Why Law School Is for Everyone
Law isn't as exclusive as it seems
Reader Comments
The joker from the 3rd tier
The joker who claims to have graduated from the 3rd tier at the top of his/her class proves his own point. He leaves a very conclusory analysis which is not supported by actual facts. He claims that 75% of his class is unemployed and has no job prospects in the future. Wow, so now he can predict the future. I really hope whatever "law school" he went to shuts its doors to everyone. They shouldn't be teaching future lawyers to make conclusions not supported by fact. And, I am sure he is not making much more that $50K a year if he is from a third tier and this is turning him into a salty soul in denial...claiming he did such great networking and was fortunate enough to land a GREAT job. Very comical read.
What a joke...
I wish people would stop encouraging kids to go to law school (which is exactly what this author, although indirectly, is doing). Being a lawyer is not glamorous. A JD is not your ticket to $160k a year and lifetime of wealth. The fact is, there are too many low-ranked schools pumping out too many graduates with $150k in debt destined to make $40k a year. Why? Partly because the LSAT requires no specific knowledge, college grads don't need any specialized knowledge to score well, and many law schools accept kids with TERIBLE undergrad records. But more importantly, many low-ranked schools report that 90% of their students are employed at graduation at around $100k a year each. Although UNTRUE, these schools post this data in order to lure kids into paying $50k a year for a worthless education; like any business, they want to make money. This is boarderline fraud, in my opinion.
I recently graduated from a 3rd-tier law school. Luckily, I graduated near the top of my class, was on law review, did a lot of networking while in school, and landed a great job before graduating. Unfortunately, I'm the exception and not the norm. More than 75% of the kids I went to school with have no job prospects now or in the foreseeable future. They all have incredible amounts of student loans they must pay, and no guarantee that they'll secure a job that will allow them to do so comfortably. This is the story all over the country.
Some serious changes must be made, both in terms of law school admissions and funding. We must make it more difficult to get into law school in the first place (much like medical school). And we must restrict federal funding for law students. With seeminly unlimited access to private loans for most applicants, there's nothing to stop law schools from charging $50k or $60k yearly.
Wrong culprit
The commenters who complain about law school being an expensive scam industry are correct but only in a very narrow sense, and not at all in the sense Frank Wu laid out. Re the shameful costs of school, that isn't a problem with the law, it's a problem with capitalism. It should be glaringly apparent right now that turning ANYTHING into an "industry" dehumanizes it. Not so bad for mining and heavy metal manufacture, but when it's a human service like healthcare, education, and/or.... law? Mr. Wu does not express his economic preferences, but I appreciate that he is correct -- law *does* touch on all our lives. I personally don't envision myself EVER working in a law firm or office, but as an advocate in an underprivileged community, a principal in a non-profit, someone who can help with wills, deeds, trusts, land filings, anything we all might typically do in the course of a life? Absolutely.
If law SCHOOL is a racket, it's not the law's fault, it's the way WE have let our system become like this. A century or more ago there used to be tutors, mentors, a way to study your passion on your own, and then maybe work a little, engage in discourse, extend your knowledge... Heck, before WWII there were even hobo colleges, people who would teach others for free.
It *could* be done again. Will it be? Who knows. But it's not like an in depth knowledge of the law is to blame.
If I had one dream, it would not be that law school be simplified, it would be that the LAW be simplified. I find it hard to understand, with HUGE BUILDINGS full of law already, why we have to make more. It seems to me that relative to lawmaking, we should be putting effort into the consolidation and simplification of things, like recycling instead of manufacturing new. In the UK they put quite a bit of effort into streamlining and it totally paid off. Their systems and forms now are super easy to use and understand.
But, I would never be able to have a chance to contribute to this dream, or any other, if I don't know something about law at all.
Dreaming of Lincoln, reading by firelight....
Law school is a scam
Mr. Wu does a great job of selling law school as some sort of wonderful experience that will enrich your life. However, he fails to explain one of the biggest problems associated with going to law school: DEBT. Private law schools now average about $42,000/year. That means you will end with $126,000 of student loan debt after you have enriched the law school and yourself. What does this enrichment process get you? A piece of paper, and a job that will pay on average $40,000/year if you are one of the lucky ones. If you are unlucky, then you will probably leave the legal field altogether. For someone in college or high school $40,000 may seem like a lot of money, but after taxes and student loan payments you will live a life of poverty. Mr. Wu, like all sales people, just talks about the upside never the downside so I'm just trying to fill the gap. Mr. Wu if you are reading this please explain to everyone how law school leads to a life of debt.
Shame! Shame!
There are valid reasons to go to law school. There are even more valid reasons not to go.
Nothing in this ridiculous piece of fluff really engages either side of the equation. It is an expedition to cloud-cockoo land and an example of the worst sort of law-school hucksterism.
Unscrupulous law schools combine with media glamorization and fixation, our society's saturation with law, and the mistaken and out-of-date impressions of parents and other elders to sell prospective students on a mere fantasy. Mr. Wu continues to do his part to help this process along, so that he and his law school colleagues can continue to enrich themselves while extruding class after class of hopelessly indebted and despairing alumni.
Yes, there are success stories. Mr. Wu knows full well that they are increasingly-rare exceptions to the rule, and collaborates in hiding the true reality. Has he no shame?
law school education is a $3 billion a year industry
and the bigtime players in that legal education industry are scamming and lying and cheating every step of the way.
THe law school scam starts off with the bogus, inflated employment and salary stats put out by the law schools via their front organization, the NALP.
The law schools use a dozen or more tricks, manipulation, and frauds to inflate those employment and salary stats of their grads. One trick is to follow up zealously on the employment and salary surveys that the law schools send out out to grads. Well, they only zealously follow up on those students that the law schools know made 1) good grades or 2) already know that have a job or 3) have parents who are lawyers and can hire their kids as a lawyer.
The rest of the grads, those in the bottom half of the grade curve, are basically ignored when it comes to surveying post graduation.
That way the stats are not based on the entire class, but mainly just on the successful portion of the class of graduates.
THe law schools have other tricks to inflate the stats. For one, they have been known to hire grads for short term research projects at high rates of pay. Then they report those grads as employed, reporting that short term pay rate as a full time job. Then as soon as they are in the report, the job ends.
Also, the schools will sometimes report grads who do not return surveys as being "solo" lawyers, and they report an "average" salary for all solos. A fraud if there ever was one.
Then the NALP puts out those stats to the corporate media, the same corporate media that makes millions a year selling ad space to ....law schools, universities and colleges.
So the media is more than willing to promote and hype those fake job numbers even more.
And of course their are many other companies that operate on the edge of the legal education industry that make millions: textbook companies, legal testing companies, etc.
All tolled, 3 billion dollars a year is made off of the young and naive kids lured into debt slavery by the law school industry.
Don't fall for their lies.
Law school
Loved the article and totally agree with it.
law school for everyone
when you talk about law ,is is not how much it costs but how well you can apprehend things in a life time.people who talk a lot about the cost are those who want to go to law school only because of the amount of money they may make in a society.For sure believe it or not law can take you everywhere in life.it gives you more knowledge in more disciplines because nothing is made out or without the Law.Being able to bring about justice even when the rules may be wrong for some reasons is the most important achievement if you believe in society.That being said, not everyone would do law or would like law it is not at this point for all but it is a way for everyone if you decide to join.your way of thinking is the sole part of your life no matter the field you are in.You have to be able to organize your thoughts as well as your mind.If you do law you are good if you don't you are good.However we all know that we will always interact with the Law the one we created or the one that was there before us.Learning law for me is a high privelege and a distinct honor.Understand the rules and being able to accomodate various situations to them is a hard task that deserves to be accomplished.That is why I always quote GRISOLI who said
IF YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY FOR ONE DAY GET DRUNK
IF YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY FOR TWO DAYS GET MARRIED
IF YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY FOR THE WHOLE LIFE, BECOME A LAWYER.
Now please do not analyze this as a master rule, if you do then you may not understand what is learning Law.LIFE COSTS MORE THAN WHAT A LAW SCHOOL DOES,IF YOU LIKE LAW DO IT IF YOU DON'T DO NOT COME ACCROSS.
Be Rational
I can understand what hes saying
Its not the actual substance of law school hes talking about, aka all those legal cases that were brought up at the beginning, anyone whose been to law school will tell you how annoying some of those were, its more the rational and logical thought and reasoning and considering all scenarios before you make a decision is the part he is emphasizing
the mindset, not how its applied, is what the dean is advocating, which if you want to break it down into a few choice words, all hes advocating is training that teaches one how to be logical, reasonable, and rational.
And lets be honest, those are traits that are needed more in the world
now in response to those who are talking about the debt and the headache, you missed the point of the article in my opinion, hes not saying everyone should be a lawyer, those skills he mentioned can be applied to just about any part of life
Hes not saying go to law school, hes saying that the skills you devlope there are interchangable, thats it
Go to tier 1, don't mess with 2, 3, 4.
Wow. So from these comments I see that it's not wise to throw away three years of your young life and go 120k into debt when you could get some other job...
Try throwing away four years, 240k debt (including living costs, 160k without), and then strapping yourself into a 40k per year salary for about the next 4 years. Total amount of training post-undergrad: 8 years--Some do a few years more. Total school debt over that period: above ridiculous.
Welcome to Med School, kiddos.
