Careers
A Dean’s Warning for Optimistic Law Students: Big Pay Goes to Small Number
Posted Jul 17, 2009 12:45 PM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Incoming University of Miami law dean thinks some law students need a dose of reality.
Partly toward that end, she sent letters to incoming law students encouraging them to defer admission for a year. White told the Daily Business Review she wanted to encourage students to carefully consider the kinds of jobs that will be available at graduation. She also acted because a larger-than-expected number of students indicated they plan to attend the school in the fall.
“Students graduate with a large amount of debt and sometimes unrealistic expectations of what the job market is going to be,” she told the publication. “They think that everyone is going to earn a lot of money. When you look at the statistics, a relatively small percentage of people make the large salaries.”
White said there may be more opportunities for new lawyers in areas such as the public sector where pay is lower. “If you want to come to law school to help the underserved and you don’t care about making a lot of money, that’s great,” she said. “Make that decision with your eyes open, and decide how much you can afford to borrow to do that.”
White thinks cuts in pay and layoffs that have been affecting the profession are permanent changes affecting the legal business model, according to the story. She recently attended a private caucus with ABA leaders to discuss the future of the legal industry.
ABA President-elect Nominee Stephen N. Zack told the Daily Business Review that the meeting was “a general review of the economic status of the legal profession.”
“The ultimate question asked is ‘Are we going back to the way things were?’ and the belief is that we have a sea-change in the way the legal profession is practiced that will not change once things do right themselves,” Zack told the publication. “There will be long-lasting and profound changes in the profession from the merger of law firms to the importance of making sure that you do not over-hire.”
He said median lawyer income is $72,000 and average debt of law graduates is $150,000. Those making less money will have a hard time justifying the cost of their legal education. “This is a real problem for the profession on a number of different levels,” he said.
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Comments
Esq.
Jul 17, 2009 2:35 PM CST
Finally, some honesty! I attended a T1 school that was not only dishonest about it’s placement rate, but that also admitted so many students that certain classes had more people than the room could reasonable accommodate. But they crammed us all in anyway.
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B. McLeod
Jul 17, 2009 6:37 PM CST
The 1Ls always show up thinking this. Every one of them is going to graduate top ten. Every one of them is going to make that $165,000 starting salary. The fact is the dean could call them all to assembly every morning, and repeat this warning every morning, and reality still would not penetrate until the day the first semester grades are posted. Then it does. That’s always a very quiet, somber day for the 1L class.
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Liz
Jul 17, 2009 9:30 PM CST
Not all grads think this, and your ideas on law school were formed when tuition was much cheaper.
My class was full of people who wanted to go into public interest or practice in small towns. The public interest group was the largest and most successful on campus.
LIke many, many others, I invested in law school expecting it to be a solid first step to a reasonable life in a respected profession. I never wanted or expected to be at the top of the class and working in a big firm. I believed the employment stats from the LSAC reports, without realizing they were self-reported by the law schools, and no one was checking to see that they were accurate. They weren’t. As more and more people now realize. (It’s in the NYT and WSJ).
The problem for me isn’t that the school can’t send everyone to big law. The problem is that the school is taking money from everyone, who attends, but only helping students who want to or can go on to big law. These students are a small minority, yet all students graduate with the same crushing debt.
That’s why people complain about the placement rate. It has nothing to do with everyone wanting to be in the top 10%, and everything to do with the unpleasant surprise when a number of cautious people realize their seemingly safe decision to enter a respected profession was actually a huge gamble.
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ken
Jul 18, 2009 2:32 AM CST
quotes from the article:
” She recently attended a private caucus with ABA leaders to discuss the future of the legal industry.
ABA President-elect Nominee Stephen N. Zack told the Daily Business Review that the meeting was “a general review of the economic status of the legal profession.””
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Well, that is good news—-the online movement has apparently forced the law school industry to take countermeasures, it would seem.
What we are doing, by going online and exposing the lies and deceptions of the law school industry, IS apparently having some effect on them, or at least they realize that we have a strong hand.
another quote from the article:
“He said median lawyer income is $72,000 and average debt of law graduates is $150,000. “
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Looks like they are sticking to their bogus income stats, though. Keep fighting, guys. We are going to expose the law school racket, yet. This story is about to break, bigtime.
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joe b
Jul 18, 2009 3:11 AM CST
hmm, looks like some of the law school fraudsters might be getting nervous.
now, let’s see—what is the range of punishment for fraud in most states?
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B. McLeod
Jul 18, 2009 9:21 AM CST
Ah. Time for another, venturous, B. McLeod prediction (here it comes):
When fall classes open at the University of Miami’s law school, every 1L seat will be filled. Enrollment will not be down.
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tom
Jul 18, 2009 10:10 AM CST
if the mass media picks up on this law school scam bogus income stats story and runs with it, I predict that there will be large decreases in law school attendance.
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B. McLeod
Jul 18, 2009 10:31 AM CST
Come on, Tom. Look at Zack’s statement. A stark warning from an ABA leader that half the kids loading up with law school debt can expect to lose this lottery. What story could anybody run that says it better than that?
But, there will not be a large decrease in law school attendance, because of the tendency of prospective law students to say, “That will not be me. I will win this lottery.” And, half of them will still be right. And, that will keep this train going for many more decades at least.
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tom
Jul 18, 2009 11:20 AM CST
Yes, it may not result in immediate reductions because..wait for it…IT IS JUST ONE story in a vast sea of law school industry propaganda.
You see, propaganda works via VOLUME.
You need VOLUME.
VOLUME.
Do you understand VOLUME?
Great.
Now, when and if the mass media writes and widely distributes a substantial VOLUME of stories busting the bogus stats of the law school industry, we will see substantial reductions in law school classes
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B. McLeod
Jul 18, 2009 2:22 PM CST
Comment removed by moderator.
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tom
Jul 18, 2009 4:20 PM CST
the volume of the “go to law school” propaganda is what draws in the lemmings.
In order to counteract that volume, a similarly high volume of propaganda exposing the law school scam must be dissmeinated widely.
This is not rocket science.
Are you even a college grad? Cuz we are talking MAJOR reading deficiencies.
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B. McLeod
Jul 18, 2009 4:33 PM CST
Or, perhaps it is just your major spelling deficiencies. Please note that “dissmeinated” and “cuz” are not words.
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Liz
Jul 18, 2009 8:24 PM CST
B. McLeod is either employed by a school, never had a job, or retired 20 years ago. I can’t think of any other reason someone could be so completely out of touch with the current legal market, or so ready to believe that an entire generation just up and went to law school for the fun of borrowing $100,000 with no viable option to pay it back.
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tom
Jul 19, 2009 3:53 AM CST
the mention in the mass media of certain forums where the legal job market depression is discussed has drawn commenters who appear to have some personal stake in the law school industry. The person you mention above is one of those. His posting ploy is to employ fatalism and try to convince those who fight the scammers that their fighting will do good. Fatalism.
Another one, who posts on JDU, is called “venceremos”. His posting ploy is basically to say that “it was always this way”.
There is at least one or two others there on JDU.
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tom
Jul 19, 2009 4:06 AM CST
Oops.
Meant to say this:
“His posting ploy is to employ fatalism and try to convince those who fight the scammers that their fighting will do NO good. Fatalism.”
Fatalism and “it was always this way.”
This is how they try to persuade the guerrilla fighters not to fight.
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John
Jul 19, 2009 9:03 AM CST
Better than warning students about the massive debt and low income they will be seeing, perhaps the University of Miami’s Dean should work to reduce the debt load her students come out with?
Law schools have as much of a duty to fix the current problem as do students and lawyers. Why is it that in the last decade alone many law schools have doubled their tuition?
When I speak to alumni from my school they are amazed that I paid what I did. It’s rather unfortunate.
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bg
Jul 19, 2009 9:18 AM CST
Another thing that contributes to the belief that you will be part of the exception and be one of the people that graduates at the top of the class who earns the big salary is that nearly everyone that goes to law school has succeeded at everything they have done, always being at the top. But when everyone in the class is the “best,” you cannot all be at the top. It can be a bit of an ego slap to suddenly discover that everyone around you is just as bright and capable as you are.
I would be surprised if this letter deters more than a handful of people from going to law school. I think an even bigger deterrent would be if applicants were given a real idea of what the work of a lawyer actually entailed. Given the number of people who leave the profession for job dissatisfaction, it would seem that that is where the real illusion lies.
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Liz
Jul 19, 2009 9:53 AM CST
McLeod, you are projecting, and rationalizing. Very few people in my class wanted to graduate at the top and go to Big Law.
You seem to think it works like this:
“40,000 students each year pay to take the LSAT, get a good score, pay to apply to law schools, and then attend assuming they will graduate at the tippy top of the class. When this doesn’t happen, they are disappointed and bitter and complain about the system.”
You are wrong.
Every year, students pay for the LSAT, the applications, sign six figure debt for tuition, and attempt to learn the law because they think THIS WILL MAKE THEM LAWYERS. (Shocking, no?)
They study. They graduate. They believe the LSAC employment figures that say that 85% of a graduating class in a top 50 school will be employed at graduation. Their last year they start adding up the jobs held by their friends and classmates. They start doing the math. They realize those employment statistics are not going to apply to their class.
One year later they see the employment statistics for their class, after a big chunk of the class has moved in with their parents in order to be able to make the loan payments on the low-paying jobs available. And they freak because they realize THE SCHOOLS WERE LYING.
You really think that many people are working that hard, but are still incredibly stupid? Are you paid by the schools? Because you’re the only law school graduate (or so you say) I’ve ever met who thought the employment figures were in any way accurate.
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Liz
Jul 19, 2009 9:57 AM CST
“Law schools have as much of a duty to fix the current problem as do students and lawyers. Why is it that in the last decade alone many law schools have doubled their tuition?
When I speak to alumni from my school they are amazed that I paid what I did. It’s rather unfortunate.”
I totally agree. It’s ridiculous that anyone could try to justify the tuition run-ups, the practices of the private lenders that the school steers students to, and the understaffed career services offices, all of which demonstrate the school’s true priorities
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B. McLeod
Jul 19, 2009 10:52 AM CST
Recognizing that Liz has posted several guesses concerning my employment status as though they were known facts, all her guesses are actually wrong.
Liz is a disappointed Indiana grad, and in posts on other threads, has established a pattern of posting nearly insane imaginings as though they were fact. For example, Liz claims that 85% of law school graduates in the last ten years are “practically unemployable,” and that the U of I law school’s fixed costs are “nothing but debt.”
Tom’s postings (now that he has switched to literacy mode) are more cogent, but still mistaken. My observations are not intended to deter his propaganda struggle, but are offered simply because I believe them to be true (and time will tell). His effort will, of course, also be handicapped by insane posters such as Liz attempting to make common cause with him (creating the appearance that his message is but the buyer’s remorse of unhinged grads who lost the law school gamble).
The odds reflected in the comments of Stephen Zack (quoted in the article) show that loading up with debt for law school is a significant gamble. However, it is still close to what my generation used to call “an even break.” In the context of our overall society, this 50/50 shot, though risky, is still the best shot at success most of these students will ever have, in their entire lives. By contrast, the odds of clawing up to “partner” (or even surviving for ten years) in a Big Law job are much less. Everybody knows how bad those odds are, because they are the topic of near-constant critical discussion in the profession (and on this board). Nevertheless, every year, shiny, newly-minted “associates” continue to leap into the grinder, thinking they will be the ones who get the golden ticket in their Wonka bar.
Hence, I believe the law school gamble (which actually caries much better odds than Big Law) will not be changed or reformed by a drop in enrollment. This is not so much “fatalism” as a conclusion based on behaviors I have witnessed for decades.
I do think the best schools will ultimately find a way (either via placement efforts or their own custom loan/repayment plans) to help future students address the downside of the gamble. The need to do this is inherent in the need for schools to retain the good will of their alumni, which must occur for the longterm health of the schools’ endowments.
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Liz
Jul 19, 2009 12:06 PM CST
This whole scenario of yours may have been the case 30 years ago, when law school was cheap. But it doesn’t happen now.
And ad hominem arguments based on misquotes is the practice of people who are paid to watch out for a particular group on a website. There are a number of people posting misinformation about student loans now that lobbying efforts by the private lenders have picked up on the Hill, and you’re one of them. Maybe it’s just your hobby, but I’m starting to wonder.
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Liz
Jul 19, 2009 1:05 PM CST
Oh, and the law school debt load would only be “an even break” if the top half of the class were employed in jobs that allowed them to comfortably make $1000 a month and up payments on student loans.
That’s just not the case. You need to read up on the law school employment market before you get on here and pontificate about a stiuation that you clearly know nothing about.
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B. McLeod
Jul 19, 2009 3:06 PM CST
Liz also has a lot of complaints for such a very knowledgeable person. I am thinking a useful change in her approach might be, during interviews, to smile a lot and avoid speaking.
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LIz
Jul 19, 2009 3:13 PM CST
You like insulting people. Good for you.
You don’t like contributing anything except a defense of the private lenders and skyrocketing tuition. Why should anyone listen to that?
Years ago law school was a good bet. You paid 10 cents on the dollar compared to recent grads, and you had a reasonably good shot at employment in something other than contract document review.
That’s no longer the case. Now, the 85% of the class that doesn’t go into Big Law at graduation (and those who do generally last only a few years anyway), are stuck with $1,000+ a month loan payments and a job market that is really, really different from the law school reports.
That’s just the math. What’s interesting is why so many people seem so excited about trolling a board to insult law students and recent grads.
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B. McLeod
Jul 19, 2009 3:28 PM CST
But hypocritical Liz, your own posts are replete with insulting barbs (in addition to the insane allegations and complete fabrications). You must have been a terror in elementary school, but it is time to move on. My observation at 23 is but a polite effort to be helpful. You should realize that many firm interviewers still have strong connections to their law schools, and tend, as well, to be among the donors that keep school endowments alive. So if you are doing your Eeyore routine in interviews, you are slaughtering your own career development.
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Liz
Jul 19, 2009 8:43 PM CST
I don’t start posts with name calling, and I really do think the only reason you would spend this much time defending the tuition and private lenders is if you’re one of them, or you’re paid to do it.
Also, you don’t know anything about me. You’re just a troll.
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B. McLeod
Jul 20, 2009 12:19 AM CST
I see. Per your standards, the barbs are OK as long as you work them in as you go along, and not at the start. Of course, your guess is wrong again. Since 1981, I only lend money to banks. If I want to help someone else with money, I just give it to them.
Also, I do know something about you, because you have been spilling your angst on this board for many days now, revealing many facets of your life and personality, including your weaknesses as an analytical thinker.
Oh, and so far as I am aware, there has never been a troll in Clan MacLeod.
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B. McLeod
Jul 20, 2009 12:51 AM CST
Och. For a PS, you did start one of your clever posts with a query as to what planet I was from. Technically not “name-calling,” I realize, but surely an indication you are an incredible hypocrite to claim you do not believe in “starting” posts with “personal attacks.”
As far as my prior post (@25) which you characterize as name-calling, “Liz” is the name you are posting under at the moment, and “hypocritical” is simply an apt and obviously wholly accurate modifier. If you are going to attempt to admonish other posters concerning civil exchange, you need to practice civility yourself. Otherwise, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
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Alexander
Jul 20, 2009 4:47 AM CST
The comments are great, but what most people here forget is that every degree comes with a very hefty price, for example what does it take to get a Medical degree. Lets not kid our selves most top degree require tons of debt now a days. At least a law degree is not a one way ticket into PhD limbo.
Every profession has limitations, sure Law Schools put hype into how great its going to be, but reality is that you have to do more than just get a degree. Ask those doctors with 200,000 debt how much fun they are having now that so many people can’t afford healthcare. I hear a degree to get is Nursing, any takers on your 50,000 a year paycheck and the type of work you have to do?
No thanks, I for one will take my chances soon enough and will enjoy every minute of it, its not like most degree are doing well, lets not kid our selves, to make money, figure a new way to do something, following the herd never go anyone much.
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I was robbed by my law school
Jul 20, 2009 8:32 AM CST
I graduated law school 2 years ago.
No law job. Working parttime at my dad’s cafe.
Most of my classmates are in the same boat.
We got ripped off.
Bigtime.
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B. McLeod
Jul 20, 2009 9:25 AM CST
Where’s the cafe, and do you cater? Maybe I could help by ordering some sandwich platters for transaction team conferences.
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wsj
Jul 20, 2009 9:33 AM CST
I have to agree with Bcleod on this. He knows EVERYTHING because he went to a TTTT. I suppose if I was that smart I could have gone to a TTTT and then spend my entire days trying to sound knowledgeable to compensate for my insecurities.
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Lee
Jul 20, 2009 10:09 AM CST
I was sent a similar warning from former Dean David Swank of the University of Oklahoma prior to the 1992-93 academic year, when another recession was in full bloom. I, of course, was a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” kind of person at the time. There have been MANY days since then that I have pondered why, oh why, did I not heed Dean Swank’s warning? By the way, I asked Dean Swank in my first year whether any one had heeded his warning. He said that NOT ONE person admitted had withdrawn his or her admission. These types of warnings provide “notice” to incoming students that the law school is there to teach the law—period. You’re on your own for finding a job.
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mac
Jul 20, 2009 10:14 AM CST
Yes, its nice to say that students have the unrealistic expectations, but they didn’t come to have those expectations by themselves. The law schools deliberately market to prospective students saying they are going to make a large amount of money. If the law schools gave students accurate information like bar passage rates, employment rates, income, etc., then students will be better able to evaluate whether to enter the profession. Law schools have gone out of their way to fudge their numbers to make themselves stand out in the large field of crap schools that are otherwise out there.
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B. McLeod
Jul 20, 2009 10:15 AM CST
Another bad guess by wsj. When I went off to school, there were no ratings, but my school is actually in “Tier 1” today. Venturing my own guess as to wsj, I think the pseudonym is likely drawn from the newspapers he delivers before beginning his morning courier runs. His posts, fortunately, are infrequent. Probably because they are limited to those windows of opportunity created by members of the regular office staff stepping away from their computers without logging out.
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Bankruptcy Babe
Jul 20, 2009 10:44 AM CST
Top in your class or at the bottom-you still get to put Esquire after your name. It’s the person not the school that makes you successful.
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B. McLeod
Jul 20, 2009 10:52 AM CST
Yes, I have often said as much myself. I mention the information in post # 35 only to correct wsj’s erroneous, “TTTT” assertion, not to boast of graduating a “Tier 1” school (of which, there are a great many these days).
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unperson
Jul 20, 2009 11:14 AM CST
don’t let the law school industry shills bait you into an argument—they just want to get you banned.
Ignore them
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tom
Jul 20, 2009 11:17 AM CST
the ones who are admitted to law school are already psychologically committed as well.
We need to get to them well before they get to that stage.
If we can get to people who are 20 years old or younger, and tell them the truth about the law school scam, THAT will slow the torrent of law school victims
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Bean Counter
Jul 20, 2009 1:30 PM CST
From those who claim that their goal is to for public service but cannot afford to do because of the debt situation, may I ask why not? Debt or no debt, if public service is your calling, debt comes a part of your calling.
Doctors and healthcare professionals gradute with much more debt, but there are some still work for cheap salaries to do community works. Take sometime to research Worldvision or Doctor without Boarders, do you honestly think everyone volunteered there can afford to volunteer without incurring some debt?
Yes, doctors makes more money or have a better job market, but they also graduate with much more debt say north of $200k. I know that because many of my undergrade friends went to medical school, and I also did many doctors’ bean counting for years.
Healthcare, nursing, engineering, any professional degrees have their share of risk.
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Esq
Jul 20, 2009 3:35 PM CST
@ #29: “I do think the best schools will ultimately find a way (either via placement efforts or their own custom loan/repayment plans) to help future students address the downside of the gamble. The need to do this is inherent in the need for schools to retain the good will of their alumni, which must occur for the longterm health of the schools’ endowments.”
I agree. My class graduated during the last economic downturn, when big firms were rescinding offers, the government had hiring freezes, and Legal Aid was turning away applicants for unpaid summer internships. Yet the school still somehow reported an 80% placement rate.
Fast forward five years to last December when I received a group e-mail from a former classmate indicating that only SEVEN people from my class (or at least 200) had donated to the school that year.
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Lee
Jul 20, 2009 3:59 PM CST
Re 41: Alumni donations to law schools. Since my alma mater won’t stop bugging me with telephone solicitations for donations, I’ve decided to have non-offensive fun with the caller. I tell the caller something like this: “Thanks for calling! I will be happy to donate to the alumni fund AFTER I am given the list of current donors and their amounts. My theory is that the top 10% of my class received 90% of the benefits from my beloved alma mater as to job offers, judicial clerkships, internships, starting salaries, etc. Thus, I think it only equitable that the top 10% should give 90% of the alumni donations, wouldn’t you agree? Once my law school satisfies its burden of proof that the top 10% are giving 90% of the donations, then and only then will I consider a donation. So, when will that list be sent to me?” That usually ends the call. I’ve even invited the caller to have the current Dean to call me to discuss my idea. So far, no call from the Dean. I’m not holding my breath.
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B. McLeod
Jul 20, 2009 4:26 PM CST
An interesting concept Lee. I think the 90% number is probably a little high, both for the benefit to, and endowment share carried by, the top 10% of classes (at least when you get more than ten years out). There is actually a reasonably good chance that the top 10% is carrying an allocable load of the donations. However, if your school is a “public” school, the dean is never going to release a list. Part of the dynamic with public law schools currently is that both the general university administration and members of the legislature will try every sneaky trick to get detail on annual donor contributions and endowment earnings. The purpose of that exercise is simply to defeat donor intentions by using the information to short tuition shares or legislative appropraitions in a corresponding amount (e.g., the state cuts its financial support another x%, effectively diverting the economic benefit of the donations to the state general fund). Wise deans are not going to let their school (or donors) be set up for this treatment, hence, no detailed lists are likely to be dropped in the mail to anyone.
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John
Jul 20, 2009 4:50 PM CST
Those who feel med students end up with more debt are not entirely on the mark. Sure, the potential for more debt is there, but there are fewer med schools, automatic job placement, and plenty of great state-run med schools with lower tuition costs.
What would be interesting is a comparison of numbers between low-cost law schools (often state schools) versus high cost (often private, with a surprising number in the bottom and top tiers) as to the number of students each graduates into the market each year.
For instance, students from my school are struggling, although we’re finding work. Our tuition began at 26.5k the first year and ended up at 28.5k the third year, with 27.5k in the middle. And we had 156 graduate on time (some dropped out, some spent some time off for things like having kids).
On the other hand, I know that most of the state schools nearby have classes of 200+ and similarly high graduation percentages (my class began at 166).
Now, as a comparison, I ended up 150k in debt from law school, which is less than many folks at schools in even lower tiers with more students that cost more. On the other hand, state schools in higher tiers also have more students in their classes albeit with lower costs (my flagship state university would have cost 10k a year when I entered law school . . . if I had gotten in . . . regretting not transferring after year 1 now).
Anyhow, the real question is why it costs so much more to run a law school now than it did even a decade ago? The increases in tuition are drastic, but why?
Why did my school cost 26.5k in 2005 but only 12k in 1995? Has the education improved that much? (It may have, at my school . . .) Has the market improved that much? (How much were BigLaw Top 5 recruits getting then?)
Anyhow, back to dissertation writing. I think, of course, the answer to my dilemma is clear: Business School. I hear those Economics and MBA degrees are hot! Wallstreet’s just eating them up . . . What’s another 100k of debt?
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B. McLeod
Jul 20, 2009 5:48 PM CST
Seriously, don’t we all really hope to land work from people with medical and business degrees?
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Bean Counter
Jul 21, 2009 3:35 PM CST
I think more economists and MBAs lost jobs at Wall Street than we can account for. Engineers are cut even more (some big engineering firm cut 1/3 of its work). Some engineering firms just went out of business.
Bottomline is when the overall economy is bad, it really does not matter what is your profession. Might as well be doing something you truly enjoy in a down economy while trying to survive in this wild ride.
So be happy with your choices and now go back and bill some hours…
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