Do you think the legal career will turn around? Forum

[NoBladesNoBows]

[NoBladesNoBows]

[Troianii]

Now that you're entering retard-mode I'll be a little more blunt:

1. I never said 'T14 or nothing' - I literally said upthread that lower down schools are OK on schollys.

2. What I said regarding t14 was: For Biglaw the financial reward and risk barely work out for the lower t14, if then. Saying 'But lower paying Mid Law tho!' completely misss the point that A. jobs that pay LESS than BigLaw can't bring you back to zero net worth any better than BigLaw and B. Going 250K in the hole isn't a step up for ANYONE unless they can make it back. 'Opportunity for a better life' and crippling nondischargeable debt loads are mutually incompatible. Schools that ARE affordable and target regional jobs/markets are great - which I essentially said already.

No need to ad hom, bruh.

1. I never said nor even suggested that *you* said "T14 or nothing", I specifically said: "I think one of the problems with this, what is essentially a "T14 or nothing" attitude is that it fails to consider different positions people are in." And yeah, I saw what you said about "schollys" - you said the only way to go is T14 with a scholarship, or on "VERY" big schollys at a lower ranked one. And?
2. OK, here's probably where the confusion is coming from, and I think it'll make sense to you when I explain. You said, "my alma mater of GULC has about a 50% BigLaw and Fed Clerkship hiring rate... stacked against a 50/50 shot of a job that MAY let you pay that back and just get back to zero." It sounded to me like that 50% shot of MAYBE being able to ever pay off your student debt was linked to that 50% chance you gave of biglaw/federal.

And like I said, you're far overestimating the costs. No one leaves law school with "opportunity costs" debt - you're not going to have to make payments on the money you didn't earn while in law school and, again, like I said, without major scholly its pretty easy to get into a top 100 and pay less than 100k to the school, and we're talking about schools where a student can reasonably expect to start out at
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This whole 'poor people need opportunities too' shtick is exactly why predatory scam schools justify taking money from those who can't afford it, on the slim chance of a possibility that maybe they'll make it big. We can disagree over where that line is drawn (and no, a scam school isn't just anything below the t14), but the fact remains that a shitload if people are in law school that shouldn't be, and a shitload if schools exist that shouldn't.

Who said anything about poor people? Someone needs to check their trust fund privilege...

But seriously, it is ridiculously f***ing simple: the costs of law school WELL outside of the T14 are in many cases far less, even after including opportunity costs, than the lifetime earnings gained. Someone's working at a sh*t job for 30k. They go to law school at BYU and take on their non-resident full tuition at a WHOPPING 22k/yr , and they come out with a burdensome mountain of 66k student debt, and they can reasonably expect to be employed in law and earning roughly 60k (or far more). But on that lower end, BYU's 25th percentile of around 48k - well shoot, that's only an 18k/yr increase in salary, and the student has to pay off 66k. Using the salary increase alone, how long will it take to pay off that debt and the opportunity cost (assuming no raises)? About 7 or 8 years, and the rest is increased income over their lifetime.

omg, the horror

[fats provolone]

Byu's non-Mormon COA is 44k bro

[Troianii]

Here I made it easier for you:




ETA: As Nony said, this graph also ignores the fact that these are reported salaries, meaning that the reality is almost certainly much worse. And in regard to faster salary advancement, that's assuming that you stay in biglaw indefinitely, which very few people do. Once you leave, you are admittedly much less likely to hate your life, but your salary also drops down to that of a standard, moderately successful professional who started working at the same time that you started law school (who also made money for the three years that you either made none, or rapidly lost it).

TL;DR for all of my posts:

(a) Go to law school only if
.....(1) you want to be a lawyer;
.....(2) you will leave with little to no (preferably no) debt, depending on your likelihood of employment; and
.....(3) you are going to a school which is very likely to get you a job as a lawyer.
(b) Completely disregard any advice given by troianii.

Holy straw man batman!

Yeah, has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. I didn't say law school is for everyone, or that law school is good anywhere you go - I said that whether or not it is worth it depends on specific circumstances - bringing up a graph which has absolutely jack to do with ANY specific circumstances (nothing to do with someone's current employment prospects, region, intended law school etc.) proves absolutely nothing. Lumping Wisconsin together with Cooley is just as dumb as lumping Harvard with Cooley.

[Troianii]

Byu's non-Mormon COA is 44k bro

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... lark-03156

http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/byu/costs/2013/

Am I missing something? Or are you including the cost of living, which is something I assume you would be doing outside of law school anyways?

[fats provolone]

just to be clear, you don't think it's appropriate to consider lost income you would have earned during 3 years of school, but want to ignore cost of living because you would have spent that money anyway

[Troianii]

Ok now I'm not even sure that your advice is well-intentioned. This post is almost entirely inaccurate. The stats you're throwing around are all misleading, and some are completely wrong. For example, there are absolutely not "plenty of mid size firms that pay decent wages". Do you know what a bimodal distribution is? Do you know that lawyers' salaries are arranged in one? Apparently not. I would look it up. Bimodal distributions have medians and averages in attractive ranges (80k-120k in this case) while hiding the fact few or none of the individual salaries actually exist in that range. The average of 100 people making 40k, 1 person making 100k, and 100 people making 160k is, drumroll please, 100k!!! The median is also, drumroll please, 100k!!!!! Guess where the majority (not all) of those 100 making 160k are from? T14. Guess where the majority (not all) of those making 40k are from? Everywhere else. They all have the same debt.

Just stop, your advice is shit.

Yeah, I know what bimodal distribution is - this graph isn't anything new, and it doesn't change anything. I mean ffs, did you even read what you were responding to? I said people could make decent wages coming out of many non T-14 law schools, such as "60k". 60k I mean, my God, did you look at the bimodal distribution? Around 60k is pretty common, and what you seem to be missing is that we're primarily talking about T1s here - BYU, BC, BU, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado - we're not talking about Cooley, Regent, or Ave Maria here.

I mean ffs, if you can't read wtf you're responding to then why even bother, NoBladesNoBows? Everything you've said is a strawman. Congratu-f***ing-lations.

[Troianii]

just to be clear, you don't think it's appropriate to consider lost income you would have earned during 3 years of school, but want to ignore cost of living because you would have spent that money anyway

No, I said that you don't include lost income as "debt" - you mark it off as "lost income". While in undergrad I put together like 14k in student loans and could have been working for 40k/yr - that doesn't mean that I've come out of undergrad with 174k of student debt. The main reason for noting the difference is because you don't have to make payments and interest on opportunity costs.

[A. Nony Mouse]

What about my criticisms? Because again, I think you're mostly arguing against a strawman, and also being overly positive. If you're looking at lifetime earnings for law school, you have to recognize that someone who doesn't go to law school - even if they do a "crap" humanities major - may well end up with decent lifetime earnings as well. And the lifetime earnings only come into play if someone can get a job as an attorney to begin with.

[Troianii]

Capitol is right that no one here says T14 only, so you're arguing at a strawman mostly. But even so, some quibbles:

I really don't believe that the average starting salary for a UNH grad is 6 figures. Average of those who reported, maybe? Which isn't the same thing. In fact, average salaries anywhere are kind of meaningless given the bi modal distribution of salaries - does anyone actually make the average?

I'm also not convinced by "faster salary increases than outside of law" - I don't think that's at all correct outside of biglaw or the feds (so, for the majority of people you're talking about).

(I also think you're underestimating the earning potential for humanities majors because entry-level salaries out of school aren't necessarily indicative of career earnings, but WE.)

I'm not remotely T14 or bust, and think schools like BYU and Wisconsin are great deals for the right person (as people here readily acknowledge). But your "in-state tuition" argument seems a little out of date, too - in-state tuition at my state LS is now about $28k a year, and actually plenty of schools don't give in-state after a year. If you add COL and interest to that tuition you're well over $100k. And that can legitimately affect your future options.

I agree that going to law school can be worth it for many people at many schools. But don't sugar coat it.

Edit: oops, my LS tuition for in-state is now $32k a year. And I'm sure that will go up before people now applying graduate.

"If you want Biglaw, then yes T14 with some scholarship $ is the only way to fly. If you're not looking for that, then other schools (With VERY significant scholarship money) are perfectly fine."

"my alma mater of GULC has about a 50% BigLaw and Fed Clerkship hiring rate... a 50/50 shot of a job that MAY let you pay that back and just get back to zero."

"Going 250K in the hole isn't a step up for ANYONE"

So these are the points of contention - no straw man. He said the only two ways to go are T14 with some scholly, or some others with VERY significant scholly. So that's already ruling out BYU, for example, or BC w/o scholly, which is expensive at that but even so, affordable.

Then there's the suggestion (may have misread understandably, but waiting on his response) that the 50% chance at biglaw/fed work is your 50% chance off being able to ever get your debt back to zero - which is pure baloney.

The third bit is including opportunity cost as accrued debt - it's not debt, it's opportunity cost, the difference of which can very likely be made up for in the long term.

Maybe he just put it the wrong way such that it could be easily misunderstood - but really, most of the criticisms of what I've said so far have been straw man. I'm not trying to sugar coat it, just correcting the baloney that was put forward - which was basically a slight variation of T14 or bust.

[Troianii]

What about my criticisms? Because again, I think you're mostly arguing against a strawman, and also being overly positive. If you're looking at lifetime earnings for law school, you have to recognize that someone who doesn't go to law school - even if they do a "crap" humanities major - may well end up with decent lifetime earnings as well. And the lifetime earnings only come into play if someone can get a job as an attorney to begin with.

Yeah, but the issue is that those decent lifetime earnings for humanities majors can't create a median of 70k - the median is pretty darn low.

[A. Nony Mouse]

What about my criticisms? Because again, I think you're mostly arguing against a strawman, and also being overly positive. If you're looking at lifetime earnings for law school, you have to recognize that someone who doesn't go to law school - even if they do a "crap" humanities major - may well end up with decent lifetime earnings as well. And the lifetime earnings only come into play if someone can get a job as an attorney to begin with.

Yeah, but the issue is that those decent lifetime earnings for humanities majors can't create a median of 70k - the median is pretty darn low.

I think this is a wild generalization, and it doesn't make law school at cost the only alternative.

I get that you're less debt-averse than many people. But I also think a lot of people applying to law school don't really get what the debt means to their life. And I think saying that saying a school like BC is expensive but affordable is a little too cavalier about debt. It's $50k a year - that's a lot of money (plus living expenses - which you'd have to pay for anyway, but wouldn't be going into debt and paying interest on if you're working).

[NoBladesNoBows]

[NoBladesNoBows]

[fats provolone]

just to be clear, you don't think it's appropriate to consider lost income you would have earned during 3 years of school, but want to ignore cost of living because you would have spent that money anyway

No, I said that you don't include lost income as "debt" - you mark it off as "lost income". While in undergrad I put together like 14k in student loans and could have been working for 40k/yr - that doesn't mean that I've come out of undergrad with 174k of student debt. The main reason for noting the difference is because you don't have to make payments and interest on opportunity costs.

well, cost of living is actually debt. so that's not a great distinction.

[84651846190]

Capitol is right that no one here says T14 only, so you're arguing at a strawman mostly. But even so, some quibbles:

I really don't believe that the average starting salary for a UNH grad is 6 figures. Average of those who reported, maybe? Which isn't the same thing. In fact, average salaries anywhere are kind of meaningless given the bi modal distribution of salaries - does anyone actually make the average?

I'm also not convinced by "faster salary increases than outside of law" - I don't think that's at all correct outside of biglaw or the feds (so, for the majority of people you're talking about).

(I also think you're underestimating the earning potential for humanities majors because entry-level salaries out of school aren't necessarily indicative of career earnings, but WE.)

I'm not remotely T14 or bust, and think schools like BYU and Wisconsin are great deals for the right person (as people here readily acknowledge). But your "in-state tuition" argument seems a little out of date, too - in-state tuition at my state LS is now about $28k a year, and actually plenty of schools don't give in-state after a year. If you add COL and interest to that tuition you're well over $100k. And that can legitimately affect your future options.

I agree that going to law school can be worth it for many people at many schools. But don't sugar coat it.

Edit: oops, my LS tuition for in-state is now $32k a year. And I'm sure that will go up before people now applying graduate.

"If you want Biglaw, then yes T14 with some scholarship $ is the only way to fly. If you're not looking for that, then other schools (With VERY significant scholarship money) are perfectly fine."

"my alma mater of GULC has about a 50% BigLaw and Fed Clerkship hiring rate... a 50/50 shot of a job that MAY let you pay that back and just get back to zero."

"Going 250K in the hole isn't a step up for ANYONE"

So these are the points of contention - no straw man. He said the only two ways to go are T14 with some scholly, or some others with VERY significant scholly. So that's already ruling out BYU, for example, or BC w/o scholly, which is expensive at that but even so, affordable.

Then there's the suggestion (may have misread understandably, but waiting on his response) that the 50% chance at biglaw/fed work is your 50% chance off being able to ever get your debt back to zero - which is pure baloney.

The third bit is including opportunity cost as accrued debt - it's not debt, it's opportunity cost, the difference of which can very likely be made up for in the long term.

Maybe he just put it the wrong way such that it could be easily misunderstood - but really, most of the criticisms of what I've said so far have been straw man. I'm not trying to sugar coat it, just correcting the baloney that was put forward - which was basically a slight variation of T14 or bust.

Plenty of BYU law grads end up without real legal jobs. Losing 3 years of your life (something like 5% of your entire adult existence) to something as asinine as law school (when you don't even end up with legal employment) should be viewed as an unspeakable tragedy, not something you shrug your shoulders over and rationalize by thinking you weren't going to make that much with your humanities degree anyway. Law school is a terrible choice even if it's free if you end up without a job that you couldn't have landed without a law degree.

[NoBladesNoBows]

[joeycxxxx09]

You guys are dicks. If you have minimum debt, go. If you get into the top 25 schools with some money, go. Don't go to a school out of the top 50 unless you're cool with potentially only landing a low paying job that doesn't require a JD. The legal profession isn't going down a blackhole but it's certainly not going to be in Time's list of the top 10 jobs in the next 20 years.

[NoBladesNoBows]

[84651846190]

For some significant percentage of law grads it would have been better for them to slip into a coma for three years rather than waste time, emotional sanity, and money on law school.

[joeycxxxx09]

You guys are dicks. If you have minimum debt, go. If you get into the top 25 schools with some money, go. Don't go to a school out of the top 50 unless you're cool with potentially only landing a low paying job that doesn't require a JD. The legal profession isn't going down a blackhole but it's certainly not going to be in Time's list of the top 10 jobs in the next 20 years.

No one is saying that the above advice is always wrong. The problem here is that you're ignoring the motivations for going. These reasons are legitimate if you have good reasons for being a lawyer, but it still entails a lot of risk. That risk should only be assumed if you have a reason for going to law school better than not being able to find another job.

What's a better reason than not being able to find a job? If X can't find a job, why not do law school, when law school can potentially provide a good job. Especially with a small debt load, which mitigates the risk you're talking about by a good amount, I don't see what the problem is with that motivation. And now we need good reasons for being a lawyer? Such as?

[Ohiobumpkin]

The only bright spot that I can think of for younger lawyers and current law students is that the legal profession is one of the most aged professions. I read an article a few months ago where the average age of an attorney is in the 40s. Within the next five-ten years, pretty much most of the baby boomers will be retired and many law firms (of all sizes, but particularly small and mid-sized firms) will need to replenish their ranks.

[fats provolone]

The only bright spot that I can think of for younger lawyers and current law students is that the legal profession is one of the most aged professions. I read an article a few months ago where the average age of an attorney is in the 40s. Within the next five-ten years, pretty much most of the baby boomers will be retired and many law firms (of all sizes, but particularly small and mid-sized firms) will need to replenish their ranks.

the boomers have been 5-10 yrs from retirement for like 30 years. they'll find a way to fuck us

[A. Nony Mouse]

You guys are dicks. If you have minimum debt, go. If you get into the top 25 schools with some money, go. Don't go to a school out of the top 50 unless you're cool with potentially only landing a low paying job that doesn't require a JD. The legal profession isn't going down a blackhole but it's certainly not going to be in Time's list of the top 10 jobs in the next 20 years.

No one is saying that the above advice is always wrong. The problem here is that you're ignoring the motivations for going. These reasons are legitimate if you have good reasons for being a lawyer, but it still entails a lot of risk. That risk should only be assumed if you have a reason for going to law school better than not being able to find another job.

What's a better reason than not being able to find a job? If X can't find a job, why not do law school, when law school can potentially provide a good job. Especially with a small debt load, which mitigates the risk you're talking about by a good amount, I don't see what the problem is with that motivation. And now we need good reasons for being a lawyer? Such as?

Knowing you won't hate it. Going into debt for a job you hate is not a recipe for happiness.