4 ms·

> If the US really is producing 25,000 more lawyers per year than it can employ, that's a real problem. Drill down on that issue, and you'll see the real probl

> If the US really is producing 25,000 more lawyers per year than it can employ, that's a real problem. Drill down on that issue, and you'll see the real problem. Non-corporate litigants are majority pro-se now. That's new. Most corporate-individual litigation takes placed in closed-door arbitration, where precedent cannot be established (e.g. to definitively decide that caste-based discrimination violates existing racial discrimination statutes). "Indigent" criminal defendants do not receive anything resembling effective counsel. The problem isn't "too many lawyers". The problem is "too many lawyers for oligarchs, and a population too poor to afford lawyers when harmed by oligarchs"

JamesBarney 6y ago
There seems to be weird dynamic where there are a ton of lawyers, there is not enough work, and many aren't being paid much. But it's still hard to find a lawyer that charges less than 250/hr. My hypothesis is that law school is not preparing lawyers well enough to be useful right after school. So many can't find a job to get the experience to compete with senior attorneys who charge 250/hr.
- pram 6y ago
  They just don't go into lawyering period. If you don't get into a biglaw firm after you get your JD you're usually permanently fucked. It's better to get a salaried position in an unrelated field than 'hang out your shingle' in pretty much all cases. Law schools are making lots of lawyers, but the 'failed' ones just drop out. That is why there is no downward pressure on the fees from increased supply.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ska 6y ago
    Getting into a biglaw firm is only the first gate, as their model requires a pretty big funnel and up-or-out process. Lot's of promising young lawyers are grist for that mill, and many end up doing something else after. Lots of young lawyers have no interest in biglaw either, and only some of them are naive about their future prospects.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  I mean isn't it the same with developers ? If you're competent you have offers left and right and can command a very good salary. If you're out of a diploma mill with just the curriculum under your belt you're basically useless.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    I don't think it is. I don't know any developers who have left the profession because of a lack of employability. But I know plenty of lawyers who have. And a law degree is probably more comparable to a masters in CS than a bootcamp like flatiron.
    - reader_mode 6y ago
      > I don't know any developers who have left the profession because of a lack of employability. I feel like this is only true because there's such huge demand recently if you have a pulse and can code fizz buzz you can get hired - but I know 3 guys of the top of my head who went to school with me, finished 5 years (local uni, I dropped out but kept in touch) and then went in to IT or sales because they weren't good enough to get hired as devs - this was 10 years ago.
      - JamesBarney 6y ago
        In my mind I was counting IT, software sales, project management, business analyst etc... Any IT related profession. If someone used a law degree to sell law software, or malpractice insurance I would count that was well.
      - HireMePlz 6y ago
        Where are these jobs at? I have a pulse and can do most of the white boarding tests and have been “upskilling” on these things simply because that’s what interviewing is about these days. I’d like to think that it has not been a waste of time learning how to implement a dual pivot quicksort but it sure feels like it.
    - cortesoft 6y ago
- munificent 6y ago
  I think the trick is that you're using the same word for two groups. There are a ton of law school graduates, but not enough lawyers. Between the two, there is a gating function of bar associations, getting hired at a law firm, etc. If that gate is too small, then you get the effect you observe where there are too many "lawyers" (graduates) looking for work while simultaneously not enough "lawyers" (working lawyers) available to drive down prices. Sometimes these artificial gates are good things. They can protect consumers from low-quality products whose quality is very hard to evaluate. The market you use to "buy" a lawyer is not efficient: lawyers are no commoditized and you don't buy them frequently enough to have a good skill at evaluating them. An artificial gate like a professional association can help ensure consumers get access to a quality product, and that shitty products are prevented from entering the market and driving down the reputation of all producers.
  - rmrfstar 6y ago
    You've just articulated the basic economic rational for professional guilds. What inference are we supposed to draw from that, in this specific case? That things are fine? Because "consumers" aren't getting access to anything, and that's kind of the core point.
- ska 6y ago
  > But it's still hard to find a lawyer that charges less than 250/hr. I've seen research that the average lawyer (which is definitely not NYC biglaw firm) successfully collects on about 1/8 of their nominally billable hours. If that is true, and you also factor in that they are effectively running a small business with all that implies for non-billable work, your $250/hr lawyer working on their own is making about $50k/year. So even if we are off by nearly a factor of two, they are hardly raking it in. By comparison if you are in larger firms, more of the hourly rate is captured but it is also paying for multiple people. Don't get me wrong, there are lawyers out there making great money (e.g. partners in those same NYC biglaw firms). But thinking that is the experience of the average lawyers is a bit like looking at levels.fyi and deciding that all over the country most software engineers are making 250k+.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    Why are they only collecting on 1/8th of their billable time? That's insane.
    - ska 6y ago
      "nominal" billable time, so it's a combination of things but also included client ability to pay, client acquisition costs (depending on speciality, consults may be free for example), etc. I think time estimation is pretty hard in a lot of legal work also, you may be prepped for 60 hours work over then next two weeks and then a client phone call derails it entirely. It's not always easy to replace that time.

JamesBarney 6y ago

There seems to be weird dynamic where there are a ton of lawyers, there is not enough work, and many aren't being paid much. But it's still hard to find a lawyer that charges less than 250/hr. My hypothesis is that law school is not preparing lawyers well enough to be useful right after school. So many can't find a job to get the experience to compete with senior attorneys who charge 250/hr.

pram 6y ago
They just don't go into lawyering period. If you don't get into a biglaw firm after you get your JD you're usually permanently fucked. It's better to get a salaried position in an unrelated field than 'hang out your shingle' in pretty much all cases. Law schools are making lots of lawyers, but the 'failed' ones just drop out. That is why there is no downward pressure on the fees from increased supply.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ska 6y ago
  Getting into a biglaw firm is only the first gate, as their model requires a pretty big funnel and up-or-out process. Lot's of promising young lawyers are grist for that mill, and many end up doing something else after. Lots of young lawyers have no interest in biglaw either, and only some of them are naive about their future prospects.
reader_mode 6y ago
I mean isn't it the same with developers ? If you're competent you have offers left and right and can command a very good salary. If you're out of a diploma mill with just the curriculum under your belt you're basically useless.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  I don't think it is. I don't know any developers who have left the profession because of a lack of employability. But I know plenty of lawyers who have. And a law degree is probably more comparable to a masters in CS than a bootcamp like flatiron.
  - reader_mode 6y ago
    > I don't know any developers who have left the profession because of a lack of employability. I feel like this is only true because there's such huge demand recently if you have a pulse and can code fizz buzz you can get hired - but I know 3 guys of the top of my head who went to school with me, finished 5 years (local uni, I dropped out but kept in touch) and then went in to IT or sales because they weren't good enough to get hired as devs - this was 10 years ago.
    - JamesBarney 6y ago
      In my mind I was counting IT, software sales, project management, business analyst etc... Any IT related profession. If someone used a law degree to sell law software, or malpractice insurance I would count that was well.
    - HireMePlz 6y ago
      Where are these jobs at? I have a pulse and can do most of the white boarding tests and have been “upskilling” on these things simply because that’s what interviewing is about these days. I’d like to think that it has not been a waste of time learning how to implement a dual pivot quicksort but it sure feels like it.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
munificent 6y ago
I think the trick is that you're using the same word for two groups. There are a ton of law school graduates, but not enough lawyers. Between the two, there is a gating function of bar associations, getting hired at a law firm, etc. If that gate is too small, then you get the effect you observe where there are too many "lawyers" (graduates) looking for work while simultaneously not enough "lawyers" (working lawyers) available to drive down prices. Sometimes these artificial gates are good things. They can protect consumers from low-quality products whose quality is very hard to evaluate. The market you use to "buy" a lawyer is not efficient: lawyers are no commoditized and you don't buy them frequently enough to have a good skill at evaluating them. An artificial gate like a professional association can help ensure consumers get access to a quality product, and that shitty products are prevented from entering the market and driving down the reputation of all producers.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  You've just articulated the basic economic rational for professional guilds. What inference are we supposed to draw from that, in this specific case? That things are fine? Because "consumers" aren't getting access to anything, and that's kind of the core point.
ska 6y ago
> But it's still hard to find a lawyer that charges less than 250/hr. I've seen research that the average lawyer (which is definitely not NYC biglaw firm) successfully collects on about 1/8 of their nominally billable hours. If that is true, and you also factor in that they are effectively running a small business with all that implies for non-billable work, your $250/hr lawyer working on their own is making about $50k/year. So even if we are off by nearly a factor of two, they are hardly raking it in. By comparison if you are in larger firms, more of the hourly rate is captured but it is also paying for multiple people. Don't get me wrong, there are lawyers out there making great money (e.g. partners in those same NYC biglaw firms). But thinking that is the experience of the average lawyers is a bit like looking at levels.fyi and deciding that all over the country most software engineers are making 250k+.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  Why are they only collecting on 1/8th of their billable time? That's insane.
  - ska 6y ago
    "nominal" billable time, so it's a combination of things but also included client ability to pay, client acquisition costs (depending on speciality, consults may be free for example), etc. I think time estimation is pretty hard in a lot of legal work also, you may be prepped for 60 hours work over then next two weeks and then a client phone call derails it entirely. It's not always easy to replace that time.