Why are people so scared of debt at top law schools? Forum

[nealric]

I find people tend to be either overly optimistic regarding debt or overly pessimistic. A few things I think everyone should keep in mind:

1) Even though you have a certain degree of control through hustle, etc., it's most helpful to think about law school as an odds game when making decisions.

2) While expected financial outcomes can be looked at purely objectively, only you can evaluate the marginal utility of a dollar in your context. You may be selecting a choice with an 80% chance of success and a 20% chance of failure. How much will success mean to you and how bad will failure hurt? Your personal circumstances may have a lot to do with it. Do you have family who will bail you out if push comes to shove, or do you have family depending on you to carry them?

3) Purely my opinion, but I think folks tend to be a bit too pessimistic on outcomes for biglaw. Yes, most folks aren't at the firm they start with for very long. But the vast majority of people I know who started with me in biglaw 10 years ago are making at least close to what they made starting biglaw (in many cases much more). To be fair, I've yet to see really good data on this point. But I feel like the default assumption here is often that you will burn out of biglaw in 2 years then work some job making half that much for the rest of your career. To be certain, that does happen, but I wouldn't make it a default assumption.

4) Cost control when working is up to you. People who feel compelled to move into their own 1-bedroom with a doorman in a hot Manhattan neighborhood are going to have little left after expenses. If you are really debt adverse, it won't kill you to live in the same sorts of situations you were probably used to as a student. A few roommates in a place in Brooklyn or Queens can drastically cut housing expenses.

5) Careers can last a really long time. $200k seemed like a vast sum of money when I was in law school. Now, it doesn't. The primary risk isn't the debt itself, it's taking on debt and failing to launch a career with commensurate earning potential. Failure to launch risk exists even if one has no debt at all. Note that the "launch" isn't just securing the biglaw job initially, but developing a network, skillset, and trajectory that enables you to continue working and growing at that level.

Overall, the decision of how much debt to take is highly personal, and I would be wary of any one size fits all advice.