futurenyustudent

I'm gonna become a lawyer. Good to hear people are losing interest in the law as a career. Demand for lawyers isn't going ANYWHERE, since you know, legal counsel is necessary for almost every aspect of life, and laws will ONLY get more complicated. So same (or higher) demand, less competition. More money when I get my JD from Columbia. Yay.

Infinite_Truth

^ lol, mabye this is why the average starting pay for firms is suddenly shooting up by the tens of thousands, and with this continuing labor shortage, it's going to continue! w00t!

mom of four

I am an optometrist (eye doctor). I started my practice COLD 8 years ago and usually enjoy my "independence" as a solo priviate pratitioner. But gotta tell you, having the HMO panels and insurances dictate what you have to do, and how much you will get paid is defintiely "weary"ing.

For example, I take MediCaid insurance, among others, because I believe in helping my poorer patients -- but in Calif I get $43 for doing a comprehensive eye exam (and no, I won't stoop to doing a "Less quality" eye exam just because i am getting less compensation), $22 for dispensing lenses that the Calif prisons make and $22 for the frame, or about $85 total. If I do 2 comprehensive exams/hour, well you can see, it doesn't add up to much, and esp if my schedule is not fully booked. Since the average optometrist takes home 28-30% of the gross, for the above example I would take home $50/hour -- but that doesn't include me having to save some of that money to make sure I have the funds to purchase/ lease the new equipemnt to make sure my office stays updated with state of the art equipemnt. . . .I made $60,000 last year and for that I worked my BUTT off.

People think doctors and attorneys have it made, but they don't realize the additional schooling you have to have, and the loans you take out (my husband is an attorney). 20 years ago, we finished school with $100,000 in debt which is probably $200,000 in today's money and we drove used cars and ate mac n' cheese and spaghetti for years to pay the loans off.

I love my patients, but the other parts of having a practice and being told what to do by the governemnt and medical/vision insurances is not fun. And having to take out lots of insurance on the off chance you get sued because you might miss a diagnosis on the 25 minute exam you do on a patient you see only once every two years . . .sigh.

Not sure I would go into optometry school today, and I think optometry school is probably a better life choice than medical school -- especialy for women.

vega07

god...this thread is so damn discouraging.

Sachmoney

Does this mean that the demand for Lawyers is still up but the supply is beginning to decline? Sorry for looking at it like an economist, but doesn't that mean we should see lawyer salaries rising higher? I'm considering Law School, but I don't know if it's for me. I don't know if it's what will make me happy, but certainly money can be attractive.

My dad is a physician, and he's always muttering about ambulance chasers and everything (John Edwards). He's been pushing my into medicine probably since before I was born. He's trying to get my sister who is going to be a freshmen next year to get into medicine as well. My sister is actually going to rely on medicine as her safety net. Should I be concerned considering the attrition rate and the unhappiness that it seems physicians are facing as a result of the health crisis?

futurenyustudent

Pretty much. There's a reason why the class of 2004 associates got paid $125k and the class of 2007 associates are getting paid $160k in their first years. That's a $35k increase in 3 years, approximately 10%.

Remember, when a company wants to buy another company, or when someone applies for a patent, or when someone is suing someone, or files for divorce, or adopts a child, or when a company goes public, or when you set up your estate, or when a company or a person files for bankruptcy, or when someone is getting sued, or when someone gets indicted for a crime, the constant is LAWYERS.

Atana

Detex your quite correct in linking some of the appalling costs for a law degree to overhyped salaries for 'star professors'. Problem is, are these gentry any more credible than the 'stars' in history, sociology, or gods help them, the humanities? And behind the scenes some schools have (sort of) admitted the enhanced tuition is aimed at what they believe is a target population which can afford it. Problem is, this same system has overproduced its product (those with advanced degrees) at too high a cost. The only reason it has been allowed to continue is because the whole mess is propped up by the government, which alas has abrogated its ethical responsibility to some very predatory private funders. So there is a certain irony in the whole macroparasitic mess insofar as the lawyers to be...will either have to compromise their morals to work within, or if they wish to maintain their ethics... to reform or perhaps even destroy the very system which produced them... if they are to survive economically. And that gentry, brings up haunting aires of the late 18th century...
And for those who wish to pursue the humanities, all I can state is to be very, very careful. And if it's your child let them know that the college system is less than truthful about the actual placement rate for MFA's and PhD's in this field. Which is alas, usually less than 10%. Currently the universities are pushing these degrees because enrollment is declining...simply because too many have become aware of the horror stories about the appalling costs versus often impossible chances of success. I have heard university recruiters tell students that the colleges are literally starving for humanities professors and they will be ensured money, glory and status seeking this road. Nope, very rarely happens that way.
There's a certain vexing irony as the situation now affecting Dr's of Medicine and Juris Phd's has been problematic in other fields for at least a decade. Maybe a little sign for reform...that's assuming the collegiate system realizes that there won't be another generation to 'sell' to if reforms are not made.
Which is why, although not all are sympathetic to lawyers, some good legal minds possessing a little hint of rebellion...need to succede, because they might be the ones to help clean the academic mess up before its too bloody late.
And with the medical Phd's not all the problems can be pinned on the legal malpractice issue. As noted (Chronicle of Higher Education) the mere fact that the AMA has begged the Bush regime to reinstate deferments is symptomatic of major problems within the academic and student financing system. We need MD's but will lose them if they are so pressured by the costs of their education (and the defacto thugs that now strong arm it) that they either leave the US, or never enter medicine in the first place.

Nitrox

"Pretty much. There's a reason why the class of 2004 associates got paid $125k and the class of 2007 associates are getting paid $160k in their first years. That's a $35k increase in 3 years, approximately 10%."

Very few new lawyers make anywhere near that amount, and many never will.

Americanski

I don’t know that it was ever a guarantee of lucrative employment. I don’t think the bottom of the class at fourth-tier schools were ever doing really well. The biggest problem is that tuition has risen so much that they now have crippling levels of debt.

That’s one factor, but salaries for lawyers are much higher than salaries for historians or sociologists, which makes students much more willing to pay high tuition. This is actually the rationale for the high law faculty salaries, since the idea is that law schools have to hire the absolute top students, all of whom are able to get high-paying firm jobs. Of course, the problem is that many prospective law students have unrealistic ideas about their future salary.

Supply is not declining. What the article fails to point out is that, while applications have declined for the last couple of years, the number of students enrolling each fall has remained just about constant, at around 46,000. This is roughly five thousand more than were enrolling six years ago. It’s not hard to see why; when the economy as a whole is weaker, and undergrads perceive their employment prospects to be poor, many of them turn to law school.

And while you mention the increase in salary, it’s worth pointing out that the starting salary at biglaw firms was $125K for several years before the recent raises. Looking at just the last three years distorts the rate of increase. And the rise in starting salaries is also part of the reason so much more is demanded of junior associates, at least in terms of time, which hurts job satisfaction.

EECS@JHU

Supply of QUALITY lawyers is declining.

Just graduating from law school, even a good law school does not make you a good lawyer. Firms want polished lawyers sooner than later, and are willing pay extra for that.

bearpooh

"Medicine is still IMO the noblest profession - so please be proud of what you do and continue helping people."

I am deeply sceptical of any claim that medicine is especially noble.
Streetsweeping is probably equally noble if done with the right attitude.

It is not a particularly happy or satisfying profession anymore.
The money is still decent, but work should be about more than money.
In any case, money is meaningless, once you can pay the bills and educate the kids.

Both my parents were doctors in the days when the monetary rewards were minimal and the rewards were primarily non-monetary. That has changed, most doctors are fairly well paid now. But something else has changed too.
The non-monetary rewards have virtually vanished. And that is the deal breaker for many of us.
All my collegues are retiring decades early or are only working part-time because of the lack of satisfaction from practicing medicine.

EECS@JHU

But the question is what makes you think other lines of work are about more than just money?

Potentially every job can become just about the money, its up to the individual to make it matter more.

Atana

Americanski, quite right about the often unrealistic expectations that law students (and others in unrelated fields) have about the ultimate income.
Problem is, that these same unrealistic expectations are routinely utterred by the colleges which recruit these same students-as part of the bait. There may be a point that some law prof does explain the reality of the situation. But that, is a rare condition because to do so is usually a shortcut to denial of tenure, academic persona non grata, or non-renewal of contract. Speaking from experience as an academic, the outright telling of the truth about college costs, curricular credibility, can be difficult. There are substantial institutional pressures which will tend to negate the wish to do so, or the effect from having done so.
As far as the concept of the schools wishing to obtain top tier students, quite understandable. But as 'mom of four' mentioned, if to be an MD or a Lawyer entails some 100,000$ debt (and that's not uncommon, nor an 'unreasonable' number given college costs)...there's a uneasy and very distrubing conceptual dichotomy to the whole concept. Recruit our 'best and brightest' by promising them the stars of the field (at inflated costs), and then ask them to commit long term economic self mutilation...by having played along with the whole game. And there aren't as many who do succede (as mom of four did) in paying the toll.
It would be one thing if that toll was to prove oneself worthy in tough academic competition, its entirely another when that toll is essentially a rigged game of economic disaster.

emag

"Saying that you want to help people is really cliched and really irritates med school interview panels. My parents, (both doctors, and past members of admissions panels) warned me not to even suggest that "helping the suffering" was any part of my motivation for doing medicine."

bearpooh - thanks for your comments. My daughter is interested in medicine, and there is really no advice that I can give her, other than the standard approach of talking to her about what she wants from life, and helping her to investigate the reasons that she's making her choice.

It's puzzling to me that panels would be "irritated". I can't think of a good reason to be irritated. (Admissions panels get bored? Want to be entertained? Don't want to admit someone unlike themselves?)

I can understand that they don't want to hear that service is the only reason, because then the applicant hasn't explained why medicine was chosen instead of a dozen other fields.

But I would have hoped that an admissions board would be happy to hear that an applicant had considered a number of high-paying careers, but was choosing medicine out of a desire for personal contact, for a sense of having helped people.

wowser147

I'm pre-med and I must say that this thread is a bit depressing and definitely discouraging...