You have to be really careful with this, in both directions; people consistently overestimate the role of luck in their failures and the role of skill/effort in their successes.
Ask a law student questions about things he's not qualified or interested to answer
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You have to be really careful with this, in both directions; people consistently overestimate the role of luck in their failures and the role of skill/effort in their successes.
For what it's worth, the situation of most lawyers in Brazil is quite similar to what the OP describes. There is a huge, huge excess of Law graduates in relation to demand, so many either end up doing menial tasks at Law firms for ridiculous wages or working with something completely different. The graduates from the most prestigious universities have it slightly better, but their starting salary is still much lower than that of doctors, engineers, etc. With luck, if they ever make it to associate of a prestigious law firm, they might become filthy rich.
What differentiates Brazil a little bit is the vastness of our civil service. Many of those positions require a law degree, and some offer a very high starting salary. So while most lawyers work for peanuts, those who manage to pass the extremely competitive elite civil service tests actually have a better starting salary than doctors and engineers (of course, there are also well paid positions for engineers in the civil service, but not nearly as many. And most engineers would rather try their luck at private companies, where your salary growth can be potentially bigger).
At any rate, there are way too many lawyers over here.
What differentiates Brazil a little bit is the vastness of our civil service. Many of those positions require a law degree, and some offer a very high starting salary. So while most lawyers work for peanuts, those who manage to pass the extremely competitive elite civil service tests actually have a better starting salary than doctors and engineers (of course, there are also well paid positions for engineers in the civil service, but not nearly as many. And most engineers would rather try their luck at private companies, where your salary growth can be potentially bigger).
At any rate, there are way too many lawyers over here.
Terxpahseyton
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It is funny how every country seems to have too many lawyers 
I think most countries have a reasonable amount of lawyers because they didn't open 198 law schools like we did. Now yes, yes the US system does use adversarial legalism in lieu of bureaucratic structures in compensating people for harms so that does require more lawyers. However this by no means indicates the US is more litigious, merely our method of compensating harms is different.
As of 2010 there are 1,225, 452 lawyers in the US.
This is roughly the same amount as India a country of over 1 billion which has 1.2 million enrolled lawyers while graduating 60,000-70,000 every year.
Also with regard to UC Irvine, yes really this is why I badmouth it:
Obscene. That's more than people at T-14 schools are paying. Who do they think they are? Yale? Freaking Chemerinsky and his mediocre supplements. He's a profit-whore.
Law schools are:
-Overrated
-Overpriced
-And destroying the market
I've already made clear the 4 circumstances you should go to law school is if:
(1) You get into a T-14 or upper T-1 school. Those are worth paying sticker price.
(2) You get a full or majority scholarship that defrays the cost significantly.
(3) If daddy can guarantee you a job with a corner office.
(4) It's an affordable local or solid regional school with ties to the market, is the only law school serving that market and has many alumni that can help you out. (Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, SUNY Albany (for state government jobs in Albany), CUNY (dirt cheap))
Otherwise it's not worth the gamble. Yes it is a financial consideration. We don't need more people taking on unsustainable student loan debt. It's bad for the industry, bad for the economy and bad for the country. Just wait till the student loan bubble pops.
As of 2010 there are 1,225, 452 lawyers in the US.
This is roughly the same amount as India a country of over 1 billion which has 1.2 million enrolled lawyers while graduating 60,000-70,000 every year.
Also with regard to UC Irvine, yes really this is why I badmouth it:
Obscene. That's more than people at T-14 schools are paying. Who do they think they are? Yale? Freaking Chemerinsky and his mediocre supplements. He's a profit-whore.
Law schools are:
-Overrated
-Overpriced
-And destroying the market
I've already made clear the 4 circumstances you should go to law school is if:
(1) You get into a T-14 or upper T-1 school. Those are worth paying sticker price.
(2) You get a full or majority scholarship that defrays the cost significantly.
(3) If daddy can guarantee you a job with a corner office.
(4) It's an affordable local or solid regional school with ties to the market, is the only law school serving that market and has many alumni that can help you out. (Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, SUNY Albany (for state government jobs in Albany), CUNY (dirt cheap))
Otherwise it's not worth the gamble. Yes it is a financial consideration. We don't need more people taking on unsustainable student loan debt. It's bad for the industry, bad for the economy and bad for the country. Just wait till the student loan bubble pops.
Commy
Prince
Very good question, like it
You're just reciting stuff you read online Ace99. (That list is almost the same as our friend over at thirdtiertoilet, although remarkably his catch-all number 4 is probably better than yours.) What year in law school are you? How many legal internships or legal jobs have you had? How many practicing attorneys have you sat down and talked to about their careers? How can you say something is bad for an entire industry when you don't really know what that industry even is? Why are you so upset about law school and what is making you take up the mantle for the poor oppressed babe-in-the-woods law school grads who cannot get a job?
So really it seems like the problem is not enough jobs and payscales being too high on the high-end, not too many lawyers.
There are several things I'd like to hire lawyers for, but I can't find any that bill out at what I consider acceptable rates for the work I want. (ie. <$100/hr, instead of >$300/hr - I do pay going rates for some work, because it's more important than legal stuff I'm not willing to pay >$100/hr for, which just never gets done.)
If the possibility to win the high-pay jackpot were eliminated, it should lead to fewer law school applicants anyway.
If you look at software patent lawyers alone (this is where I mostly have experience), you'd need roughly 2 million patent attorneys to cover all the software firms in the US. There are only about 40k such lawyers in the US, and because lawyer pay is so high it makes more sense for software firms to generally ignore patent law until they get sued then to bother paying full-time attorneys.
There are several things I'd like to hire lawyers for, but I can't find any that bill out at what I consider acceptable rates for the work I want. (ie. <$100/hr, instead of >$300/hr - I do pay going rates for some work, because it's more important than legal stuff I'm not willing to pay >$100/hr for, which just never gets done.)
If the possibility to win the high-pay jackpot were eliminated, it should lead to fewer law school applicants anyway.
If you look at software patent lawyers alone (this is where I mostly have experience), you'd need roughly 2 million patent attorneys to cover all the software firms in the US. There are only about 40k such lawyers in the US, and because lawyer pay is so high it makes more sense for software firms to generally ignore patent law until they get sued then to bother paying full-time attorneys.
So why not trust that the market would force pressure on lowering cost? Surely law students would be smart enough to see that there are better values available.
Law schools are:
I'm not a lawyer but I've hired enough lawyers to know that this is way overblown. The list of institutions that have "ties to specific markets" extends beyond the schools in the 30-50 range. I've personally done multiple hiring searches were firms have specifically requests candidates from Chicago-Kent, which I think is a tier-4 school that you thought was a brand new diploma mill. I've done similar searches in Ohio where people have requested Toledo and Capital, both of which are substantially farther down the rankings.
I certainly believe that there are too many lawyers, and there are some unscrupulous as hell law schools, but that's probably the case for dozens and dozens of professions in the US, from journalists to MBAs to musicians, even teachers. A lot of this just really comes across as whining out of fear of losing some magical "prestige" or allure that comes from being a lawyer.
2L E, at this point 2 1/2. One corporation, one public interest/government and a legal research position for a professor. Currently interviewing for summer jobs.
Several actually. The older one's say much the same sort of thing that you do. Things are just more competitive and all that and the legal profession is fine. But the more recent graduates say quite differently. One that I spoke to told me he graduated from Georgetown some $120,000 in combined debt and now he's working for some $40 k at this public interest job struggling to pay his debt off. This is a real thing. It's a troubling thing, and I'm absolutely concerned about job prospects of the future? I'd be a fool not to be in this economy. I'm absolutely interested in protecting my economic interests. And I would like to see the ABA and law schools reform the legal profession. That's apparently whining.
Is your friend familiar with LRAP? Georgetown offers a particularly good LRAP program that in some cases forgives all (!) of your federal law school loans. Offer your friend encouragement, at least he has a job that is offering him practical experience that he can turn into a better career elsewhere if he so chooses.
The best protection for your economic interests is continuing to sit down with lawyers, building up that network, continuing to work in legal internship jobs, and just generally getting out there and getting experience and getting to know people in the profession. I bet a lot of the people complaining about not getting a job are not looking at job hunting the right way. They probably think they can just surf craigslist and email resumes and magically a job will appear in their inbox and everything will be fine. Not these days--and that is not limited to the legal profession, as downtown points out. While you are out there getting to know people, let the whiners complain about law school and the ABA and sit on their computers and not get a job because they'd rather have life spoon-fed to them.
The best protection for your economic interests is continuing to sit down with lawyers, building up that network, continuing to work in legal internship jobs, and just generally getting out there and getting experience and getting to know people in the profession. I bet a lot of the people complaining about not getting a job are not looking at job hunting the right way. They probably think they can just surf craigslist and email resumes and magically a job will appear in their inbox and everything will be fine. Not these days--and that is not limited to the legal profession, as downtown points out. While you are out there getting to know people, let the whiners complain about law school and the ABA and sit on their computers and not get a job because they'd rather have life spoon-fed to them.
Is a postgraduate law degree valued in sectors outside of the legal profession?
For the record Ireland produces too many aspiring lawyers too - many have to work for nothing to complete their training as solicitors or barristers apprentices.
The way it works here is undergraduate degree + postgraduate law degree + apprenticeship (paid or unpaid) + professional exams (law degree will partially prepare for these)
You can also do an undergraduate law degree if you don't want to do the post grad.
For the record Ireland produces too many aspiring lawyers too - many have to work for nothing to complete their training as solicitors or barristers apprentices.
The way it works here is undergraduate degree + postgraduate law degree + apprenticeship (paid or unpaid) + professional exams (law degree will partially prepare for these)
You can also do an undergraduate law degree if you don't want to do the post grad.
You mean like an LLM? I think an tax LLM is useful, combine that with an undergrad degree in accounting+law degree+LLM in tax and I think you would be sitting pretty. All sorts of dual degrees are offered, JD/MBA (law and biz), JD/MPP (law and public policy), JD/MPA (law and public administration), JD/Political Science, JD/International Relations.
I was tempted by some of them the JD/MBA in particular, but all the lawyers I spoke to said it's not much use.
What would you be able to do with an undergrad law degree in Ireland? Sounds like it would be equivalent to pre-law or Criminal Justice majors here.
I was tempted by some of them the JD/MBA in particular, but all the lawyers I spoke to said it's not much use.
What would you be able to do with an undergrad law degree in Ireland? Sounds like it would be equivalent to pre-law or Criminal Justice majors here.
arya126
Squad Leader
In other countries (England and Ireland are the ones I am aware of) the terms Solicitor and Barrister are used. For those using those terms in this thread, could you explain the difference? Is solicitor a trial attorney while a Barrister is more of a behind the scenes guy? I have always been confused when people use these terms instead of simply Lawyer or Attorney.
The solicitor thing goes back to common law when there were courts of chancery/equity (in which you could recompense) and courts of law which handled basically everything else. That distinction isn't really a something that's around in the US anymore except certain states.
So a solicitor was a person who argued cases in chancery court, alternately a solicitor was one who acted as an agent while a barrister was one who acted as a pleader . I wouldn't say there's a distinction anymore. Here at least. British people are weird.
The barrister thing I'm not sure about.
So a solicitor was a person who argued cases in chancery court, alternately a solicitor was one who acted as an agent while a barrister was one who acted as a pleader . I wouldn't say there's a distinction anymore. Here at least. British people are weird.
The barrister thing I'm not sure about.
Yeah, getting into medical school isn't particularly hard, I'd put it about on par with law school.
From working pretty extensively with doctors, I can say lots of them are not very smart.
And really, a saturated market is good, from my point of view, I want to pay less for both legal and medical services.
From working pretty extensively with doctors, I can say lots of them are not very smart.
And really, a saturated market is good, from my point of view, I want to pay less for both legal and medical services.
People who think a post-scarcity world is a good thing, and that making people work jobs that could be handled by robots or Excel files is wasteful and demeaning?
sophie
Break My Heart
Law School? Pff too secure for me. I'm shooting for a PhD and a career in academia! I'll see you on the other side comrade!
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