How many people are still applying to TTT and TTTT? Forum

[splitbrain]

Per NALP, 25,654 out of 44,258 2010 graduates had full-time jobs requiring JD degrees nine months after graduation.

http://www.nalp.org/uploads/NationalSum ... ls2010.pdf


That's 58% of all grads. Keep in mind that "full time jobs requiring a law degree" include:

(1) Temp work. A six-week doc review gig counts, as does a six month "clerkship" in five-person law office.

(2) Unpaid government and non-profit internships, i.e., "jobs" that don't feature actual pay.

(3) "Jobs" created by law schools to pump their employment stats. This represented more than 4% of all such jobs in 2010 and has gone up a lot since.

Don't count this stuff and you're down in the 40% range.

Ah, this link is even better.

And that right there is what we wish more schools were reporting.

Great resource, thank you for posting.

I wonder what constitutes the "Other" category of finding a position...

[flcath]

I just looked over that link: I can't believe 87.6% of law school graduates can find employment. (being serious)

I realize that includes PT and LLM, and excludes those not seeking, but that number still seems amazingly high. Given that most LS matriculants would never, in their wildest dreams, have this type of employability straight out of UG . . . maybe I've been wrong in shitting on LS all these years.

Unless I start seeing signs in windows that say "HELP WANTED: WORTHLESS POLI SCI SHITFACE WITH NO WORK EXPERIENCE PREFERRED" then I really can't in good conscience blame these kids. I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

[Tiago Splitter]

I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

????

[Errzii]

I can't math for shit but it looks like only 10% of those jerbs would justify attending LS at sticker.

[flcath]

I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

????

Use this: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/ ... BRCalc.jsp

Assume an income of $45K (not a bad salary at all . . . it's even more impressive if you go lower), and then enter in debt loads of $200K, $300K, and $400K, and see what the repayment rate is for each.

Spoiler: they're all the same ($360/month, which is actually very manageable compared to what these kids would be doing if they hadn't gone to LS).

[snehpets]

I just looked over that link: I can't believe 87.6% of law school graduates can find employment. (being serious)

I realize that includes PT and LLM, and excludes those not seeking, but that number still seems amazingly high. Given that most LS matriculants would never, in their wildest dreams, have this type of employability straight out of UG . . . maybe I've been wrong in shitting on LS all these years.

Unless I start seeing signs in windows that say "HELP WANTED: WORTHLESS POLI SCI SHITFACE WITH NO WORK EXPERIENCE PREFERRED" then I really can't in good conscience blame these kids. I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

this is an accurate description of me.

[poe]

I just looked over that link: I can't believe 87.6% of law school graduates can find employment. (being serious)

I realize that includes PT and LLM, and excludes those not seeking, but that number still seems amazingly high. Given that most LS matriculants would never, in their wildest dreams, have this type of employability straight out of UG . . . maybe I've been wrong in shitting on LS all these years.

Unless I start seeing signs in windows that say "HELP WANTED: WORTHLESS POLI SCI SHITFACE WITH NO WORK EXPERIENCE PREFERRED" then I really can't in good conscience blame these kids. I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

this is an accurate description of me.

+1

[Tiago Splitter]

I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

????

Use this: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/ ... BRCalc.jsp

Assume an income of $45K (not a bad salary at all . . . it's even more impressive if you go lower), and then enter in debt loads of $200K, $300K, and $400K, and see what the repayment rate is for each.

Spoiler: they're all the same ($360/month, which is actually very manageable compared to what these kids would be doing if they hadn't gone to LS).

You might want to also factor in the enormous tax consequence awaiting these people in 25 years. Adding 200K to your income (at 2037 tax rates) sounds awful.

[flcath]

I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

????

Use this: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/ ... BRCalc.jsp

Assume an income of $45K (not a bad salary at all . . . it's even more impressive if you go lower), and then enter in debt loads of $200K, $300K, and $400K, and see what the repayment rate is for each.

Spoiler: they're all the same ($360/month, which is actually very manageable compared to what these kids would be doing if they hadn't gone to LS).

You might want to also factor in the enormous tax consequence awaiting these people in 25 years. Adding 200K to your income (at 2037 tax rates) sounds awful.

Even assuming they don't legislate away the tax burden (which both sides seem to concede they will; the issue just hasn't been pressed yet since none of the major debtors has gotten there yet), it still sounds much, much better than 25 years of irregular work as a server at Chili's, assisting in the local library's renovation project for 2 months, and getting really excited when 1 out of 200 of your craigslist ads gets a bite.

[flcath]

I just looked over that link: I can't believe 87.6% of law school graduates can find employment. (being serious)

I realize that includes PT and LLM, and excludes those not seeking, but that number still seems amazingly high. Given that most LS matriculants would never, in their wildest dreams, have this type of employability straight out of UG . . . maybe I've been wrong in shitting on LS all these years.

Unless I start seeing signs in windows that say "HELP WANTED: WORTHLESS POLI SCI SHITFACE WITH NO WORK EXPERIENCE PREFERRED" then I really can't in good conscience blame these kids. I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

this is an accurate description of me.

+1

Since the working world does not recognize our collective value, we've formed our own profession--law studentia--where all are welcome, and all are allowed admission.

Welcome home!

[MTal]

Judging by the responses in this thread, I pray for the future of our country.

[Paul Campos]

I just looked over that link: I can't believe 87.6% of law school graduates can find employment. (being serious)

I realize that includes PT and LLM, and excludes those not seeking, but that number still seems amazingly high. Given that most LS matriculants would never, in their wildest dreams, have this type of employability straight out of UG . . . maybe I've been wrong in shitting on LS all these years.

Unless I start seeing signs in windows that say "HELP WANTED: WORTHLESS POLI SCI SHITFACE WITH NO WORK EXPERIENCE PREFERRED" then I really can't in good conscience blame these kids. I mean, yeah, they'll accrue $200K in fake "debt," but that means nothing since very few of them will ever have to pay it off.

Can't tell if this is meant seriously, but just in case: that employment figure includes ALL FORMS OF EMPLOYMENT. Working at Chili's part-time counts. You may think that your poli sci degree is "worthless," but just try to get an even vaguely professional non-law job of any kind once you have a law degree. This is the little secret (one of them anyway) that law school boosters never mention: a law degree interferes with the ability to acquire most forms of employment that don't involve actually practicing law (and this very much applies to LEGAL employment that doesn't require a law license -- most firms won't even consider someone with a JD for paralegal or admin jobs).

It's far from clear that, if you're not practicing law, a JD is a net positive on a resume, which is another way of saying that right now it's not clear that going to law school would make sense financially for someone who doesn't end up with a real career practicing law even if law school were free and there were no opportunity costs incurred by going to it.

Given that the real legal employment rate out of LS is currently about 40%, this is something to take into account.

[Extension_Cord]

The firm I work at has JD paralegals working under High School Diploma senior paralegals / managers. It's not just for a couple months until they pass the bar, its a long term relationship.

Having more education / student debt doesn't mean you will be better for a position than a high school graduate. In my firms case, they aren't.

[Paul Campos]

Probably more than half of the people graduating from law school right now are not going to have real legal careers. They'll wash out of the profession altogether within a few years of graduating. This includes significant numbers of people going to the hallowed T-14. If you don't have a job at graduation (something that right now is true for maybe 30% of the class in the bottom half of the T-14) there's a serious risk you'll never get a real legal job. And people who have Big Law jobs at graduation are far from home free. A lot of those people won't have those jobs three to five years down the line, and they're likely to end as unemployed lawyers. Any halfway decent job they apply for will feature dozens and often hundreds of applicants, many of whom will be as or more qualified than they are.

[Citation needed]

It's a pretty well known fact that law schools graduate 45,000, and that there are about 25,000 entry level legal jobs, not all of which are permanent or full time, brah

Listen, I get that it's tough out there. And I also get that this is a reasoning error. BUT, I'd be willing to bet there's a significant overlap of those 20,000 unemployed and attending bad schools (In fact, in another thread someone did some quick math and found out there's 8,000 between Cooley, John Marshalls, etc alone). Let's call it half, since we're all pessimistic. Half of law school grads won't find employment out of school. Half of these schools are terrible and are well known to have terrible job prospects. Coincidence?

It's like when I see stats that (for example), 60% of x's schools students have jobs at graduation. Wouldn't you be willing to bet that there's a strong correlation between employment at graduation and graduating in the top 60%? Obviously, there won't be a perfect overlap, but I'd be willing to bet that there's a stastically signifcant correlation.

I think the bottom line is if you insist on going to law school, go somewhere worthwhile and try and minimize debt. Size up the market for regional schools, and don't take out T14 type debt for a non-T14 type education.

I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle of "going to law school is a golden ticket" and "there's no jerbs and everyone is fucked".

Right?

This is lazy reasoning. "The truth lies somewhere in the middle" is a meaningless platitude, since the whole question is where in the middle. The big mistake 0Ls make is to assume that the relationship between career prospects and rankings is even roughly linear. If it were a linear relationship, this would mean that someone going to the #20 school would have career prospects about 90% as good as those of the average HYS grad, while somebody going to a school ranked #50 would have career prospects about 75% as good as those at HYS, while someone going to the #100 school would have prospects half as good, etc. A related mistake is to go completely in the other direction, as the quoted post does, and assume that almost everybody at tier one and even tier two schools are getting jobs while the employment rate at TTTs is 5% or something.

It doesn't work that way, at all. The career prospects at the number 30 school look way more like those at the number 195 school than they look like those at the T-6 schools (which aren't so great either when you consider debt, risk, and psychic costs).

[snehpets]

It doesn't work that way, at all. The career prospects at the number 30 school look way more like those at the number 195 school than they look like those at the T-6 schools (which aren't so great either when you consider debt, risk, and psychic costs).

I don't understand why you say things like this, because they really make it harder to believe that all this anti-law school stuff that you're saying is valid, unexaggerated information. Obviously, there is risk at every school. There's risk in every job in any field. However, in looking at University of Chicago, for example, 99% of their 2009 graduates were employed. Yes, I understand that some people get pushed out of their big law firms, but that's true of any job anywhere. I would take 99% employment post-graduation over my generally non-existent poli sci degree employment prospects any day. It's absurd to claim that the prospects at schools like this are "not great," because if that's true, then what is great? HYS? Wouldn't produce enough graduates. Or are you implying that it's only acceptable to go to the T-6 with no debt? That would produce far fewer lawyers than there are JD-required job openings a year. Furthermore, obviously schools couldn't afford to only matriculate students on full-rides.

Your posts, especially when you say things like the bolded above, just make it sound like law school will neverbe a good idea. I imagine that the future supreme court justices of the world who are graduating now will disagree with you pretty strongly a few years down the road.

I understand that you're more skilled in making arguments, that you're a law professor and I'm an uninformed 0L, etc., but if I'm the jury you're just not convincing me. I'm not trying to be disrespectful (even on the internet, lol), but if I'm supposed to take everything you say as if it were handed down on stone tablets the way most on this forum do, I would like to understand what exactly you're advocating and why. I I saw that someone asked you earlier what circumstances you do think that students should consider attending law school, but I didn't see your answer. Perhaps I missed it?

[splitbrain]

It doesn't work that way, at all. The career prospects at the number 30 school look way more like those at the number 195 school than they look like those at the T-6 schools (which aren't so great either when you consider debt, risk, and psychic costs).

I get that it's not linear but that's an incredibly misleading statement right there.

[sach1282]

This is lazy reasoning. "The truth lies somewhere in the middle" is a meaningless platitude, since the whole question is where in the middle. The big mistake 0Ls make is to assume that the relationship between career prospects and rankings is even roughly linear. If it were a linear relationship, this would mean that someone going to the #20 school would have career prospects about 90% as good as those of the average HYS grad, while somebody going to a school ranked #50 would have career prospects about 75% as good as those at HYS, while someone going to the #100 school would have prospects half as good, etc. A related mistake is to go completely in the other direction, as the quoted post does, and assume that almost everybody at tier one and even tier two schools are getting jobs while the employment rate at TTTs is 5% or something.

It doesn't work that way, at all. The career prospects at the number 30 school look way more like those at the number 195 school than they look like those at the T-6 schools (which aren't so great either when you consider debt, risk, and psychic costs).

What? Nearly nobody on this forum, and nobody I know personally, makes this assumption. Of course it's non-linear. It's something like an exponential curve with T-14 starting the up swing and Yale at the peak.

[splitbrain]

It doesn't work that way, at all. The career prospects at the number 30 school look way more like those at the number 195 school than they look like those at the T-6 schools (which aren't so great either when you consider debt, risk, and psychic costs).

I get that it's not linear but that's an incredibly misleading statement right there.

Right, so my chance at success is roughly the same if I attend Colorado-Boulder or Cooley?

Well, to be fair, that wasn't *exactly* his logic, but that is why it's misleading.

I think Professor Campos was just reinforcing the point that there is little to no linearity among rankings and employment "success" 9 months after graduation, though I must have missed the post where someone expressed there was (I just saw someone suggesting there is correlation).

[Paul Campos]

Also, Professor Campos, I have a question for you.

You obviously have a unique perspective being on the inside of acadamia, and I feel that you provide a valuable service to many who are otherwise uninformed or unitiated. But, how do you reconcile the fact that you profit from the very system that you rally against? The current system is broken and it's great that you are bringing attention to that, but aren't you as complicit as the rest in your contributions?

Certainly this doesn't make your argument and points any less valid, but it seems that if you feel as strongly as you do about law school being a scam, that would be hard to reconcile.

Of course I'm complicit. Reasons for continuing to stay in my job:

(1) I only started to grasp the dimensions of this problem about a year and a half ago. Even today, very few people in legal academia understand how bad things are. And we're the people with the inside information! (Or rather we would be those people, if we actually looked at the data, which only a handful of law professors are doing). I'm in a much stronger position to do something about this catastrophe -- and that's what it is -- from the inside.

(2) I've got debts no honest man can pay.

[Nelson]

It doesn't work that way, at all. The career prospects at the number 30 school look way more like those at the number 195 school than they look like those at the T-6 schools (which aren't so great either when you consider debt, risk, and psychic costs).

I understand that you're more skilled in making arguments, that you're a law professor and I'm an uninformed 0L, etc., but if I'm the jury you're just not convincing me. I'm not trying to be disrespectful (even on the internet, lol), but if I'm supposed to take everything you say as if it were handed down on stone tablets the way most on this forum do, I would like to understand what exactly you're advocating and why. I I saw that someone asked you earlier what circumstances you do think that students should consider attending law school, but I didn't see your answer. Perhaps I missed it?

Don't hold your breath. He's baiting everyone for attention with information that's far from revelatory. I'm not sure why we're supposed to treat this guy like a saint.

[danquayle]

campos is trolling y'all

Obvious, but well aimed.

[MTal]

campos is trolling y'all

Obvious, but well aimed.

On this site trolling is equated with the dissemination of unpleasant information.

[094320]

..

[MTal]

Also, Mtal, your problem is your inability to see that a lot of the people you're preaching to are at YHS/T14 with money/lower schools with full rides, and so your yelling at us to not go when we fit into the chunk of people who you think can go is nonsensical.

NYLS is a T14? Because that was the thread I was posting in until I was issued a board warning and told to get out.

[094320]

..