Disturbing Slate Article Forum

[philipthegreat]

Dude nobody is arguing that mathematically half of all lawyers getting hired are above the median. It's just misleading because people assume they are part of the population as a whole when in reality they belong to one or the other sub-group. It's like people that pedantically argue about statistical minutiae thinking they should touch at least 3 boobs during high school because half of the population touches that many boobs but in reality they are going to touch zero (voice of experience here so don't get all mad)

They need to be shown a graph that looks like this: http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c203/ ... 20e1fb.jpg

[timbs4339]

Don't catch a falling knife is good advice.

Also lots of 0Ls need to do a lot more research before they blindly run off to law school thinking that those 85-95K jobs are just there for the picking.

Hypo: There are 40 cows. 21 of them are plump and have exquisitely marbled meat that is perfect for a steak, although some are more plump than others. 19 are tough, stringy, emaciated, and have all manner of diseases. Do you still want a random steak?

Other hypo: Now imagine that there are two ranches, one of which has 17/21 of the good cows and 3/19 of the bad cows. You're stuck getting steak from the other ranch. Still like your chances?

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Some things to keep in mind:

(1) Neither BLS estimates nor NALP numbers ought to be taken as gospel, but there are some pretty obvious reasons to be skeptical of the NALP numbers, since they're inflated by law school funded jobs, putative solos, long term jobs that aren't really long term, such as judicial clerkships, which in some cases are precursors to long term legal jobs but in others aren't, dubious reporting practices by both graduates and schools (for different reasons both have incentives to exaggerate the desirability of outcomes), etc. In other words, there's some air to be taken out of those numbers.

(2) As for salaries, one third of people who got jobs with firms didn't report a salary, or didn't have one imputed to them by their schools. The real median firm salary is therefore going to be somewhat lower -- and only half of all grads got firm jobs.

(3) That said, I don't think the Slate article is completely off base. The hiring market for new lawyers probably will be better three years from today than it is now, although of course there are a lot of variables that aren't knowable in advance. And the author recognizes that the reason it's likely to be better is that bad publicity has forced law schools to shrink their class sizes by nearly a quarter -- it's not as if they would have done so otherwise. He also recognizes that recommending that people consider "law school" is too generic: there are plenty of schools that literally nobody who isn't independtly wealthy and/or already hooked up with a post-grad job ought to go to, which means those schools shouldn't exist.

I agree. Thanks for posting, Paul.

[John Everyman]

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ ... art_2.html

Response to the criticism. Bet Weissmann has read this whole thread.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ ... art_2.html

Response to the criticism. Bet Weissmann has read this whole thread.

This guy discounts the possibility that new grads in '17 will have to compete with the glut of lawyers who are graduating now, or even five years ago. He mentions Biglaw and (some) government preference for new grads, but at best were talking about 15% of legal employers. To me, that's the biggest flaw in his thinking.

[jingosaur]

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ ... art_2.html

Response to the criticism. Bet Weissmann has read this whole thread.

This guy discounts the possibility that new grads in '17 will have to compete with the glut of lawyers who are graduating now, or even five years ago. He mentions Biglaw and (some) government preference for new grads, but at best were talking about 15% of legal employers. To me, that's the biggest flaw in his thinking.

Very true. A lot of the medium sized and smaller firms have no problem with hiring people who have been chronically unemployed/underemployed for a year or more as long as they don't have to pay them very much, which is the case now because of supply and demand.

I think Weissmann should back up his claim by going to a middle-tier law school and seeing if he gets employed in 3 years.

[checkers]

This guy discounts the possibility that new grads in '17 will have to compete with the glut of lawyers who are graduating now, or even five years ago. He mentions Biglaw and (some) government preference for new grads, but at best were talking about 15% of legal employers. To me, that's the biggest flaw in his thinking.

Genuinely asking: what is the chance that new grads will be competing with those from previous cycles for BigLaw (that 15%)? My impression was that those who strike out are seen as damaged goods, and BigLaw would rather hire someone fresh from school rather than a lawyer with a year's experience in SmallLaw. I'll extend my conjecture further: In the realm of BigLaw hiring, a new grad with good grades from a good school would be preferable to someone who had great grades from a great school, yet missed the boat in previous years due to the economy/increased competition.

Thoughts?

[timbs4339]

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ ... art_2.html

Response to the criticism. Bet Weissmann has read this whole thread.

This guy discounts the possibility that new grads in '17 will have to compete with the glut of lawyers who are graduating now, or even five years ago. He mentions Biglaw and (some) government preference for new grads, but at best were talking about 15% of legal employers. To me, that's the biggest flaw in his thinking.

Very true. A lot of the medium sized and smaller firms have no problem with hiring people who have been chronically unemployed/underemployed for a year or more as long as they don't have to pay them very much, which is the case now because of supply and demand.

I think Weissmann should back up his claim by going to a middle-tier law school and seeing if he gets employed in 3 years.

He addresses this, basically saying that law firms and legal organizations usually skip over the lost generation and hire entry-levels. He's right about biglaw, but that's a small proportion of legal hiring. I'm not sure that's the case about government anymore. And who knows whether Joe LLP is going to give the 40K associate position to an entry-level or to the person who has been doing $15/hr PT research for a year?

Honestly my problem with the article is that it's just a repeat of the same tired arguments pro-law school people have been making for awhile, like blaming Cooley or talking about the versatility of a law degree. Only now they happen to be stronger because law schools have responded to criticism by lowering class sizes. But he missed an opportunity to add some nuance. A good article would have essentially said "the entry-level job market is probably going to get better. But that doesn't mean going to law school is still a good decision. Here's some ways you can reduce your downside risk [quotes TLS advice about retaking, negotiating schollies, walking away if the price is not right]."

He got what he wanted, which is a lot of attention and a follow-up article, so I guess it was a success.

EDIT: I mean, we're also talking about the site that ran this article less than two months ago: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/cult ... annot.html