For Those of You Asking "Should I Go to Law School"...

[haus]

  I have never read "poor me, this is not my fault, this is all someone else's fault" on those blogs...

The title of one of the most famous of these is "But I Did Everything Right!".

[Hamilton]

The nuance of their motives can be debated forever - that's what lawyers do.  The bottom line from my perspective is that it is good that this voice is out there providing a check on the law schools, offering the other perspective, and giving students/prospectives food for thought when they look at deciding whether to go to (or stay in) law school.  If one wants to see whining losers, that is what they will see.  If one wants to consider their stories as a window to the possible reality, that option is available too.

  I have never read "poor me, this is not my fault, this is all someone else's fault" on those blogs...

The title of one of the most famous of these is "But I Did Everything Right!".

[bigs5068]

A lot of the derision posted by the scambloggers is aimed at T3s and T4s because they charge as much as a T1 and they continue to "sell the dream."  They are also critical of the ABA b/c in a time where the legal market is shrinking we are graduating record numbers of JDs and opening MORE law schools.  The laws of supply and demand need to come into play at some point here.

WRT their blogging about their difficulties - they can't have a personal life?  We cannot assume that b/c they spend an hour or so a day blogging that they are not working hard to find work.  We all have our hobbies and passtimes.  They are laying their experiences out there for folks to see and consider when thinking about law school - that is bad?  Isn't it prident due dilligence to get all the facts and both sides of a story when making a decision?  I have never read "poor me, this is not my fault, this is all someone else's fault" on those blogs - I have simply seen them as folks telling the the story of the downside of law school, highlighting the risk of taking on $150K in debt, and describing the difficulties out there. 

I would hope that someone sitting near the bottom of their class at a T4 and paying $850/credit hour would heed those warning and think about what they are doing - the law school won't do it for them.  Alternatively, I would hope a 0L with no passion for law but thinking law school seems like a good idea and a sure path to a good job and wealth would have his eyes opened to reality and do a little more research before committing to law school.

This is no different than the folks selling gold right now - all of the ads telling you about the security of gold and why you should invest in it.  The SEC requires them to provide full disclosure on trading the commodity - there is no such requirement on the selling of JDs - so these guys are offering the other perspective.

I mean I hope anyone in law school realizes the lower ranked school and the lower their class rank the harder it will be to find a job. The worst student at Cooley will have a harder time finding a job than the best student at Harvard. I think everyone realizes that tier 4's are not Ivy League schools and I don't think tier 4's are really trying to say they are the same. Even if they are you know what it is a bit of puffery and if you want to be a lawyer you need to use a bit of common sense. I agree that ALL law schools are outrageously priced and that is why I always say get scholarship money and screw the rankings. Honestly, all these blogs look like they take more than hour a day and even if they do take only an hour if your struggling to survive and everything is going so terribly you DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR A HOBBY.  What are these people going to do if they ever do actually apply to a job and get one. The partner well say I need a memo in 2 hours well wait boss I need time for my hobby that is not going to work.

Life is hard and I don't think these people get that. Again on tier 3 schools one of their 4 main warnings at the top of the site are that going to a tier 3/4 school does not guarantee you a job. Shocking in fact no schooling at any institution or in any field guarantees you a job. There are Harvard and Stanford Grads that did not pass the bar or are unemployed. Education is what YOU make of it.

More law schools are opening up that is true maybe the number of people in school should be reduced. However, the population continues to grow and more universities are opening up in every field. More people means more jobs, but it also makes things more competitive. Education is NOT a guarantee of anything and you should know that. These people writing these blogs are the type of people that expected to go to law school graduate and have things handed to them. That is not the way it works. LIFE IS HARD AND IF YOU WRITE A BLOG ABOUT HOW UNFAIR AND DIFFICULT EVERYTHING IS WELL THEN THE SAD THING IS THAT THEY DID NOT ALREADY KNOW THAT. I pieced that one together in about 4th grade, but these were probably the kids that went straight to law school from undergrad and never had a job their entire life. Maybe I am wrong, but I would not be shocked if that is the description of these folks.

[bigs5068]

Hamilton you also did not answer if you think looking through the President of Suffolk's tax returns is a waste of time. This document is at least 43 pages and probably took him awhile to even get the documents.   I am sure this little project took the writer well over an hour and possibly several days if you are looking so hard for a job it does not seem like a great use of your time. Can you agree with that?

[Hamilton]

Waste of time?  Perhaps not.  I certainly had no idea these administrators were pulling down close to a million dollars - all while tuition constantly gets jacked up.  To me that borders on "journalism."  Reading the author's profile, he is employed in a non-legal job, so I take it he quit looking at some point.

Is it really fair to essentially say that if he has time to blog about things, then clearly he is not putting the requisite effort into finding a job?  Is it possible to look for a job 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, within a certain geography?  For brand new JDs perhaps, but after a few years, the shine is off the penny and you are just another number out looking.

Hamilton you also did not answer if you think looking through the President of Suffolk's tax returns is a waste of time. This document is at least 43 pages and probably took him awhile to even get the documents.   I am sure this little project took the writer well over an hour and possibly several days if you are looking so hard for a job it does not seem like a great use of your time. Can you agree with that?

[bigs5068]

I have no problem with him saying that administrators and law school EVERYWHERE from tier 1 to tier 4 is to expensive. Why the guy needs to go off on the employment etc is another story. If he wanted to present an argument that merely said law school is to expensive and detailed the expenditures I would be interested to see that. I have seen every campus in the Bay area Stanford, GGU, Santa Clara, Hastings, University of San Francisco, and Berkeley not one of them is worth 30K a year. For that kind of money I think the floors should be made out of gold or something and they are not. However, all the schools provide a legal education and you basically have to go through the system if you want to be a lawyer. Maybe he should do some anti-trust litigation to attack the prices, but again do not say the education and employment prospects are unfair. School does not guarantee employment and no school will guarantee you a job. That is true in every profession and at every institution.

[louiebstef]

Bigs, why not just simplify?
It all boils down to the fact that many folks just have an entitlement mentality.

We can't change them. 

[Hamilton]

Its unfair to paint folks who highlight the difficulty of finding a job as whiners or feeling "entitled" to a job.  If -- after a loss -- a quarterback comments after the game that he could not hit his receivers in the end zone, he is stating fact, not displaying a sense that he was "entitled" to those touchdown passes.  Instead of tearing down the messenger, post some facts that demonstrate that lawyers are getting out of law school and securinig jobs as lawyers.  The facts do show that law school employment stats are skewed and a huge percentage of jobs reported are very low-paying non-lawyer jobs.

Bigs, why not just simplify?
It all boils down to the fact that many folks just have an entitlement mentality.

We can't change them.

[bigs5068]

I have never once said that the school's stats are not bloated and inaccurate, but again what school does not use a bit of puffery in their stats. What is the employment rate for undergraduate schools? MBA schools? CPA schools? Bottom line is that schools are a business and education everywhere is basically a scam, but one you have to deal with.  If you graduate from high school and go no further your options are really limited. You won't have debt though. So unless I am wrong about higher education and there is some cheap and easy degree that will guarantee me a good job at graduation. Then law school is just like every other form of higher education I am currently aware of. At least they take the time to b.s. some stats and have to report to the ABA, which regulates somewhat. Most other types of schooling do not even take the time to report any form of statistics regarding their graduates.

Regarding the entitlement it seems to me that a lot of people go straight from undergrad to law school and have never looked for a job. They are shocked that I have been in school for 7 years and people are not lined out the door for me. They have never had to look for a job, which sucks, but it is done. When I graduated from the Ivy League equivalent school of Chico State people were not lined up for me. I had to go and bust my ass to find a job some people were less than impressed with a Chico State degree, but I didn't say boo-hoo. I kept going, because I had to. I couldn't live with my parents and blog about unfair everything was I had to get it done and I did. This same is going to happen most likely when I graduate from GGU. However, I want to be a lawyer and I can't really do that without going to law school. So here I am, but I am aware that it will be a struggle and it may even turn out awful for me. Still if there is one thing I hate having it is a feeling of I wish I would have tried that or done this. You have one life to live and if being a lawyer is something you really want to do go for it. If you think it is some road to easy street you are way off base. It is far from that in fact it is probably the road to hard street. You will have a lot of debt and need to work your ass off way more than you did in school to pay it off. However, if you like to be challenged, working hard, and most importantly you find the law interesting then go for it. If as I saw on one of those youtube videos a law school carol (which I do think is funny btw) However, the ghost of law school past said you used to play x-box all day and hang out at the coffee shop with your friends. If that is what makes you really happy then law school is not for you. It is a time consuming profession, but if you like to work hard then it can be rewarding.

[Hamilton]

To my point, I think this is a flawed assumption.

Folks are not saying 'people wont GIVE me a job.'  They are saying 'I am having difficulty FINDING a job.'  It is unfair to paint the latter as whiners or somehow feeling "entitled" when they actually voice that problem.

Not saying you do that specifically, but that seems to be the broad-brush response to folks who pipe up about the bad job market.

... They are shocked that I have been in school for 7 years and people are not lined out the door for me.