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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStudents Are Finally Realizing Law School Might Be A Terrible Idea
The number of people taking the LSAT for the first time dropped 16 percent in December compared to last year, according to The Faculty Lounge, which cited a report from the Law School Admission Council.
The December statistic shouldn't come as much of a shock since LSAT numbers were down in October too.
The number of future students who took the admission test this fall dropped 16.4 percent from last year.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/december-lsat-statistics-2013-1
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sadbear
(4,340 posts)Good.
Baitball Blogger
(46,698 posts)principles over crooked clients or associates.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)...is a Doberman.
Old joke, sorry.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,660 posts)you wind up with a huge student loan and no job.
Baitball Blogger
(46,698 posts)everything about the profession is consumed by the bar, and the bar isn't always set at a high standard?
ToxMarz
(2,166 posts)I mentioned I might want to go to law school and my dad just laughed and said there are a lot if hungry lawyers in the world.
MADem
(135,425 posts)There are "working class" law schools, affordable ones, that eschew the paradigms, provide classes to people who work full time, who don't view the LSAT as an indicator of success and they just don't use it. One of these is in my state. They kicked Harvard Law's ass a few years back in one of those Jeopardy-like contests; it made the news.
The ABA is starting to move away from the mandated LSAT, perhaps they want to bring some of these non-LSAT schools into their fold: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aba_committee_to_offer_two_approaches_to_lsat_requirement/
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)
bayareamike
(602 posts)As a student at a highly ranked T1 school, I can tell you that for the most elite schools job prospects are still very, very strong. However, even in the T1 there are plenty of students (some of whom were my peers) that struggled to find work.
Those going to even lower ranked schools (T2 and below -- I can't even imagine going to a T3/T4 like Cooley or, God forbid, the University of Phoenix School of Law) are simply screwing themselves. It costs just as much to go to one of those terrible schools as it does to go to HLS, except HLS will get you a six figure job and enable you to make partner.
Simply put, those non-ABA schools with no LSAT requirements are predatory institutions. Firms do not hire from those schools and that's what matters. We need fewer law schools, not more. Unfortunately, law school is big business because uninformed people believe that going to law school is still a "golden ticket" when it is in fact a terrible, terrible investment if done incorrectly. Those T2/T3/T4 schools take advantage of such ignorance.
MADem
(135,425 posts)MA non-ABA school. Not every lawyer wants to join a law firm, become a partner, and earn a big paycheck while working a zillion hours a week. The sort of work that Scott Brown did, real estate law out of his garage, doesn't require a Haaaaah-vid degree. Getting someone bailed out of night court doesn't require that sheepskin from Yale. Working legal aid for the poor, you don't need to be worrying about paying back zillions in loans if you get an affordable degree. You can follow your altruistic heart, because you were able to pay the bills while you were attending.
The kids from the MA non-ABA "poor school" acquit themselves very well in the moot court contests the law schools hold, and this is especially noteworthy considering a lot of the contestants worked full time jobs and were night students. http://mslaw.edu/332/ One year several years back they wiped the floor w/Harvard--it was in all the papers. It's not a fly-by-night joint, either, it's been around for a quarter century already.
Some people just want to have enough legal knowledge to do their thing in support of a business they are already running. Some want to practice "petit law" and provide basic services like wills or estate planning at reasonable prices in a community. At the non-ABA school in MA, most of the profs graduated from Harvard, or Michigan... and they have a TV show on cable that discusses issues in a high quality fashion.
For a "predatory institution" (and I don't think they are that) most of their grads find work pretty quick, they have a decent internship program (paid) for the kids who want to go that way at local law firms and in the courts, and they're very affordable. Also, they have a higher rate of passing the bar than some of the "traditional" law schools.
I dunno--I think there's a little snobbery happening in some (not all, but some) instances. I know not all law schools are like this but the one in MA has a decent track record. I know a few guys who went there and they loved the place, loved the small class size, loved the individual attention, loved the fact that the profs didn't dick around and taught them quite rigorously what they needed to know and how to pass the bar, and they are very loyal to the place. They're also making decent money since they got out of the place and they passed the bar on the first try. The school does partner with a college up in NH and provide a combined degree to full time college aged students as well as run the night program for working adults.
I think it depends on what you want to get out of the school--tuition that's a third of the cost of most schools in the state is most definitely more affordable, so they aren't ripping people off on that score.
I don't think most people who go there have a vision of working with Ally McBeal in Boston or at Lockhart Gardner in a high rise in Chicago--they have much simpler, more pedestrian goals. Someone needs to do that work, too.
I wouldn't get a dog grooming degree from University of Phoenix--they overcharge most onerously, and I would discourage anyone from going there. I don't think the non-ABA school in MA is in the same category, though.
bayareamike
(602 posts)in theory. The issue for me personally is that even for PI jobs things are ridiculously competitive these days. A PI job will net you, on average, 45,000 dollars before taxes. Making 45k a year when you have 100k in student loans to pay back is not a recipe for success.
If someone can self-finance law school (even the affordable ones can cost around 100k total plus interest; nearly 80% of law students take out loans so it is a rarity to self-finance these days) or has the means to simply gain knowledge for their own business that's great for them. But for the scores of twenty-somethings who are fooled into believing that ANY law school will grant them a six figure income, or even a decent wage that will allow them to repay their loans (the average debt after law school is around 120k) the system doesn't work.
My point, I suppose, can be demonstrated like this:
The government regulates all sorts of things to protect consumers. Our food, for example, is regulated in order to ensure that people don't get sick or die from it. The law school system, however, is not regulated. You can get federal loans to go to any of the countless schools out there, regardless of whether or not you can actually get a job when you graduate. Moreover, taxpayers are forced to subsidize this broken system.
I was very impressed recently when Sen. Barbara Boxer publicly called out the ABA on this system.
MADem
(135,425 posts)got three years of school for just over thirty K! They went a few years back and it's gone up a bit since then but still cheap, nonetheless ... http://mslaw.edu/affordable-tuition/ They paid for half, financed half, pretty much, and were able to do it without too much stress.
Nowadays, the tuition is thirteen grand a year (see link)--they don't rip people off at that place. I think the people who run it are straight shooters--the dean thinks the ABA is not playing fair, to put it mildly, judging by some of the info on the school's webpage.
Like I said, the guys I know are very loyal to the place--they invite me to their 'alumni golf outings' every now and again to fill out a foursome even though I suck at golf. I have yet to hear anyone gripe that they didn't think they got their money's worth.
bayareamike
(602 posts)but I'm curious as to a few things:
1) How long ago did they attend?
2) Are they working as attorneys?
3) Did they have careers beforehand and/or were later on in their careers before attending law school?
I'm highly skeptical of that school because even those from top schools (even those outside of the T14 like UCLA, Texas, USC, etc.) are finding it difficult to get a job these days. Over 40,000 students graduate law school each year while only 21,000 new jobs open up. It's over a 2:1 ratio and it's horrendous. Law students have one of the highest rates of defaulting on their loans.
Even if they have succeeded having graduated from a low-ranked school like MS Law, they are the exception to the rule. General statistics about the state of the legal market show this clearly.
Check out http://www.lawschooltransparency.com it gives plenty of insightful data.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Geez, time flies when you're having fun....seems like yesterday!
One guy worked real estate--not sure what he's up to these days (I kinda lost track of that one--I got the sense he wanted the law knowledge for his real estate pursuits, not to change careers totally), the other guy is in a small local firm and is actively practicing law and happy as hell. We're talking OVERJOYED. Before that, and while he was going to school, he was a night manager at a fast food joint and he'd been at that for a long time--he was sick of it and wanted to switch up his direction. He didn't make bad money in the fast food gig, either--but he hated the hours and the sameness of it. Plus, the neighborhood was a little sketchy; he always figured he'd get robbed eventually and didn't like the idea of having to deal with that.
I think more of these law school students should hang up their own shingle, put themselves on the list of attorneys provided by the state to keep their hand in, and try to carve out their own way. I think the "implied promise" of Big School Degree = Six Figure Salary At Fancy Firm is what causes such abject disappointment in many cases--no one wants to/is able to afford to (if they have loans) go work in that altruistic job at legal aid that doesn't pay real well. Of course, if you've spent a third of what the Big School costs are, you're more likely to be able to 'afford' to be able to take that lower paying gig because you're not worried about having to pay off a massive loan.
My two buds are just anecdotes, but I do think they had realistic expectations and they were more mature (in their fifties) and they weren't looking to be Lions of the Legal Field. The school was perfect for them--that's kind of the sort of person (older, with reasonable/specific goals) I think the school is looking to serve; I do not think their goal is to groom/churn out the Lockhart-Gardner and Boston Legal types.
That link doesn't have the non-ABA schools included, so I guess one would have to go to the school website for that kind of information...!
