Hold it there: no one said it was a bad investment for everyone at T14s. If you think I exaggerated, please tell these people where I exaggerated. Obviously there are people in T14s who, because of either exceptional grades or because of a good family, get jobs
This is really a matter of opinion, so I can't really prove anything one way or another. However, I just think that your characterization of situation is generally worse than it really is. While many of my friends here at GULC missed out on biglaw due to the economy, almost everyone I know has something reasonably good lined up post graduation- or are at least getting plenty of interviews. Plenty of people (at least 3Ls) got biglaw despite the economy with good, but not spectacular grades and no particular family ties (myself included). I agree that it's bad, just not armageddon.
I also disagree with the characterization of law school as a "Scam" in general. It may be a bad deal for some, but there's no malice going on. I do agree that for-profit law schools are dangerously close to that line though.
My characterization is accurate. If you calculate expected returns using the phony law school statistics, you will probably find law school to be a good investment. If you calculate the expected returns using the true statistics, you will probably find law school to be a bad investment. My personal opinion is that law school is a bad investment unless you have exceptional grades, are well-connected, or go to HYS (Harvard, Yale, or Stanford). YOU might have achieved a great return on your investment with average or slightly-above average grades and coming from a working class household. That's good, and I applaud you for it. But decisions about whether to go to law school should be made with a cool head.
The Wall Street Journal blog wrote yesterday that law school exhibits similar characteristics of the housing boom (
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/04/19/how-legal-education-today-is-like-sub-prime-mortgage-market-in-2006/). Although I don't see law school tuition crashing soon, I do know that law school applicants are generally not making their decisions with enough knowledge of the legal profession. Law schools are generally pretty expensive. Do you know that most TTTs charge around the same price as T14s?
That's why I'm here telling the 0Ls not to believe the numbers put out by the law schools. Also, you should understand that many people are too embarrassed to admit they don't have jobs. It's not something people like to talk about, particularly when you form part of a culture that stigmatizes poverty, unemployment, and underemployment.