Two lawyers walk into a bar . . . -- Civil and Public Service, ...

Prosecutor Jeanne Wrenn clutches a foot-high stack of case files against the chest of her blue business suit as she dashes from hearing to hearing in the Criminal Courts Building at 26th Street and California ...

[THE NATURAL]

And here I was getting my MBA so that I would have high enough grades to Get into law school..... makes me kinda wonder if going onto Law School is the right thing to do...

[Anita]

As a former lawyer and someone who currently works in an administrative position at a law school, I was very interested in this article. Too many law students seem to be going to law school thinking they are going to be earning big bucks when they are done. The fact of the matter is, as this article points out, most lawyers do not make that much. When you factor in the cost of law school today and the debt you'll likely have when you're done, most new lawyers are NOT in a great financial position.

And, for those who do get the big salary, it is usually at the sacrifice of a lot else. I spent 7 years at a large law firm making 6 figures but I was miserable because I didn't have time for my family, my friends or even maintaining my health. The other thing I found was that law school really did nothing to prepare me for what it was actually like to practice law. I discovered that something I thought I loved while in law school I didn't enjoy at all in practice.

So my advice would be -- do your research before going to law school and go into it with your eyes wide open. Don't go into expecting a big salary, but go into it because you think you will really, truly enjoy the work.

[Recent Law Grad]

I'd advise anyone considering law school to reconsider unless they have a full scholarship or are accepted at one of the top 25 or so schools in the country.

I graduated from one of the Chicago-area law schools last year. I'm currently making $40,000 a year while making student loan payments of about a thousand dollars a month.

Now I'm in my mid-20s and have dug myself in a financial hole that will take years to fix. Given the size of my payments, there's no way I can set aside money for a down payment on a house or save for my own future children to go to college. My wife and I would love to start a family soon, but there's no way we'll be able to afford it for the foreseeable future.

Many of the law schools compound the problem by artificially inflating their graduate employment statistics. Schools like John Marshall (whose dean laughably claimed "strong demand" for graduates in this article) will report that that something like 98 percent of their graduates are employed nine months after graduation. What they don't mention is that those figures include students working *any* type of job. It doesn't matter whether you're just tending bar or teaching pilates at the YMCA- you're reported as successfully employed.

To make a short story short: save your money and don't make the same mistake I did!

[Tim from Canada]

Law School,Law School,gonna get rich after Law School. What's the difference between a Catfish and a rookie lawyer? One's a scum sucking bottom feeder.The other's just a fish.

[Sean]

This article is spot-on. As a law school graduate, my major complaint is not about the pay. Rather, it's that the cost of attaining a law degree is increasingly outweighing the benefits. I went in to law school knowing that my chances of making the big bucks were small, and I was fine with that. What I didn't know is that, thanks to a huge school loan payment, my standard of living would actually DECREASE on account of becoming a lawyer.

[Second Year Attorney]

Yes, yes, much of this is true. However, how is this different than any other profession? Many people think going into medicine is a "golden ticket." Tell that a resident working 80+ hours a week for $40,000.

Also, I like how this article points out that attorneys, even county prosecutors, make more money than the average worker in the US. This is on par with protests by doctors that they "don't make any money anymore" as they drive around in their BMWs.

I you go into business or sales, its the same thing-- you eat what you kill. The legal profession is no different. Plus, bottom line is that higher eductation in general is expensive. Look at how the cost of undergrad school has skyrocketed in the last couple of years.

Life is too short. Try to do what you love (and hopefully will pay the bills). I think a person can get a lot of satisfaction out of a legal career. Its up to you to find that satisfaction. Be self-reliant.

I agree with doing the research before you go to law school. Talk with attorneys, figure out if a career in law is right for you.

[luc2003]

THE NATURAL wrote:

And here I was getting my MBA so that I would have high enough grades to Get into law school..... makes me kinda wonder if going onto Law School is the right thing to do...

Law schools don't care what your GPA is in grad school. They calculate an Index Score for each student based upon LSAT score and GPA. This basically determines whether you get accepted.

[MDC]

Unless you attend a first or second tier law school, you will NOT get a job at the top paying firms. The majority of the big firms won't even consider someone from a fourth tier school like John Marshall. I earn more as a paralegal at a top firm than I would have as an attorney with a JD from a third or fourth tier. Keep that in mind when considering law school and the six-figure debt you'll incur.

[reader1]

It's not just law school, it's any school that a student loan is needed. The jobs are not waiting for graduates. Paying back the student loan is what is waiting for the graduates.

[LKD-Chicago]

The article states that the IL prosecutor still makes more than teachers and other professions. However, these other professions don't have $75K-100K in outstanding loans to pay. The article also doesn't address the non-profit/public interest legal sector, which makes even less that city, state, or fed government attorneys. After law school, I worked for a large, reputable non-profit legal services organization in Chicago that paid their attorneys an ave of $28-35K for 1-5 yrs of experience. Several paralegals were eligible for public aid! For an organizaiton that espoused protecting human rights and helping the poor, it wasn't doing a good job with its own staff. I think Boards of organizations (many of whom come from large, high paying law firms) need to also take more responsibility in ensuring that legal staff are paid appropriately to keep good people doing important work.

[LKD-Chicago]

The article states that the IL prosecutor still makes more than teachers and other professions. However, these other professions don't have $75K-100K in outstanding loans to pay. The article also doesn't address the non-profit/public interest legal sector, which makes even less that city, state, or fed government attorneys. After law school, I worked for a large, reputable non-profit legal services organization in Chicago that paid their attorneys an ave of $28-35K for 1-5 yrs of experience. Several paralegals were eligible for public aid! For an organizaiton that espoused protecting human rights and helping the poor, it wasn't doing a good job with its own staff. I think Boards of organizations (many of whom come from large, high paying law firms) need to also take more responsibility in ensuring that legal staff are paid appropriately to keep good people doing important work.

[Sasha Cohenbread]

"Went to law school, became a lawyer, and then a judge." -Greg Matthis.

Great article, I wish this had been out when I graduated from law school in 1998. The money and the time I wasted. It is a good degree to have, but a hard one to maintain.

[Market Observer]

A further thing that is often overlooked is that elite graduates can command large placement bonuses from legal recruiting firms. Firm To Firm, for instance, offers $18,000 placement bonuses to its legal candidates: http://www.firmtofirm.com . Lateral Link similarly offers placement bonuses

[2lnyc]

You've got to do your homework before you get yourself into so much debt. I was lucky enough to get a good-sized scholarship, but even at that I knew I'd still have about 80K in loans when finished. So I busted my butt and made sure I was in the top 15% of my class - and now I've got a good job so I can pay everything off in a few years.
It took sacrifices on my part - a lot of Friday and Saturday nights reading and outlining my notes when others were out at the local pub. Now the pub-crawling crew is complaining that they were duped by the career office about their prospects for a 6-figure income!
I can respect complaints from folks who worked hard, did well, and made the choice to take less money. But most folks aren't in that boat - they fooled around their first year, and now have no choice but to take less money. I won't hear them cry.

[Saviour]

Reposting from another site, but it's totally true:
I am at Chicago-Kent and will be making $160,000 this fall. True, a lot of my classmates will not. In fact, I don't recommend anyone go to law school anywhere unless they can get into a T14. This is because those are the only places where you have a realistic chance of getting a good job. True, there are sooo many smart people here at Kent, but there are just not enough jobs. There are too many law schools and law students and not enough jobs.

Just because there are people that do end up getting sweet jobs does not justify the majority that will not. So, unless you can see into the future and know for sure that you will be in that small minority of people who will get a job, you should not go to any non-T14 school.

Don't be angry at the school, except for the fact that they lie. But that's why you read reviews for products and don't believe the salesmen. Especially for an expensive item like a law school education. Google and forums are more powerful than self-interested salespeople (and deans are salespeople).

The only solution is for people to stop applying to law school as a default career when nothing else works out. When applicants wisen up and realize that a career in law is a lot harder than what the TV shows and the law schools themselves make it out to be, they will stop applying, the (for-profit) schools will have to start lowering their ridiculous tuition, and then the economics of it will start to make sense.

I mean Christ, there is no reason for law school professors to get paid so much money, all they do is regurgitate the same stuff they've been teaching for several years. If I taught the same thing for 15 years, I could phone it in too. There are no operating expenses in law school like in other grad schools: med/pharmacy schools have to get real-world equipment for their students to practice on; even crappy two year programs at community colleges have to invest in the latest technologies. Law schools have very few expensive operational costs, yet they charge so much freaking money. Wake up people. Law school is a scam and unless you have calculated the risks and have thought about it, don't do it.

[john deleone]

Sean wrote:

This article is spot-on. As a law school graduate, my major complaint is not about the pay. Rather, it's that the cost of attaining a law degree is increasingly outweighing the benefits. I went in to law school knowing that my chances of making the big bucks were small, and I was fine with that. What I didn't know is that, thanks to a huge school loan payment, my standard of living would actually DECREASE on account of becoming a lawyer.

I need someone like this, a visionary. Now do you wonder why there are so many hacks out there.

[DSF]

Loyola's law school is currently ranked #82 in U.S. and World Report, not #70 as the article incorrectly states.

[Sole practitioner]

I set up my sole practice straight out of law shcool in 1992. I had no idea how difficult it would be. The money is not what I expected, and the aggravation a lot more. The only satisfaction is that I don't have to ask anyone's permission to leave the office early to take my kids to the beach on a nice day (but I will be back in the office playing catch up on Saturday, and maybe Sunday.) In my opinion, the biggest thing overlooked by potential law school applicants and not adressed by law schools is the "people" factor (or maybe salesmanship is a better term). Don't even think of setting up your own practice until you can answer Mr. Joe Potential Client's question "How much is this gonna cost me?" The straight answer is "More than you could ever imagine." The right answer is the one that gets the checkbook opened. In sum, the differnce between the highly paid lawyer and the wage slave is signing up clients who can actually pay your fees. The law schools are turning out tons of highly talented technicians, but few people have the "charm school" degree that is also necessary.

[Mike]

How ironic that a prosecuting attorney would choose bartender as a second job... I wonder if she has prosecuted any of her customers for DUI?