NYT: An Expensive Law Degree, and No Place to Use It Forum

[Anonymous User]

I really thought we settled this goddamn debate years ago.

The realistic best-case scenario is $60k and I still haven't seen anyone show me the math as to how someone with a mortgage and a family is gonna pay back the $100k tax bomb that will accumulate out of the original $200k of debt.

And that's IF you get an actual legal job, which is basically a coin flip at a school like Valpo.

if you can't the pay the tax bomb, it probably doesn't exist for you. the tax bomb is only a tax on the wealth youve accumulated. if you have 0 assets after 20 years, there is no tax bomb.

$60k? half the people i graduated with 5 years ago are (1) above 90K in private practice or (2) in govt working 35 hours a week with complete debt forgiveness on the horizon. lots of people left law though.

the people that left law or never started in law to do JD adv jobs are in decent spots as well. 70K all in comp for 40 hour work weeks and building skills that are transferable to smaller cities with a similar salary where only 1 of those incomes is enough to raise a 5 person family.

we get it that this is shit for your millionaire goals and biglaw prestige, but there's no way these outcomes are worse than retail manager at belk, school teacher, non-profit cog, office admin, part time tutor, etc and thats the type of job most of these people work before hand.

Describe these jobs please. I'm a biglaw lawyer looking to switch professions....

[Johann]

I really thought we settled this goddamn debate years ago.

The realistic best-case scenario is $60k and I still haven't seen anyone show me the math as to how someone with a mortgage and a family is gonna pay back the $100k tax bomb that will accumulate out of the original $200k of debt.

And that's IF you get an actual legal job, which is basically a coin flip at a school like Valpo.

if you can't the pay the tax bomb, it probably doesn't exist for you. the tax bomb is only a tax on the wealth youve accumulated. if you have 0 assets after 20 years, there is no tax bomb.

$60k? half the people i graduated with 5 years ago are (1) above 90K in private practice or (2) in govt working 35 hours a week with complete debt forgiveness on the horizon. lots of people left law though.

the people that left law or never started in law to do JD adv jobs are in decent spots as well. 70K all in comp for 40 hour work weeks and building skills that are transferable to smaller cities with a similar salary where only 1 of those incomes is enough to raise a 5 person family.

we get it that this is shit for your millionaire goals and biglaw prestige, but there's no way these outcomes are worse than retail manager at belk, school teacher, non-profit cog, office admin, part time tutor, etc and thats the type of job most of these people work before hand.

Describe these jobs please. I'm a biglaw lawyer looking to switch professions....

some work at corporations in weird manager roles that somehow involve lots of reading/writing/analysis. some work at banks in compliance departments for loan and real estate deals/ trusts/ anti money laundering regulations etc. i dont actually know what they do everyday. but just start applying to big corporations saying you dont want to be a lawyer anymore.