Saturday, August 27, 2011

What's the matter with OLs?

People immersed in, or even somewhat familiar with, the criticisms of law schools that can be found on dozens of scam blogs and even in a few impeccably mainstream venues are understandably somewhat puzzled about why the law  school bubble has yet to burst.  Not that there aren't signs of trouble -- as of March law school applications were down more than 11% from the same time last year -- but as commentators on yesterday's post noted, if you look at sites like this one, there's very little indication that anything has changed.


Why is it that the more things change, the more they stay the same?   One reason is that it takes a long time and a special set of conditions for serious criticisms of any cultural institution as well-defended as the American law school to filter down to a mass audience.  People have been pointing out almost since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary (i.e., the 1930s) that law school is for the most part an intellectually vacuous and practically useless experience, that law is on the whole an unhappy profession, that going to law school to get rich is in the vast majority of cases a terrible idea, and so on and so forth.

All of it made very little difference for reasons that were fairly straightforward. The intellectual critique of legal education has never gotten anywhere because law schools are not intellectual institutions (Such critiques are in the end like a serious film critic taking Jerry Bruckheimer's latest summer blockbuster to task for its aesthetic failings.)  That law school has never taught people anything about practicing law is a cost that the legal profession itself simply absorbed, partially out of, like so many other things, sheer inertia, and partially because real lawyers have always on some level understood that the whole idea of undertaking serious vocational training in an institution that in any way resembles the modern American law school makes  no sense.  That law is an unhappy profession has more to do with factors that law schools can do little about (Although the invidious socialization effects of traditional legal education certainly haven't helped: whether law school is more of an asshole magnet or factory is a question worthy of more intense study than it has yet received).   And while 99.5% of lawyers never got rich, even loosely speaking, the cost-benefit ratio was positive enough -- especially if you ignored or distorted the psychic costs and benefits -- that the whole thing continued to make sense for enough people at the grittiest level of individual economic choice.

Some of this may actually be changing, although of course no one knows the extent to which things will go back to the way they used to be, i..e, pretty awful but mostly impervious to criticism or reform, when the present recession finally recedes.  Some of the structural changes taking place in the practice of law may be so fundamental that things may never go back to resembling the golden age.  Or perhaps they will go back, but for a smaller cadre of law schools and law professors than before.  We'll see.

Which brings us back to the question of why there has, of yet, been not much change in the market for law school admissions.  Possible explanations, besides the overarching one that law schools remain exceptionally well inoculated against the risk of learning anything from the professional and life experiences of their graduates:

(1) At some level, people want to be lied to.  Sure, an intellectually curious person with a tendency to distrust authority figures will look at the placement stats put out by law schools, and even now realize the stats are a bad joke.  The other X percentage of potential law students want to believe what they're told. As the singer said, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. (True story: A few years ago I was walking down Seventh Avenue in the rain without an umbrella, to meet some people at a restaurant. It was cold and I was under-dressed for the weather, especially given the sudden rainstorm.  Naturally under these conditions of extreme urban and climactic alienation I start humming The Boxer to myself, specifically the part about the whores on Seventh Avenue. I get to the restaurant early, get seated, and one minute later Paul Simon sits down at the table right next to me.) Anyway, what percentage to you suppose X is?

(2)  Our culture combines statistical innumeracy with the ideology of the Protestant work ethic in a way that makes people tend to be extremely risk-seeking when they hear that the top 10% to 20% of the class at Pretty Good Law School are getting BIGLAW jobs (of course the real number right now is more like 3%- 5%. See point #1 above).  People believe that if they just "work hard" everything will work out, because they have been told this from a very young age, and also because they want desperately to believe it's true (again, see point #1, supra).

(3)  Some law students are just engaging in conspicuous consumption.  These are people who come from money and want an advanced degree that (absurdly) confers an air of intellectual accomplishment and (more realistically) signals a certain social status.  These students go to law school for the same reason that young men of good family went to Ivy League schools a couple of generations ago, to collect their Gentleman's Cs and polish their social connections. (The same year George W. Bush arrived in New Haven, Kingman Brewster announced his intention to make Yale something more than "a finishing school on Long Island Sound.")  Luckily for law schools, the vast wealth that has been shoved up to the top of the social pyramid over the past 30 years means there are now a lot more Tom Buchanans out there, and a good number are going to law school in something of the same way Andover boys used to go to Yale (better yet, now Daisy Buchanan is going to law finishing school as well).

(4)  For those from less exalted backgrounds, law school gives them a chance to in effect buy a government-subsidized lottery ticket, while delaying a confrontation with how dire their economic circumstances actually are for another three years.  As people point out constantly, what are all these Poli Sci majors with degrees from Directional State and $45,000 in school loans supposed to do instead? (Of course the answer "go to law school" is increasingly looking about as sensible as advising somebody in a terrible marriage to have a baby in order to turn things around).

This last group will be most strongly affected by a general economic recovery (in fact, some of the stories about the decline in law school applications earlier this year misinterpreted that decline as an early sign of a recovering economy).

As for the rest, it's going to be interesting to see what effect the information revolution has over the next few years on the willingness of people to continue to play the law school game. But of course the law school game is embedded in a larger social game (nothing on this blog should be interpreted as any sort of downplaying of the fact that a serious crisis is brewing throughout higher education). And as a great philosopher once put it: "The game is out there. And it's play -- or get played."

(c/p at LGM)

Further thoughts from Adam Smith, Esq

120 comments:

  1. Thank you, Professor, for your courage. Though most 0L's won't be deterred by your blog, I am certain that some will. And for those lives saved, you are a hero.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well said all around. I especially like this line, "Our culture combines statistical innumeracy with the ideology of the Protestant work ethic in a way that makes people tend to be extremely risk-seeking . . . People believe that if they just "work hard" everything will work out . . ."

    This is so true. And NOT to take away from work ethic, working hard DOES pay off! But not necessarily if you restricted in the product you offer. For example, it doesn't matter how hard you work to produce old style camera film, you won't make any money because technology has overtaken you. But if you apply that work ethic in another area you will succeed. Similarly, those who ultimately realize that they were scammed by their law school can still find success in this world by working hard at something else, but that doesn't erase the harm done by the scam.

    ReplyDelete
  3. One thing I like about this blog is that you understand the human experience, human culture and human history.

    This is unlike many law professors (our notorious Law and Philosophy professor exemplifying this group) who - because they have lived in a bubble their entire lives - have developed an almost autistic view of the world riddled with laughably complex, but ultimately inaccurate and useless theories and thoughts that have zero value outside of their mind.

    Intellectuals should be solving problems, real world problems. They should be identifying them and tackling them which is exactly what you are doing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. One of my high school friends is applying to law school for the upcoming cycle. He has been unemployed for a while now (thanks to the Great Recession) and probably thought law school would offer refuge from the downturn. I did my best to discourage him. I forwarded him links to your blog as well as the NYT pieces that came out earlier in the year. He completely ignored it all. He's determined to go to law school even though he expresses uncertainty at getting in (he had just above a 2.0 GPA in college). The decision to go will absolutely ruin him, but he's so stubborn that there is really nothing to be done about it.

    I realize that its impossible to protect people from themselves, but someone has to stop these OL's from foolishly stampeding forward. Law schools need to exercise better decision making than to simply take the LSAT/GPA combo and wash their hands of any responsibility to the students or the profession.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I vote for #1, based on my own experience in the early '80's. After a couple of years off after college, I decided to go to law school to do public interest work. I got into both Columbia & NYU. I chose NYU because it had a "public interest reputation." Little did I know that what this meant was that, unlike Columbia which sent 95% of its grads into corporate law, NYU sent only 90%. There were twice as many PI students at NYU, but we were still outnumbered 9 to 1.

    I heard what I wanted to hear and, even though I thought I was wise after two years in the "real world," I was ridiculously naive about what I was getting into. I can't imagine that most of today's OL's are any different.

    ReplyDelete
  6. How about people who want to make a difference and help their community, and whose skills are suited for the law? That was me. I was never interested in BIGLAW or a huge paycheck. I wanted to be a legal aid lawyer and help women get restraining orders against boyfriends who try to strangle them.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "he had just above a 2.0 GPA in college)."

    I can imagine Touro's dean getting excited by the thought of another seat filled.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "How about people who want to make a difference and help their community, and whose skills are suited for the law? That was me. I was never interested in BIGLAW or a huge paycheck. I wanted to be a legal aid lawyer and help women get restraining orders against boyfriends who try to strangle them."

    -------

    Two problems with this:

    1. Due to law school loans, you will need to earn a salary that you can't make doing that.

    2. Legal aid is funded by charity & government, which is a limited pool of money, and they're not hiring.

    3. I'm not saying this is true in your case, but the vast majority of students who (said they) thought the way you did, said so because they were ashamed to admit what they really wanted - a high paying corporate gig defending the companies like the one in Erin Brockovitch. This lie was exposed when, once they had to choose between a PI offer and a corporate offer, they ran towards the latter.

    ReplyDelete
  9. (I originally intended to post 2 problems but then decided on 3)

    ReplyDelete
  10. @LawProf:

    That philosopher had the good sense not to go to law school, and instead do something fairly lucrative as well as good for his community.

    He was a pretty tough witness on cross, too.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Who was this "philosopher?" (In quotes because something tells me he wasn't really a philosopher)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Don't forget you've got folks like Ted Seto writing articles that suggest that based on useless past data, you should think about going to his school if you want to be a BigLaw partner in Los Angeles, when, in reality, to get BigLaw out of Loyola, you've no better than a 1 in 20 chance at getting a job at an NLJ 100 firm out of that school.

    However, at Ted's school, you do have a 100% chance of paying unjustifiably high tuition, and you have about a 6% chance of getting forcibly flunked out of the school in your first year.

    What an absolute joke...

    See:

    https://officialguide.lsac.org/Release/SchoolsABAData/SchoolPage/SchoolPage_Info/ABA_LawSchoolData.aspx

    See also:

    http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202483173162

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymouse 9:53:

    1. You are assuming the OP didn't or won't go to a law school that (a) allows him/her to go to BigLaw for long enough to pay off loans, then switch gears and/or (b) has a low-income repayment plan for its public interest students.

    2. Some are, believe it or not. My school's public interest advising office sends out a biweekly digest of public interest opportunities, including legal aid. Many alums (myself included) have recently gotten job offers from that digest, although job searches are a matter of months, not weeks.

    3. I don't think that the students who say that they want to do public interest, then take big firm job offers, were necessarily lying in the first place. They were just very naive about what both sets of jobs had to offer them. In many public interest jobs, you are working with vulnerable populations who may be inconsistent about whether and how they want you to help them. (e.g., in the DV context that the original commenter gave, many women change their mind about wanting a restraining order, go back to their abusive partners, etc.) The law may limit your ability to help; clients may not be consistently appreciative or even polite of your efforts on their behalf; you may end up helping some of your clients out with basic needs out of your own modest paycheck, because you're the only one who cares and has any means to help them. Many students who were initially PI-minded see this during their 1L summer internships and come back having second thoughts about PI work...just in time for the 2L biglaw recruiting season. They (top law school students) realize that all they have to do is show up to get a $3300/week (or whatever it is now) summer job. They know there's wining and dining ahead, and they may be vaguely be aware that there is some tradeoff in terms of post-law school quality of life. But they don't know how to measure what 2400, 2800, or 3000 billable hour years will do to their social lives, relationships, and happiness in advance, so off they trot! Over the rest of their law school years, there will be mumbled excuses for the corporations they are signing up to defend (usually coupled with platitudes about everyone deserving a defense and corporations being legal people, etc.)

    ReplyDelete
  14. (continued)


    Some of these people come to their senses years after law school and realize that BigLaw is a path to happiness for no one. (As best as I can tell, at least - I have watched a supermajority of my classmates endure that professional and personal happiness for five years post-law school, and not one has expressed that they are generally happy. Those of us who have left are uniformly happier. And here is where I take issue with the tone of the comments on blogs like these, which suggest that post-BigLaw, there is nothing that any lawyer could ever do that would bring them professional happiness, while still paying the bills. In my experience, the switch into public interest law has been the ticket to professional satisfaction for me. I understand that I am making $200,000 less than my BigLaw sticker value, and I care not at all, now that my monthly student loan payment is minimal. I accept the downsides of a lower income and working with sometimes-difficult clients in exchange for the rewards of helping many appreciative clients, doing intellectually satisfying constitutional litigation, and fighting for the rights of people who have been mostly forgotten by mainstream society. I understand that this mix of tradeoffs isn't right for every lawyer - and isn't available to many lawyers. But I just want to argue against the overblown rhetoric that I'm seeing in these comments that no one should ever go to any law school, ever, if they have to pay for it themselves, because there is absolutely no job where they could be happy and pay their bills. It's contrary to my experience - and to the experience of most other public interest lawyers I know, as well as some government lawyers. It's one thing to state that people who won't have or don't want these career options should not go to law school. But those who do want and will have these options absolutely should continue to consider law school, even if it involves a student loan burden *that they have a clear plan for addressing* (either via a BigLaw job they know they can get because their school can offer one of those jobs to everyone who wants them, or low-income repayment on which they've fully done the math).

    ReplyDelete
  15. "I don't think that the students who say that they want to do public interest, then take big firm job offers, were necessarily lying in the first place."

    How convenient.

    ReplyDelete
  16. "...there are a lot of Tom Buchanans out there, and a good number are going to law school (better yet, now Daisy is going to law finishing school as well, so as to add a certain gloss to her wedding announcement in the New York Times)."
    Harsh for those of us who grew up on The East Egg ... trustfunds don't go as far as they once did.

    ReplyDelete
  17. 10:28, those are excellent points, as you probably know the literature on lawyer (un)happiness indicates that attorneys doing public interest work are on average much less unhappy than those in private law. As you also note but IMO somewhat understate, the option of running up huge loans, getting a job in BIGLAW for long enough to pay them off or way down, and then going into public interest, is only available to a very small percentage of current grads.

    I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard a clueless law professor talk about how students should consider working in public interest rather than BIGLAW, without realizing that the debt burden is now making that completely impossible in the short to medium term for everyone but the people who go to the handful of schools that have real LRAP programs. Of course beyond that, the vast majority of their students can get neither the BIGLAW jobs that make up Part I of this plan nor the public interest jobs that make up Part II (a job at DANY is way, way harder to get than a job at Cravath Skadden Polk).

    That said, your comments are certainly a useful reminder that there are good career paths out there for lawyers. They're just very hard to get on and stick to, especially under current conditions.

    ReplyDelete
  18. 10:27, that piece by Prof. Seto states that there are something like 100 biglaw partners in LA from Loyola. Given that Loyola graduates 400 kids each year, that's not saying much for Loyola's ability to feed you into a biglaw partnership! In fact Loyola can't even feed their graduates into a biglaw job. I imagine their biglaw placement is around 2% these days.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Oh noes, I might have a "drastic debt burden" while I make the world a better place. Do you think when I die God is going to tote up the debt I left behind against the people I helped and say "sorry, you still owe the bank a little too much, you go to hell".

    ReplyDelete
  20. I don't want to digress, but this whole idea that public interest makes the world a better place is highly suspect. To be fair, you can't make this judgment unless you look at the specific issue being litigated or fought over, and then only after a thorough and careful analysis, but there are plenty of examples of situations where public interest efforts cause more harm than good.

    ReplyDelete
  21. P.S. It shouldn't be called "Public Interest" work. It should be called "Special Interest" work.

    ReplyDelete
  22. As an aside, I knew a girl who was really excited to represent other girls in domestic violence cases. She quickly became disheartened when she learned that most of her clients would go right back to the man who had been beating them.

    ReplyDelete
  23. "Oh noes, I might have a 'drastic debt burden' while I make the world a better place"

    I have a feeling this is a troll, but you may discover that in addition to being a public interest lawyer, you also want a basic middle class lifestyle, i.e. to be married with 2 or 3 children; live in a nice house in a suburb with good schools, etc.

    A big debt burden is a huge obstacle to achieving such a goal.

    ReplyDelete
  24. 11:37, Sadly, some "domestic violence" allegations are lies made up to gain leverage in the relationship. From what I have heard, family law is a trainwreck of the most base aspects of humanity. Not that this should be a surprise to anyone, "all is fair in love and war" and all. Of course there is plenty of real domestic violence too. I don't mean to diminish that.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Keep up the good work LawProf. I would like to make a couple of observations about the impact of technology on today’s post. When the recession ends, the current law school model will be even less relevant to the world of practicing lawyers. The economic foundation of much of BigLaw is the so-called Cravath model where cadres of young lawyers do relatively mundane tasks at a high hourly rate. Perhaps the most mundane is reading and coding of millions of pages of litigation documents. In the last few years, however, a variety of computer programs have been developed that can do that work much better and far cheaper than a bleary eyed young lawyer or document reading factories in India. The old job description is going and will be gone in a year or so. 0Ls need to be aware that much of the traditional BigLaw associate job market will be gone by the time they get there. Even those 0Ls who only seek to do solo or small firm practice will find that kind of practice heavily computerized and thus far more competitive than it is today. One recent event, the investment by Google in Rocket Lawyer (See: http://tinyurl.com/3n3h4b6), portends big changes in all kinds of legal practice.
    As 0Ls become aware of the likely changes, applications to law school will drop. At first the T1 schools will probably maintain their admission standards by reducing class size at the cost of tuition income which will in turn have a pernicious impact on the current educational model. Law schools will have to re-invent themselves as Professor Ribstein makes clear in The Death of Big Law (2010 Wis. L. Rev.) (SSRN). Where we will be just a few years from now can only be the subject of speculation. I believe that all of this is so clear that the disclosure of the potential changes in the job market becomes even more fundamental.

    ReplyDelete
  26. LOC, I think you're right, and that the economics of legal practice are going to look very different a decade from now than they do today. If you want a good laugh and haven't seen it before check out this 16-year-old Newsweek article on the future effect of the internet on journalism and retail shopping.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html

    ReplyDelete
  27. LOC, Actually, I think technology (e.g. e-discovery of literally millions of emails) has increased the demand for some types of legal work. But you're probably right that what technology giveth technology will eventually taketh away as OCR, high speed internet and offshoring allow the work to be done more cheaply.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I just want to point out that there are different ways of doing Public Intrest work. I work with claimants seeking Social Security Disability. Most of the people I work with are on society's margin as far as work goes in the first place (e.g. I can recall exactly 5 college grads out of hundreds of claimants.) Congress sets the fee amount (1/4 of past benefits up to a max of $6,000.) In this way I'm helping marginalized people, and making a decent living.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Thanks for the cite, LawProf. That might have been written by my then current dean who scoffed when I expressed my belief that Internet would change everything. He actually laughed. I wrote 5 law review articles in a year around then and I told him it was so easy with the Internet and WordPerfect that I wasn't going to do it any more. I turned to non-scholarly publication and wrote a column I entitled Law Office Computing which in my estimation had a far, far greater impact than any law review article I had ever written, even one that was cited by the Supreme Court back in the 70s. Of course, I paid the price of being a "failed scholar" and all that entails! AMEN

    ReplyDelete
  30. It is hard for me to identify with the circumstances of today's law students because things were so different when I went to Cleveland State's law school in the early 80s. Although an in-town law school, ten or so of my fellow graduates made it into BigLaw and were not terribly unhappy with it. The big difference is that it only cost about $4K a year to go there.

    I went to law school because I was a lower rung political hack who thought a JD would help me get to the higher rungs. I ended up doing insurance defense, then all manner of civil trial practice. After twenty years, I gave it up and became a high school teacher. I never got rich, I never did any big time 'this is why I became a lawyer' cases, I never felt like anything but an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill. I can remember a few times when it was fun.

    One thing I recall about my fellow law students that may still be true of today's law students is that many were simply bright, competitive people who did not have any other particular career interest, so they went to law school. The status or prestige of being a lawyer in our society disappears once one becomes an attorney. But for people who do not know the realities of the job itself, for those who are not acquainted with anyone in the business, the word 'attorney' still has a lot of cachet.

    And "I'm going to law school" still sounds better than "I'm 22, I've been a straight-A student my whole life, but I still have no clue what I can do or what I want to do for the rest of my life."

    ReplyDelete
  31. Boy, the PI lawyers I know hate it. They found out that a significant portion of their jobs is fundraising (e.g. sales, the thing they went to law school to avoid doing), and that PI jobs don't support anything that in any way resembles a middle class existence where PI jobs are located (large metropolitan areas). Most of my PI friends are "MRS. Lawyers" married to BIGLAW associates, but the two who aren't live in what I would consider poverty. And those jobs are incredibly competitive!

    ReplyDelete
  32. Interesting day for women on this blog: First we learn that well-off women often go to law school to spruce up their wedding announcements in the NY Times. Then we learn that "girl" lawyers sue on behalf of their clients ("girls") when "men" beat the "girls" up. Finally, we learn of the-- anecdotally-- widespread phenomenon of "MRS. Lawyers", Public Interest lawyers who are, again anecdotally, all married to presumably guy BIGLAW associates.

    ReplyDelete
  33. In terms of money, the lawsuit racket seems to be in class actions. The problem is only rich lawyers can afford to file them.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Oh, away from the complaint about the dubious woman talk-- the NY Times has an editorial today about student debt and the need to allow bankruptcy protection for students who have taken out huge loans from private lenders to go school. It would be a tough road to change this. But that seems a potentially important avenue to pursue through advocacy and building allies. It was mainly about colleges, but the argument works for law schools as well. There is legislation in the House about this, introduced by Durbin of Illinois and Cohen of Tennessee.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Could you imagine how awesome it would be if you could get student loans dismissed in bankruptcy? So many happy law grads. The ones who will get out from under that debt, and the bankruptcy lawyers who will do the work!

    ReplyDelete
  36. @ James Powell: And "I'm going to law school" still sounds better than "I'm 22, I've been a straight-A student my whole life, but I still have no clue what I can do or what I want to do for the rest of my life."

    Agree 100%. This + cheap government money + law school's policing themselves = law school tuition bubble

    ReplyDelete
  37. I'm curious: what should a person, say your hypothetical political science major, do after college now? Law school? -- this blog makes a compelling case for why it's a bad idea. A Ph.D. program? -- it's pretty clear that that's a ticket to a life of adjuncting that makes law school look wonderful by comparison. What else should one look to do, especially if one has no interest in business?

    ReplyDelete
  38. Run for Congress. Good starting salary and great benefits.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Or K-12 Education where there is a tremendous and continually growing need for bright young people.

    ReplyDelete
  40. So many law students suffer from cognitive dissonance. On some level, most understand that they must excel at law school, in order to have a chance of landing Biglaw. Hence, the focus on making law review. (In contrast, do you see medical and dental students losing sleep and hair, while gaining weight and bags under their eyes - stressing over whether they will land in the top 10 percent of their class?!)

    Going along this vein, many law students fall (willing) victim to confirmation bias. Perhaps it is human nature for one to overstate one's own abilities - while downplaying the competition. However, in excess of 90 percent of a typical law class is shooting for the top 10 percent. Only 10% of the class can land in the top decile. The information is out there, and students are still taking on the increased risk - albeit at slightly lower levels.

    ReplyDelete
  41. "What else should one look to do, especially if one has no interest in business?"

    ------------

    This my friend is your mistake. Law is a business, at every level in the process. You are selling something (which is where you gain your revenue) and you have costs and what remains is your profit. LSAT prep is a business. Law school is a business. Law practice is a business.

    Now that, I hope, you understand that, the next step is for you to understand the supply-demand curve, and realize that if you are ultimately going to be in business selling a product, it might as well be a product where the demand is commensurate with supply.

    ReplyDelete
  42. @3:03, others

    And see, Bruce MacEwen's Adam Smith Blog on "How Do Law Firms Score on the "10X Revenue Club" Metrics?"

    http://tinyurl.com/42cxk9k

    ReplyDelete
  43. This Seto guy also said that someone wanting to become a big law partner in L.A. would be crazy to choose Vanderbilt over Loyola. WRONG!

    You have between a 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 chance of getting hired at an NLJ 250 out of Vanderbilt.

    You have no better than a 1 in 20 chance out of Loyola, which flunks out about 6% of its first years. You've got a higher probability of getting forced out your first year than you do getting NLJ 250 at Loyola Law School!

    As Seto knows, the NLJ 250 is an exclusive club, and those that get in almost always do so directly out of law school. It almost never happens that someone starts their law firm career at a small firm (where almost all Loyola grads actually end up) and laterals into the NLJ 250.

    Indeed, if you pull up the job openings for laterals at any of the NLJ 250 and you will almost always see it clearly stated that the candidate needs to have comparable (i.e., another big law firm) experience.

    Whats more, it is not that difficult to transfer offices, say to L.A. from Atlanta, once you get in especially if you have ties. It may take time, but so does becoming partner. I did this myself and saw many other do it. It is definitely easier to do this than to get into big law from a small law firm laterally without prior big law experience.

    But, what Seto is saying is that it is better to take a 1 in 20 chance at getting a NLJ 250 job out of Loyola than taking a 1 in 3 chance of getting big law out of Vanderbilt and attempting to transfer offices...That is outright disingenuous and dangerous to 0Ls.

    Bottom line: if your goal is to become a big law partner in the future, you've got to maximize your chances of getting big law employment in the first place. The first step is to choose the school that gives you the highest chance (i.e., where the firms go deepest into class rank). Then you've got to perform there, of course.

    Pull up the NLJ "go to law schools" and throw Seto's thinly veiled Loyola propaganda in the trash. Going to Vanderbilt is far from a guarantee that you will get NLJ 250, but going to Loyola is close to a guarantee that you will NOT!

    ReplyDelete
  44. "they must excel at law school, in order to have a chance of landing Biglaw. Hence, the focus on making law review."

    "Going along this vein, many law students fall (willing) victim to confirmation bias."

    The combination of these two is what makes lawyers/law students so unbearable to be around. I always wondered if law schools simply attracted these types or the pressure turned them that way. Probably just says a lot about human nature in general.

    ReplyDelete
  45. "What else should one look to do, especially if one has no interest in business?"

    And the fact that this question is asked let alone thought says volumes about many prospectives.

    Let's face it. Most law students and lawyers are risk averse and don't want to practice law for a profit. To a certain degree, this is understandable since the best interests of a client and the best interest's of a law business are often at odds. However, since a prospective law student straight out of college has likely never run a business and only seen the real world through the lens of academics and television, is the level of naivete and financial stupidity really that big of a surprise?

    ReplyDelete
  46. 3:28, Do you think that a kid who, pursuant to Prof. Seto's statement, attends Loyola over Vanderbilt, scores in the top 15%-20% at Loyola, and doesn't get biglaw at all has a right to sue Prof. Seto?

    ReplyDelete
  47. LOC, kind of a complicated paper but still interesting. I bet law firms do these profitability analysis constantly using all sort of wild math and metrics.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Rather than dismissing my comments as naive, or tellingly naive, why not drop the hostility and maybe address what I asked?

    I actually don't think I'm particularly naive, even if I'm earnest. I'm really just trying to find something that suits me, that will balance my intellectual interests with financial survival. I was a very good college student, and I like the things that I did well in college: writing, speaking and careful, in-depth analysis and synthesis. Hence I've been thinking about law school or a Ph.D. program in the humanties/social sciences. But I don't want to be a permanent adjunct professor, and if what I'm reading about here is right, I don't want to be endlessly in debt with poor job prospects. So I'm trying to figure out what offers similar intellectual stimulation and a similar skill set, with better prospects.

    ReplyDelete
  49. "Rather than dismissing my comments as naive, or tellingly naive, why not drop the hostility and maybe address what I asked?"

    3:03 here. I did exactly that for you and presented it as clearly as I could. You need to (a) understand that if you want to make money, you are in business and selling a product. Then (b) you need to understand the supply/demand curve and - rather than choose to be trained to make a product that is in oversupply - choose to be trained to make a product that is in relatively more demand.

    So far the only product you've considered selling is college/graduate education. You smartly and correctly figured out that there is a tremendous suppply of this product, so much so that a professor position is nearly impossible to get.

    Your next step is to list other products you would consider selling. Perhaps a highschool education? Perhaps fiction or nonfiction books (i.e. you can be a writer). Perhaps something else all together.

    You need to simply list these products, and pick one, and then pursue that path.

    ReplyDelete
  50. By the way, LawProf, what other careers did you consider before going to law school?

    ReplyDelete
  51. "I was a very good college student, and I like the things that I did well in college: writing, speaking and careful, in-depth analysis and synthesis."

    IF you can get into Harvard, Yale, or Stanford (or maybe 2-3 other top schools), and you're clear about what your life as a lawyer will probably be like, and you still are interested, then law school can be a good option. An HYS degree gives you options that other law grads don't have.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Curios,

    If you want PhD, you need to do it in business or engineering. Those fields have a need of professors, and good starting salaries as well. If you're young, it shouldn't be hard for you to do postbac work to get your undergrad credits, and then move on to a graduate program.

    ReplyDelete
  53. To Law Prof's list of reasons, I would add a fifth:

    The grade inflation and culture of "everybody wins" in undergrad institutions lead 0Ls to have an unrealistically high estimation of how well they'll do in law school. Perfect attendance, class participation, and grinding through readings have almost no correlation with grades. If you don't have whatever weird aptitude it is that enables someone to get As consistently on law school exams, you're not going to make it to the top of the class no matter how hard you work.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Curious,
    Have you thought about the impoverished life of a humanities law professor? It doesn't pay much I know but if you like what you're doing. Let me tell you I would much rather be reading french literature with a bunch of beautifully groomed female grad students than reading cases. Plus, if that doesn't work out you can always pull a Leiter, add a law degree to your humanities specialty and become a Law AND professor.

    ReplyDelete
  55. ("impoverished life of a humanities law professor" should have read "impoverished life of a humanities professor")

    ReplyDelete
  56. Anon 4:35: There are no jobs in French literature; the crisis is far worse than in law. Second, wouldn't it be unethical to be a law professor, given all that this blog has revealed about the scam?

    ReplyDelete
  57. Yes and yes Curious. How about this as an idea: Take a mundane job, and make e.g. "french literature" your personal hobby. Perhaps one day you can be so good at it that people will buy what you write and it'll be another way to make money.

    ReplyDelete
  58. What kind of mundane job? I suppose elementary, middle, or high school teacher are better than mundane, and are important jobs. Although there is a lot of real hostility toward teachers these days.

    ReplyDelete
  59. At August 27, 2011 2:21 PM , Curious said...
    I'm curious: what should a person, say your hypothetical political science major, do after college now? Law school? -- this blog makes a compelling case for why it's a bad idea. A Ph.D. program? -- it's pretty clear that that's a ticket to a life of adjuncting that makes law school look wonderful by comparison. What else should one look to do, especially if one has no interest in business?

    Curious,

    If you want my advice, here it is: Go to OCS and spend three years as an Army officer.

    While this advice may shock you, it is worth considering. A few years as an officer - leading and managing people in a position of increasing responsibility - will serve you well in whatever career path you take after your service. I cannot tell you how thankful I am (in hindsight) for having that experience before grad school (JD + Masters) and my civilian professional career.

    Did aspects of the Army bother/annoy me while serving? Yes!!! That said, I was paid a fair wage for my hard work and knew that I was in an organization that was making an investment in my education and personal and professional development. It was also a unique experience to serve in a relatively egalitarian organization where the human, material and family needs of those I served with were met. The "CEO" made less than 10x what the lowest private made. Everyone - regardless of rank - received health care, dental care, child care, etc. For me personally, I was blown away by the latitude I was given as a 22-24 year old to experiment with new ideas and come of with creative solutions to real problems. In full disclosure, this was the last thing I was expecting to encounter when I was commissioned as an officer.

    As an an officer candidate you will have the opportunity to compete for one of sixteen career fields at OCS (e.g. Infantry, Intelligence, Signal, Engineers, Transportation, Finance). The Army will challenge you in ways you never imagined and train you to lead a team and accomplish many tasks. No one cares what pedigree of school you went to. At OCS, an Ivy Leaguer with an AB/BA, a JD graduate, and an enlisted guy with a BA from the U. Maryland extension program are all the same in the eyes of the Army and have an equal shot at objectively qualifying for branch of choice. If you want to be a Corps of Engineers officer with a Poly Sci. degree, and a slot exists for your OCS class, you will be trained to lead a team that builds bridges or performs horizontal or vertical construction.

    ReplyDelete
  60. continued ...


    I was a history major who only had 9 credits of science when I was commissioned. I chose and was selected for the Medical Service Corps. The Army "took a chance" on me and this experience and training literally changed the trajectory of my life. I focused on what I knew I really wanted in grad school, earned a fellowship at CDC and have had a series of challenging Federal jobs involving health care and public health.

    After service as an officer (a 3 year commitment), you will be eligible for the great, new post-9/11 GI Bill. This benefit alone is more liberating than you can possibly imagine. Through the GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon program, you can go to grad school at places like Michigan or Dartmouth essentially for free. On top of that, you will receive a generous housing/living allowance that will allow you to live with dignity while going to school. Best of all, you can focus on school and the start of your career without the enslaving shackles of student loan debt that narrow the employment options of so many.

    You will have veterans preference for government jobs, a skill set based on your officer branch, and demonstrated leadership and management experience.

    On top of everything, you will have a profoundly unique experience to get to know your country and its people - warts and all - in a brutally honest and unvarnished way. While cliche, it is 100% true - you will meet, learn from, depend on, and suffer with people you would never encounter on a deep, personal level outside of the Army. This is an all too uncommon experience among the relatively privileged young in 21st century America - this experience alone made the three years worthwhile (again, in hindsight).

    You should at least consider OCS ...

    www.armyocs.com

    ReplyDelete
  61. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Curious,

    If you're not interested in a business or engineering PhD as I suggested above, why not look into the Peace Corps? You're young, you can learn another language on somebody else's dime, and it will put you in a good position to join the Federal Govt. later on in life.

    ReplyDelete
  63. At August 27, 2011 2:21 PM , Curious said...
    I'm curious: what should a person, say your hypothetical political science major, do after college now? Law school? -- this blog makes a compelling case for why it's a bad idea. A Ph.D. program? -- it's pretty clear that that's a ticket to a life of adjuncting that makes law school look wonderful by comparison. What else should one look to do, especially if one has no interest in business?

    Curious,

    If you want my advice, here it is: Go to OCS and spend three years as an Army officer.

    While this advice may shock you, it is worth considering. A few years as an officer - leading and managing people in a position of increasing responsibility - will serve you well in whatever career path you take after your service. I cannot tell you how thankful I am (in hindsight) for having that experience before grad school (JD + Masters) and my civilian professional career.

    Did aspects of the Army bother/annoy me while serving? Yes!!! That said, I was paid a fair wage for my hard work and knew that I was in an organization that was making an investment in my education and personal and professional development. It was also a unique experience to serve in a relatively egalitarian organization where the human, material and family needs of those I served with were met. The "CEO" made less than 10x what the lowest private made. Everyone - regardless of rank - received health care, dental care, child care, etc. For me personally, I was blown away by the latitude I was given as a 22-24 year old to experiment with new ideas and come of with creative solutions to real problems. In full disclosure, this was the last thing I was expecting to encounter when I was commissioned as an officer.

    ReplyDelete
  64. continued...


    As an officer candidate you will have the opportunity to compete for one of sixteen career fields at OCS (e.g. Infantry, Intelligence, Signal, Engineers, Transportation, Finance). The Army will challenge you in ways you never imagined and train you to lead a team and accomplish many tasks. No one cares what pedigree of school you went to. At OCS, an Ivy Leaguer with an AB/BA, a JD graduate, and an enlisted guy with a BA from the U. Maryland extension program are all the same in the eyes of the Army and have an equal shot at objectively qualifying for branch of choice. If you want to be a Corps of Engineers officer with a Poly Sci. degree, and a slot exists for your OCS class, you will be trained to lead a team that builds bridges or performs horizontal or vertical construction.

    I was a history major who only had 9 credits of science when I was commissioned. I chose and was selected for the Medical Service Corps. The Army "took a chance" on me and this experience and training literally changed the trajectory of my life. I focused on what I knew I really wanted in grad school, earned a fellowship at CDC and have had a series of challenging Federal jobs involving health care and public health.

    After service as an officer (a 3 year commitment), you will be eligible for the great, new post-9/11 GI Bill. This benefit alone is more liberating than you can possibly imagine. Through the GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon program, you can go to grad school at places like Michigan or Dartmouth essentially for free. On top of that, you will receive a generous housing/living allowance that will allow you to live with dignity while going to school. Best of all, you can focus on school and the start of your career without the enslaving shackles of student loan debt that narrow the employment options of so many.

    You will have veterans preference for government jobs, a skill set based on your officer branch, and demonstrated leadership and management experience.

    On top of everything, you will have a profoundly unique experience to get to know your country and its people - warts and all - in a brutally honest and unvarnished way. While cliche, it is 100% true - you will meet, learn from, depend on, and suffer with people you would never encounter on a deep, personal level outside of the Army. This is an all too uncommon experience among the relatively privileged young in 21st century America - this experience alone made the three years worthwhile (again, in hindsight).

    You should at least consider OCS ...

    www.armyocs.com

    ReplyDelete
  65. bI believe you have mentioned this before on this site. But I don't see you getting much support here. I come from a military family. The Army was a good choice for my dad who lost his parents early and had to support his younger siblings.

    ReplyDelete
  66. I meant "I believe..."

    ReplyDelete
  67. Curious-

    Sorry to offend you man. I was just implying you should learn how lawyers run businesses (both big firm and sole propietorships) before decide to go. What you will find is the only way to practice law without worrying about "business" is to work for the government. Given how insanely competitive that is, you should be prepared for the unique challenges of practicing in the private sector.

    And if you dont want to practice law, you should attend law school under most circumstaces

    ReplyDelete
  68. Sorry I meant "not" attend under most circumstances

    ReplyDelete
  69. 5:08,

    I'm not looking for support. I'm looking to point out that there are myriad "roads less travelled" for 22 year olds with a BA/BS to take instead of the default option of law school.

    I've already had my experience as an officer and am looking to offer my expertise and advice to those who may find it helpful.

    For those with grad school as goal, the new GI Bill is an incredible program. My brother is on this program and getting his Masters in NYC. He is going to school for free and pulling in almost $3K a month in a tax free, living allowance.

    Other than the exceptionally well off, this program should appeal to many. It frees you to get a degree and enter the career of your choosing - not the career that allows you to service your student loan debt.

    ReplyDelete
  70. @Voodoo94. I was supporting you... but point taken.

    ReplyDelete
  71. @1:02
    Interesting, and neglected, comment about the treatment of women lawyers in this thread. I graduated from a lower first tier law school in May. Have been reading the scamblogs for a while. The comments section and general tone of ATL have always turned me off, as a woman (I'm 29, so I don't really think I qualify as a "girl" any longer). Although the blogs don't really apply to me, per se (I managed, even as a woman (!!!) who went to a school that isn't HYS (!!!!!) to get a very good, if fairly low-paying, job in a recognizable public interest org), I do find them interesting, and know many fellow grads who are suffering through this mess. I read them, but I'm often grossed out by the male-centric tone of nearly ALL of them. Somebody is always telling somebody else to take their effing tampon out, particularly if that somebody else is a man. I do find it disheartening that, now, this kind of stereotyping, and machismo, infiltrates blogs that speak just as much to the women graduates of law schools, who have equally bleak futures ahead of them, as they do to the men. We're about 50% of law school classes across the board now, guys. At my school, at least, law review was about 50/50. Let's please stop calling us "girls" and ruminating about how most of us must have gone to law school to add a certain sheen to our NYT wedding announcements (and let's be serious, I'm not getting into the NYT wedding section. sob.)

    ReplyDelete
  72. I never expected the military trolls. I should have. But just never did.

    ReplyDelete
  73. @NAME

    Why do you think my own ambitions or desires should take precedence over working to make the world a better place?

    (As for "public interest", I agree, if you can't handle the oh-my-god-DUH piece of information that DV victims sometimes go back to their abuser, which literally every single person on earth who has read more than one page about domestic violence or thought about it for more than five minutes knows, then maybe you SHOULD go work in a giant corporation and try to make the world worse. At least you'd be so incompetent there that your client's interests would only be advanced a tiny amount by your presence, and you might actually hold them back!)

    ReplyDelete
  74. At August 27, 2011 5:46 PM , None said...
    I never expected the military trolls. I should have. But just never did.

    None,

    Me, a troll? Whatever. I've been following this issue for years. I love this blog (and those like it) and greatly admire Professor Campos.

    ReplyDelete
  75. re the tome of ATL and scamblog commenters - most are attorneys. Most attorneys are bitter status driven trolls and the women are just as bad as the men. The end.

    ReplyDelete
  76. What does being status-driven have to do with calling Bob Morse a vagina? Or, with insisting that women who do public interest work can only do so because they marry up? I don't get it, but that's probably just because I'm a woman.

    Also, I thought the point of the scamblogs was that most commenters AREN'T attorneys. Isn't that the point? Bitter, yes, sure. But no, not attorneys.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Boring. You want to find something that offends you you will find it. But be my guest - try to solve the world's misogynism here. Its so on topic. You are starting to remind me of my law school days.

    And just because you don;t have have a job doesn't mean you're not an attorney, Surely you knew this...

    ReplyDelete
  78. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Considered an attorney because he or she passed the bar. Not considered an attorney because he or she is not yet employed as such.

    ReplyDelete
  80. Not boring at all... fascinating and instructive in important ways for people just tuning in to this topic.

    ReplyDelete
  81. The complaints by women that men are extra mean are boring....not the general topic discussed in this blog.


    And I repeat, the women are just as bad as the men. Sorry to break it to you.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Let's stay on topic people. This isn't the forum for you to vent issues with your ex husband or wife.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Nope. Not boring at all.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Yes, you are an "attorney" despite not having a job, assuming you've passed the bar. I did know that.

    I'm not trying to "solve the world's misogynism here," man. I was simply responding to an earlier post, and I do think the tone of many of these blogs (and I am not the first to note it) is on topic, insofar as it may repel a good 50% of the law grads/readers out there. Or, if not repel, at least leave a bad taste in their mouths.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Actually, it is on topic because a statement was made that a recognizable category of women go to law school to burnish their wedding announcements and the notion was floated that female public interest lawyers are usually married to big law partners or associates. The subject is about who goes to law school and why.

    ReplyDelete
  86. The statement about women going to school to get a husband is so well known it's cliche. The statement about PI women and biglaw husbands I haven't seen, myself, but I don't know if it's true or not. I'm guessing no.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Both men and women sometimes depend on their partners for support. The difference is that a relationship with one person working and one not is socially acceptable only if the man is working. But I think both are relatively common. Sometimes that is due to circumstances beyond people's control. This issue is larger than the legal profession.

    I do think there are more women in public interest work with BigLaw or finance husbands than vice versa, but the phenomenon of a man with a high-paying job married to a woman with a low-paying or volunteer job is not new and is not exclusive to law (of course it also works the other way, but less often, for complicated reasons).

    Ironically, women who want to work in public interest and have wealthy husbands in my experience sometimes feel a stigma -- that otherwise liberal-minded people will look down on them for being financially dependent on their husbands -- and that is unfortunate. I think we men are aware, whether or not we sit around talking about it, that the professional woman faces many Catch-22s.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Argh. We're doomed. This is inane.

    ReplyDelete
  89. And again - boring. And I'll add stupid. Go please start a blog on your topic. Im more upset about academic/financial complex than perceived misogynism.

    ReplyDelete
  90. Wow, somebody takes one step out of the echo chamber and you guys get your feathers all ruffled. By the way, 9:41, stupid is a synonym for inane. Surely you knew this...

    ReplyDelete
  91. echo chamber? As if your little analysis is so groundbreaking and hasn't been discussed by your type a million times.

    Again, start your own blog and discuss your topic there. We are discussing the plight of indebted law students/attorneys and the system that feeds off it. You're an annoying ideologue distracting from the infinitely more important topic at hand.

    ReplyDelete
  92. It's too late for most people here, but law school is not the only way to become a lawyer. Washington State and several others still allow "reading into the law". These programs are not well known and have their own issues but can solve many of the problems described above, especially the crushing burden of loans and the irrelevance of law school education.
    I'm working on a project to turn WA's clerking program into sort of a 4th Law School but it's an uphill slog. You can imagine the pressures against it!

    ReplyDelete
  93. "DUH piece of information that DV victims sometimes go back to their abuser"

    Unfortunately the girl I knew didn't seem aware of it before she went through all the trouble to get a job in that field.

    Kinda like how the law school scam is a "duh" piece of information and yet tens of thousands of young people fall prey to it every year.

    ReplyDelete
  94. I'm working on a project to turn WA's clerking program into sort of a 4th Law School but it's an uphill slog.

    Sounds great. Please elaborate.

    ReplyDelete
  95. Re: PI lawyers married to biglaw partners. I'm a practitioner. All but one of the public-interest lawyers I know are married women and (AFAICT) not the main breadwinners in their families. The one exception is an older man who retired from big law to do PI.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Oh for ***'s sake it's not "misogynism" you idiots it's "misogyny." At least learn the word for the topic that you're whining doesn't belong here. (And I'm not a previous poster, just an irritated reader).

    ReplyDelete
  97. Let me pose this question - had law school been run by female deans and professors, would it not have turned into the overpriced scam it is now?

    How many male deans pumped up tuitions, enrollment (and used fraudulent career statistics to do so) because they were trying to show the world how big their d*ck was? "Oh look at me, I made $400,000 last year as the Dean of [shit] law school. I increased revenue by xx%, increased the number of professors by yy% blah blah."

    ReplyDelete
  98. I have seen studies that suggest women are, in fact, more likely to go into public interest. But I have not seen any studies about their marital status. Maybe there are some out there. A number of reasons have been offered for this, including the possibility that there are fewer real and sustained opportunities for women in BIGLAW. If that is true, then certainly the futures of women law graduates is a legitimate topic in a discussion of graduates' career paths.

    ReplyDelete
  99. Women get scammed by law school just as badly as men. I think about 1/2 of the scambloggers are women.

    ReplyDelete
  100. At 5:58,

    Long-Time Brooklyn Law School Dean, *Joan* G. Wexler.

    ReplyDelete
  101. 5:58, putatively "Brooklyn Law School Dean John G Wexler" (obviously I have no firsthand knowledge of 5:58's identity) wrote:

    "Let me pose this question - had law school been run by female deans and professors, would it not have turned into the overpriced scam it is now?"

    What empirical evidence is there to indicate females are any less greedy or any more honest than males? I'm imagining a Frankenstinian female "Dean" composed of Imelda Marcos, Margaret Thatcher, Condoleeza Rice, Madeleine Albright, Madame Chiang Kai Shek, Jiang Qing (Madame Mao), Barbara Bush, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman.

    ReplyDelete
  102. As a recent graduate, I was a 0L not that long ago, and I have friends who were 0L's only a year ago, so I can contribute my own impressions at least. I think there are several factors at work:

    1. I think it's easy for people within or following the "scam blog" movement to overestimate how far the meme has spread. It seems to me that most 1L's I talk to, let alone people in "the real world," have no idea, beyond of course the general knowledge that the job market is though for everyone right now.

    2. I think what you allude to about the Protestant work ethic plays a huge role too. There's a sense that sure, the market is tough, so you'll have to "study hard" and do well. This neglects the fact that the vast majority to law students work very hard, and 9/10ths of them won't be in the top 10% of their class, or whatever the relevant percentage is.

    3. I think the message that post law school employment is difficult to find gets extremely diluted by all the focus on big law (I refuse to capitalize that) jobs being hard to find. I went to a lower-tiered law school and except for a few delusional people, most of the kids there knew they weren't getting big law jobs, but were hoping to get small firm jobs, work for the DA's or the PD's, etc. The more than 90% employment statistics posted by the law school and U.S. News gave them some grounds for optimism there. Of course, we all know how that story ends.

    4. There's a huge graveyard problem, as you mentioned before. When people are thinking about going to law school they talk to lawyers; they don't talk to people who never found legal employment - they may not even know those people went to law school. Every law school has success stories and it's easy to see people from your school who work for Skadden or the D.O.J., or even people who've created their own successful law practice, and think "that could be me," not realizing that just how bad the odds are.

    ReplyDelete
  103. M,

    You're right about Number 1. I mean, there's a ton of information out there about how to do well in law school, how law school is a path to a solid middle class lifestyle, etc. There isn't all that much about how law school sucks. A few NY Times, Wall Street Journal Articles, but you'd have to be able to wade through everything else to find it. To find these blogs, you'd also have to know to type in the right combination of words into google. What kid looking at law schools would type in "law school scam?"

    ReplyDelete
  104. Congrats people arguing about "misogyny", you've been suckered in by some professor or administrator trying to get ammo to use against Campos. $10 Leiter does a post on this subthread on Monday.

    ReplyDelete
  105. " the message that post law school employment is difficult to find gets extremely diluted by all the focus on big law "

    Excellent point. The thought is something like this, "If I make top 5% I can get $160,000 a year at biglaw, thus if I make top 2% I can probably get $125,000 a year, if I make top 50% I'll make the average salary of like $90,000 . . ." Completely rational inferences but also completely false.

    ReplyDelete
  106. "Congrats people arguing about "misogyny", you've been suckered in by some professor or administrator trying to get ammo to use against Campos."

    -------

    If true, that strategy won't get very far. Women arguably started the scamblog movement. You don't help women out by saddling them with $200,000 of debt and handing them a worthless degree. Not exactly advancing the female struggle there.

    ReplyDelete
  107. I read some time ago that most law school grads do not practice law at all but, because of their mental training, succeed at other fields.

    My only experience with what goes on in law school was a business law class I took by extension. It was taught by a high power trial lawyer & retired County Attorney. We had to read about aspects, say contract law, and then he would toss out a set of circumstances & ask you to rule. Did not matter which side you picked he took the other & forced you to really think about it & defend you choice. I loved it!. When I asked he told me that was what law school was like. I felt like I got more training in how to think and how to defend my thought in that one class than in all my others.

    Is that not most people experience with law school? I have no way of knowing.

    ReplyDelete
  108. 9:55

    I assume you didn't have to go 150-200K in debt to get that experience. And that experience is all law school is for three years. No learning how to start a practice, get clients, file motions and pleadings, run discovery (and that's just on the litigation side- there are thousands of lawyers practicing transactional or regulatory law who never have to see the inside of a courtroom or a judge except maybe as a defendant or witness. For them law school is 100% useless as opposed to just 97% useless). The skills you are talking about should be one small component of the law school education, along with researching and writing, learning about the stages of litigation or a deal, learning how to grow and build a practice, and learning the law of the jurisdiction or practice area. Instead, that is the major aspect of law school education (a law student can escape law school with writing maybe 2-3 pieces of edited work).

    ReplyDelete
  109. "I read some time ago that most law school grads do not practice law at all but, because of their mental training, succeed at other fields."

    And let me guess, this statement was supported by a few anecdotes (e.g. President Clinton) and not statistical evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  110. I would say that law school is an even bigger trap for girls since they have a much shorter reproductive window.

    ReplyDelete
  111. Actually, no it was supported by statistics. I remember that there were 2 numbers, one was the percent of practicing lawyers that were trial lawyers & the other was the percent that were not practicing law at all. The first was a very small number & the other was larger than I would have expected but I don't remember either.

    So, they don't teach you how to practice law over 3 years? Now that would be one reason so few people actually practice after graduation. But what the hell do you do for 3 years then?

    ReplyDelete
  112. I wonder if most prospective law students aren't really looking at the long term career and debt issues, but are more focused on the short term "benefits" of law school as a status signal, etc.

    For example, if your choices after undergrad were limited to unemployment or Starbucks, then law school might be a good place to "hide out." From my experience as a male, I got a lot more attention from females as a law student than as a waiter.

    The fact that you have to undergraduate degree to be in law school - so you are using your undergrad!

    I think most prospective law students think that things will "work out" and at the very least they won't be worse off with a law degree. Obviously, they could be quite mistaken.

    ReplyDelete
  113. I am a 3L, do not want to practice law, have spent the last three years worried that I will stop being morally outraged at the law school culture and turn into a lawyer automaton. After briefly glancing at the comments, I see that most are about debt and the different factors that might account for a law school grad's ability to pay back this debt. Definitely an important subject, but should it dominate the discussion about the problems with legal education? Anyway, I'm new to this blog, and very much appreciate the discussion, and felt compelled to post about a timeless story that should be read by all aspiring lawyers, practicing lawyers, and law professors: The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy. ( I read it for Law & Lit and found it astonishingly relevant.) I was reminded of it after reading the following from lawprof's post:

    "(1) At some level, people want to be lied to. Sure, an intellectually curious person with a tendency to distrust authority figures will look at the placement stats put out by law schools, and even now realize the stats are a bad joke. The other X percentage of potential law students want to believe what they're told. As the singer said, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

    After Isaac Ilych realizes that he is dying, he becomes frustrated that those around him reduce his death to formalities and medical procedures: "And strangely enough, many times when they were going through their antics over him he had been within a hairbreadth of calling out to them: "Stop lying! You know and I know that I am dying. Then at least stop lying about it!" But he had never had the spirit to do it. The awful, terrible act of his dying was, he could see, reduced by those about him to the level of a casual, unpleasant, and almost indecorous incident (as if someone entered a drawing room defusing an unpleasant odour) and this was done by that very decorum which he had served all his life long. He saw that no one felt for him, because no one even wished to grasp his position." (check it out at http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/death-of-ivan-ilych/)

    ReplyDelete
  114. One more thing,

    "I would say that law school is an even bigger trap for girls since they have a much shorter reproductive window."

    WHAT?!?!?!? Please, to the author of this post, why is it that law school is a trap for women because they have a shorter reproductive window?

    ReplyDelete
  115. Sorry, I spoke too soon. (as usual) I see that your comment is pertinent to a previous discussion.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Good work. Thanks for the info. very useful tips indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  117. Thanks for everything you do on this blog.
    Moler

    ReplyDelete
  118. "(e.g. sales, the thing they went to law school to avoid doing)"

    This is a priceless observation.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.