By Brian Liu
If you’re
reading this, most likely you are, at the very least, already considering law
school. Maybe it’s the allure of high salaries and compelling court cases.
Maybe it’s your inner Jack McCoy, or your inner Harvey Specter, calling out to
you. Or maybe—and just maybe—you simply don’t know what else you can do with a
liberal arts undergraduate degree. Before you dive right in to three years of
law school, take the time to consider whether or not a law degree is right for
you, and review the following points.
Why You Shouldn’t Go To Law School:
1) Law School is Expensive
…and will only become more expensive as fewer students
apply. The average law student in 2012 walked out of school with $108,293 in
debt.[1] To put that into perspective, that is twice the average cost
of a master’s degree, and four times the average cost of a bachelor’s degree.[2]
And the sticker price has consistently gone up, far past a
reasonable adjustment for inflation or increased operating costs. Next year,
private law school cost is projected to increase 4%, while public law school
costs are projected to increase 6%.[3] That is adding to the
$278,444 you would already pay to go to law school here at GW.[4]
With prices spiraling out of control, one has to truly consider how much a law
degree is worth to your career goals and interests. There needs to be, first
and foremost, a reasonable expectation that your loans can be repaid.
2) Law is Not What You Think It Is
Suits, Law and Order, A Few Good Men; the fantasy lawyer
genre has exploded in popular culture. The image of the lawyer, stern-faced and
commanding attention in the courtroom, delivering a compelling argument against
a narcotics drug-lord-kingpin, has defined what we see and expect our lawyers
to be.
But it goes without saying that these are completely
inaccurate representations of the life of an average lawyer. Trial work is a
very small fraction of what lawyers actually do on a day-to-day basis. Work is
largely done in offices and libraries, conducting research for cases, peering
through thick texts for small lines of legal background.
And the work environment is little consolation. 50-70 hour
weeks, Monday-Friday, and working with distraught clients who bring you their
legal troubles.[5] It is not
often a rewarding line of work.
3) Law May Not Pay as Well as You Think
You may have read the first debt figure and scoffed, thinking
that, as a lawyer, $100,000 in debt is chump change. And that refers back to
the perception of the modern lawyer as some high-flying, scotch-drinking
moneymaker. Which is, as I’ll say it again, far from reality. The entry lawyer
today is paid $63,000 a year.[6] If that is upsetting, remember that
this is an average: Half of these lawyers will make less than this.
In addition, if you do not attend a T14 school (apologizes
to the other 188), chances are that you will struggle to find a paying job to
begin with, much less a job in the legal field. The T-14 schools run the gamut
between Yale Law School, with a 7% admission rate, an average 3.9 GPA and 173
LSAT, to Georgetown Law, with a 19% admission rate, and an average 3.75 GPA and
168 LSAT.[7,8] If those numbers don’t match what you have right now,
it will be a steep curve to fight against in admissions, and in securing a job
after graduation if you don’t get into one of these schools.
Crime does not pay off, but Law certainly doesn’t either.
4) And That’s Assuming You Find a Job…
Every month now you see a former law student suing their
alma mater for, the trend is, misleading advertising about job prospects after
graduation. The simple, cold hard truth is that there are not that many jobs
that require a JD anymore. For one, there are many legal resources that can be
found online: some Internet companies have already taken to many of the duties
law firms once had.
The bottom line is, 17% of law students from 2012 are still
unemployed.[9] 28% are only employed part-time.[10] These
are staggering numbers that highlights the difficulties law students face in a
job market saturated with competition from new Internet upstart companies, an
abysmal job environment, and the sheer number of new law students flooding the
market each year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are 73,600
new lawyers fighting for the 5000 new legal positions created each year.[11]
The odds are stacked against most entry-level lawyers.
These law students who end up suing their schools do so because
they are working jobs in retail, fast food, and really wherever else they can
find employment, far different from what was promised to them before they
started law school. And this is not just true of law students, but of students
in every other career as well. The job market is difficult: the question one
faces today is not just whether or not you should go to law school, but whether
you should go to school at all?
Why You Should Go To Law School
Though there are certainly a great number of reasons why not
to go to law school, there are plenty of reasons of why you should.
1) It’s What You Make of It
Unlike the student who majored in petroleum engineering
hoping to turn in a huge profit, your degree does not confine you to an oilrig.
The law applies to everyone, and thus every firm or company will undeniably
need legal counsel in his or her operations. There is a wide range of
opportunities to practice law, ranging from the tech industry to wildlife
protection organizations.
And if you are so inclined to run for public office one day,
a law degree, regardless of whether or not you’ve used it in your career, is
certainly beneficial towards understanding and creating legislation. It’s
unsurprising, then, that over 200 members of Congress have law degrees, far
greater than any other advanced degree. President Obama was not only a lawyer,
but also a law professor, teaching Constitutional law at the University of
Chicago. Many distinguished lawmakers and statesmen today have had extensive
legal careers, and if this trend holds true in the future, perhaps a law degree
may be your start in politics as well.
2) There Are Financial Options
Yes law school is undeniably expensive, there is no sugar
coating that. But there are endless opportunities to lighten the financial
burden. For one, schools often offer need-based financial aid (though certainly
not as generously as they would for an undergraduate). Outside scholarships
from law associations and other groups often provide smaller grants. Federal
loan programs, like the Stafford loan, are also available for affordable loan
rates.
But perhaps the best option for law school funding is from
the US Military JAG Officer Candidate School program. Depending on the branch
you decide to serve in, the military can provide a full-ride scholarship to pay
for your law school tuition, in return for a commitment to serve as an
active-duty officer after law school and Military Justice School. But in an
economy where even Big Law is seriously looking into payroll cuts, having a
guaranteed job for four, five years is an incredibly desirable position. Not to
mention the unique opportunity to concurrently serve in the military and
practice law.
3) If You Love It
There are no guarantees of action-packed, thriller-mystery
type cases. Law school will be hell, the first few years of your career will
likely be hell, and only until the middle of your law career may you truly
begin to appreciate the intricacies, and the authority law brings with it. If
you are a naturally analytical, argumentative, and simply love the
letter-of-the-law, by all means, law should be the career for you.
If you still have some doubt as to whether or not being a
lawyer should be the career for you, there are plenty of other ways to learn
about a law career without having to make a commitment to law school. Interning
at a law office is certainly a good step—becoming a paralegal may be an even
better one. 72% of Harvard Law’s 2016 class spent a year out of college, 52%
spent 2 years, likely exploring their careers prior to committing to law
school.[12] Taking time to explore your career options may even
prove beneficial in your admission chances.
In the meantime, the best thing to do is to continuing
researching on your own, and forming your own opinion on the matter. It’s
simply not worth reevaluating your entire career path because of a few poor
projections. Numbers change, economies change. But do think through how law
school will fit into your career plans, and weigh the benefits against the
detriments before you start hitting the LSAT books.
1: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/the-short-list-grad-school/articles/2013/08/13/10-law-degrees-with-the-biggest-return-on-investment
5: http://people.howstuffworks.com/becoming-a-lawyer.htm
6:http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/average_starting_pay_for_law_grads_is_on_downward_shift_drop_is_largest_for/
7: http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/profile.htm
9: http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2013/06/law_school_graduates_face_a_di.htm
12: http://law.harvard.edu/prospective/jd/apply/classprofile.html
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