There's been a 9.5 percent decline in applications to law school this year, after a 4.6 decline last year. What's going on? Is it some difference in what's on TV? The end of the refugees from the dot-com bust? An upswelling of interest in medical school? A new fear of debt? Something we lawprof bloggers have done?
CORRECTION: John points out that "dot.com"is incorrect, as trying to pronounce it makes obvious. Discussed here. The NYT had "dot-com," as I see on closer inspection.
February 9, 2006
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”When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty.
When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace.
When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice.”
Lin Yutang (1895-1976), Chinese-American writer, translator, and editor
"The U.S. has seventy percent of the world’s lawyers but only five percent of the world’s population,.."
Are There Too Many Lawyers?
{{giggle}}
Why is this a bad thing? While I understand you are a law prof, and thus have a vested interest in the number of law school applicants, it is also very important to ask, can this country afford to support the number of lawyers out there?
Fewer lawyers means fewer people looking for stuff to sue over. Sounds good to me.
I didn't say it's a bad thing.
Anyway, it occurs to me that the same number of persons might be applying to law schools but that they are getting better at picking which law school they want to go to that will accept them. It is surprisingly predictable. Look at how the article says that Yale -- the top-ranked law school -- keeps the same number while the other schools decline. I'm thinking the number of applicants might be more stable, but that they are strewing around fewer applications as the process becomes more precisely analyzable.
Add me to the list of law grads who wish they had done something different. The staggering debt and options for new lawyers is enough to make anyone reconsider their choice. Maybe my crusade to encourage college students to do something else is starting to work (although I can't take all the credit!)
Surveys routinely indicate that among the learned professions, we lawyers have some of the lowest rates of career satisfaction and personal happiness. Conversely, we also have high rates of alcoholism and other substance abuse.
Apparently, word gets around.
Perhaps the solution to this problem is an ackowledgement that there is something wrong with the large-firm model, in which you must generate billable hours no matter how little time is left for a personal life.
I think that a lot of it is money, including factoring in the foregone income. But I also think that you have to look at other post-secondary education too and compare their rates to those of law schools.
Awhile back I remember Business Schools having a much higher application growth than law schools, and an MBA is typically a two year degree, so not that much difference in foregone income.
Finally, as to starting salaries going up, that really only applies to the top students from the better law schools. That is a very small segment of the legal market. There are a lot more new lawyers starting out scraping to get by - and often to pay off rather sizable tuition debt.
I'm a second-year law student, and my father is an attorney, and he is blown away by how much law school costs these days. Bruce is right about salaries - new lawyers starting off in Buffalo or Madison aren't seeing the rising salaries of the biggest firms in the biggest cities. Those firms come to the UW campus to interview, but every big firm interviews the same 15 students.
I wasn't earning a ton of money in my pre-law school job, so I didn't forego as much income as a lot of other people. But still, out-of-state tuition, or private school tuition, will run you $100,000 for 3 years. It really limits your job search. Can you be a prosecutor, at $35,000 starting salary, and pay those loans off? Can you be a public-interest lawyer? Increasingly, if you're not ranked highly enough in your class to attract offers from the very large firms, the decision to go to law school can really be to your short and medium term, if not your long-term, disadvantage.
In order:
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Most Definitely.
Q: Something we lawprof bloggers have done?
A: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the
people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
This is why I have long said that all conservative law professors should be forced to blog.
Probably all of the above.
We have a real problem in math, as well. Anyone with a degree in math could pretty much name where they wanted to live and get a job there, but the problem we have is that so few people are even qualified in basic math that it is hard to recruit math majors, especially at the graduate level. In past years, we have sort of 'covered up' the shortage by importing people from other countries, but with it being harder for them to come here and the major investment of countries like China in building universities and educating their own best minds at home, that is beginning to dry up too.
In California, you don't have to go to law school to take the bar. It isn't advisable; but, there have been people who have done it.
Peace, Maxine
That used to be true, Maxine. Not any more. There *is* an education requirement:
Pursuant to Rule VII, Section 2 of the Rules Regulating Admission to Practice Law in California, in order to establish eligibility every general applicant must have
(a) Graduated from a law school approved by the American Bar Association or accredited by Committee of Bar Examiners; or
(b) Completed at least four years of law study in any of the following manners
1. In a law school that is authorized by the State of California to confer professional degrees; is registered with the Committee of Bar Examiners; and which requires classroom attendance of its students for a minimum of 270 hours a year; or
2. In a law office in the State of California and under the personal supervision of an active member of the State Bar of California for at least five years; or
3. In the chambers and under the personal supervision of a judge of a court of record of this state; or
4. In a correspondence law school registered with the Committee of Bar Examiners, and requires no less than 864 hours of preparation and study per year; or
5. By any combination of the methods referred to in this subsection (b).
If anyone out there wants to pay my law school tuition and have my indentured servitude afterwards (in the SF Bay Area only) for, say, 20-30 hours a week for a negotiable number of years, I would make a fabulous patent attorney.
I have degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, several years of R&D bench experience, and I've already passed the patent bar.
Otherwise, law school is just too expensive, and I am too old. I have a mortgage, and a significant other who wants my time.
Indentured servitude with pay, that is.
:)
Joseph W.: You don't have to go to law school. You could simply work as a legal secretary for an attorney, for 5 years, and then be allowed to take the bar.
By that measure, you could be a high school drop-out, but get a job with an attorney for 5 years...take the bar, and join the ranks!
Don't know if anyone's taken that path before, though. But according to the rules, it's ok!
Peace, Maxine
Which brings up an interesting question:
If formal education had nothing to do with getting a good job, would people still partake of it?
As far as I'm concerned, if not to get a good job, why bother going to a bricks and motar school?
You could just read and learn on your own.
Peace, Maxine
I think there are a lot of things you can learn in school that you can't learn out in the world. Not necessarily things that you'll need, but things that can enlighten you.
Calculus for example. I never use it in my work, but I loved learning about it in school, and I think I'm better for having studied it. If I was as smart as Isaac Newton, I could teach calculus to myself. Alas, I'm so not.
The literature dept at my alma mater offered a whole class on Dante's Inferno that I regret not taking. I would really like to read Dante's Inferno in a classroom situation because I doubt I'd get much out of it if I read it on my own.
I have a cousin who was an immigration attorney for around 20 years. He's now studying to get his RN.
I think dealing with the idiots at the dePortland, OR INS finally wore him down.
Overall, I enjoyed my legal education. However, I think most grads would be reluctant to suggest going to law school given how tough the job market is for us. Maybe, law student blogs have been providing more information for students to make better decisions about law school. I don't think many of us thought we would be forced to consider temp agencies when we went to law school.
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