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

[Barack O'Drama]

HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED

LOL .. Been on this site for a few years now and have read ~10 other articles like it.

It does suck, but it took me about a 2 weeks of reading this forum, internet research, and asking around to be 100% that I was going to be a T14 or bust. Matter of fact, it took about a day, but 2 weeks to except that the regional TTT connected to my college wasn't where I should go. I think the circumstances would be different if the internet didn't exist or the employment rankings weren't published.

People, ie., boomers, don't and can't in many ways fathom that law isn't the same as it was in the fucking 80s and 90s. My family for the life of them just don't get it. Why I am taking a year after college to study for a test/get w/e? Why don't I just apply and get a good scholarship? They know someone that went to Roy G Biv School of Law and now they have a yacht!? I don't think we discuss enough how big family (or lack thereof), especially those ignorant to the legal market, is an influence in these students attending these schools.

I do feel a bit saddened for all those who were duped, but if your aspirations are to practice law, you'd think research would be one of your strong suits.

[October25]

For what it's worth, Leiter has a post listing 6 substantive factual errors in the story, as well as a bunch of misrepresentations.
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leit ... story.html

A quote from Leiter's interview with the student:

"Valpraiso did not mislead me about employment prospects. I had done my research. I knew the job market was competitive going in. I knew what debt I was walking into. I think very few Americans don’t have debt, but for me it was an investment. I saw the debt as an investment in my career, my future, and my family.

Valpraiso gave a guy like me, a non-traditional student a shot at becoming a lawyer. Most law schools say they take a holistic approach, but they don’t really do it. I had to work hard to overcome adversity, and they gave me a shot to go to law school and to succeed. They gave me a shot at something that I wanted to do where most law schools wouldn’t."

This makes me a less sympathetic to their situation, honestly. It really sounds like they're saying "I knew prospects out of this school were crap, but I couldn't get in anywhere else." which, unfortunately, sounds like the rational of a lot of people in these types of articles.

Goddamn Leiter is aggressively dumb.

Even at the 25th percentile, toward the bottom, the lifetime present value of a law degree as of the start of law school is around $400,000 (based on around a $20,000 boost to earnings per year)

*spends $200k to earn $400k over 40 years, making 1.7% annually*
*could've thrown a dart at the S&P, made 5%, and never had to put up with legal bullshit*
*is financial wizard*

Does that make Leiter dumb, or the people who choose to attend 4th tier law schools?

[sublime]

HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED

LOL .. Been on this site for a few years now and have read ~10 other articles like it.

It does suck, but it took me about a 2 weeks of reading this forum, internet research, and asking around to be 100% that I was going to be a T14 or bust. Matter of fact, it took about a day, but 2 weeks to except that the regional TTT connected to my college wasn't where I should go. I think the circumstances would be different if the internet didn't exist or the employment rankings weren't published.

People, ie., boomers, don't and can't in many ways fathom that law isn't the same as it was in the fucking 80s and 90s. My family for the life of them just don't get it. Why I am taking a year after college to study for a test/get w/e? Why don't I just apply and get a good scholarship? They know someone that went to Roy G Biv School of Law and now they have a yacht!? I don't think we discuss enough how big family (or lack thereof), especially those ignorant to the legal market, is an influence in these students attending these schools.

I do feel a bit saddened for all those who were duped, but if your aspirations are to practice law, you'd think research would be one of your strong suits.

Although it is important to remember that as soon as like 5 or 6 years ago, a lot of this information wasn't as available and was being used decievingly by schools.

[Barack O'Drama]

HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED

LOL .. Been on this site for a few years now and have read ~10 other articles like it.

It does suck, but it took me about a 2 weeks of reading this forum, internet research, and asking around to be 100% that I was going to be a T14 or bust. Matter of fact, it took about a day, but 2 weeks to except that the regional TTT connected to my college wasn't where I should go. I think the circumstances would be different if the internet didn't exist or the employment rankings weren't published.

People, ie., boomers, don't and can't in many ways fathom that law isn't the same as it was in the fucking 80s and 90s. My family for the life of them just don't get it. Why I am taking a year after college to study for a test/get w/e? Why don't I just apply and get a good scholarship? They know someone that went to Roy G Biv School of Law and now they have a yacht!? I don't think we discuss enough how big family (or lack thereof), especially those ignorant to the legal market, is an influence in these students attending these schools.

I do feel a bit saddened for all those who were duped, but if your aspirations are to practice law, you'd think research would be one of your strong suits.

Although it is important to remember that as soon as like 5 or 6 years ago, a lot of this information wasn't as available and was being used decievingly by schools.

Ahhh thank you Sublime. Now that I did not know! That is decidedly fucked up. My pre-law advisors told me (URM 3.92) that I shouldn't try to go to a top law school because the curve makes it hard to get As and that I should instead attend my college's TTT law school. It would have been a shame if I had listened. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with a regional school on full-tution if you want to practice local. But some of these people who are supposed to be there to help us are also leading us down the wrong path.

This forum has been a life saver and I never take that for granted. Before I found it, NYLS, Pace, and Harvard were my top choices. Now its more like Harvard, Columbia, and NYU. So I've come a long, long way.

[nothingtosee]

TTT grad comes on forums, says he outworked his classmates, was top 10%, got a job

Gets treated very differently than

Podunk State undergrad comes on forums, says he did more research than his peers, gets admitted to top school, gets a job

The two are obviously different (curves are brutal, no limit to how many people can get information).

Some of those leiter quotes are damning. I'm just asking people to think about the situation a lot of these future debt ridden unemployed TTT grads are coming from.

[sublime]

Ahhh thank you Sublime. Now that I did not know! That is decidedly fucked up. My pre-law advisors told me (URM 3.92) that I shouldn't try to go to a top law school because the curve makes it hard to get As and that I should instead attend my college's TTT law school. It would have been a shame if I had listened. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with a regional school on full-tution if you want to practice local. But some of these people who are supposed to be there to help us are also leading us down the wrong path.

This forum has been a life saver and I never take that for granted. Before I found it, NYLS, Pace, and Harvard were my top choices. Now its more like Harvard, Columbia, and NYU. So I've come a long, long way.

That's awesome dude, seriously.

But, I don't know when the last time this was updated, but even on this site, there are old profiles that have like (I picked a random school) UMN boasting a 99% employment rate and often they advertised median private sector salary of $140-160k

Throughout the northern Midwest, the University of Minnesota Law School enjoys a supreme reputation and offers students excellent job placement. Over the last five years, the school has averaged a 99% employment rate for graduates within 9 months of graduation, most of which have secured employment in the northern Midwest. Through its on-campus interviews and alumni network, the school is also able to help students secure employment throughout the nation, and a considerable amount of graduates are able to find jobs on the coasts each year. The career services office at Minnesota is reportedly dedicated and reliable, and students have found the school's full-time career counselors to be helpful and resourceful. Thus, it is safe to say that Minnesota students can comfortably look forward to job offers in several fields before or immediately after their hard-earned graduation. Of the 2008 graduating class, 60% of graduates began working in private law firms, while an impressive 17% accepted judicial clerkship positions.
In terms of bar passage, there is hardly any law school with as impressive numbers as Minnesota's. The school boasts a near-perfect 99% passage rate for first-time exam takers in the state of Minnesota over the past five years

http://www.top-law-schools.com/wiki/Uni ... ar_passage

Rutgers Newark:

Within nine months, however, 95% of Rutgers-Newark graduates are employed. This is a testament to the strength of the Rutgers brand throughout the state of New Jersey, where the majority of Rutgers-Newark graduates (63%) are employed. It may seem like a Rutgers-Newark degree is quite exportable, as 37% of graduates end up practicing outside of New Jersey.

One look at starting salaries reveals the reasoning behind the popularity of private practice work among RU-Newark graduates: those who enter private practice enjoy a median starting salary of $115,000-quite a high figure compared to that of schools similarly ranked to Rutgers.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/wiki/Rut ... ar_passage

[eagle2a]

This won't happen to me cause I'm going to a TTT1 right?!

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

For what it's worth, Leiter has a post listing 6 substantive factual errors in the story, as well as a bunch of misrepresentations.
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leit ... story.html

A quote from Leiter's interview with the student:

"Valpraiso did not mislead me about employment prospects. I had done my research. I knew the job market was competitive going in. I knew what debt I was walking into. I think very few Americans don’t have debt, but for me it was an investment. I saw the debt as an investment in my career, my future, and my family.

Valpraiso gave a guy like me, a non-traditional student a shot at becoming a lawyer. Most law schools say they take a holistic approach, but they don’t really do it. I had to work hard to overcome adversity, and they gave me a shot to go to law school and to succeed. They gave me a shot at something that I wanted to do where most law schools wouldn’t."

This makes me a less sympathetic to their situation, honestly. It really sounds like they're saying "I knew prospects out of this school were crap, but I couldn't get in anywhere else." which, unfortunately, sounds like the rational of a lot of people in these types of articles.

Goddamn Leiter is aggressively dumb.

Even at the 25th percentile, toward the bottom, the lifetime present value of a law degree as of the start of law school is around $400,000 (based on around a $20,000 boost to earnings per year)

*spends $200k to earn $400k over 40 years, making 1.7% annually*
*could've thrown a dart at the S&P, made 5%, and never had to put up with legal bullshit*
*is financial wizard*

Does that make Leiter dumb, or the people who choose to attend 4th tier law schools?

Yes.

[EvelynS]

Yeah...like going to lower T14 makes your job searching easy. Unfortunately, no one really talks about unemployment in those law schools not to burst any future applicant bubble. Legal field in general sucks nowadays. So unless a person knows for sure he/she wants to be a lawyer, going even to T14 is not that safe or financially reasonable anymore.

[Paul Campos]

The guy posting at Leiter (Simkovic) is a law school shill who is literally being paid by Access Group and LSAC to generate studies that show a law degree from even a bad school at sticker is still a good investment.

The figure claiming that the NPV of a law degree for the 25th percentile of law grads relative to the 25th percentile of BA holders is $400K was generated like this:

(1) Assume first that the only relevant difference between the people at the 25th percentile of earnings among law grads and those at the 25th percentile of earnings among people with no more than a BA is the possession of a law degree.

(2) Assume that the lifetime earnings profiles of people who have graduated from law school in recent years are going to look like the lifetime earnings profiles of people who graduated from law school 30 and 40 years ago.

(3) Don't count the cost of attending law school when calculating NPV.

There are a bunch of other problems, but those points alone should tell you how seriously to take Simkovic's work.

[philepistemer]

For what it's worth, Leiter has a post listing 6 substantive factual errors in the story, as well as a bunch of misrepresentations.
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leit ... story.html

A quote from Leiter's interview with the student:

"Valpraiso did not mislead me about employment prospects. I had done my research. I knew the job market was competitive going in. I knew what debt I was walking into. I think very few Americans don’t have debt, but for me it was an investment. I saw the debt as an investment in my career, my future, and my family.

Valpraiso gave a guy like me, a non-traditional student a shot at becoming a lawyer. Most law schools say they take a holistic approach, but they don’t really do it. I had to work hard to overcome adversity, and they gave me a shot to go to law school and to succeed. They gave me a shot at something that I wanted to do where most law schools wouldn’t."

This makes me a less sympathetic to their situation, honestly. It really sounds like they're saying "I knew prospects out of this school were crap, but I couldn't get in anywhere else." which, unfortunately, sounds like the rational of a lot of people in these types of articles.

Goddamn Leiter is aggressively dumb.

Even at the 25th percentile, toward the bottom, the lifetime present value of a law degree as of the start of law school is around $400,000 (based on around a $20,000 boost to earnings per year)

*spends $200k to earn $400k over 40 years, making 1.7% annually*
*could've thrown a dart at the S&P, made 5%, and never had to put up with legal bullshit*
*is financial wizard*

When I opened the article on my mobile device, there was an ad for Charlotte school of law, so not only is he dumb, he's conflicted.

[Pokemon]

This type of shit is so depressing. It saddens me when I see college friends on fb, being happy for getting accepted at NYLS and talking about their dreams, while leaving perfectly good 45-70k jobs.

[Anonymous User]

i had an acquaintance who was fired from his teaching gig, literally cited for "incompetence" and wanted to go to a regional TTT (Southwestern Law) because he said he wanted to save face and also gain some respect and prestige as a lawyer. I was a 2L and He came up to me to ask about the legal profession and the law school. The only school he got into was the regional TTT on sticker. I begged him not to go and that he will have ZERO job prospects. I showed him countless articles and reasons why he should not do this. Out of love and desperation, I recruited another friend whom he knew and respected, to dissuade him from enrolling.

He enrolled. For his second summer job, he worked for a solo. Actually let me rephrase this. He VOLUNTEERED for a solo practitioner, who told him from the beginning he could not afford to pay him. He still worked, i mean volunteered for him, because he had nothing else lined up.

I don't know if he will ever pass the bar. I don't know what he will do with his life now, but at this point i have nothing but contempt for him and find myself without sympathy for him.

[pancakes3]

googled SW school of law. notable alums: Marcia Clark and Donald Sterling.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

There's a post on reddit's personal fiance subreddit right now about a kid going to U of Houston. Tons of people are telling him it's a terrible decision financially and his responses are willfully ignorant. Just goes to show you the mentality of those going to these schools (though U of H isn't exactly Valparaiso)

[TLSModBot]

Yeah...like going to lower T14 makes your job searching easy. Unfortunately, no one really talks about unemployment in those law schools not to burst any future applicant bubble. Legal field in general sucks nowadays. So unless a person knows for sure he/she wants to be a lawyer, going even to T14 is not that safe or financially reasonable anymore.

The riskiest by far is GULC which literally everybody here warns applicants about.
And we follow when other T14s have worse than usual Biglaw hiring years hundreds of pages get devoted to discussing it. And so, so many people here are vocally against sticker price ANYWHERE (except maybe Yale).

So lol, no.

[landshoes]

There's a post on reddit's personal fiance subreddit right now about a kid going to U of Houston. Tons of people are telling him it's a terrible decision financially and his responses are willfully ignorant. Just goes to show you the mentality of those going to these schools (though U of H isn't exactly Valparaiso)

those schools are literally sorting for the applicants with relatively poor reasoning skills, so it isn't super surprising when you find one who has all the information they need but zero ability to use that information

[LaLiLuLeLo]

There's a post on reddit's personal fiance subreddit right now about a kid going to U of Houston. Tons of people are telling him it's a terrible decision financially and his responses are willfully ignorant. Just goes to show you the mentality of those going to these schools (though U of H isn't exactly Valparaiso)

those schools are literally sorting for the applicants with relatively poor reasoning skills, so it isn't super surprising when you find one who has all the information they need but zero ability to use that information

thank you for this I'm aware of the lifestyle change debt will have and know that it'll be hard before it gets better. your post seems like the one i can relate to the most.
i didnt come here for the "dont go to law school" business. I came for a simple question. I'm not going to law school because of the "prestige" of being a lawyer or any of that BS. I have a double major in computer science for crying out loud. I have other options, but I want this one. I want to go because i feel that it's the worst way people get taken advantage of without even realizing it. I saw my parents struggle with the fear of not knowing their own rights and how it affects you. I know millions of others live with that same fear. The law shouldnt just be a weapon to use against the poor or uneducated. but you know... i also dont want to be poor forever. lol
I just came here for a question about capitalizing interest and got a lot of stuff about why i shouldnt go. thank you for looking out internet folks, but a reddit post will not change my mind at this point.

i'm young, but have built my credit score have done my part to be a good adult. the fear of the debt is very real. but ultimately i feel i won't be true to myself if i don't give it a shot. I've literally built my whole life around going to law school. maybe i'll go for 1 year and i'll realize that i hate everything about it and will go back to finish an engineering degree. who knows. right?
I'm not going in with a quitter mindset because that would be dumb, but I am going in with the thought that I am still young and can ultimately do whatever the hell I want with life for now. I would like to make the best decisions no matter how shitty they are to begin with. ...i hope that makes sense.

Just....ugh

[landshoes]

There's a post on reddit's personal fiance subreddit right now about a kid going to U of Houston. Tons of people are telling him it's a terrible decision financially and his responses are willfully ignorant. Just goes to show you the mentality of those going to these schools (though U of H isn't exactly Valparaiso)

those schools are literally sorting for the applicants with relatively poor reasoning skills, so it isn't super surprising when you find one who has all the information they need but zero ability to use that information

thank you for this I'm aware of the lifestyle change debt will have and know that it'll be hard before it gets better. your post seems like the one i can relate to the most.
i didnt come here for the "dont go to law school" business. I came for a simple question. I'm not going to law school because of the "prestige" of being a lawyer or any of that BS. I have a double major in computer science for crying out loud. I have other options, but I want this one. I want to go because i feel that it's the worst way people get taken advantage of without even realizing it. I saw my parents struggle with the fear of not knowing their own rights and how it affects you. I know millions of others live with that same fear. The law shouldnt just be a weapon to use against the poor or uneducated. but you know... i also dont want to be poor forever. lol
I just came here for a question about capitalizing interest and got a lot of stuff about why i shouldnt go. thank you for looking out internet folks, but a reddit post will not change my mind at this point.

i'm young, but have built my credit score have done my part to be a good adult. the fear of the debt is very real. but ultimately i feel i won't be true to myself if i don't give it a shot. I've literally built my whole life around going to law school. maybe i'll go for 1 year and i'll realize that i hate everything about it and will go back to finish an engineering degree. who knows. right?
I'm not going in with a quitter mindset because that would be dumb, but I am going in with the thought that I am still young and can ultimately do whatever the hell I want with life for now. I would like to make the best decisions no matter how shitty they are to begin with. ...i hope that makes sense.

Just....ugh

Silver Lining-- the financial aid officer of my school told me the first year was the hardest to fund and more scholarships would be available to me after year 1.

that fin aid person should be in jail

I'm 100% serious

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Yeah that was particularly egregious. And people are telling OP it's a lie. Didn't even register. These schools are scummy af and suckers like these eat it up.

[EvelynS]

Yeah...like going to lower T14 makes your job searching easy. Unfortunately, no one really talks about unemployment in those law schools not to burst any future applicant bubble. Legal field in general sucks nowadays. So unless a person knows for sure he/she wants to be a lawyer, going even to T14 is not that safe or financially reasonable anymore.

The riskiest by far is GULC which literally everybody here warns applicants about.
And we follow when other T14s have worse than usual Biglaw hiring years hundreds of pages get devoted to discussing it. And so, so many people here are vocally against sticker price ANYWHERE (except maybe Yale).

So lol, no.

I was referring to the social media or press. It appears that even NYT mostly talks about unemployment at lower-tier school and fails to properly mention/investigate T14. I was not talking about TLS community. I think TLS discusses good, bad and ugly about all law schools. lol

[TLSModBot]

Yeah...like going to lower T14 makes your job searching easy. Unfortunately, no one really talks about unemployment in those law schools not to burst any future applicant bubble. Legal field in general sucks nowadays. So unless a person knows for sure he/she wants to be a lawyer, going even to T14 is not that safe or financially reasonable anymore.

The riskiest by far is GULC which literally everybody here warns applicants about.
And we follow when other T14s have worse than usual Biglaw hiring years hundreds of pages get devoted to discussing it. And so, so many people here are vocally against sticker price ANYWHERE (except maybe Yale).

So lol, no.

I was referring to the social media or press. It appears that even NYT mostly talks about unemployment at lower-tier school and fails to properly mention/investigate T14. I was not talking about TLS community. I think TLS discusses good, bad and ugly about all law schools. lol

YE SHALL HAVE NO OTHER LAW RELATED SOCIAL MEDIA BEFORE TLS.

But seriously, I don't know how many public media outlets discuss law schools, period. You get the occasional NYT article like this one, but I don't see WashPo or LA Times writing glowing pieces about UMich or UVA. I think the most people see without doing any research are the USNWR rankings and other useless shit like that. But a bare modicum of work can get you to NALP data, TLS, Above the Law, or a bunch of other non-major-news sites.

[yay]

So it's true.. the phrase,

smart enough to hold a pen, stupid enough to sign it.

[EvelynS]

Yeah...like going to lower T14 makes your job searching easy. Unfortunately, no one really talks about unemployment in those law schools not to burst any future applicant bubble. Legal field in general sucks nowadays. So unless a person knows for sure he/she wants to be a lawyer, going even to T14 is not that safe or financially reasonable anymore.

The riskiest by far is GULC which literally everybody here warns applicants about.
And we follow when other T14s have worse than usual Biglaw hiring years hundreds of pages get devoted to discussing it. And so, so many people here are vocally against sticker price ANYWHERE (except maybe Yale).

So lol, no.

I was referring to the social media or press. It appears that even NYT mostly talks about unemployment at lower-tier school and fails to properly mention/investigate T14. I was not talking about TLS community. I think TLS discusses good, bad and ugly about all law schools. lol

YE SHALL HAVE NO OTHER LAW RELATED SOCIAL MEDIA BEFORE TLS.

But seriously, I don't know how many public media outlets discuss law schools, period. You get the occasional NYT article like this one, but I don't see WashPo or LA Times writing glowing pieces about UMich or UVA. I think the most people see without doing any research are the USNWR rankings and other useless shit like that. But a bare modicum of work can get you to NALP data, TLS, Above the Law, or a bunch of other non-major-news sites.

Well, NALP data is helpful, but not enough to warn about real risks. Some law applicants and 0Ls think that they will somehow be a special snowflake. Some law applicants do not have enough exposure to lawyers in their real lives to actually see what practicing law really implies (I was certainly that type of a law applicant). And even though TLS and ATL are great sources of information, all the information is very questionable and debatable. And it doesn't matter how reasonable you are as an applicant, distinguishing the real truthful information from the BS is difficult, especially if you are not exposed to legal practice or don't have friends/family who are lawyers.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Much as I love TLS, I agree that the NYT, hmm, shall we say it has more gravitas than TLS? I agree there's plenty of info out there for those who search, but it would still be nice to see one of the NYT articles that doesn't focus on a bottom feeder school.