<ol>
<li><p>When I was at my reunion at my [upper half of T14] law school last fall, everyone said that the logjam had broken and that all but a couple of the 2011 graduates had gotten jobs (and they meant real jobs, not temp work). Of course, I can’t verify that.</p></li>
<li><p>My virtual niece’s boyfriend (at a tippy-top law school) had been set to be a Dewey summer associate this past summer. He was able to find another large, national firm at the last minute, and he got an offer from them. I don’t think he has all As in law school, although at his law school some Bs are probably fine. He did NOT, however, have a lot of choices when he was looking last fall, and I don’t think he feels he will have a lot of choices now, either.</p></li>
<li><p>We were talking a lot about this at my reunion. When we went to law school, the total tuition for three years was less than half of a first-year salary at the large national or regional firms where most of us expected to get jobs, and maybe about 80% of entry-level salaries at government or public interest legal jobs. A summer job with a big firm paid tuition for your third year. Now, law school tuition is more than 100% of big-firm starting salaries (pre-tax, too), and maybe 300% of what you can get in a government job. With the market tight, it’s a really risky proposition, and that’s at the top of the pyramid. Increasingly, law school is going to require rich parents, or a rich spouse, or one of the very few meaningful scholarships out there.</p></li>
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<p>People are still going to succeed and have great careers as lawyers, but they are going to have to hustle and have luck, and a lot of people are going to fall by the wayside with huge debt.</p>
<p>Can’t speak about all areas of law, but in patent law there is an option of becoming a patent agent. One has to have an engineering or a science degree and pass the patent bar examination. Finding employment could be tricky, if one does not have experience working for a law firm as a technical specialist. A patent agent is limited to patent prosecution and cannot litigate or get involved in trademark issues.</p>
<p>Again, there is always an option of becoming a paralegal.</p>
<p>High level law enforcement. Many FBI and CIA agents have JDs. </p>
<p>Politics. </p>
<p>Accounting- Tax, taxation is based on tax law.</p>
<p>Human Resources- This area is heavily legalized.</p>
<p>Banking- Banks love Trust Officers with JDs.</p>
<p>Military- JAG Corps offers great benefits.</p>
<p>With the current job market for lawyers, if you want a “Big Firm” Practice, you need to graduate in the top 25 percent from a top tier school or top 10 percent from a mid-level school. If you don’t think you can do that, you should probably find another career and you should definately not go into debt for that JD.</p>
<p>Lower top 10 percentile at mid-range schools face a challenging job search.</p>
<p>While HR is quite legal, lawyers who go into HR gap have practiced employment law at a firm or corporation. You don’t leave law school with any qualifications to work in HR at a senior level. I am an HR lawyer, so you can trust me on this.</p>
<p>Also very few places will hire paralegals with a JD because they think you are overqualified and won’t stay. It’s all a Catch 22.</p>
<p>I need to make myself stay away from threads like this. You are terrifying me!
S is a 1L at a top 3 school so, obviously, no merit aid, he received some need based, but still, there will be lots of debt. The thing is, he loves it, that’s what he wants to do, what else could we say, except go for it?</p>
Again, this just isn’t the case (happy to hear anecdotes of recent law school grads who have parlayed their training into some great non-legal job–anyone?) Is there any other field where people who choose a particular career are told that the risk of unemployment is acceptable because after training for three years and paying a boatload of money to reach that goal, they can do something else entirely?</p>
<p>Don’t they tell that to undergraduates in majors with limited major-specific job prospects (e.g. art, biology, etc.)? I.e. if you do not get a job as an artist or biologist, there are many jobs that will take people with a bachelor’s degree but do not need any specific major (but then there is also competition from everyone else with a bachelor’s degree).</p>
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A close family friend, who graduated in the middle of the class from a T50 law school in 2011, earned his masters in some kind of international relations/security field at the same time. He’s happily employed as a consultant in DC; starting salary around 80K? He feels that having the JD and passing the bar did make him a more attractive candidate for the position. Just a single data point, of course.</p>
<p>parabella - your S is at a top 3 law school, don’t worry. Though it may be slightly more difficult, even the mid/lower end of the class is still getting jobs. My S is graduating this year from a top 3 and is employed after graduation. He has also worked in a legal job after every law school summer, including the first (he’s in a joint degree program so this has taken 4 years, not 3). He is not at the top of the class, not on law review etc. His classmates’ experience has been similar. Now, on the other hand, my D is currently in the process of applying to law school. Full disclosure - her father and I are both lawyers and have tried mightily to discourage this path, as we did for her brother. However, she is astute enough to know that unless she is admitted to a top law school (she will only apply to the top 14) she will probably take another path. There are jobs - there are most definitely though fewer of them. And there are even fewer for which it makes sense to go $200,000 in debt for the degree, especially on top of UG debt.</p>
<p>MommaJ–yes, I personally know several attorneys who have started their own businesses outside of the law realm. But being a lawyer definitely was a plus to them.</p>
<p>Florida’s current governor, Rick Scott, graduated from SMU law school, but he made his fortune as a businessman in healthcare. He used $78 million of his own money to buy his present governor job. [Rick</a> Scott - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott]Rick”>Rick Scott - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Having law school training probably helped healthcare executive Scott when he was deposed under oath about his dealings with his former company Columbia/HCA Health when the company was charged with fraud. Having law training can sometimes come in handy even when one is not actually practicing law for a livelihood!
[Never-Before-Seen</a> Rick Scott Deposition Video - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>Like ucbalumnus said - this advice is now being given to those with PhDs in some areas of chemistry. Yeah, sure - you just spent 6 years in grad school and four years as a post-doc, and people are now telling you to become a high school chemistry teacher. Nothing wrong with teaching (I’m training for it myself), but you don’t need a PhD and a postdoc to teach…</p>
<p>I know several kids who are going to law school because they don’t know what else to do. One kid didn’t get a job at an investment bank training program, so applied to law school. Another spent 3 months looking for work after graduation, didn’t find anything, so applied to law school. </p>
<p>I think some kids who are good at school and don’t know what career they want figure that by going to law school, they get to be good at something again and postpone decision making. That may have worked a decade ago, but in today’s climate?</p>
That’s actually nothing new–it was the case for many in my generation who had humanities degrees but no interest in obtaining a PhD. But at least they faced a decent job market upon graduating. </p>
<p>Love the Rick Scott story! Okay, I concede that a number of people with success in non-legal fields have been helped along by having that degree, though I suspect it’s much more often the case that they hated practice of law and fled to the other field (I knew a few of those)–so I guess you can say the degree served a motivational purpose. But that’s a far cry from reasoning that law school attendance is inherently worthwhile even if you have a poor chance at finding a legal job.</p>
<p>It’s exactly what I did 35 years ago, although I’m sure the fact that both my parents had law degrees (they met in law school) was why the option occurred to me in the first place. If I had it to do over again, I would do something else.</p>
<p>Thank you runnersmom! I am going to try and stay away from “doomsday” threads and just be happy for S who at this point is enjoying being a student after 2 years of being a teacher and exploring all the wonderful things his school offers. Here is hoping that in 3 years things will get better!</p>