An Analysis of the Lawyer Surplus Forum

[flexityflex86]

be an RN or dental assistant off a 2-yr degree way better ROI than seven years of education to be a lawyer unless you're T14 material

Good advice. A girl I know is a dental X-ray tech and hygenist and is affiliated with a travelling dental clinic that provides care to soldiers on base thru a deal/contract with Uncle Sam. She was in Fort Dix, NJ last weekend and got paid a thousand bucks plus hotel and mileage for the weekend.

During the week she works as a hygenist at a dental office in northern NJ and gets $40 an hour plus free dental care for her family.

This is head and shoulders above what most non-Biglaw attorneys will make even several years into practice. As I've said before, the temp. jobs that are left in doc review pay as low as $22 an hour in NYC for admitted attorneys. The glut is far worse than you guys can imagine. Small firms nowadays rarely start anyone at a dime over 40 K.

It is indeed correct that a BA/BS degree needs, in this economy, to be viewed merely as a sunk cost and basically a 4 year waste of time, effort & money. It's beyond foolish to double down on edcuation and waste time/rack up debt for an even more worthless JD.

Accept right now that you will, in all likelihood, have a far lower standard of living and quality of life than your parents (and probably even grandparents) enjoyed. Law school will only increase that chance.

what if your parents are homeless? does that mean we need to move to africa?

[areyouinsane]

Here's a good read on the American economy:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... nimum-wage

I love this part of the article:

Most Americans don't really care about the economic minutiae that many of us who study the U.S. economy love to pour over. When it comes to the economy, the typical American citizen just wants to be able to get a good job, make a decent living and put bread on the table for the family. For generations, this arrangement has worked out quite well. The U.S. economy has provided large numbers of middle class jobs and the American people have worked hard and have helped this nation prosper like no other. But now people are starting to notice that something has shifted. Millions of people are looking around and are realizing that the jobs that are supposed to be there are not there anymore. The American people are still working hard (and in many cases harder than ever) but all of that hard work is producing fewer and fewer rewards. Often politicians will placate voters by telling them that they are working harder and harder for less and less. That tends to ring true with voters because that is a very accurate description of what so many of them are actually experiencing, but what the politicians don't tell us is that they are the ones to blame for the situation that we are in. As millions of jobs become obsolete because of technology and millions of other jobs are shipped overseas, our politicians tell us over and over that we can "compete" with anyone and that if we will just go out and get some more education we can make it happen. But those of us who are extremely over-educated know what a fraud that line is. The truth is that there are not nearly enough jobs for all of us no matter how "educated" we are. This is creating a lot of anger and frustration, and now even the IMF is warning that we could see "an explosion of social unrest" if high unemployment persists.

Spot-on, isn't it? "Education" is a complete fraud, as now even white-collar jobs like law are being outsourced left and right with the ABA's full blessing:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1 ... hbxlogin=1


Every doc reviewer in India is taking a job away from an American lawyer. An lawyer who graduated 4 years of college, took the LSAT, spent 3 hard years studying, took and passed a bar exam, and in all likelihood borrowed north of 100 K all told for "education."

The playing field is comically unlevel and getting worse all the time. Even small firms are now having routine pleading and other paperwork churned in Indian for pennies per doc.

Given the sheer volume of gruesome news re: the legal market, it's really amazing that there are threads on here for fool headed to 'Bozo, Brooklyn, NYLS and other comical TTT gutter toilets. What planet are these fools living on?

[Mick Haller]

If we are competing on a global level for jobs, why should we be paying 50x the tuition that students in other countries pay? In many countries they pay nothing.

We need a national student union like the one they have in the UK. You know, organize walkouts and such when they try to jack up our tuition.

[robotclubmember]

If we are competing on a global level for jobs, why should we be paying 50x the tuition that students in other countries pay? In many countries they pay nothing.

We need a national student union like the one they have in the UK. You know, organize walkouts and such when they try to jack up our tuition.

wow this is stupid

[Mick Haller]

If we are competing on a global level for jobs, why should we be paying 50x the tuition that students in other countries pay? In many countries they pay nothing.

We need a national student union like the one they have in the UK. You know, organize walkouts and such when they try to jack up our tuition.

wow this is stupid

Yeah about as stupid as your suggestion that we go become $15/hour plumbers.

[Zazelmaf]

If we are competing on a global level for jobs, why should we be paying 50x the tuition that students in other countries pay? In many countries they pay nothing.

We need a national student union like the one they have in the UK. You know, organize walkouts and such when they try to jack up our tuition.

Something like this sounds good, at least in theory. I don't know much about it, but I think we should have more of a say as students. It is kind of insane the amount of tuition that is paid, yet on the other hand, it keeps the numbers down. However, add a third hand in the mix, and you could say that more schools enter the mix for the profits due to the high tuition.

This should be explored, in great detail.

[areyouinsane]

Yeah about as stupid as your suggestion that we go become $15/hour plumbers.

I don't find that suggestion stupid in the least. Here's an assignment: pick up your local Yellow Pages and count the number of licensed plumbers vs. the number of lawyers. Nothing like a good refresher course on the law of supply & demand.

Also understand that, even at $15 an hour as an apprentice, you're at least making money and learning what you'll need to know to practice the trade on your own from someone who actually knows that they're doing. Compare this to law school, where you pay 45 K a year to learn nothing from people who have never actually practiced what they preach.

Understand that the reason there are so few LICENSED plumbers is that many apprentices simply lack the intellectual ability to pass the licensing exam. The exam tests things like business regs, reading blueprints, basic math/algebra, septic & environmental regs, etc. The typical plumber's apprentice with a GED or high school diploma simply won't have the ability to pass the test. This is borne out by the VERY high failure rate on the exam- only about 20% of takers pass the damn thing. AS someone who already holds a college degree, the test itself should present no problem.

Also understand that, rather than formal education, most states require a 3 or 4 year full-time apprenticeship before you can sit the test. You hours must be signed off & sworn to by your employer(s). This excellent idea is also how law was once taught before the ABA and student loan cartel took over the industry and required the nonsensical piece of toilet paper called a JD to sit the bar'zam.

The average licensed plumber handily outearns the average licensed lawyer. It's not even close. Here in NJ most plumbers charge $90 an hour plus a $50 service call fee. If they have to come out at night it's an extra $150 or so. There are also lots of upgrades going on re: furnaces and boilers etc because of the green tax credit you get for installing these new systems.

The difference is that the plumber can actually find enough customers to bill for 40, 50 or 60+ hours a week. If a pipe bursts at 2 am he has you by the balls- you either call him out and pay or have your house flooded. When is it ever urgent to hire a shitlawyer? Answer: almost never.

Also bear in mind there are no "pro bono" or public service plumbers. In fact, the law is the only industry so utterly in love with giving away professional services for free to deadbeats.

So in closing, anyone headed to a non Top 14 with scholly should really give the trades like plumbing, HVAC, electrical work etc a hard look. There's far less saturation and much more $$$$ than scrounging for table scraps, which is what you'll be doing if you miss the Biglaw/OCI boat.

Also if a plumbing business goes south, the loans etc can be discharged in bankruptcy. Not so for student loans. Get a JD and no job and you're stuck paying regardless. Also a lot of customers might pay cash, which of course is $$$ right in your pocket.

Try as you guys might, there simply is no way to put any positive spin on non-Biglaw practice. Hours are long, wages abysmal, and jobs beyond scarce. Not only that, things have every chance of getting much worse and almost no chance of getting better. Not to mention all the other red tape and aggrevation of CLE classes, bar dues, trust account audits, and other pointless garbage in this sorry gutter of an industry.

[scammedhard]

I know that this law school/higher ed fiasco is affecting countless lives, but I never imagined it would be as bad as for law school grads to consider suicide. Take a look at this post today in JD Underground:
(--LinkRemoved--)

GBCW (Jun 29 - 2:57 pm)

Long time lurker. In the same situation as many of you. I won't even bore with details. You can guess them. Big debt, no job, no life, fancy diploma. The usual.

I'm getting nowhere. I'm older than the usual grad (much) and I think all I did was make myself completely unemployable. I can't find anything. I went to a T14 but I can't even get interviews.

I'm broke and useless and worthless. My friends have lost all respect for me and can't understand why I don't just go sign up for one o' them fancy law firms like on TV. Ha. My parents keep telling me how they succeeded and how I just need to talk to my relatives and they'll find me a job. Double ha.

My wife is looking at me like I'm invisible. I was supposed to be the big bread winner. Now I can't afford a loaf of bread. I'm poorer than the guy sitting in his own piss on the street corner.

Bah. Oops. Some details slipped out.

Anyway, the question: no kidding, have any of you come close to just going nuts? Last week I started thinking about the .357 in my closet. Thinking about it often.

I don't think I'm quite suicidal yet, but I worry about going postal. I really do. I used to be pretty mellow. Now somebody cuts me off in traffic and - I swear to God - there are moments I almost ram them with my SUV. I have graphic fantasies of breaking their neck with my bare hands.

Sometimes I feel like I'm - this - close to losing it. Years of unemployment, no prospects, no hope, all the shattered dreams, all the massive debt, the look of disappointment in my family's eyes.

Sigh.

I know it sounds like whining, but its not really. I know that there are plenty in the same boat.

But all the "killself" jokes have me wondering: have any of you come close to it? Going postal? On yourself or others?

Feel free to tell me to fuck off and die. But take a number. There's a long line of people ahead of you already telling me that.

I am set to go to a T14 with a full scholarship in a few months, but I am now scared to death and doubting my decision. I don't want to mess up the rest of my life... I don't want to finish like this guy.

[fatduck]

areyouinsane:

areyouaplumber?

[Hannibal]

I am set to go to a T14 with a full scholarship in a few months, but I am now scared to death and doubting my decision. I don't want to mess up the rest of my life... I don't want to finish like this guy.

Full ride at a T14 = get over yourself. If you don't want to risk the small chance you'll be 60-70k in debt with less job prospects than you have now, never cross the street or drive a car or eat sushi. Death is worse than the debt equivalent to a Mercedes. Jesus christ.

[fatduck]

I am set to go to a T14 with a full scholarship in a few months, but I am now scared to death and doubting my decision. I don't want to mess up the rest of my life... I don't want to finish like this guy.

Full ride at a T14 = get over yourself. If you don't want to risk the small chance you'll be 60-70k in debt with less job prospects than you have now, never cross the street or drive a car or eat sushi. Death is worse than the debt equivalent to a Mercedes. Jesus christ.

username: scammedhard

[Mick Haller]

areyouinsane:

areyouaplumber?

ishescottbullock?

there's no way in hell I am reading that tome on the merits of the plumbing profession.

[NYC Law]

I am set to go to a T14 with a full scholarship in a few months, but I am now scared to death and doubting my decision. I don't want to mess up the rest of my life... I don't want to finish like this guy.

[mpj_3050]

Get the fuck out of here. Go be a plumber, electrician, or something! I know people in these professions and guess what? They hate it just like lawyers hate their jobs.

There are hardly any jobs period. Law students aren't the only ones getting fucked by the economy.

[Hannibal]

Get the fuck out of here. Go be a plumber, electrician, or something! I know people in these professions and guess what? They hate it just like lawyers hate their jobs.

There are hardly any jobs period. Law students aren't the only ones getting fucked by the economy.

I dunno bro. Grad school for journalism is looking good to me right now.

[areyouinsane]

There are hardly any jobs period. Law students aren't the only ones getting fucked by the economy.

But other people "getting fucked" aren't wasting 3 years of their lives and a substantial amount of money to enter an industry where it's extremely likely they will not find paying work.

[mpj_3050]

There are hardly any jobs period. Law students aren't the only ones getting fucked by the economy.

But other people "getting fucked" aren't wasting 3 years of their lives and a substantial amount of money to enter an industry where it's extremely likely they will not find paying work.

This is true of course. People shouldn't pay 100k for Thomas Jefferson or something along these lines. People have to be smart about the debt and prospects (schools don't help on this).

Probably just a little pissy because of all the anxiety surrounding the job market, don't usually go off on the internet.

[Hannibal]

There are hardly any jobs period. Law students aren't the only ones getting fucked by the economy.

But other people "getting fucked" aren't wasting 3 years of their lives and a substantial amount of money to enter an industry where it's extremely likely they will not find paying work.

Could have sworn there was just something about how you have to apprentice for 3 or 4 years before you can even take the test to be a plumber.

[robotclubmember]

apprentices are paid.

look, this isn't a debate about being a plumber or a lawyer. plumber was one example of a skilled labor job with low barrier to entry and good prospects of employment. the point is, law school is good for about half as many people as go into it. this generation has been indoctrinated to fear manual labor and to seek more and more useless degrees with a sense of entitlement that their hands should never be soiled with a speck of dust and they should never drop a bead of sweat over their work. a nation of pussies.

and yes, plumbers hate their jobs. but job satisfaction isn't the issue, no one really likes there work or else they wouldn't have to be paid to do it. i'd rather hate a job than not have one.

[Hannibal]

People can like jobs. I've had a job I hate more than the one I have now and a job I hate less than the one I have now. Also, getting paid $15/hour, depending on where you live, could be considered "wasting 3 years" if we're considering law school to be that as well.

[crossarmant]

There are hardly any jobs period. Law students aren't the only ones getting fucked by the economy.

But other people "getting fucked" aren't wasting 3 years of their lives and a substantial amount of money to enter an industry where it's extremely likely they will not find paying work.

Bullshit. Ask any motherfucker with a graduate degree in history or English or any other non-marketable graduate dgree what they're doing with it. I have people in my office with grad degrees from UVA doing the same schlep work as I am and making barely anything. You can rabble rabble all you want about the merits of a plumber over a lawyer but you're full of shit. You have only referenced schools and work in the NYC area, you realize the legal community and the U.S, as a whole is much larger than the 40 sq. mi of NYC, right? NYC has the largest surplus of lawyers in the country. You have to be bat shit insane to move there searching for work when there are a slew of other markets more amenable to less than T14 grads.

My grandfather was a plumber, set up most of the plumbing grid for Syracuse, NY in the 1960-70s (back when you could earn a fucking living on a sole income in blue collar work). Made just enough to scrape by with 4 kids, my grandmother worked part-time to pay the mortgage on their 3 bedroom house in BFE with a low CoL. You know what all that toil got him? Just enough to retire on and a death from lung cancer at 65.

I'm not going to say that law is a great and thriving profession for all, that Cooley grads are going to be living the Boats n' Hoes lifestyle, but it's not goddamn Ragnarok as you like to make it seem with your spammed craigslist ads and doomsday news articles. Everyone is hurting. It's a fucking depression, people are out of work, you can't afford what you could in 2005, work in the white collar sector is hard to come by, yada yada. You can pick and choose news articles for any sector and make it seem like the end of times are nigh:

http://www.pinoymoneytalk.com/us-mba-schools/ Oh no! Unemployment rates for Chicago MBAs increased from 2.5% in 2007 to 13.5% in 2009! The GODDAMN sky is FALLING!

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/new ... d=H_E_News College tuition is raising across the board! Let's work at Wal-Mart! $9 dollars an hour is better than $25k of undergrad debt and better job prospects!

Face it, plenty of people in the legal profession do alright and some don't. It's the same with any field. I know people in engineering who are doing well and others who can't find work, same goes for finance, or architecture, or biology or any other fucking field. Seriously.

Not everyone attorney needs to be making the kind of money where their pouring Dom Perignon on hookers, like many here seem to believe. I know of several solo practitioners who struck out on the firm front and are making solid fucking money, own land and enjoy themselves. JDs may not be the most versatile degree, but jesus fucking christ on a dildo, getting a JD is not handcuffing your self to an atomic bomb.

[fatduck]

apprentices are paid.

look, this isn't a debate about being a plumber or a lawyer. plumber was one example of a skilled labor job with low barrier to entry and good prospects of employment. the point is, law school is good for about half as many people as go into it. this generation has been indoctrinated to fear manual labor and to seek more and more useless degrees with a sense of entitlement that their hands should never be soiled with a speck of dust and they should never drop a bead of sweat over their work. a nation of pussies.

and yes, plumbers hate their jobs. but job satisfaction isn't the issue, no one really likes there work or else they wouldn't have to be paid to do it. i'd rather hate a job than not have one.

look, this isn't a debate about [false dilemma]. everyone knows [wild generalization].

/groundhogday

[Hannibal]

apprentices are paid.

look, this isn't a debate about being a plumber or a lawyer. plumber was one example of a skilled labor job with low barrier to entry and good prospects of employment. the point is, law school is good for about half as many people as go into it. this generation has been indoctrinated to fear manual labor and to seek more and more useless degrees with a sense of entitlement that their hands should never be soiled with a speck of dust and they should never drop a bead of sweat over their work. a nation of pussies.

and yes, plumbers hate their jobs. but job satisfaction isn't the issue, no one really likes there work or else they wouldn't have to be paid to do it. i'd rather hate a job than not have one.

look, this isn't a debate about [false dilemma]. everyone knows [wild generalization].

/groundhogday

<3

[robotclubmember]

People can like jobs. I've had a job I hate more than the one I have now and a job I hate less than the one I have now. Also, getting paid $15/hour, depending on where you live, could be considered "wasting 3 years" if we're considering law school to be that as well.

I think a rational person, if pay were not a factor, would choose to not go to work, as opposed to go to work. But you'll always find exceptions.

It's not just 3 years. It's 7. Think about that. Seven years of lost income and accumulated debt is the price of entry into the legal profession. Start as an apprentice in a skilled trade, making $15/hour at 18 years old fresh out of HS isn't so bad. Seven years out, you've got a house a wife some kids... you know, things that actually matter in life. The things you had to put off until later, until later, for the dubious prospect of becoming a lawyer. Consider the time value of money too. The debt incurred early in life is amplified in significance by the time value of money, as is the opportunity cost of not working steadily for seven years.

My argument is simply that law school is a questionable financial decision in light of the alternatives.

[robotclubmember]

apprentices are paid.

look, this isn't a debate about being a plumber or a lawyer. plumber was one example of a skilled labor job with low barrier to entry and good prospects of employment. the point is, law school is good for about half as many people as go into it. this generation has been indoctrinated to fear manual labor and to seek more and more useless degrees with a sense of entitlement that their hands should never be soiled with a speck of dust and they should never drop a bead of sweat over their work. a nation of pussies.

and yes, plumbers hate their jobs. but job satisfaction isn't the issue, no one really likes there work or else they wouldn't have to be paid to do it. i'd rather hate a job than not have one.

look, this isn't a debate about [false dilemma]. everyone knows [wild generalization].

/groundhogday

thank you for clarifying

EDIT - just to add though, not everyone does know [wild generalization]. that's why it's worth repeating again and again. people should actively be discouraged from joining the field of law for that reason, because many applicants really just don't know.