As Law Practice Paradigm Shifts, Proactive Lawyers Consider Career Changes

unperson
Jun 25, 2009 1:56 AM CST

this news story reads more like an advertisement for the law school industry. The fact is that for the last two years at least 50 percent of all law school grads have made little money in law.

And now 80 percent of the most recent law school class is out of work. And when they try to get a decent job outside of law, they are told they are overqualified.

the income and employment figures used by most law schools to attract applicants have been bogus for years now. When are the state attorney generals going to prosecute these law school scam artists and the media that put out their lying statistics?

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JN
Jun 25, 2009 1:29 PM CST

American law schools today reminds me of Detroit recently. They’ve both been shoveling product into a marketplace that doesn’t need or want more product. The product sits idly in showroom floors and starbucks. Fortunately for Detroit, they hit bottom and started to clean up their act (arguably). When will the law schools do the same? Far as I can tell, they’ve no motivation to change so long as those tuition checks keep clearing. My daily good deeds often involve law school fencing sitters off the fence and onto greener pastures.

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DP
Jun 26, 2009 7:57 AM CST

To Anonymous (comment #2) - I wholly agree that the employment and income figures are bogus.  Let’s put that aside.  But you can’t blame the “industry” on the “industry” alone.  There are thousands and thousands of consumer-students flocking to law school every year, either because they yearn to be lawyers, they yearn to make those not that easy to come by huge salaries…or often because they just don’t know what else to do with their lives and another couple years in school sounds like a good way to kill time.  I don’t know one single person who was strong-armed by a law school into matriculating, paying the tuition and staying for the duration. 

Just like people flocked to IT during the dot com bubble, people flock to law schools in hopes of wealth or prestige or something else.  After a short while, IT services became a commodity, the smoke and mirrors were cleared away and the bubble burst.  This lawyer-factory bubble has been going on far longer than the dot com bubble.  But perhaps it’s on the way out.  Somehow, though, I doubt it because the consumer will continue to pay.

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JD/MBA
Jun 26, 2009 1:38 PM CST

“[T]here is a professional job available for almost everyone with a juris doctor degree, assuming he or she has the ingenuity and drive to consider alternatives to law practice and mount an effective job search….”  “I firmly believe that almost all lawyers with their education have employment security, but not necessarily job security.”

WHAT is he smoking?  Mr. Behrend obviously made these silly comments in an attempt to market his business, not reflect reality.  Non-legal employers routinely have no idea what to do with a lawyer applying for a non-lawyer job.  Yes, I know some lawyers do get such jobs, but that is by no means the rule; it is more often the exception.  Non-legal employers are typically convinced that the lawyer will leave to go back to the “glamorous” practice of law.  As someone who’s had a JD/MBA from a Top10 school for nearly 20 years, I can assure you Mr. Behrend’s statements are ludicrous.  Over the years, I have volunteered in many career programs designed to help JDs and JD/MBAs obtain employment, and the number of times those degrees help the candidate outside their intended target (law, or law-related business) is equal to the number of times they hurt.  Too many law students today (and yesterday) go to law school thinking that the degree is an advantage in any employment environment.  Indeed, the schools foster this misconception.  It is patently false.

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BigLaw
Jun 27, 2009 5:44 AM CST

The U.S. has way too many lawyers and law schools, but the law school admissions are still going through the roof every year, and thousands of new lawyers come out of the bar exams each year looking for jobs, most without success.  Lawyers are like doctors, they provide a valuable service, but their rates are way too high and they build in too much overhead to the bill to pay for fancy offices, staff, waste, etc.  The legal market, similar to medicine, is in for a big shock, a rude awakening to the realities of economics.

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beth pocker
Jun 28, 2009 2:47 AM CST

After 18 years as a solo, I have been forced to cut back on my practice because of health issues not because of the economy. I lived through the last recession. It was a tremendous time to gain experience in various areas of law.  The need for lawyers has rarely been greater than today but that need does not correlate to a high hourly billing rate nor does it correlate to a stratospheric salary. If you forget about the failed model of a law firm as a business and focus on law as a profession, in the way it was before the 1980s, it still affords a rewarding, sustainable life.  If you are a recent graduate and need experience, most of the state bar associations will provide both free training and experience in exchange for accepting pro bono cases. Consider this option as an investment in your credentials. Many of the comments above indicate a sense of entitlement to certain opportunities that are vanishing.  Please do not despair. These opportunities did not lead to happier professional lives for many of those in them.  More than 10 years ago, many of my clients were fleeing the practices of big law such as excessive billing, poor communications, etc. My advice is to volunteer for about a year to get free trainig if you need it, set up your own shop and consider a fixed fee, not a billable hour, with expenses billed at cost. You can make a profit and have a successful and rewarding career.  Finally, be prepared to work. I did not take a vacation for the first five years and worked six days a week. It was worth it!

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