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It seems that the story is a that a once upwards spiral is now spiraling downwards, and people and institutions must adjust. At one point in time, law was lucr
by hkmurakami 10y ago
It seems that the story is a that a once upwards spiral is now spiraling downwards, and people and institutions must adjust.
At one point in time, law was lucrative, and there were not enough lawyers. Schools responded by growing in size and in tuition. Students could justify the loans because there was a high chance that the "investment" would pay off.
Fast forward a few decades and law as an industry is contracting. Since the profession is not as lucrative, if you follow the chain, then schools should have contracted in response, minting fewer lawyers. But they can't easily adjust when they've built a bureaucracy and dramatically increased the number of tenured faculty. That lead to them misleading applicants by not having transparency with their true employment numbers. For a while, students were duped. But at this point, the cat is largely out of the bag. Applicants numbers are down, and the demise of debt-burdened law grads have hit national headlines numerous times over the last 5 or so years. So now, in uncoordinated fashion, schools must adjust and finally down size. Too bad students were caught in the crossfire for many years before the flares went up.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- wpietri 10y agoOne thing I think is interesting here is the uncontrolled growth in costs. Paul Campos of Lawyers, Guns, and Money posted the average private-school law tuition [1]: All figures have been adjusted to constant 2016 dollars: 1956: $4,178 1974: $11,232 1985: $16,803 1995: $26,480 2005: $35,550 2015: $45,123 That just blows me away. [1] http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/06/end-game http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/06/end-game
- hkmurakami 10y agoAt least with respect to 2005 and 2015, that increase looks to be in line with private undergrad tuition increases. Of course, the top private undergrad institutions give much more in the way of financial aid than their legal graduate school counterparts.
- cm2187 10y agoIt's funny because you look at these figures, you look at real estate prices, you look at stock prices, and you think, wait we are in a double digit inflationary environment! Actually what is inflationary is the activities of the middle/upper-middle class (college, housing, stocks, etc), which are of course underrepresented in the CPI indices. The combination of the never ending debt bubble and quantitative easing has created a very localised inflation.
- naveen99 10y agoA 25% increase in 10 years is not double digit inflation / year. It's around 2% / year.
- trefn 10y agoThose figures were already adjusted for inflation (it says 2016 dollars)
- naveen99 10y agoThanks. I didn't catch that. Still not double digit... Also, you can still get a degree for under 20k/year http://www.thebestschools.org/blog/2011/11/18/10-affordable-recognized-law-schools-u-s/ http://www.thebestschools.org/blog/2011/11/18/10-affordable-... at many public law schools.
- caminante 10y agoIt's tempting to counter by citing the "lucrative" special case: The top 5-10% of T14 law schools who receive entry-level associate salaries of $160K/year base + bonus. However, pricing power appears limited, creating a ceiling on wage increases. To this point, Vault100 firms have recently trickled out pay increases to $180K/year for incoming associates. Clients have laughed and said, "Good for your employees, but you're not passing those costs onto us!" [0] [0] http://on.wsj.com/28LIgM6 http://on.wsj.com/28LIgM6
- DannyBee 10y agolucrative is also a relative term, since they are often working 2000 billable hours a year (which, depending on type of work/attorney, may be 60% to 90% of actual hours worked per year) In biglaw, i have friends who easily work 2500-3000 hours a year to make their billable hours requirement. So these salaries are not exact as great as one would think anyway
- caminante 10y agolucrative is also a relative term I'm familiar with the sum($)/sum(hours) =< minimum wage arguments. We're also talking about the top 1% of 1% of wage earners in their age bracket. You might be able to get there via other means with better quality-of-life, but by all means -- absolute or relative -- $160K/year base + bonus is lucrative.
- walrus01 10y ago2500-3000 hours billable typical result: burn-out, alcoholism, drug abuse, self destructive behaviors, infidelity.
- freyir 10y agoThey're talking about 2000 billable hours and 2500-3000 actual hours (50 to 60 hours a week). Of course, many engineers work similar hours, for far less than a NYC law associate.
- sverige 10y agoAnd this is what's wrong with the law profession generally. It's seen as "lucrative" instead of as "a calling." No modern law school will ever create an Oliver Wendell Holmes or inspire a fictional Atticus Finch.
- havetocharge 10y agoI see where you're coming from, but most people work for a paycheck rather out of higher level motives (like "I was meant to be doing this"). By the same measure, all professions would be "wrong".
- sverige 10y agoSome professions (lawyer, doctor, law enforcement, clergy) should have as a fundamental motive the desire to help people rather than profit, since they have by their very nature the power to help or harm others.
- evoloution 10y agoIn US it is becoming increasingly difficult to dedicate yourself to a cause. Since no one has your back you have to fend for yourself and your family. Good affordable healthcare, education, daycare, e.t.c. is not a given and they dedicate their lives to tend to their families and service their debts. PS: I assume you are comparing with Sweden
- Snackchez 10y agoNot true: many lawyers work entire careers in the human rights field. Many modern law schools have produced these types of lawyers. It's just not as glamorous as what people have in mind for a lawyer, and thus not as publicized.
- rashkov 10y agoYes, but the debt required to do that kind of work is completely unsustainable. 150-200k debt to service on a 60k salary working in human rights. Only with family help or huge sacrifice
- cloudjacker 10y ago"employment numbers?? you should be in school for the pursuit of knowledge no matter what your socioeconomic situation happened to be, this clearly applies to everyone" I'm on a roll today
- rayiner 10y agoThe size of the legal market is the same as it was in 1990, and so is law school enrollment. There was a spike in both legal demand and enrollment in the aughts, but the ratio of work to graduates isn't much different now than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. What's different now is not the market. Folks at Valparaiso were never getting recruited into high-paying jobs. What's different now is the extreme amounts of debt. And that phenomenon that's not confined to law. The whole education sector is overblown by irrational pro-education rhetoric and free flowing federal money.
- ams6110 10y agoExactly right. The easy money available through student loans has completely distorted the market pressure that would normally keep tuition and fees more in line with demand.
- internaut 10y ago> The whole education sector is overblown by irrational pro-education rhetoric and free flowing federal money. It's worth mentioning that you'd have been downvoted into oblivion for mentioning this on a social network just several years ago. This was also true offline, people didn't want to hear it.
- reefoctopus 10y agoThe distribution of salaries in law is bimodal. Lawyers at the school mentioned have never commanded big law levels of compensation. The information is readily available, and it is why I chose not to attend a top 20 law school in 2007. http://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib http://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib
- etrautmann 10y agoWhere are the huge numbers of $160,000 salaries coming from? It's like a delta function right at that one level. Is that a standard starting package for major firms?
- reefoctopus 10y agoYes, it's the standard package for "BigLaw." There used to be a database on Greedy Associates that showed the salary progression for each firm, but I can't seem to find it. They tend to move in lockstep with each other. Graduates of the top 14 schools per US News and World Report rankings feed into these jobs. Some at lower ranked tier 1 schools end up in big law, but they are typically at the top of the class. I would bet that not a single student of the law school mentioned in the article ended up in with a $160k starting salary. This was the best salary survey I could find: http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/900045279/1st-Year-Salaries-and-Bonuses-of-the-Top-Law-Firms/ http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/900045279/1st-Year-Salari...