<p>Seems like I pushed a button.</p>
<p>1) I am not opposed to people attending law school. I am opposed to people attending law school for the wrong reasons, and to people who wish to encumber themselves with law school debt for little to show for it. If your kid is getting a full scholarship somewhere, and really, really wants to be a lawyer, by all means.</p>
<p>2) That brings me to my second point. How does one know if they really, really want to be a lawyer? Job satisfaction is notoriously low in law, mostly because people don’t fully grasp what it takes to be a lawyer, and how boring it can be at even the most high-paid sectors of the law. Thus, the odds are already stacked against your kid in terms of his ability to derive satisfaction from his job. His odds increase if he’s spent some time examining the type of work attorneys in his desired field do. I know a girl who spent two years as a paralegal at Skadden before heading to a top law school. When she says, “I want to work at a big firm,” I trust her judgment more than most.</p>
<p>But outside of law, there are many equally, if not more, fulfilling professions out there. I wouldn’t be surprised if 70% of the people entering law school don’t have a good appreciation of what being a lawyer involves, that a small minority of them end up liking it anyways, and the rest ultimately are either dissatisfied or just leave the law entirely after a number of years in the field. I find it even more foolish that some are willing to embrace these odds.</p>
<p>But I can’t talk too much, I guess. I went to law school for all the wrong reasons. I got lucky, though. I liked the job that I got, and I… got a job. And I got it in the worst interviewing season of all time. But, really, though, if I think my experience is not a good model for others. And if I had a way of telling myself in the past not to go to law school and to think seriously about the debt, I’d do it.</p>