I know someone in this situation. It is sad having $100k+ debt.
That being said seems good thing the country to need fewer lawyers.
With the excess where is the $49hr lawyer available for people? I have seen some on freelancer/uwork sites for $88 but would think could lower than that.
Maybe they'd be cheap, but they'd presumably be a recently-graduated student desperate for work, with no experience. People don't tend to prefer hiring a lawyer with no experience.
I've been wondering about that to. I think the lawyers from top schools can lateral into other fields easily. The lawyers I know all do something else besides law. One teaches. One rents out bedrooms in his home. One barely scrapes by waiting for the phone to ring, and hoping the person will accept $400/hr.? One got a real estate brokers license.(you don't need any prior experience if you passed the bar.)
I think it will just take time for the profession to realize they will probally not make what other generations made.
I do think there's a huge need for reasonably priced lawyers. Something between Nolo Press and $400 hr.? Some areas of law are pretty straight foreword. If a person without many assets(expensive home--mainly), and just has unsecured debt; a straight chapter 7 is something a lawyer could guarantee.(As long as the client is completely honest?) I'm surprised more don't advertise in that light--instead of hiding their work in mystery.
To any lawyer who tries to scare a client into paying whatever--the climate has changed. We know a little more than we did before the Internet, and Nolo. At least in civil matters.
Many people believe that you get what pay for with Lawyers, Accountants, and other professional services. I don't think we will likely see such low costs for good lawyers anytime soon.
I'm slowly working my way through school again in my mid-30s to go to law school, although so many lawyer friends have advised against it due to an overcrowded marketplace. I really haven't yet decided if I'll actually do it due to such horrid numbers...
Wow, that books looks just priceless, almost a parody of the position it advocates, to judge by the Amazon reviews. English degrees are worthless, except perhaps if you want to avoid getting dinged by every other reviewer for your poor writing and grammar.
> What is needed is law school graduate employment numbers broken down by undergrad degree.
It's too easy to game these numbers if law schools give their grads little temporary (not necessarily temp) jobs right out of school and then lay them off soon after, once the statistics stop following those people.
Why would you think that those with a STEM undergraduate degree would do better than those with an arts background?
I think you can extract potential benefits from any degree which could serve you well in practising the law. Take History for example, where you're taking different interpretations of the past, and concocting arguments in support of a particular interpretation, which is similar to what you will be doing as a general litigator.
STEM fields are not immune to globalization, crowded market places, etc either. According to The Atlantic:
"Far from offering expanding attractive career opportunities, it seems that many, but not all, science and engineering careers are headed in the opposite direction: unstable careers, slow-growing wages, and high risk of jobs moving offshore or being filled by temporary workers from abroad."
The world is changing...even here in Israel, without any debt, salaries for law school graduates are extremely low and it is very hard to land a job even at that, a real struggle. On another note, the hi-tech and startup jobs are extremely good, huge demand, good salaries.
First, if you are going to law school, the ROI of a better LSAT score is astounding. Likely $200000 in scholarships and then who knows how much in future earnings. That is what justifies the high fees.
But second, the market for LSAT tutors has actually shrunk dramatically. It's been cannibalized by an explosion in free/affordable online resources that are as good or better than a tutor.
I know johnathan, the tutor in the article. He has his own platform that generates clients. It's very, very hard to be an LSAT tutor now if you don't have that. Only the visible minority can consistently charge $100+ an hour ar enough volume to do it full time.
For anyone curious about these online resources, the main company in the field is 7sage. They've done the most to destroy demand for tutoring (this is a good thing!). They have free explanations for the logic games section. This used to be what everyone asked tutors about. Now almost no one wants logic games help.
While I do tutoring, I mostly focus on products and on creating free/inexpensive resources. This is my own contribution to eliminating the need for people like me: http://lsathacks.com/explanations/
(They're free explanations for a bunch of LSAT practice tests.)
Before 2008 universities treated law schools as cash cows. It was not uncommon for a tier-2 or tier-3 school to open up a law school to make some money for the rest of the place. (Incidentally, the role has now been taken by schools of pharmacy.)
Where is the interview with a law school dean of a non-top-10-school, i.e. with a person who continues to perpetuate the misery?
ProTip: Don't go to law school. Society is already awash with lawyers, who, beyond their functional purpose, quickly represent a corrosive and corrupting impact on society. Lawyers are like algae, if you don't make sure the conditions keep it in line, it will bloom and suffocate all life in its self destructive zeal.
How come the overabundance of people practicing law has not driven the cost of lawyer related services down?
(Supply and demand makes me assume this would be happening by now..)
It appears relatively few are establishing their own practices because the income from a private practice is very uncertain.
It also looks like demand for lawyer related services has also decreased. The larger firms have responded to this by laying people off - it seems they would prefer to have few, highly compensated positions rather than many lowly paid positions.
I think it has, in some respects. We have things like LegalZoom.com, which provide quick access to a law professional for things like wills and incorporation documents.
I've wondered about this too. I agree that a newly minted JD really isn't typically ready to be a lawyer (they don't do residencies like physicians). But then I read about how much legal help an untrained (legally) but highly literate person in prison can provide to fellow inmates, and it does seem that a new grad would be better than what a lot of people get. Especially since a court appointed lawyer is only available to those who can't afford it under narrow circumstances. There are plenty of things that can lead to prison in a roundabout way that don't qualify for a count-appointed lawyer - and even if prison isn't in the cards, the stakes can be unbelievably high.
Part of the problem, I think, is just how little money many people who need legal help actually have. My guess is that there's a cliff between $150/hr and the next tier that people can afford. In other words, they can pay for the "expensive" lawyer ($150/hr isn't particularly high for a legal bill), or they can't pay at all.
I do think that completely restructuring the system for joining the bar might accomplish this. In other words, allow law to be an undergraduate major, or perhaps allow people to test in through self-study. Find a way for people to join the field without going very heavily into debt. That might make it possible for practitioners to get their fees down, while still offering a service that is immeasurably better than no lawyer at all.
Still, pretty hard when you're multiplying by zero, which may be the case here.
The market for legal services is an extreme power law. I used to run an online arbitration service where I paid arbitrators a fixed $150 for handling a case and was amazed at the caliber of people that applied.
Former law firm partners, Harvard Law grads who worked on Capitol Hill before, legal scholars with published books, all of it.
Turns out a tiny number of arbitrators can charge hundreds of dollars per hour for high value arbitration cases, while the rest just begs for scraps.
Arbitration requires either an arbitration clause upfront or a mutual post-dispute agreement to arbitrate. The latter rarely never happens as cases are often quite clear or parties don't talk anymore, the former is rare for small claims where my $300 arbitration made sense.
So it turned out I was begging for scraps too. The only way similar services survive is by partnering with marketplaces and handling all their disputes. This leads to kangaroo courts cause the arbitration firm ends up having just a few large clients (the marketplaces) despite having hundreds or thousands of cases (the marketplace users).
A huge chunk of recent grads just aren't cut out to be lawyers. They can't write, they can't thoughtfully analyze issues, and they can't effectively advocate for their client.
But the big supply choke-point is the entry level job. Law school and the bar exam don't make you a passable lawyer. You need supervision for a while.
Nobody wants to pay for baby lawyers because they are slow and don't know what they are doing. So the big firms hire a bunch of people and work them to death. They can force their clients to pay for the baby lawyers because they are supervised "by the best." Also, these types of cases involve a lot of paperpushing that a smart baby lawyer can handle. The big firms need juniors to do that bitch work, but also because they'll need midlevel and senior associates to do a lot of real work. If you don't get them out of school, it's hard to get them as a midlevel associate (4-6 years out of school).
Midsize firms don't hire many junior associates. They can't afford to charge for the training. So they take people who leave the big firms.
Corporation's "in-house" legal groups also tend to avoid hiring baby lawyers because they only want seasoned vets. Although, this is changing a bit. Some companies with large legal departments discovered that new lawyers are so cheap, it might be better to just train them in house.
Small firms hire enough people to run their cases, which isn't a lot.
If you don't get hired out of the gate, it's very hard to get a legal job. You are seen as tainted. You never develop experience. And you fall out of the market.
I think roughly 50% of legal grads either never practice or only practice a few years and then quit.
Also, legal work isn't fungible. People specialize pretty quickly. If you start out doing DUI cases, you no longer compete with the guy who started doing patent work for F500 companies. It is as different as webdesign is from programming a self driving car.
We've had this problem in Brazil for quite a while. It persists, I think, because of the large salaries that some public careers offer. People would be better off working as plumbers or electricians (huge demand for those jobs at the moment), but there's also the need for social recognition which, it seems, is more important than money for some people (who have not realised they wil get neither).
Many have predicted for a while now that the next big crisis will be the default of student loans (approximated at over $1 Trillion). Perhaps the Law profession will lead the way, but there must be many other professions where people are getting degrees but not jobs. After-all, it takes a lot of people to accumulate $1 Trillion in debt.
But, in the US you can't "default" on student loans, they just keep accruing until the government starts to take it out of your social security payments.
My step father is close to being in this situation, he went to medical school in his late 30's, didn't pay his loans for a couple years, and now nearing his 60's faces the probability that he won't actually manage to pay them off before he retires.
The one loan you never want to take out is student loans, its total debt slavery.
I was trying to differentiate default on a student loan from defaults on pretty much everything else. I'm not sure your credit card company can block a professional license or garnish your wages. Plus, as I understand it, its pretty common for bankruptcy judges to adjust the principal, or remove fees/unpaid interest from other forms of defaulted debt, when the debt isn't directly discharged. This is apparently really rare for student loans.
49 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadThat being said seems good thing the country to need fewer lawyers.
With the excess where is the $49hr lawyer available for people? I have seen some on freelancer/uwork sites for $88 but would think could lower than that.
I think it will just take time for the profession to realize they will probally not make what other generations made.
I do think there's a huge need for reasonably priced lawyers. Something between Nolo Press and $400 hr.? Some areas of law are pretty straight foreword. If a person without many assets(expensive home--mainly), and just has unsecured debt; a straight chapter 7 is something a lawyer could guarantee.(As long as the client is completely honest?) I'm surprised more don't advertise in that light--instead of hiding their work in mystery.
To any lawyer who tries to scare a client into paying whatever--the climate has changed. We know a little more than we did before the Internet, and Nolo. At least in civil matters.
http://www.amazon.com/Worthless-Young-Persons-Indispensable-...
Or at least watch some of his videos about degrees, e.g.:
"Before You Get Your MBA or Law Degree"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNQqXyfsye0
I would think those who have undergrad in some STEM would be doing better than those with no technical background.
It's too easy to game these numbers if law schools give their grads little temporary (not necessarily temp) jobs right out of school and then lay them off soon after, once the statistics stop following those people.
http://www.lstscorereports.com
I think you can extract potential benefits from any degree which could serve you well in practising the law. Take History for example, where you're taking different interpretations of the past, and concocting arguments in support of a particular interpretation, which is similar to what you will be doing as a general litigator.
"Far from offering expanding attractive career opportunities, it seems that many, but not all, science and engineering careers are headed in the opposite direction: unstable careers, slow-growing wages, and high risk of jobs moving offshore or being filled by temporary workers from abroad."
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myt...
The top half of the class is still doing okay.
Of course, everyone thinks they are in the top half.
First, if you are going to law school, the ROI of a better LSAT score is astounding. Likely $200000 in scholarships and then who knows how much in future earnings. That is what justifies the high fees.
But second, the market for LSAT tutors has actually shrunk dramatically. It's been cannibalized by an explosion in free/affordable online resources that are as good or better than a tutor.
I know johnathan, the tutor in the article. He has his own platform that generates clients. It's very, very hard to be an LSAT tutor now if you don't have that. Only the visible minority can consistently charge $100+ an hour ar enough volume to do it full time.
For anyone curious about these online resources, the main company in the field is 7sage. They've done the most to destroy demand for tutoring (this is a good thing!). They have free explanations for the logic games section. This used to be what everyone asked tutors about. Now almost no one wants logic games help.
While I do tutoring, I mostly focus on products and on creating free/inexpensive resources. This is my own contribution to eliminating the need for people like me: http://lsathacks.com/explanations/
(They're free explanations for a bunch of LSAT practice tests.)
I think society is better off for having free/inexpensive products addressing this need, rather than many expensive tutors.
The lack of a long run clientele reduces volume, and makes people only willing to tutor if they can get higher rates.
http://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib
Where is the interview with a law school dean of a non-top-10-school, i.e. with a person who continues to perpetuate the misery?
It also looks like demand for lawyer related services has also decreased. The larger firms have responded to this by laying people off - it seems they would prefer to have few, highly compensated positions rather than many lowly paid positions.
Part of the problem, I think, is just how little money many people who need legal help actually have. My guess is that there's a cliff between $150/hr and the next tier that people can afford. In other words, they can pay for the "expensive" lawyer ($150/hr isn't particularly high for a legal bill), or they can't pay at all.
I do think that completely restructuring the system for joining the bar might accomplish this. In other words, allow law to be an undergraduate major, or perhaps allow people to test in through self-study. Find a way for people to join the field without going very heavily into debt. That might make it possible for practitioners to get their fees down, while still offering a service that is immeasurably better than no lawyer at all.
Still, pretty hard when you're multiplying by zero, which may be the case here.
Former law firm partners, Harvard Law grads who worked on Capitol Hill before, legal scholars with published books, all of it.
Turns out a tiny number of arbitrators can charge hundreds of dollars per hour for high value arbitration cases, while the rest just begs for scraps.
So it turned out I was begging for scraps too. The only way similar services survive is by partnering with marketplaces and handling all their disputes. This leads to kangaroo courts cause the arbitration firm ends up having just a few large clients (the marketplaces) despite having hundreds or thousands of cases (the marketplace users).
But the big supply choke-point is the entry level job. Law school and the bar exam don't make you a passable lawyer. You need supervision for a while.
Nobody wants to pay for baby lawyers because they are slow and don't know what they are doing. So the big firms hire a bunch of people and work them to death. They can force their clients to pay for the baby lawyers because they are supervised "by the best." Also, these types of cases involve a lot of paperpushing that a smart baby lawyer can handle. The big firms need juniors to do that bitch work, but also because they'll need midlevel and senior associates to do a lot of real work. If you don't get them out of school, it's hard to get them as a midlevel associate (4-6 years out of school).
Midsize firms don't hire many junior associates. They can't afford to charge for the training. So they take people who leave the big firms.
Corporation's "in-house" legal groups also tend to avoid hiring baby lawyers because they only want seasoned vets. Although, this is changing a bit. Some companies with large legal departments discovered that new lawyers are so cheap, it might be better to just train them in house.
Small firms hire enough people to run their cases, which isn't a lot.
If you don't get hired out of the gate, it's very hard to get a legal job. You are seen as tainted. You never develop experience. And you fall out of the market.
I think roughly 50% of legal grads either never practice or only practice a few years and then quit.
Also, legal work isn't fungible. People specialize pretty quickly. If you start out doing DUI cases, you no longer compete with the guy who started doing patent work for F500 companies. It is as different as webdesign is from programming a self driving car.
My step father is close to being in this situation, he went to medical school in his late 30's, didn't pay his loans for a couple years, and now nearing his 60's faces the probability that he won't actually manage to pay them off before he retires.
The one loan you never want to take out is student loans, its total debt slavery.