Contract Attorney kills mother, self, presumably due to debt Forum

[JCougar]

http://abovethelaw.com/2013/03/debt-is- ... desuicide/

But the cops are saying that a recent Villanova Law graduate, struggling as a contract attorney, shot his mother over Christmas. Then, he killed himself.

“We’ll never know his motive,” said Marion County Sheriff’s Capt. Robert Sandlin. “What is our opinion? Financial. He had a lot of student loans that were outstanding.”

This man was a graduate of Villanova Law. Of course, this debt-owned scenario can happen to graduates of even the T14 these days. Biglaw castoffs who last less than two years, even if they graduate from a T6 school, might end up in the life-crushing dungeons of document review.

[Wagner's mother] was hopeful that he would get married, settle down and get a permanent job,” said [Carolyn Wagner's friend Patsy Batsch]. “It’s just that he had some student-loan debt that was heavy. It was taking up a lot of his salary. He just felt like he couldn’t.”

This is a very sad story no matter what the reasons. But having your mom harp at you to get married and get a house with a backyard, a dog, and kids--when you know deep down inside that you will never be able to afford a house or a wife until you are 50 years old (in essence, knowing that law school has taken your life away)--might be very stressful.

Taking on $200K of debt is very dangerous from a psychological standpoint. Just be wary when you do. It's not something you can just dismiss and "deal with later on down the road." For many law graduates these days, it simply can't be dealt with.

[Dr. Dre]

too much speculation.

[JCougar]

too much speculation.

I mean, I think other factors are involved. The guy's dad died a year earlier. Maybe that was causing family/psychological issues as well.

I think it's safe to conclude that being buried under a mountain of debt and being forced to do document review wasn't helping the situation in any way.

[Dr. Dre]

correlation does not mean causation

[20141023]

.

[peeonyou]

too much speculation.

I mean, I think other factors are involved. The guy's dad died a year earlier. Maybe that was causing family/psychological issues as well.

I think it's safe to conclude that being buried under a mountain of debt and being forced to do document review wasn't helping the situation in any way.

It's also safe to assume that most people don't react to buried in heavy death by killing their mother, and then themselves. It could be a culmination of things.

They say that depression sprouts not just from life being shity, but from expecting it be less shity. He probably thought he'd become a big lawyer hot shot out of the tier 2, and when he didn't, and instead had heavy debt was deeply depressed which was amplified by factors xxxxx. more likely his dad's death was amplified by this.

[Dr. Dre]

Anyway, back to the story at hand: financial issues can cause people to do a lot of things (divorces are probably the most prominent example), so it is entirely possible that a law graduate would go gun-crazy based solely on financial concerns. However, it is impossible for us to know what other factors played a role in his decision to do something like this.

indeed

EDIT: notice the weak logical force Regulus uses, true reasoning skills right derr

[jkpolk]

http://abovethelaw.com/2013/03/debt-is- ... desuicide/

But the cops are saying that a recent Villanova Law graduate, struggling as a contract attorney, shot his mother over Christmas. Then, he killed himself.

“We’ll never know his motive,” said Marion County Sheriff’s Capt. Robert Sandlin. “What is our opinion? Financial. He had a lot of student loans that were outstanding.”

This man was a graduate of Villanova Law. Of course, this debt-owned scenario can happen to graduates of even the T14 these days. Biglaw castoffs who last less than two years, even if they graduate from a T6 school, might end up in the life-crushing dungeons of document review.

[Wagner's mother] was hopeful that he would get married, settle down and get a permanent job,” said [Carolyn Wagner's friend Patsy Batsch]. “It’s just that he had some student-loan debt that was heavy. It was taking up a lot of his salary. He just felt like he couldn’t.”

This is a very sad story no matter what the reasons. But having your mom harp at you to get married and get a house with a backyard, a dog, and kids--when you know deep down inside that you will never be able to afford a house or a wife until you are 50 years old (in essence, knowing that law school has taken your life away)--might be very stressful.

Taking on $200K of debt is very dangerous from a psychological standpoint. Just be wary when you do. It's not something you can just dismiss and "deal with later on down the road." For many law graduates these days, it simply can't be dealt with.

[peeonyou]

I think this may undercut the message you're trying to get across.

Most people even if they had extreme debt, and were going to wind up homeless would not resort to murder-suicide. These people had some issues to begin with. Based off of this logic, nobody would take out a mortgage.

It might be better to actually have something to track people through employment, like if law school numbers went through employment which wouldn't be that hard to do. Just have the same people list firms applied to, etc. My guess is ~25% of users would update it through law school, which would be a substantial sample size.

[BigZuck]

I grow weary of brucewaynecougar's schtick.

[JCougar]

I grow weary of brucewaynecougar's schtick.

Thanks for bumping my thread.