Is It Worth Going to Law School?
Diddy said it was all about the Benjamins...
It turns out that going to law school does not guarantee you’ll get rich. Are you surprised? Are you putting down your pencil and throwing out your LSAT prep book? The New York Times published an article stating what anyone who has done their research knows: people come out of law school with lots and lots of debt, and the job market is far worse than what it was during better economic times. What was most disturbing was the reminder that law schools fib on their stats about how well their grads do. It’s all about the rankings – and we repeat our “yuck!”
We have an interesting window into the legal job world because of our audition process: We generally see the resumes of some former lawyers in our inbox, but a year ago we started seeing a small surge of resumes from recent law school grads. Sometimes that’s great – they finished law school and realized law is not for them, or want to practice government law or something that allows them to teach at night. Those are the candidates we love to see, people with a passion and perhaps a bit of outside-the-box thinking. But, we also saw folks who had been banking on their summer associate job, previously the doorway to a post-grad job, leading to just a line on a resume. These were not the candidates we wanted to see.
But, at least in NYC, the legal economic tide is turning. Summer associates are starting to make their way into actual law firm jobs. No doubt this will take some time to trickle over the Hudson River into New Jersey and beyond, but it will. Will the legal world return to its former glory? Maybe. But, with more of the document review work being shipped overseas, what will big law firms use to treat their first year lawyers like cannon fodder?
For us, we’re still focused on our mission – helping people get great scores. And this news doesn’t really change the situation of our corner of the LSAT prep world. We push people towards the scores that get them into top schools where the job prospects are best, or into a mid-tier school with a scholarship where the post-graduation debt isn’t so heavy.
If you’re considering whether to go to law school – definitely don’t assume it’s a ticket to riches. Go and talk to several lawyers. And that should include one who is horribly unhappy at year 4 or 5, one who is at about the same place and loving it, and then a couple of folks 10-15 years into their career.
While you hunt them down, go ahead and read some of the other buzz about this:
//mauledagain.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html#6796580884183909193
//www.lawschoolpodcaster.com/2011/01/12/the-debate-over-the-value-of-law-school-goes-on/