And before the answer becomes “practice law in Ohio and not at a big firm”, make sure somebody takes a look at what lawyers do and don’t do in small firms, in Ohio, TODAY, not someone’s great uncle who had a thriving Trusts and Estates practice in Cincinnati and retired with millions.
There are lawyers- recent grads- passed the Ohio bar on the first try, from decent but not top tier firms, who are eking out a living with residential real estate closings and some low-end immigration work (i.e. not doing well paid corporate immigration, but helping someone’s Au Pair gain residency status). Take a look at median salaries for new lawyers.
The legal field is compressing rapidly and all those nice, respectable upper middle class livelihoods in the law are disappearing. I’ve got a friend whose son in law is doing hourly Doc Review (not Ohio but in a large midwest city) and he is making a skootch over what he’d make at Costco-- and Costco has better benefits, a career path, etc.
Hate to be a Debbie Downer but every time someone on CC says “you don’t need to go to a top law school if you want to work in a midsized city in the midwest” the angels cry. Every time a kid posts that they want to go to law school but they don’t want Biglaw, they want to be a federal prosecutor, those same angels pull out their hair (becoming an AUSA is MORE competitive than getting a BigLaw job!)