Are Law Degrees Almost Useless?

Shit no. I know lots of lawyers from mediocre schools that are making bank.

your classmates wrote:

Shit no. I know lots of lawyers from mediocre schools that are making bank.

really? And are they "making bank" from doing jobs that are related to their law degree?

I have been practicing law for 30 years. Your qualifier about going to a top law school is dead on. I now work in-house and so now am a consumer of legal services. Mid-tier law firms are bragging to me these days that they are hiring guys from Stanford, Columbia, etc., who they could never get before, because the top firms just are not hiring as much, and that just flows down the chain.

If you can't get into or can't afford a top school, it is possible to succeed coming out of a lower school, but the odds are high against you. There are a lot of other better things to pursue.

Depends on your situation. It makes sense to earn a law degree from a less prestigious school if you're established in the professional field already. For example, I know people who worked in real estate development for a few years, then went to law school to become real estate lawyers. Since they already had their professional networks established, they were able to just go to lower tier schools in the city knowing that they had clients ready and waiting upon graduation.

I dunno about the big firms, but I know people who have gone to law school and just headed back to their hometowns, where there was a need for lawyers,, and made fortunes.

freshintoCollege wrote:

your classmates wrote:

Shit no. I know lots of lawyers from mediocre schools that are making bank.

really? And are they "making bank" from doing jobs that are related to their law degree?

Hell yeah. They're lawyers!

freshintoCollege wrote:

It seems that if you don't go to an L14 (top 14 law schools in the USA), your chances of getting a law-based job goes down a lot.

It isn't hard to find accounts of people in $100-200k in debt from going to a crap law school, like the Appalachian School of Law and working in $30-40k/year positions NOT EVEN REMOTELY RELATED to what they studied for.

So any of you guys think law degrees are almost useless (unless you went to an L14 school)?

I go to a T14 law school. My advice would be that if you can't get into a top 20 school, then don't bother going.

Top 1-5: pay up to sticker. Top 5-10: pay up to 2/3. Top 14: pay up to half. Top 15-20: pay up to 1/4 tuition. Otherwise, it's just not worth going. Kids are coming out of schools ranked 127th with 150k in debt where 30% of the class is unemployed and the median salary is about $40k. It's really almost criminal what the lower ranked schools do with conditional scholarships, section stacking, etc.

So yeah, law school is usually not worth it, and most law degrees are useless. If you look at law graduates per year vs available law jobs per year, the numbers just don't stack up. The top schools scoop up 95% of those jobs, and the rest of the people get screwed.

Afraid of the competition, bro?

Almost? Completely.

bingaling wrote:

I go to a T14 law school. My advice would be that if you can't get into a top 20 school, then don't bother going.

Top 1-5: pay up to sticker. Top 5-10: pay up to 2/3. Top 14: pay up to half. Top 15-20: pay up to 1/4 tuition. Otherwise, it's just not worth going. Kids are coming out of schools ranked 127th with 150k in debt where 30% of the class is unemployed and the median salary is about $40k. It's really almost criminal what the lower ranked schools do with conditional scholarships, section stacking, etc.

So yeah, law school is usually not worth it, and most law degrees are useless. If you look at law graduates per year vs available law jobs per year, the numbers just don't stack up. The top schools scoop up 95% of those jobs, and the rest of the people get screwed.

I just graduated from a top 5 school, and I'd more or less concur with this but I think there are exceptions, depending on what you want to do. For example, if you're a CPA and you want to work in tax advisory with say a Big 4 company, going to a top-50 school and getting decent grades should land you there. I also think it's reasonable to attend a school like UT Austin or UCLA on something less than a 3/4 scholarship.

real estate developer wrote:

Depends on your situation. It makes sense to earn a law degree from a less prestigious school if you're established in the professional field already. For example, I know people who worked in real estate development for a few years, then went to law school to become real estate lawyers. Since they already had their professional networks established, they were able to just go to lower tier schools in the city knowing that they had clients ready and waiting upon graduation.

I had missed this post when writing my reply above - I was trying to make the exact same point :)

I was also rather established in my field and have used my law degree to carve out a niche business, although I was lucky to be at a place where the big firm jobs were there if I had needed them.

A long time ago my family wanted me to go to law/professional school. I didn't prepare for LSATS at all, and really went through the applciation process to appease my parents.

I came up with a list of 2-3 schools I thought I could get into. I was rejected by U of Baltimore law school which I thought was a sure thing.

This was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had graduted from undergrad and had no idea what I wanted to do, my grades sucked, I did not even visit the campus of UoB Law.

While my example is extreme, I think it is informative - unless you spend years gunning for the top, you will be PERCEIVED as attempting to skate through, and so employers will be reluctant to hire you.

An alternative, if you don't get into a top 20 school, you could consider, "Reading the Law" which is still done in 5 states. This is a route not often considered - 60 people in the US read the law vs 80k in law school - but it is affordable, so you won't have $150k in debt. You also can change your mind. Further, the person tutoring you is a real lawyer, not a professor, so you are much closer to the marketplace.

I went to a regional law school (c/o 2013) and ended up alright.

And just for reference "alright" means having a law-based job that pays for my inner-loop Houston rent and leaves enough for savings/investments.

Hard to say if I think the non top tier degree is usless because I know I'm very fortunate and in the minority being well-employed as well as debt free.

To draw a line in the sand: if your option is a regional school, you do not have a network to land good internships, and will be massively in debt - do not go.

I had a neighbor who got a law degree at Ohio State. She couldn't find a law job and ended up as an assistant manager at that Gap. I know Ohio State sucks but cripes.

Can someone explain the obsession with school prestige in law school? I suspect the top, say, 10% of grads at a lot of schools are compareable in skill to the average grad at a top school

why should anyone go that much into debt? i got out of law school with $15,000 in loans to repay... paid it off quickly

and i went to law school knowing i wasn't going to practice law very long...

resjudicata wrote:

why should anyone go that much into debt? i got out of law school with $15,000 in loans to repay... paid it off quickly

and i went to law school knowing i wasn't going to practice law very long...

I know... sounds crazy right? But they are out there, and they aren't hard to find, especially with the internet.

I will chime in as a law school dropout. After my 1L year, I dropped out of a school ranked well inside the top 50. Not horrible, but by no means great. A strong regional school nonetheless. So if I stayed in, I would have graduated and taken the bar this past July. My classmates thus far have fared HORRIBLY in the job market. I mean, there are literally no jobs. I am talking about people who did moot court and were in the top 20 percent of their class can't even snag assistant state attorney jobs that pay a starting salary of $40,500/year because these jobs are now getting snatched up by law review people and people that went to schools like Georgetown or Notre Dame. I can actually count very few people that are actually employed as attorneys and all of them are unemployed and currently seeking. Glad I dropped out when I did. You can't squeeze blood from a radish.

Graduated from a T14 law school this past May. I pretty much agree with what you've said, unless you've got a full ride somewhere (and even then, a lot of lower ranked schools put class rank conditions on their scholarships, so I probably wouldn't risk it). The legal market simply has way more new graduates every year than jobs. If you don't go to a T14 school, you really need to graduate at the top of your class to get a job that pays enough to pay back your loans. Even if you go to a lower T14, you're going to want to be at least in the top half. If you look at salary charts for new attorneys, most make either 160k, meaning they work at a big firm, or 40-60k. Very few make anything in between. The latter is simply not enough to pay back the loans, and the big firms recruit primarily from T14 schools.

I think this past graduating class was the height of law school enrollment and each succeeding year has seen a drop in applicants, so the market may get a bit better as the economy continues picking up and less new lawyers graduate each year, but I'd still say T14 or bust.