RECESSION PANIC MEGAPOST: Bad economy threads go here! Forum

[vanwinkle]

For most people going to law school might be a mistake, but I was BORN and BRED for SUCCESS and ACHIEVEMENT.

[Nom Sawyer]

For most people going to law school might be a mistake, but I was BORN and BRED for SUCCESS and ACHIEVEMENT.

--ImageRemoved-- ?

[thwalls]

See, this is why I got my Medicinal Chemistry PhD first. IP law dominates. The best quote I've ever heard around here:

"Cities rise and fall but IP remains."

Something to that effect. Classic.

[MC Southstar]

See, this is why I got my Medicinal Chemistry PhD first. IP law dominates. The best quote I've ever heard around here:

"Cities rise and fall but IP remains."

Something to that effect. Classic.

You'd still be safer going to med school.

[CE2JD]

For most people going to law school might be a mistake, but I was BORN and BRED for SUCCESS and ACHIEVEMENT.

That's my line dammit. Also, from now on, I'm signing all my posts with the word count from my torts exam.

-10k

[thwalls]

See, this is why I got my Medicinal Chemistry PhD first. IP law dominates. The best quote I've ever heard around here:

"Cities rise and fall but IP remains."

Something to that effect. Classic.

You'd still be safer going to med school.

I'm surrounded by MDs every day who make crap after they pay their insurance premiums. There is no safe bet in this economy and anyone who can fool themselves into believing there is one - regardless of what school they get into - is an idiot. You have to make your own luck.

[vanwinkle]

For most people going to law school might be a mistake, but I was BORN and BRED for SUCCESS and ACHIEVEMENT.

That's my line dammit. Also, from now on, I'm signing all my posts with the word count from my torts exam.

-10k

That line belongs to all of us now. Besides, clearly you can find other ways to express being a TLS douchebag.

[MC Southstar]

See, this is why I got my Medicinal Chemistry PhD first. IP law dominates. The best quote I've ever heard around here:

"Cities rise and fall but IP remains."

Something to that effect. Classic.

You'd still be safer going to med school.

I'm surrounded by MDs every day who make crap after they pay their insurance premiums. There is no safe bet in this economy and anyone who can fool themselves into believing there is one - regardless of what school they get into - is an idiot. You have to make your own luck.

I didn't say you'd make more money, but I still think it'd be a safer bet. Of course, that's not all that matters, etc.

[thwalls]

See, this is why I got my Medicinal Chemistry PhD first. IP law dominates. The best quote I've ever heard around here:

"Cities rise and fall but IP remains."

Something to that effect. Classic.

You'd still be safer going to med school.

I'm surrounded by MDs every day who make crap after they pay their insurance premiums. There is no safe bet in this economy and anyone who can fool themselves into believing there is one - regardless of what school they get into - is an idiot. You have to make your own luck.

I didn't say you'd make more money, but I still think it'd be a safer bet. Of course, that's not all that matters, etc.

As someone who has close ties to both fields IP law and Medicine, I disagree strongly with you.

[dresden doll]

As I learned in my Elements class this semester, this is an issue of bounded rationality. I also learned that everyone suffers from it. That includes the OP.

[galahad85]

Summary:

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[MC Southstar]

As someone who has close ties to both fields IP law and Medicine, I disagree strongly with you.

Well, I'm not going to argue with you because that is better for me anyway.

[nycparalegal]

Is it just me or does the fourth part of the video (A Law School Carol) linked by the NLJ at the 2:13 mark say the "n" word?

[ruleser]

I'm surrounded by MDs every day who make crap after they pay their insurance premiums. There is no safe bet in this economy and anyone who can fool themselves into believing there is one - regardless of what school they get into - is an idiot. You have to make your own luck.

+1 One of the more solid employment-related statements on this board...

[reasonable_man]

We are a society of entitled-special snow-flakes. Thanks Dr. Phill and co.

[thwalls]

As someone who has close ties to both fields IP law and Medicine, I disagree strongly with you.

Well, I'm not going to argue with you because that is better for me anyway.

I'm not trying to be snippy. Sorry about that. 5 years ago I was told that getting my PhD would open up a TON of doors (and it did to a certain degree) but nobody could have foreseen the market tanking and a bunch of Pharmaceutical companies going down the drain. When the companies failed, the market became saturated with other PhDs that have experience to boot and people are stuck waiting for jobs to open up. In my lab, we just had a position open for Biochemistry Technician and received over 100 resumes. All of the last 10 or so people would have been phenomenal for the position. I could always become a professor, but I hate undergraduate students.

So I'm going to go into this cycle, get my acceptances and then look for a law firm to pay for me to go to school while I work as a medicinal chemistry technical specialist. I plan on taking the patent bar over the summer after I defend my PhD and finish my thesis so I should have that as well. If by the end of march I don't have tech spec job lined up, I can always defer.

I work at Georgetown University at the medical center and I see all of the med students every day. Their future is uncertain as well because even after they complete their education they all compete for residency at the best hospitals the same way law students compete for internships. It's just as brutal.

Law school, being a patent agent, and then a patent attorney gives me options. Not many more options, but a few more options. I don't know how everything will work out. But for your sake and mine, I hope the job market gets better all the way around.

[thwalls]

We are a society of entitled-special snow-flakes. Thanks Dr. Phill and co.

I love you.

[lsatbdog]

See, this is why I got my Medicinal Chemistry PhD first. IP law dominates. The best quote I've ever heard around here:

"Cities rise and fall but IP remains."

Something to that effect. Classic.

You'd still be safer going to med school.

I'm surrounded by MDs every day who make crap after they pay their insurance premiums. There is no safe bet in this economy and anyone who can fool themselves into believing there is one - regardless of what school they get into - is an idiot. You have to make your own luck.

Couldn't agree more. Law school is definetely not a sure fire path to a good paying job these days- or even a job in the legal industry period. But then again, everything is hurting BAD right now. Manufacturing jobs are being shipped away never to return, decent paying science jobs now require at least a Masters (and are hard to come by even then). Even positions as a military officer are becoming VERY difficult to get. Doing well today takes a ton of really hard work and careful planning-and even that may not be enough. Long gone are the days when a degree in a particular field was a license to print money (and I'm not so sure such times ever existed).

Law school certainly can be a terrible choice...but if someone makes the decision to attend, I would hope they would have done AT LEAST 4-5 hours of research before even looking into specific schools. In that amount of time, it would be impossible not to figure out that going to law school could be a horrible idea. If someone doesn't put in that type of research beforehand, you can only scratch your head. I guess my point in all this rambling is that you should only go to law school if you have really thought it through, understand the risks (opportunity costs, possible inability to get a good job, etc), and still want to be a lawyer.

[Eric_Arthur_Blair]

I'm surrounded by MDs every day who make crap after they pay their insurance premiums. There is no safe bet in this economy and anyone who can fool themselves into believing there is one - regardless of what school they get into - is an idiot. You have to make your own luck.

+1 One of the more solid employment-related statements on this board...

What are you talking about? Are you aware of the amount of wealth that is inherited? How many people get jobs based on connections instead of merit? Are you saying a person who goes to Harvard is somehow on even par with someone who goes to Cooley?

I also don't agree with the IP poster. I think the next 10-20 years or so will see some serious, serious changes in the way we look at IP that will make IP practice largely obsolete. It's just highly unsustainable the way it is going right now.

I would advise going into an area of law that you truly love learning about and can see yourself loving to practice, not with an eye on prize money or prestige.

[thwalls]

I'm surrounded by MDs every day who make crap after they pay their insurance premiums. There is no safe bet in this economy and anyone who can fool themselves into believing there is one - regardless of what school they get into - is an idiot. You have to make your own luck.

+1 One of the more solid employment-related statements on this board...

What are you talking about? Are you aware of the amount of wealth that is inherited? How many people get jobs based on connections instead of merit? Are you saying a person who goes to Harvard is somehow on even par with someone who goes to Cooley?

I also don't agree with the IP poster. I think the next 10-20 years or so will see some serious, serious changes in the way we look at IP that will make IP practice largely obsolete. It's just highly unsustainable the way it is going right now.

I would advise going into an area of law that you truly love learning about and can see yourself loving to practice, not with an eye on prize money or prestige.

I would love to practice IP law, so that is something I would love to learn about. And IP law is going to maintain its size and I'll tell you why. I hold 2 patents on novel chemical entities and their use. I've participated in filing 8 preliminary patents on other chemical entities in the last 2 years.

Every step of the way, we've needed our tech transfer office and an outside patent law firm to help with the filings. Lets just consider this, every lab in the country files before it allows anyone to view their work and that includes publication in journals. The number is only rising. Even at a time when fewer drugs are making it to market, all of the intermediate drugs - that may never work - need to be patented just in case there is another use for them.

I'm just talking about this in terms of my field.

[James Bond]

Honestly, how many Law School? Think again, proceed with caution, not the best choice, etc. threads do we really need? The people who it'll effect know it already. The rest are going to go to law school anyhow. We really need a super-thread for this like politics or something and delete all the others.

[NayBoer]

So I'm going to go into this cycle, get my acceptances and then look for a law firm to pay for me to go to school while I work as a medicinal chemistry technical specialist.

Wait, what?

[OperaSoprano]

I have my first final in less than three hours. I can't police this thread. Keep it helpful and positive. No one has ever seen me go off the reservation on TLS, and that probably should stay the case.

I'm done with studying. I'm rocking out to RENT, and remembering what NYC was like back in the day. Treat one another with kindness, k?

[galahad85]

Honestly, how many Law School? Think again, proceed with caution, not the best choice, etc. threads do we really need? The people who it'll effect know it already. The rest are going to go to law school anyhow. We really need a super-thread for this like politics or something and delete all the others.

I thought we already had a super-thread for this.

[OperaSoprano]

Honestly, how many Law School? Think again, proceed with caution, not the best choice, etc. threads do we really need? The people who it'll effect know it already. The rest are going to go to law school anyhow. We really need a super-thread for this like politics or something and delete all the others.

I thought we already had a super-thread for this.

I merged it. I hate that thread so much that I had forgotten it existed.