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Friday, June 23, 2006
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I Know I’m Not Diplomatic… … but I’ve always hesitated to say anything on this blog about The Law School Option. This is because I know and like a lot of lawyers, and because I don’t have firsthand knowledge of the daily realities of the field of law. But, via law professor Ann Althouse, I note a recent opinion piece which is very undiplomatic indeed about the phenomenon of huge numbers of college students (some of them English majors… some of them English majors who chat with me in my office about whether I think going is a good idea, since their parents are pressuring them and they can‘t think of anything else to do…) going to law school. The writer begins by noting the amazing attrition rates from jobs in law firms: [T]he legal profession is actually losing lawyers every day, a silent drain of talent to banking, business and premature retirement. …[L]arge law firms, those employing more than 500 lawyers, lose nearly 40% of their associates within four years of hiring them. After six years, the ratio climbs to 60%. …42% of lawyers in small firms (and 50% in solo practices) have changed jobs within three years of graduation, and two-thirds of them have switched two or more times… [A] significant percentage drop out of the legal profession entirely. Beyond the massive job dissatisfaction much of this would suggest, there’s the cost of law school. The writer notes that you can feel compelled to take and keep the most lucrative job available in order to repay loans, which might mean that you’ll spend years harnessed to a vocation you hate. Plus, salaries for most lawyers aren’t the glorious things people think they are… A commenter on the Althouse thread writes: Of the things keep me out of law school, there are two things foremost in my mind. The first is that it is massively, crushingly, chokingly expensive… And thus the second - as a corollary to the first - is that law school is full of people who want to make lots of money. And I suppose that is inevitable and unsurprising: if you're going to spend three miserable years paying through the ass to listen to three lectures by some fourth-rate hack teaching critical legal studies (or any number of "soft law" classes, which is to say, "not law at all" classes) for every one bright, shining class of CrimPro or ConLaw … and graduate into - in Michael Dorf's phrase - "the ranks of one of the most hated professions in history," under a pile of debt comparable to the mortgage on a decent-sized house in a nice suburb, it should hardly be surprising that these people want to make money… Another writes: I think a lot of lawyers do hate their jobs. There is a lot to hate […], including cynicism, long hours, boring work, and in many parts of the law, experiencing a lot of aggression. Indeed, I have always wondered about all the women going to law school - a lot of them can't be all that happy with the level of aggression required for a lot of the practice of law. (Yes, I am being a bit sexist here, but I am also intentionally not talking percentages - I don't know if this is 10% or 90%, just that much of the practice of law requires this, and men seem to enjoy it more, on average). Let me tentatively conclude, then, that many people who enter law - especially perhaps undergraduate humanities types, who’ve already shown an interest in deeper questions than the econ and business majors - should not. At least should not right away. One thing people who’ve just graduated with humanities BAs should think about is time. You have more of it than you think. Throwing yourself into law school -- perhaps into any graduate school -- immediately after having finished four or more undergraduate years is in itself perhaps not such a hot idea. It might make more sense to dedicate a few years at this point to pursuing an unlikely dream (theater, novel-writing, living abroad, whatever) and then perhaps, after a decent creative or intellectual interval, applying to a vocational graduate school. You’ve got the time. Really. |