Talking someone out of attending law school Forum

[ryegye87]

A friend of a friend wants to talk to me about going to law school. I'm 100% positive it isn't for him and he just wants to do it because he's not sure what to do with his life, and along with the rest of lay America, thinks a JD = $ + Prestige. I want to give him a reality check, but I don't want to come off too harsh. Does anybody have any statistics or articles they can point me to in order to better equip him for the realities that face a law school student?

[t14fanboy]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=180975

Use the search function.

[dreakol]

A friend of a friend wants to talk to me about going to law school. I'm 100% positive it isn't for him and he just wants to do it because he's not sure what to do with his life, and along with the rest of lay America, thinks a JD = $ + Prestige. I want to give him a reality check, but I don't want to come off too harsh. Does anybody have any statistics or articles they can point me to in order to better equip him for the realities that face a law school student?

you sound like a good friend

[ryegye87]

1. I did, and that didn't come up and 2. That doesn't really have what I'm looking for. That threat is about somebody talking a friend out of attending a TTT. This person hasn't taken the LSAT. Instead, I'm just looking to talk to him in general about the realities facing law students overall. Furthermore, I specifically noted in my post that I was looking for any articles or statistics which I could point him to or voice in my opinion, so as though it doesn't seem I'm speaking purely from conjecture. That thread gives neither of the two.

[DocHawkeye]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=180975

Use the search function.

You are making a lot of assumptions in stating that the thread you're quoting is relevant to the discussion at hand. We don't know anything about the ability or preparedness of the individual in question. There are a vast number of careers besides being a lawyer open to a person with a JD or a joint degree (e.g.: JD/MBA). I think a person could make a much worse move than going to law school if they don't know what they want to end up doing. I also think it’s better to let a person decide for him/herself what is or is not for them.

[ryegye87]

A friend of a friend wants to talk to me about going to law school. I'm 100% positive it isn't for him and he just wants to do it because he's not sure what to do with his life, and along with the rest of lay America, thinks a JD = $ + Prestige. I want to give him a reality check, but I don't want to come off too harsh. Does anybody have any statistics or articles they can point me to in order to better equip him for the realities that face a law school student?

you sound like a good friend

Not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic. But yeah, I would consider someone who wants to fully inform a person about a life altering decision that too many people make blindly a good friend.

[bazinga!]

nytimes generally dumps on law schools, but here is a particularly enlightening piece they did a while back about the scam that is law school.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/busin ... it?&st=cse

[ryegye87]

Thank you.

[t14fanboy]

I have seen data on the legal market. http://www.nationaljurist.com/content/w ... l-worth-it Here is a great article about the legal market. And I think it is very important to put the legal market in perspective. There is still less unemployment in the legal market than there is in the majority of professions in this country. Also it seems that most people are comparing the current legal market to what it was like in the 90's and mid 00's. With unemployment close to 1% nationally! So even if unemployment quadrupled, which it did, were still only talking about 4% unemployment nation wide.

There might be less unemployment overall, but that's a stupid metric. If the person graduating from law school just goes back to Starbucks, then they wasted the time and money getting a JD since their job does not require one. Getting a JD does not necessarily make you more employable.

To sum things up nicely:

The reality is, only 58% of law grads get full time jobs that require bar passage. Not all these jobs even pay. http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 5#p5146995. Assuming that 10% of all incoming entrants don't want to practice (99% of people at my school do, incidentally), law school was already a bad decision for at least 1/3 of all grads. They will never work as lawyers. Those that don't get jobs come disproportionally from lower-ranked schools. http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/sobe ... ho-do.html. Meanwhile, average law school indebtedness nears $100k. http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdail ... ubble.html.

There's a lot of emphasis placed on big law firms here because that's the surest way to pay down that big debt. If you miss out on the big law boat, you'll likely start at about $50k. http://www.nalp.org/salarycurve_classof2010#curve2 (keep in mind that a lot of those jobs in the trough, $95k+, are big firms in smaller markets). This is, of course, if you are one of the lucky few that gets a legal job at all.

Meanwhile, law schools are lying to you, telling stories of 90%+ grads employed 9 months after graduation, with the implication that they are all getting jobs as lawyers. They use salary statistics from a small, successful portion of the class with the implication that this small segment represent the whole. http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdail ... ption.html; http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/ (look at the data clearinghouse). Why are they doing this? To get a nice cut of easy federal student loan dollars, as the government is lending to students without regard for their ability to repay. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/busin ... davidsegal.

So no, it's not elitism that makes me warn off people from less regarded schools, but rather simple economic realities of this noble profession. I read this article the other day, and I was struck about the actual nobility in how Lord, Day & Lord ran their practice. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/02/nyreg ... funct.html. Those were the good 'ol days. Now, prospective entrants to the profession are lied to and saddled with massive loans from the get-go. Telling someone not to take out $200k of debt for a school like Stetson is pretty sound economic advice. $50k debt? Okay, maybe that's not so bad. If someone wants to go to a school that has bad employment outcomes, go ahead, be my guest, I hope it works out for them. Nowhere did I say that law could not be rewarding. But from many schools, many grads will end up getting a nonlegal job they could have gotten with just their undergrad degree, except they'll be $100k in non-dischargeable student loan debt lighter.

Sincerely,
Grizz

[t14fanboy]

1. I did, and that didn't come up and 2. That doesn't really have what I'm looking for. That threat is about somebody talking a friend out of attending a TTT. This person hasn't taken the LSAT. Instead, I'm just looking to talk to him in general about the realities facing law students overall. Furthermore, I specifically noted in my post that I was looking for any articles or statistics which I could point him to or voice in my opinion, so as though it doesn't seem I'm speaking purely from conjecture. That thread gives neither of the two.

LMAO chill the fuck out and use the search function. A million threads on this subject.

[t14fanboy]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=180975

Use the search function.

You are making a lot of assumptions in stating that the thread you're quoting is relevant to the discussion at hand. We don't know anything about the ability or preparedness of the individual in question. There are a vast number of careers besides being a lawyer open to a person with a JD or a joint degree (e.g.: JD/MBA). I think a person could make a much worse move than going to law school if they don't know what they want to end up doing. I also think it’s better to let a person decide for him/herself what is or is not for them.

The point I was making was to use the search function. Reading comp fail bro.

[DocHawkeye]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=180975

Use the search function.

You are making a lot of assumptions in stating that the thread you're quoting is relevant to the discussion at hand. We don't know anything about the ability or preparedness of the individual in question. There are a vast number of careers besides being a lawyer open to a person with a JD or a joint degree (e.g.: JD/MBA). I think a person could make a much worse move than going to law school if they don't know what they want to end up doing. I also think it’s better to let a person decide for him/herself what is or is not for them.

The point I was making was to use the search function. Reading comp fail bro.

And you chose to make this point by citing a single irrelevant thread?

[t14fanboy]

Yes let me have a pissing contest with you.

[traehekat]

Just do a Google search, there are plenty of articles that have come out in the last year or so that do a somewhat decent job of explaining what a terrible idea it is to go to law school. Pointing to the NLJ 250 numbers is a good place to start, as well.

[ryegye87]

Just do a Google search, there are plenty of articles that have come out in the last year or so that do a somewhat decent job of explaining what a terrible idea it is to go to law school. Pointing to the NLJ 250 numbers is a good place to start, as well.

I guess I was just trying to save the time of sifting through multiple articles and searches in order to find what many regard as the best presented and straightforward analysis of the matter. T14Fanboy's pointing to Grizz's post, along with the NYtimes article, has pretty much done that for me. I didn't see Grizz's post on my first go through of the thread, unfortunately. Any other "favorite reads" are welcome though.

[dreakol]

A friend of a friend wants to talk to me about going to law school. I'm 100% positive it isn't for him and he just wants to do it because he's not sure what to do with his life, and along with the rest of lay America, thinks a JD = $ + Prestige. I want to give him a reality check, but I don't want to come off too harsh. Does anybody have any statistics or articles they can point me to in order to better equip him for the realities that face a law school student?

you sound like a good friend

Not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic. But yeah, I would consider someone who wants to fully inform a person about a life altering decision that too many people make blindly a good friend.

i was being serious

[sunynp]

Well, Paul Campos' blog might help. He is a law professor at CU. it is called insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com

There was an NPR report
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145179563 ... nt-numbers
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/23/149244034 ... -find-work
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/21/141564239 ... -graduates

The New York TImes has had several articles as have the wall street journal
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/busin ... rises.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/busin ... -year.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/busin ... davidsegal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 96610.html (That article is job prospects for law grads? The jury is out.)

You can probably find more stuff linked to in Above the Law stories and by googling some of the above stories.

[NotMyRealName09]

Trying to "talk someone out" of going is about as likely of succeeding as telling your teenage daughter not to date that handsome rebel with the motorcycle and tatoos.

Its better to be frank - the job market is terrible unless you are top of your class, and even then it is nothing like it was a decade ago. See, e.g., blah blah blah. Average attorney salary is X, not $160k.

I totally understand the "don't go to law school" crowd - I do, I saw well qualified peers completely strike out on the job search - but it seems like a conflict of interest for someone already in or through law school to be warding people off entirely.

Whose best interests do you have in mind? The prospective student's? Or yours (less new students mean improved job prospects for YOU in the future)?

A friend of a friend wants to talk to me about going to law school. I'm 100% positive it isn't for him and he just wants to do it because he's not sure what to do with his life, and along with the rest of lay America, thinks a JD = $ + Prestige. I want to give him a reality check, but I don't want to come off too harsh. Does anybody have any statistics or articles they can point me to in order to better equip him for the realities that face a law school student?

You have the right approach. We learn lessons best when we make the discoveries ourselves. Point him to the appropriate resources and set him free to make his own decision, noting you are happy to answer any questions you have.