law school: the debt factor
Most people who go to law school graduate with substantial debt. In general, the higher ranked the law school, the more debt you can expect to accumulate (in part, because so many of them are private schools). However, in the past this debt load has been mitigated by one’s earning potential as a graduate from one of these top-ranked schools — $160,000 per year starting out at the top BigLaw firms. Sure, you sell your soul to the devil to work there, but you get your debt paid off quickly and then you move on to someplace other than the Hotel California law firm, where you can check in any time of night but you can never leave. For many, this is a Faustian bargain worth making.
As a seasoned student myself, the debt factor played a huge role in my decision about where to attend law school. Simply put, I’ve been in debt, I’m still in debt, and I’m trying to get out of debt. I don’t want any more debt. Debt stinks. Maybe more prospective law students are taking this into consideration when making their choices, seeing that many of the top law firms are having layoffs and salary cuts as a result of the economy. According to this editorial in today’s New York Times, the economy is affecting the legal profession in many ways, both at law firms and at law schools.
I think law schools should prepare students to become solos. Too many schools focus on getting their graduates into BigLaw, where their skills aren’t put into practice until years and years of doing “grunt” work.
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I agree, the solo option isn’t pushed enough. Also not pushed enough: the idea that it’s perfectly acceptable to join a small/medium firm. There’s a hierarchy among lawyers – BigLaw >>> Small, Corporate Lawyers >>> Personal Injury Lawyers, etc etc, and it’s the students that suffer from such an approach. And the fact remains that in this economic climate, it’s the small and medium sized firms that are proving most nimble and are actually GROWING, whereas BigLaw, whose business model was broken before and the cracks are only widening with this economy, is really struggling.
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