a figment of your imagination.