tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post1383724265514674030..comments2023-10-19T04:51:53.516-05:00Comments on The Legal Dollar: What Do College Students Really Want - And Can They Get It From Law School? - Part 1Managing Partnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05130017520583425490noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-16172990171823939932011-08-07T15:17:22.717-05:002011-08-07T15:17:22.717-05:009:22 - Great comment! I certainly agree with a lo...9:22 - Great comment! I certainly agree with a lot of what you are saying. We have to acknowledge the inertia and the continuing of a message that the students have been receiving their entires lives as a factor pre-disposing them to law school.<br /><br />Although this belief and intertia certainly push them in the direction of law school, I have to think that they would not go unless they could convince themselves that it was to their advantage. Of course, the intertia would make them more vulnerable to accepting "soft answers" from salespeople rather than getting hard data.Managing Partnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05130017520583425490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-52441250800330728112011-08-06T21:22:45.075-05:002011-08-06T21:22:45.075-05:00I think one factor you may be overlooking is almos...I think one factor you may be overlooking is almost too simple: undergraduates know they need to do SOMETHING after college, and they don't know what on earth to do other than follow certain narrow, familiar pathways.<br /><br />Think about it: You're a Good Student(TM). You've been told all of your life to Work Hard in school to get Good Grades and High Test Scores so you can get (stay) on the Right Path to get into the Right College and Do Well there so that you can...um...uh.... <br /><br />Uh-oh! You jumped through all the hoops, you got into the Right Collge, you got Good Grades, you Won Awards - in fact, that's ALL you've done, since you were barely out of diapers! And of course, you've always been rewarded for it with praise and approval. But now...now the all-consuming pattern you've followed your whole life is coming to an end! OMG! What on EARTH will you do next? You probably know nothing - zip, nada, zero - about life outside of school (or school-like institutions). <br /><br />Well, if you're not a science person who prepped for Med School, then there's always....Law School! Yeah, that's it! You take a Test and you get a Score and you do Applications for Admission to a Highly Ranked Institution and you Win the Next Award of Acceptance, after which you go and Work Hard for more Good Grades and try to win some more Awards! It's all very familiar and safe, right? Sign me up!<br /><br />I didn't go to law school, but if I had, it would have been for the reasons above. (I got lucky - someone pointed out the above to me, I actually took it to heart, and feel like I dodged a bullet.) But I saw lots of people going to law school, and IMO most of them didn't go for money or to do good or anything. They went because it's the Next Thing To Do if you're a Good Student who doesn't have any better ideas.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-39426702359730063182011-08-05T12:13:19.158-05:002011-08-05T12:13:19.158-05:0011:56 - Good points! With regard to the change in...11:56 - Good points! With regard to the change in appealing careers, there is also the "learn something new" aspect. For example, someone wants to be a trial lawyer, works for years and then gets to first chair some trials. How many does it take until it gets boring? Gee, I really hope that you have your loans paid off by then or else its golden handcuffs time (Hint: it will take less than the 25 years of the new IBR for you to get bored!)<br /><br />Your comments about the balance changing over time are also dead on. I can actually see it happen over the course of about 2 years when new people start. At first, they throw themselves into it and don't seem to want any time for themselves, but after two years they really come to value that time.<br /><br />I have heard the "5 year, 10 year" thing talked about, but by itself students seem to fill in things that are unrealistic (Step 1: Law school, step 2: ????? (or "work as a lawyer" which is just as vague), step 3: Profit, yacht, and retirement). It's the second part of your statement that I have to really second as valuable - they need to get in the habit of doing the research, talking to people - and getting to really know themselves and what they actually want - so that they can craft a 5 and 10 year plan that is based on realism, not fantasy. Thanks!Managing Partnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05130017520583425490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-17758878888184884502011-08-05T11:56:27.790-05:002011-08-05T11:56:27.790-05:00None of the four factors is static, of course. A j...None of the four factors is static, of course. A job that appeals to you in your 20s may no longer appeal to you in your 40s or 50s, even within the practice of law. I know many lawyers who have always loved trial work but find that they just don't have the energy for them when they get older. Many try to transition to appeals but they don't have the writing skills. <br /><br />The balance of the four factors may change over time - it may have to, whether you like it or not. A lot of younger people value free time highly and expect to get it from the very start. That's not realistic in many legal jobs. Most of us who have been practicing for a while remember having very little free time when we were starting out. We were only able to adjust our practice to have more time and independence after we'd acquired a certain amount of experience. A young lawyer who is unwilling to pay some dues early on may be limiting what will available later on. <br /><br />Job security is very hard to predict. How much work are land use and real estate lawyers getting in this economy? Probably not as much as bankruptcy lawyers, who weren't making as much when the economy was booming. (This varies by region, of course.)<br /><br />There's always some area of law that is active, but if all your experience is in field A and you know nothing of field B, you won't be able to just jump over to field B when the work in field A dries up. Aside from the problem of the learning curve, you'll be competing with the experienced lawyers who've been in field B all along.<br /><br />I'd counsel young wannabes to get in the habit of asking themselves, "Where do I want to be in 5 years? Where do I want to be in 10 years?" before they even start law school. That means doing research, talking to lawyers who are actually practicing in the areas they find most attractive, and continuing to ask those questions throughout their careers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-31757949279093765622011-08-05T10:19:59.620-05:002011-08-05T10:19:59.620-05:00MJP - that's a great question and I will addre...MJP - that's a great question and I will address it in a future post. Stay tuned.Managing Partnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05130017520583425490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-41107963665395277652011-08-05T08:54:50.977-05:002011-08-05T08:54:50.977-05:00Thanks for the good post, as always. One point of...Thanks for the good post, as always. One point of debate - you address the question of whether law school is a good investment in a vacuum. That is, assuming law school isn't an efficient way to achieve those 4 factors, what is? If your average person 10 years out of law school could have chosen again with perfect hindsight, would they have stopped going to school after undergrad and gone into a different profession? After high school and gone into sales? After middle school and to McDonalds? How does one determine what to do, instead of just what not to do?MJPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-5865621230179313702011-08-04T21:10:37.894-05:002011-08-04T21:10:37.894-05:00Just a little addition to my answer - I noticed th...Just a little addition to my answer - I noticed that you mentioned that all of your girlfriends were in the "to help people" category. One thing that I think that we need to appreciate is the differing impact of gender here. For example, much research has been done about how women are typicaly much more social and "consensus-based"/"social approval seeking" in their decision making then men. Also, think of the likely reactions from an average person in our society to the question of "why do you want to go to law school" in the following two situations: First, a man says "to make money". Second a woman says "to make money". I think that you are likely to see stronger surprise/societal disapproval in the second case.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong, I am male and women don't get a free pass - but I think that it is only fair to recognize that they are under additional/different pressure as compared to men from 1) their immediate circle of friends and family, and 2) society as a whole. Of course, that makes the law school's selling of the "help people" reason to go to law school (when it is false) all the more reprehensible.Managing Partnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05130017520583425490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-50931702601926144352011-08-04T20:58:10.295-05:002011-08-04T20:58:10.295-05:008:27 - I have also heard the same thing so many ti...8:27 - I have also heard the same thing so many times! Here's something that I'm not sure that applies to 100% of the "help people" people, but it certainly applies to some - In many places today, kids are being educated/brainwashed that is it "wrong" to want money - that wanting money makes them a "bad person". However, the reason "to help people" is always "right" - it's one of those reasons that the people telling them "money is bad" will never question, so it is a good answer for anything. (Why are you selling lemonade? To help people. Why are you loaning money? To help people. Why are you building houses? To help people. Why do you want to work at McDonalds? To help people.) For a certain substantial percentage of the people that are attending law school, it's not that they are deluded into thinking that they will be helping people - its that they expect that giving this answer will bring them your approval for their decision. Admittedly, some are certainly deceived, but some are definitely crafty - and others just seem to use it to get people to stop questioning their decision - through trial and error they have kind of backed into it and don't really understand how it works.<br /><br />Additionally, law schools are adept at selling, so they craft their sales message to fit with their potential customer's desires to the greatest extent. The potential law student has been raised in an environment where people "helping people" has been met with social approval - social approval that they crave. The law schools recognize their desire for social approval and actively market to them that purchasing the law degree will allow them to "help people" and thus receive the desired social approval.<br /><br />You can tell that they crave the social approval because they rarely seem to want to help other people in an anonymous or invisible fashion. Instead, they want their name splashed large and to be famous for "helping others". In this regard, I think that we have to view their desire to "help others" as something other than an altruistic act. Instead of expressing greed for money, they are greedy for social approbation.<br /><br />In either case, I have to agree with you that the potential law student is sadly, utterly mistaken about the likely impact of getting their law degree. I often ask such people what they are doing right now to "help people" - interestingly enough, about 50% are not doing ANYTHING to help people right now. That usually exposes their answer as BS from the get go. For the other 50% who ARE doing something, I usually ask them why what they are currently doing to help is not enough and why they think law school will let them help people more. This often gets them thinking. (For the charity that you like to volunteer at, don't you think that you will have less time to do it if you are a lawyer? How much are you going to be able to donate when you are saddled with $200K in loans? Do you think that the charity will be able to afford to pay you enough to pay off your loans and live? etc.)Managing Partnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05130017520583425490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3521318064826848712.post-52685337021457634092011-08-04T20:27:50.573-05:002011-08-04T20:27:50.573-05:00I recently met a woman (still an undergrad) that e...I recently met a woman (still an undergrad) that expressed a desire to attend law school. She's studying for her LSAT at the moment. I tried to talk to her (as I was studying for another bar exam) and let her understand the risks involved based on my 10 years of experience in the crappy and unstable profession. I asked her point blank why she wants to go to law school. You know the answer, you've heard it a million times before .... I WANT TO HELP PEOPLE! Why is it that these lemmings have to delude themselves into thinking that they have to "help" people by going to law school? This topic came up recently on another blog and I had to comment that every single one of my girlfriends in law school fell into this "do gooder" mentality, whether it was a desire to act on behalf of children (guardian ad litem), or some such bullshit. Can't these people just be honest for a change?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com