Will Law School Credentials Bubble Burst? Law Prof Calls Trends ‘Unsustainable’
Tuition is rising at law schools even as lawyer jobs are disappearing, raising questions about whether there is a dangerous bubble that is about to burst.
Even a degree from a top law school doesn’t guarantee a job, notes Indiana University law professor Bill Henderson. He spoke to U.S. News & World Report about whether law degrees are losing some of their value.
“I think [law school] makes you a better problem solver, but the signaling value [of the degree] is diluted,” Henderson says. “Is it worth $50,000 a year? I think, for signaling value, the answer is increasingly ‘no.’ ” In Henderson’s view, “The trends are clearly unsustainable.”
Last year Henderson wrote an article (PDF) called “The Bursting of the Pedigree Bubble” for NALP, which bills itself as the association for legal career professionals.
“Most large law firms are very sensitive to pedigree, though you would be hard pressed to find any hard empirical evidence why the kid who went to Harvard is a better bet than someone who went to, say, Boston College, Illinois, or the University of Houston,” he wrote.
“Yet, as the economy has slipped into recession, the pedigree bubble has finally burst. It is now painfully obvious to everyone that it does not matter where you went to school, or who you clerked for—a lawyer in his or her first or second year of practice is just not worth $275 per hour. … Downward pressures on legal budgets and shrinking law firm profit margins have pressed a sharp pin into the credentials bubble.”
The difficulty of obtaining jobs in BigLaw isn’t deterring some would-be law students. U.S. News interviewed Oriana Pietrangelo, who turned down several full scholarships at law schools for a partial scholarship at Notre Dame Law School. The “name goes fairly far,” she explained.
She is on a wait list at Northwestern University School of Law, where she would have to pay full tuition. If she is accepted, she plans to go there since it is higher ranked than Notre Dame, U.S. News says.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Law Prof Sees Parallels Between Tuition Hikes and Subprime Mortgage Bubble”
ABAJournal.com: “Study Partly Blames Higher Law School Tuition on 40% Leap in Faculty Size”
