DF Thread Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm an HLS guy from 2012. Harvard's LIPP program is 1 of the greatest things in existence. The only thing remotely comparable to it is Yales. I ended with 150K ish of debt (135 student loan 15K for bar loan). I took a job as a prosecutor making 40K a year. I paid maybe 110 a month out of pocket per month for my loans and Harvard footed the rest of the bill. They literally cut me a check for 11K every 6 months for loan payments. It's based on a sliding scale though, so as you make more money the less they give you. There is also no public service requirement, it's literally any legal job. It's not tied to PAYE or anything of the sort, you're on it for as long as you feel the need to be on it. And you can get back on it if your situation changes.


With that said. If I had a Hamilton, I wouldn't have thought twice about going to Harvard.

Original anon. I agree with all of this. LIPP is great (and each of the LRAPs are strong in different ways, though Stanford's is weaker in certain important respects). That said, I think if you're actually paying for law school, the Hamilton/Rubenstein makes a ton more sense than any of the top 3 even if you're getting some grant aid. Where it's Dillard or another full ride from a slightly lower ranked school, HYS give you a better cushion and some better access, but since 75% of my friends who were "dead set" on PI in law school are now, 2 years out, still in private practice, it really gives you just more debt for a fairly similar endgame.

Saying you are "dead set" and actually being dead set are two very different things. I had a number of close friends who were "dead set" on PI who confided in me early 1L that they were probably not doing PI and mostly felt pressured to pretend. I'd wager that 90% or more of people who enter law school knowing they'll do PI who do well enough to do PI will actually do PI.

And HYS's loan repayment programs are absolutely the real deal.

As another anecdote, of my close friends from HYS who actually did PI, a solid majority came from wealth. That's not to say there weren't people who came in wanting to do PI, stayed the course during law school, and did it post-grad reliant on loan repayment, but in my experience that was not the norm.

I've heard this repeated before. I went to HYS, was super tied into the PI community (including having a leadership position within the community), and ultimately went on loan assistance. This was not my experience at all. If anything, I'd say members of the PI community were less likely to come from wealth than members of the overall student body.

[BmoreOrLess]

People ignore origination fees- 4%. A 100k loan is really 104% the second you sign.

While the origination fees definitely hurt, this isn't exactly true. It's a $100k loan with only $96k in your pocket. Can fuck you on planning tho.

Definitely hitting up discover loans for 3L if I manage to be jerb'ed.

[Rahviveh]

Estimated $30k with the Ruby.
Will be much closer to $0 given stipend plus low cost of living in Chi plus summer PI funding plus splitting 2L summer between PI and SA.

Chiming in prematurely, granted, but wanted to send the message to preftige-star-struck 0L's:

The freedom is real, y'all.

You're a 1L? And you're predicting $0 debt?

Yeah dude I still like your 30K prediction

I apologize on behalf of my classmate who felt the need to come in here and confirm the Chicago stereotype. I'm sure he didn't mean it.

[Danger Zone]

My variance was like $15k. Ended up being really irresponsible, but have #noragrets about it, which included taking two euro trips during law school.

[nealric]

I was expecting about $60k but ended up at $68 due to the LLM. Not too much different. I was a pretty big miser. Rented a bedroom in a group house, not too many nights out, ate a lot of canned beans, worked 1L year. I thought I would pay it off in 2 years, but ended up taking 5 due to paying for spouse's school. Very glad to be done with it.

[DELG]

Graduated with the debt I expected but that's with paying an entire semester (!) out of pocket.

[Anonymous User]

I'm an HLS guy from 2012. Harvard's LIPP program is 1 of the greatest things in existence. The only thing remotely comparable to it is Yales. I ended with 150K ish of debt (135 student loan 15K for bar loan). I took a job as a prosecutor making 40K a year. I paid maybe 110 a month out of pocket per month for my loans and Harvard footed the rest of the bill. They literally cut me a check for 11K every 6 months for loan payments. It's based on a sliding scale though, so as you make more money the less they give you. There is also no public service requirement, it's literally any legal job. It's not tied to PAYE or anything of the sort, you're on it for as long as you feel the need to be on it. And you can get back on it if your situation changes.


With that said. If I had a Hamilton, I wouldn't have thought twice about going to Harvard.

Original anon. I agree with all of this. LIPP is great (and each of the LRAPs are strong in different ways, though Stanford's is weaker in certain important respects). That said, I think if you're actually paying for law school, the Hamilton/Rubenstein makes a ton more sense than any of the top 3 even if you're getting some grant aid. Where it's Dillard or another full ride from a slightly lower ranked school, HYS give you a better cushion and some better access, but since 75% of my friends who were "dead set" on PI in law school are now, 2 years out, still in private practice, it really gives you just more debt for a fairly similar endgame.

Saying you are "dead set" and actually being dead set are two very different things. I had a number of close friends who were "dead set" on PI who confided in me early 1L that they were probably not doing PI and mostly felt pressured to pretend. I'd wager that 90% or more of people who enter law school knowing they'll do PI who do well enough to do PI will actually do PI.

And HYS's loan repayment programs are absolutely the real deal.

As another anecdote, of my close friends from HYS who actually did PI, a solid majority came from wealth. That's not to say there weren't people who came in wanting to do PI, stayed the course during law school, and did it post-grad reliant on loan repayment, but in my experience that was not the norm.

I've heard this repeated before. I went to HYS, was super tied into the PI community (including having a leadership position within the community), and ultimately went on loan assistance. This was not my experience at all. If anything, I'd say members of the PI community were less likely to come from wealth than members of the overall student body.

I went to a non-HYS T-14, so not exactly on point, but I'd say that the vast majority of the PI students I knew came from money. Lots of them have parents subsidizing their rent even now (when they are working).

At the PI orgs that I'm familiar with - the attorneys generally come from money or married spouses who make a lot more money than they do. Rarely do poor PI attorneys marry each other, from what I've seen anyway.

I think some people underestimate just how many rich kids work in PI - there are a LOT of rich kids in PI. Few intentionally take out 300k loans to make 50-60k a year while struggling to make ends meet in a big city.

[abl]

I went to a non-HYS T-14, so not exactly on point, but I'd say that the vast majority of the PI students I knew came from money. Lots of them have parents subsidizing their rent even now (when they are working).

At the PI orgs that I'm familiar with - the attorneys generally come from money or married spouses who make a lot more money than they do. Rarely do poor PI attorneys marry each other, from what I've seen anyway.

I think some people underestimate just how many rich kids work in PI - there are a LOT of rich kids in PI. Few intentionally take out 300k loans to make 50-60k a year while struggling to make ends meet in a big city.

First, I think people underestimate just how many rich kids go to T14 schools to begin with. Second, there often seems to be an expectation that PI folks can't also have money, and so more attention (and scorn!) gets directed at PI folks with money. Finally, working at a high-paying job can more effectively mask the fact that your family is wealthy than working in PI -- because it's harder to know if the biglaw associate has a nice home because her family contributed to the downpayment than it is for a PI attorney. I think the combination of these factors contributes to the (probably inaccurate) oft-repeated notion that PI students tend to be wealthier than average.

In fact, I seem to remember that there was a survey conducted at my HYS that showed that students who did PI their 2L summer were disproportionately on need-based financial aid in law school. If I'm remembering correctly, the survey was used as part of a pitch justifying my school's expenditure on its loan repayment program.

On that general subject, the loan assistance programs at HYS* are all more than good enough to make it affordable for a PI student to take 300k in loans to make 50-60k a year doing PI in a big city--so PI-committed students at HYS would be well-served to do just this. I have a number of friends from my school doing PI, and folks seem pretty across-the-board happy with their decision (because the programs do effectively render the COA of law school at $0 for most PI grads). When I see how unhappy so many biglaw lawyers in debt seem to be, I really do wonder if most of the folks who enter law school seriously considering PI who get sucked into biglaw would have been better served following through on their initial PI curiosity. The big numbers of biglaw are really tempting, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly rewarding lifestyle/career for most.

*I can't speak for non-HYS loan assistance, but I imagine there are a number of other schools that make it similarly affordable.

[Desert Fox]

I went to a non-HYS T-14, so not exactly on point, but I'd say that the vast majority of the PI students I knew came from money. Lots of them have parents subsidizing their rent even now (when they are working).

At the PI orgs that I'm familiar with - the attorneys generally come from money or married spouses who make a lot more money than they do. Rarely do poor PI attorneys marry each other, from what I've seen anyway.

I think some people underestimate just how many rich kids work in PI - there are a LOT of rich kids in PI. Few intentionally take out 300k loans to make 50-60k a year while struggling to make ends meet in a big city.

First, I think people underestimate just how many rich kids go to T14 schools to begin with. Second, there often seems to be an expectation that PI folks can't also have money, and so more attention (and scorn!) gets directed at PI folks with money. Finally, working at a high-paying job can do a better job of masking the fact that your family is wealthy than working in PI -- because it's harder to know if the biglaw associate has a nice home because her family contributed to the downpayment than it is for a PI attorney. I think the combination of these factors contributes to the (probably inaccurate) oft-repeated notion that PI students tend to be wealthier than average.

In fact, I seem to remember that there was a survey conducted at my HYS that showed that students who did PI their 2L summer were disproportionately on need-based financial aid in law school. If I'm remembering correctly, the survey was used as part of a pitch justifying my school's expenditure on its loan repayment program.

On that general subject, the loan assistance programs at HYS* are all more than good enough to make it affordable for a PI student to take 300k in loans to make 50-60k a year doing PI in a big city--so PI-committed students at HYS would be well-served to do just this. I have a number of friends from my school doing PI, and folks seem pretty across-the-board happy with their decision (because the programs do effectively render the COA of law school at $0 for most PI grads). When I see how unhappy so many biglaw lawyers in debt seem to be, I really do wonder if most of the folks who enter law school seriously considering PI who get sucked into biglaw would have been better served following through on their initial PI curiosity. The big numbers of biglaw are really tempting, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly rewarding lifestyle/career for most.

*I can't speak for non-HYS loan assistance, but I imagine there are a number of other schools that make it similarly affordable.

All the t14's are great with PI loan assistance. Hell, just regular PAYE + PSLF is extremely generous. So for those people it's amazing.

The problem is what happens if you want to switch to non-PI. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't risk 300k at 6% on a 0L's want to do PI.

[bk1]

All the t14's are great with PI loan assistance. Hell, just regular PAYE + PSLF is extremely generous. So for those people it's amazing.

The problem is what happens if you want to switch to non-PI. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't risk 300k at 6% on a 0L's want to do PI.

This. 10% of your salary to do PI at any debt level is completely doable. It's doing the full 10 years or not wanting to do PI at all that's the killer.

[Anonymous User]

I've heard this repeated before. I went to HYS, was super tied into the PI community (including having a leadership position within the community), and ultimately went on loan assistance. This was not my experience at all. If anything, I'd say members of the PI community were less likely to come from wealth than members of the overall student body.

I went to a non-HYS T-14, so not exactly on point, but I'd say that the vast majority of the PI students I knew came from money. Lots of them have parents subsidizing their rent even now (when they are working).

At the PI orgs that I'm familiar with - the attorneys generally come from money or married spouses who make a lot more money than they do. Rarely do poor PI attorneys marry each other, from what I've seen anyway.

I think some people underestimate just how many rich kids work in PI - there are a LOT of rich kids in PI. Few intentionally take out 300k loans to make 50-60k a year while struggling to make ends meet in a big city.

Not saying I agree with the above post completely, but I've been shocked by how many people taking low-paying but awesome public interest jobs (think Bronx/SF PD, SAUSA positions, even state AG and major city-attorneys) are independently wealthy/from family money. Ultra-elite clerkships seem to pull from a ton of money too. I'm still just barely figuring out how this profession works. It's a crazy one.

I think this thread's loan repayment discussion might be missing that sure, loan assistance and PAYE/PSLF are great for getting out from under insane debt, but you're still making like 50-60k with modest raises at a ton of public interest jobs. If you want to start a family or just like, travel and maybe eat at a nice restaurant once in a while, that's not a really workable salary in a lot of cities, independent of whether you can avoid debtpwnage. That's why I think those jobs often attract richies, or if not often, maybe a lot more than I originally thought they did.

[abl]

All the t14's are great with PI loan assistance. Hell, just regular PAYE + PSLF is extremely generous. So for those people it's amazing.

The problem is what happens if you want to switch to non-PI. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't risk 300k at 6% on a 0L's want to do PI.

This. 10% of your salary to do PI at any debt level is completely doable. It's doing the full 10 years or not wanting to do PI at all that's the killer.

HYS allow you to get out at any time. It's not ideal, but it means that if you are $300k in debt and spend 8 years in public interest, you leave with $60k in debt. So although $300k in debt commits you to public interest for some period of time (at HS at least), it's probably closer to 5-6 years rather than 10.

[Anonymous User]

All the t14's are great with PI loan assistance. Hell, just regular PAYE + PSLF is extremely generous. So for those people it's amazing.

The problem is what happens if you want to switch to non-PI. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't risk 300k at 6% on a 0L's want to do PI.

This. 10% of your salary to do PI at any debt level is completely doable. It's doing the full 10 years or not wanting to do PI at all that's the killer.

HYS allow you to get out at any time. It's not ideal, but it means that if you are $300k in debt and spend 8 years in public interest, you leave with $60k in debt. So although $300k in debt commits you to public interest for some period of time (at HS at least), it's probably closer to 5-6 years rather than 10.

I think the general point is that it's better graduating with no debt (or very minimal debt) than to be forced to rely on any kind of loan forgiveness. A lot of PI jobs aren't what people think - they are terrible and/or require very long hours as well. One of my friends worked 60 hours a week for a non profit making like 50k a year....if you have 300k debt, it makes it a lot harder to change life plans and move around or even take a break from working. Pick any random office job and they will likely make more money than PI. The average nurse who works much less than 60 hours a week makes more than the average PI attorney. You have to love your PI job to stay in it since you could probably make more money even teaching in a lot of states.

Also this is 5-6 years of the prime years of your life - you are never getting your youth back. If you hate your job, this is a reallylong time.

[abl]

All the t14's are great with PI loan assistance. Hell, just regular PAYE + PSLF is extremely generous. So for those people it's amazing.

The problem is what happens if you want to switch to non-PI. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't risk 300k at 6% on a 0L's want to do PI.

This. 10% of your salary to do PI at any debt level is completely doable. It's doing the full 10 years or not wanting to do PI at all that's the killer.

HYS allow you to get out at any time. It's not ideal, but it means that if you are $300k in debt and spend 8 years in public interest, you leave with $60k in debt. So although $300k in debt commits you to public interest for some period of time (at HS at least), it's probably closer to 5-6 years rather than 10.

I think the general point is that it's better graduating with no debt (or very minimal debt) than to be forced to rely on any kind of loan forgiveness. A lot of PI jobs aren't what people think - they are terrible and/or require very long hours as well. One of my friends worked 60 hours a week for a non profit making like 50k a year....if you have 300k debt, it makes it a lot harder to change life plans and move around or even take a break from working. Pick any random office job and they will likely make more money than PI. The average nurse who works much less than 60 hours a week makes more than the average PI attorney. You have to love your PI job to stay in it since you could probably make more money even teaching in a lot of states.

Also this is 5-6 years of the prime years of your life - you are never getting your youth back. If you hate your job, this is a reallylong time.

It's better to graduate with no debt and a job that you like. Those are both important. In fact, I'd argue that the career (which lasts for well more than a decade) is much more important than the debt. For example: I think most prospective students interested in international human rights law would strongly prefer to land an int'l human rights job with $300k debt (with a HYS loan assistance program) than end up doing crummy PI with $40k debt with just PAYE. Obviously having the best job with the least debt is preferable. But it's not so simple as "don't take on any debt" -- especially for a committed PI person who has the option of federal or school-provided loan assistance.

[gaddockteeg]

Wow I'm shocked at so many posters with over 200k debt. More power to you all. Ya'll are brave.

[Anonymous User]

Still a 2L, on what was a full ride but was set as a flat amount, and as such is no longer full

Estimated about $35k debt
Currently at $0

Started law school with about $30k in savings.
Had a paying (non-SA) position during 1L summer, netted me about $9000
Should have just a touch above $0 (something under $1000 after paying June rent) by the time my summer associate starts.

How much debt I take on will depend on how much tuition goes up and the money I have in August after the Summer Associate position completes.

I have managed to stay very frugal these past two years.

[Tls2016]

All the t14's are great with PI loan assistance. Hell, just regular PAYE + PSLF is extremely generous. So for those people it's amazing.

The problem is what happens if you want to switch to non-PI. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't risk 300k at 6% on a 0L's want to do PI.

This. 10% of your salary to do PI at any debt level is completely doable. It's doing the full 10 years or not wanting to do PI at all that's the killer.

HYS allow you to get out at any time. It's not ideal, but it means that if you are $300k in debt and spend 8 years in public interest, you leave with $60k in debt. So although $300k in debt commits you to public interest for some period of time (at HS at least), it's probably closer to 5-6 years rather than 10.

I think the general point is that it's better graduating with no debt (or very minimal debt) than to be forced to rely on any kind of loan forgiveness. A lot of PI jobs aren't what people think - they are terrible and/or require very long hours as well. One of my friends worked 60 hours a week for a non profit making like 50k a year....if you have 300k debt, it makes it a lot harder to change life plans and move around or even take a break from working. Pick any random office job and they will likely make more money than PI. The average nurse who works much less than 60 hours a week makes more than the average PI attorney. You have to love your PI job to stay in it since you could probably make more money even teaching in a lot of states.

Also this is 5-6 years of the prime years of your life - you are never getting your youth back. If you hate your job, this is a reallylong time.

It's better to graduate with no debt and a job that you like. Those are both important. In fact, I'd argue that the career (which lasts for well more than a decade) is much more important than the debt. For example: I think most prospective students interested in international human rights law would strongly prefer to land an int'l human rights job with $300k debt (with a HYS loan assistance program) than end up doing crummy PI with $40k debt with just PAYE. Obviously having the best job with the least debt is preferable. But it's not so simple as "don't take on any debt" -- especially for a committed PI person who has the option of federal or school-provided loan assistance.

Does anyone have any studies on how long people stay in law? just wondering what the attrition rate by 10 years might be. All I know are anecdotal stories of people who have moved into other things, no real data.

It's just such a risk to borrow so much money for an uncertain career.

I also think it's cavalier to assume that a $300,000 debt financed international human rights job is definitively superior to a 40k debt "crummy PI job." I had a friend at one of those outwardly desirable international human rights PI jobs who left because her boss was basically stealing money.

[Anonymous User]

All the t14's are great with PI loan assistance. Hell, just regular PAYE + PSLF is extremely generous. So for those people it's amazing.

The problem is what happens if you want to switch to non-PI. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't risk 300k at 6% on a 0L's want to do PI.

This. 10% of your salary to do PI at any debt level is completely doable. It's doing the full 10 years or not wanting to do PI at all that's the killer.

HYS allow you to get out at any time. It's not ideal, but it means that if you are $300k in debt and spend 8 years in public interest, you leave with $60k in debt. So although $300k in debt commits you to public interest for some period of time (at HS at least), it's probably closer to 5-6 years rather than 10.

I think the general point is that it's better graduating with no debt (or very minimal debt) than to be forced to rely on any kind of loan forgiveness. A lot of PI jobs aren't what people think - they are terrible and/or require very long hours as well. One of my friends worked 60 hours a week for a non profit making like 50k a year....if you have 300k debt, it makes it a lot harder to change life plans and move around or even take a break from working. Pick any random office job and they will likely make more money than PI. The average nurse who works much less than 60 hours a week makes more than the average PI attorney. You have to love your PI job to stay in it since you could probably make more money even teaching in a lot of states.

Also this is 5-6 years of the prime years of your life - you are never getting your youth back. If you hate your job, this is a reallylong time.

It's better to graduate with no debt and a job that you like. Those are both important. In fact, I'd argue that the career (which lasts for well more than a decade) is much more important than the debt. For example: I think most prospective students interested in international human rights law would strongly prefer to land an int'l human rights job with $300k debt (with a HYS loan assistance program) than end up doing crummy PI with $40k debt with just PAYE. Obviously having the best job with the least debt is preferable. But it's not so simple as "don't take on any debt" -- especially for a committed PI person who has the option of federal or school-provided loan assistance.

Does anyone have any studies on how long people stay in law? just wondering what the attrition rate by 10 years might be. All I know are anecdotal stories of people who have moved into other things, no real data.

It's just such a risk to borrow so much money for an uncertain career.

I also think it's cavalier to assume that a $300,000 debt financed international human rights job is definitively superior to a 40k debt "crummy PI job." I had a friend at one of those outwardly desirable international human rights PI jobs who left because her boss was basically stealing money.

A law professor told me that the long-term attrition rate was like 90% (so 90% of JD holders don't stay in the law)...dunno if that's true, but given that I'm just a midlevel and I've already seen a relatively high attrition rate, it wouldn't surprise me.

I think getting into $300k debt for a chance at a job that may be what you wanted (unlikely - because a lot of PI jobs require grunt work as well) is an awfully big price to pay.

[abl]

A law professor told me that the long-term attrition rate was like 90% (so 90% of JD holders don't stay in the law)...dunno if that's true, but given that I'm just a midlevel and I've already seen a relatively high attrition rate, it wouldn't surprise me.

I think getting into $300k debt for a chance at a job that may be what you wanted (unlikely - because a lot of PI jobs require grunt work as well) is an awfully big price to pay.

There's no way that's remotely true for the T14. I'd bet that 90% of T14-graduates don't stay in their initial (narrowly defined) legal track--e.g., biglaw for the most part. But I'd be surprised if the vast majority of T14 grads don't remain in at the very least JD-preferred jobs for their entire careers.

Also, you make this weird implication that people want to do PI work because they don't want to work hard. That's obviously not true. I think this is related to a strange attitude that pervades law in general -- that somehow because you have a JD, you shouldn't have to any of the more crummy work generally delegated to entry level employees. Well, entry level lawyers, just like entry level everyone else, sometimes get grunt work assignments.

Finally, sure, there's grunt work in most legal jobs, especially in the first couple of years--even in "unicorn" jobs. That doesn't mean that all legal jobs are equally as (un)rewarding or that someone doing elite-level PI is even nearly as likely to be dissatisfied as someone doing biglaw. Your attitude seems to be "you're probably going to dislike whatever you do in the law, so you might as well take as little as debt as possible." If that's really a major factor influencing your decision between two schools, you probably shouldn't be going to law school to begin with.

[SemperLegal]

Combined with my now wife.

Estimated $170k
Actual $180k
Delta: +$10k
Reason: Confusion about various loan types (subsidized loans aren't created equally), car insurance surcharge after two speeding tickets (p.s. Insurance for young men with a negative driving history goes down a LOT after you get married, like 60% less than before).

But I obsessed about it. Three times between 0L and my first biglaw pay check we were (expectantly) down to the low three digits of liquid funds (with multiple four figure debts coming due in the next week).

For an entire year I literally tracked in Excel a daily allowance in each category of discretionary spending (I.e. $8.16 for food a day, so if I wanted to go out to eat, I'd have to spend $1 a day for ten days in a row to build a surplus). We only made it because of good statistical skills, over insuring (otherwise id need a bigger emergency fund), a good credit card (0% interest for six months, used it once to pay rent while awaiting a paycheck/ 12% cash advance up to $14g in a true emergency [bail money]), some veterans benefits, and white middle class privilege (it would have killed me to do it, but I knew the safety net of her family, and maybe mine, was there in a catastrophe [surgery])

[bk1]

Insurance for young men with a negative driving history goes down a LOT after you get married, like 60% less than before.

My car insurance only changed slightly, though I wouldn't consider my driving history negative (3 tickets in over a decade of having my license). Location can have a huge impact on rates.

[Anonymous User]

A law professor told me that the long-term attrition rate was like 90% (so 90% of JD holders don't stay in the law)...dunno if that's true, but given that I'm just a midlevel and I've already seen a relatively high attrition rate, it wouldn't surprise me.

I think getting into $300k debt for a chance at a job that may be what you wanted (unlikely - because a lot of PI jobs require grunt work as well) is an awfully big price to pay.

There's no way that's remotely true for the T14. I'd bet that 90% of T14-graduates don't stay in their initial (narrowly defined) legal track--e.g., biglaw for the most part. But I'd be surprised if the vast majority of T14 grads don't remain in at the very least JD-preferred jobs for their entire careers.

Also, you make this weird implication that people want to do PI work because they don't want to work hard. That's obviously not true. I think this is related to a strange attitude that pervades law in general -- that somehow because you have a JD, you shouldn't have to any of the more crummy work generally delegated to entry level employees. Well, entry level lawyers, just like entry level everyone else, sometimes get grunt work assignments.

Finally, sure, there's grunt work in most legal jobs, especially in the first couple of years--even in "unicorn" jobs. That doesn't mean that all legal jobs are equally as (un)rewarding or that someone doing elite-level PI is even nearly as likely to be dissatisfied as someone doing biglaw. Your attitude seems to be "you're probably going to dislike whatever you do in the law, so you might as well take as little as debt as possible." If that's really a major factor influencing your decision between two schools, you probably shouldn't be going to law school to begin with.

To be fair, most people who went to law school probably don't like their jobs and probably shouldn't have gone in the first place, let alone take out $300k debt for it. There's a reason why law ranks in the top 3 careers for dissatisfaction. The odds are against you.

[smallfirmassociate]

About 20% higher than hoped.

[SemperLegal]

Insurance for young men with a negative driving history goes down a LOT after you get married, like 60% less than before.

My car insurance only changed slightly, though I wouldn't consider my driving history negative (3 tickets in over a decade of having my license). Location can have a huge impact on rates.

Strange, I went from not being able to afford to add myself on my now-wife's car ("luckily" I had a seperate household more than 100 miles away) to only being charged a few dollars more a year for being covered as a full-time driver. Maybe I went from "Mr. Semper Legal" to "and spouse", so they didn't pull my driving record.

[SemperLegal]

A law professor told me that the long-term attrition rate was like 90% (so 90% of JD holders don't stay in the law)...dunno if that's true, but given that I'm just a midlevel and I've already seen a relatively high attrition rate, it wouldn't surprise me.

I think getting into $300k debt for a chance at a job that may be what you wanted (unlikely - because a lot of PI jobs require grunt work as well) is an awfully big price to pay.

There's no way that's remotely true for the T14. I'd bet that 90% of T14-graduates don't stay in their initial (narrowly defined) legal track--e.g., biglaw for the most part. But I'd be surprised if the vast majority of T14 grads don't remain in at the very least JD-preferred jobs for their entire careers.

Also, you make this weird implication that people want to do PI work because they don't want to work hard. That's obviously not true. I think this is related to a strange attitude that pervades law in general -- that somehow because you have a JD, you shouldn't have to any of the more crummy work generally delegated to entry level employees. Well, entry level lawyers, just like entry level everyone else, sometimes get grunt work assignments.

Finally, sure, there's grunt work in most legal jobs, especially in the first couple of years--even in "unicorn" jobs. That doesn't mean that all legal jobs are equally as (un)rewarding or that someone doing elite-level PI is even nearly as likely to be dissatisfied as someone doing biglaw. Your attitude seems to be "you're probably going to dislike whatever you do in the law, so you might as well take as little as debt as possible." If that's really a major factor influencing your decision between two schools, you probably shouldn't be going to law school to begin with.

To be fair, most people who went to law school probably don't like their jobs and probably shouldn't have gone in the first place, let alone take out $300k debt for it. There's a reason why law ranks in the top 3 careers for dissatisfaction. The odds are against you.

Debt is a huge factor in job enjoyment. It's easier to like a job that nets you $8k a month and you can quit at any time. It's a little harder when you're paying $4k in loans and you know you can't afford to work anywhere else.