Should I attend law school? - Page 3

NYULawyer · 11-16-2012, 11:25 PM

I just checked what the most popular majors are at my alma mater. The top 4 most popular majors are biology, economics, government, and history.

I am not sure what the kids are thinking, nowadays. Majors such as biology or government are not marketable at all. Hell, one guy I know from my college who graduated with a biology degree is now working as a truck driver. But, at least he doesn't have those six figure law school loans to pay back.

I was an Econ & Government major in college. Finding a respectable corporate job with those credentials proved to be a pure hell. Hence, the reason I am in law school.

If I could do it again, I would most likely to major in CS, Engineering, Accounting/Finance, or Math/Stats.

floridadad55 · 11-17-2012, 11:18 AM

There have been a million posts on CC about the folly of attending law school.

As a JD/MBA, who is also giving you this advice based not only upon my own experience, but also on the experiences of countless friends and co-workers in the legal field, I suggest you take that advice.

nwcrazy · 11-17-2012, 12:32 PM

>>>>Majors such as biology or government are not marketable at all...

Actually, a major in biology can be marketable if done right. Unfortunately, nearly ALL students don't think about what is necessary to get a job. As an undergrad, it is absolutely necessary to do undergraduate research and acquire as many lab skills as possible. In addition, it's important to network. Only then, will a technician or grad school opportunity become available. (BTW, I suspect many biology majors were pre-meds who failed in getting into a medical school. And so never thought about what was necessary to get a job).

Anyway, just like with anything else, one must pay one's dues. A technician job may not pay much...but it may strengthen a persons resume considerably for entry into a great graduate program.

In fact, my brother did just that...
and today he is a brilliant scientist, co-owner of a biotech firm, and works 7 days/week because he absolutely loves research and discovering new things.

Caillebotte · 11-17-2012, 11:39 PM

I'm hard-pressed to think of a worse financial decision than going to law school. Law schools are producing 45,000 JDs annually for about 22,000 open associate positions. That means you can do literally everything right (T1, top 10%, law review, moot court, whatever), and still get screwed. And getting screwed doesn't mean settling for public defender instead of BigLaw—getting screwed means pulling espressos while drowning in $150,000 of non-dischargeable debt.

barrk123 · 11-18-2012, 12:18 PM

If you can get into a T14 law school, yes.

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(T1, top 10%, law review, moot court, whatever), and still get screwed

If you go to T1 and graduate top 40% you will get snatched up immediately

sybbie719 · 11-18-2012, 03:57 PM

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If you go to T1 and graduate top 40% you will get snatched up immediately

In this economy, that is no longer true as there are students from T-6's that got shut out and graduated with out jobs.

NYULawyer · 11-18-2012, 09:56 PM

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Law schools are producing 45,000 JDs annually for about 22,000 open associate positions. That means you can do literally everything right (T1, top 10%, law review, moot court, whatever), and still get screwed.

Over 2/3 of those open associate jobs, out of 22k open positions, don't pay enough to service the level of law school debt. (aka, not biglaw level comp)

Anyone who pays near sticker price to attend a law school outside top 14, in this economy, should be examined for sanity.

NYULawyer · 11-18-2012, 09:58 PM

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If you go to T1 and graduate top 40% you will get snatched up immediately

If you are top 40% of the class (or close to median), coming from any law school outside of T14, you face greater odds of graduating unemployed than employed.

barrk123 · 11-20-2012, 11:03 PM

^ Indeed....

andrewexd · 11-21-2012, 01:02 AM

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BTW business degrees are also useless. So in answer to your question, do NOT go into law. It's a waste of life. Do something like engineering or the sciences. If you're really talented, the money will come...and you get to create or discover really "cool" things in the process.

Hard science degrees are just as "useless" as any liberal arts degree, even CS and engineering degrees don't pay nearly enough to go through if you have no interest in those fields.

chickdos · 11-21-2012, 08:50 AM

Wow!
My son is just now beginning HS and has expressed an interest in pursuing a law degree. This is not what I expected to see when I opened up this thread. Thanks for the "hard core" advice...I think! :-/

saye329 · 11-21-2012, 10:29 AM

My opinion is that if you wanted to pursue a law degree, it would be best to major with something else or double the degree like a JD/MBA program, or something that can be useful for all aspects of the professional wold. It is becoming increasingly hard to rise with only a law degree..as more and more youth are turning to this field becuase they "think" they want to pursue it.

charlieschm · 11-21-2012, 02:21 PM

I asked a young lawyer about his experiences. He said in addition to all of the downsides of debt and job prospects, he added "law school also was incredibly boring." Study a useful subject matter that you enjoy, but leave the law school glut alone.

Also, be very afraid of law schools that offer large amounts of merit aid to most of their entering students - knowing that most of them will not qualify for that merit aid after the first year. Not everyone can be in the top 10%, and everyone else ends up with much more debt than they ever envisioned.

NYULawyer · 11-24-2012, 09:39 PM

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The bottom line is, nowadays, you basically need a college degree, if nothing else, to survive the employer HR screening process. Many firms won't even grant you an interview if you lack a degree. The choice of major is far less important than whether you have a degree at all. Those majors provide an easy pathway to get that degree.

I don't think it is a good idea to attend college, just to pass that HR screen at those legitimate corporate employers. Because, chances are, with a generic college degree, you won't likely to pass those HR screens anyway, having wasted 4 years of your life, 4 years of opportunity costs, and ungodly amount of tuition money.

Why Did 17 Million Students Go to College? - Innovations - The Chronicle of Higher Education

In the U.S., there are 17 million college grads that work in jobs that do not require a college degree. In our country, there is absolutely no control of supply of number of colleges or college graduates, unlike in France, Germany, Japan, or Taiwan. Anybody and his brother can get a college degree here in the U.S., if the means allow. Hence, there is a huge over-supply of college grads, relative to entry level jobs available. This means that a BA in poly sci or biology, in and out of itself, doesn't mean jack in the job market.

That does not mean that everyone would be better served by attending a college. I would argue that learning plumbing skills, auto repair skills, or learning to become an electrician are way more marketable skills than going to a directional State U and majoring in poly sci or biology, because you are scared of math.

Granted, even if you are a humanities/biology/chemistry major, if you attend a highly prestigious college (top 10), and if you play your cards right (GPA > 3.5, finance/consulting internships) then you could land an entry level job in I-banking or consulting. However, even at Harvard, getting those gigs are very difficult nowadays.

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One ingenious strategy is to choose the easiest major you can find. Then devote some of the spare time that such a major frees up to accumulating marketable credentials such as pursuing information technology certifications, such as the Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE), Oracle Certified Master (OCM), Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), or Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE). These certifications are not that hard to attain - perhaps the most difficult being the CCIE which would likely take a motivated person perhaps 6-12 months to complete. You do not need an engineering background to complete those certs. They're certainly far easier than a college engineering/CS degree, not least because you can attempt the certification exam over and over again until you ultimately pass (in contrast, if you keep flunking the same engineering course over and over again, you're eventually going to be expelled). Indeed, there are high school students who have completed these certs. Most importantly, they lead to high-paying jobs, in many cases, better than a engineering/CS major. Somebody with a degree in Leisure Studies but also a CCIE or OCM cert will likely make a higher starting salary than somebody with a CS/engineering degree.

The IT industry is unique, in that, the industry cares very little about someone's academic credentials. Actually, the very top dogs in software space are either college or high school drop-outs.

I have a better idea. Just skip out the college, and save yourself 4 years of tuition and opportunity and financial costs, and gain those IT certifications. Then get an entry level job. My uncle is a college drop-out, yet he did exactly what you highlighted above (in addition, he learned programming skills, such as Java, C++, etc) and took a job as a developer at a start-up company. After 3 years of experience, he leveraged that to move to a bigger company. Now, he's a senior manager at his firm, making 300k a year.

If you are set on a career in IT, it seems that a college education, especially if one is majoring in an 'easy' humanities major, is a gigantic waste of time and money.

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Firstly, as already mentioned by nwcrazy, many biology majors are actually pre-health students (premed, predental, prepharmacy), and while many won't win admission, those that do are (eventually) guaranteed a job. I've never heard of an doctor, dentist, or pharmacist who was willing to move to an underserved area yet remained unemployed. {Such unemployment may exist in popular metro areas, but members of those health professions who are willing to move to underserved rural locations can practically always find a job - and a decent paying one at that.}

Two things. 1) Most of biology majors don't end up at a medical school, 2) You don't need to be a biology major to get into a med school.

Heck, I know of 2 guys from my college, who were engineering majors, that are now at med schools. Med schools don't care what major you pursue, as long as you fulfill the pre-med course requirements.

Considering the fact that 1) BA in biology carries 0 weight in job market, and 2) you don't need to be a biology major to get into a med school, I would say that pursuing a BA in biology is a very risky choice, even if one is aspiring to be a doctor.

If I were a pre-med student, I would think about a fall-back option in case I strike out at a med school, and make sure I choose a marketable major (such as finance/ accounting) that isn't too grade-deflated, and just take the required set of pre-med courses.

herrytaillor · 11-25-2012, 01:37 AM

Then the fact that it just seems to talk about how awful law school is goes to far and it does not shock me that nobody wants to hire these people. If someone says I hate law school and everything about it I don't think an employer is really going to want to hire them.