How does one cope with law school debt?

[UnbiasedObserver]

That being said, if I could take a prospective law student and give him my wizened advice today, I would sternly caution him about the evils of taking on mountainous debt to try and grab an ever-shrinking slice of the decent-salaried pie. There are much easier, and less stressful, ways.

Amen.  I tell aspiring law students this though, and most of them look at me quizzically. 

[Dr. Balsenschaft]

The rest of my loans go back into repayment the first of December and I just crested the $100K mark.  I don't have a high-paying job, but I have a modest home, the best wife in the world, the greatest baby that was ever born, and I enjoy working the for the small general practice firm in the small town where I live.  I won't have much money at all for the next couple of years, but I'll have just enough if I'm lucky.  So it sounds hokey, but I guess I just focus on what I have right now.  Maybe I'm unlike a lot of law school students in that I never really had my sights fixed on biglaw so maybe my expectations in terms of salary were lower going into this whole thing.  I also imagine it's more difficult to feel content if you don't have a wife, child, and a job.  Regardless, being cash poor isn't really that big of a deal so long as you have some sort of plan to be more well off in the future.  Sure, I have no money right now but I'll be making a decent salary in five or ten years if everything goes according to plan.   

[Luxhx77]

It is natural at this time, with the economy as it is, to try to take out as little as possible in school loans and attempt to get through school with no debt...  But just as the conventional wisdom in 2003 was to buy any house you could, because home prices would only go up... the same type of group think is happening in terms of the outlook on accumulating debt.

If anything I would encourage you to take out as much money as possible and buy furniture,cars, clothes while everything is relatively cheap.

Once China starts dumping their dollars, our inflation is going to be absolutely silly...  Just like the US experienced massive inflation coming out of the great depression, we will experience something similar.  Inflation is almost a neccesity with all the debt americans have..

[vanilla37]

The real solution is to drop out of law school.  The 'profession' is hopelessly overcrowded and always will be, once you drop out you dont accumulate more debt.  Law school is a financial disaster.