Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Legal Profession


Law school is a unique trap. Why a trap? The first memory you have about school/education is probably: The higher you go the more likely you will be to succeed in life. It’s a simple formula, no! Here is the internal problem, a lot of people followed it. Law school is the only professional school you can get into with little undergraduate prep. Further, you can attend Law school F/T, P/T, P/T night, or distance. Easy! Too easy! The legal market is quite saturated with people starting off and changing careers. Having no job and 100K in student loan debt is no fun. To add insult to injury, more law schools are created annually and legal work is being shipped overseas. Yes, your job is exportable.

I understand your (the reader’s) motives for going into Law are altruistic, not monetary. So, be prepared to be earning 30 – 40 K a year. That is when you find a job. The Law is like a bad slot machine; you keep feeding money, time, and effort in but no payoff. See above graph.

The movie the Martix had a line, “… the test of any decision as good or bad is would you do it again if given the chance?” I would not consider the Law again! I am sorry to be so negative. But you have been warned.

Yours Etc.

Screwtape