Is law unemployment over exaggerated?

[sakky]

<p>

As you also pointed out, in real terms we have to compare apples to apples. It’s not so much about how a fresh law graduate compares to a fresh undergrad graduate as much as it is how a fresh law graduate compares with their own peers (e.g. people 3-6 years out of undergrad). By that point outside a legal career there’s really no advantage for law school graduate.

</p>

<p>Uh, no, I suspect that what Fly the Helo meant is that the law graduate is still more competitive for a non-legal job than the new undergrads graduating right now. The law degree might not help, but it won’t hurt either, for like I said, in the worst scenario, you can simply omit the degree.</p>

<p>Granted, the debt will hurt, which is why I agree with the notion that you should probably take a full ride at a low-level law school if you don’t get into a top law school. The debt is therefore a separate issue. </p>

<p>The point is that while earning a law degree - apart from the issue of debt - might not make you better off than you were coming out of college, it’s hard to fathom how it would actually truly make you worse off. </p>

<p>

• A PhD student from science or engineering (who are also recruited by consultancies) who would typically get hired at the same level as someone out of law school. These PhD programs are usually ‘free’ to students (i.e. the tab is picked up by the government for such programs) and with TAing and other grants students usually have a, albeit very small, income during their schooling years. I note that PhDs take longer than 3 years, but most PhD students enter right out of undergrad while many law school students take a year or two doing something else first… therefore a law school grad and PhD grad could be the same age +/- a year or two.

</p>

<p>Ha! Nice try. If you want to discuss PhD programs, then you have to factor in the risk that you won’t actually complete the program. About half of all incoming PhD students will never actually finish the PhD. True, many of them will earn consolation master’s, but that is generally not good enough to garner a consulting or banking associate’s position.</p>

<p>By contrast, practically every student at the elite law schools in question will actually finish the degree. </p>

<p>

• Undergrad from the law grad’s same class but that joined the consultancy out of undergrad. Some people leave after a year or two but others, particularly top performers, can get promoted right up the ladder.

</p>

<p>Very top performers can be promoted right up the ladder: generally no more than 10% of the entering cohort. You’re taking quite the risk that you will be one of them.</p>

<p>But as I said, practically everybody at the elite law schools will actually graduate. </p>

<p>

There are certainly prospects for a JD outside the legal profession, but from a net net analysis it’s hard to see how it gives one advantages over other options.

</p>

<p>Nobody is saying that anybody should use the JD with the specific intention of becoming a consultant or banker. I specifically recommended against that strategy.</p>

<p>On the other hand, it’s not a bad backup plan. If you attend one of the top law schools, and you find out that you don’t really want to practice law, you have another option. Sure, it’s not as efficient as other pathways you could have taken, but the outcome is still quite respectable.</p>

<p>As a more basic issue, I don’t understand why posters on this thread (and many others) are so concerned about efficiency and certainty anyway. For example, any discussion of “Am I better off now than if I had been doing something for the same amount of time” is inherently predicated on an unreasonable calculation of efficiency and certainty. Life is inherently inefficient and uncertain. As the old saying goes, man makes plans, and God laughs. </p>

<p>To wit, I think back to all of the people with whom I had graduated from college, and the future career plans they had…and how few of them actually came to pass in the manner envisioned. Some of them headed to graduate school…of which many did not then complete their graduate programs. One guy who was adamant that he would never attend grad school had to eat his words because he actually did. Some guys became engineers, many of whom are not engineers anymore. {Heck, one engineer actually switched careers to becoming a real estate agent during the housing boom.} Some guys who were gung-ho about consulting and banking no longer are, and others who had never seriously considered consulting and banking are in those fields now (after obtaining MBA’s). </p>

<p>One of the biggest sources of uncertainty in life is …love. You never really know when you’re going to meet the love of your life, and after that, you never really know when you’re going to have children. I can think of plenty of people who put their former career plans aside after marrying, and especially, after having children, after which all of the things you thought were important turn out to be not so important after all. </p>

<p>I just think about a guy I read about who went to HLS, incurring significant debts that, because he never took a high-paying BIGLAW job but rather bounced around in relatively low-paying jobs in government, academia, and at small law firms, he carried those debts until his 40’s before paying them off completely. Imagine the burden of carrying educational debt until your 40’s? Surely that gravely circumscribes one’s future career prospects. </p>

<p>Oh wait…that guy became President of the United States.</p>