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And at the same time legal services are still horrifyingly expensive. This is partly because law students have unreasonable amounts of debt. Somehow there's too

And at the same time legal services are still horrifyingly expensive. This is partly because law students have unreasonable amounts of debt. Somehow there's too much supply keeping jobs scarce and too much demand keeping prices high. There are a couple of factors behind this. One is the accreditation process law schools need to go through. It's backed by all of the major schools (because it protects their interests), but it's pretty expensive to get accredited. Another point is the cultural position the legal profession has. The old cliche of money-grubbing soulless lawyers has died down somewhat - if you have a bad experience with a lawyer it will resurface, but most of the time when someone says they're a lawyer (at least for me) the immediate associations are professionalism and prestige. Add to that the fact that it's about the only "safe bet" career for graduates in the humanities and there's an obvious glut of labour. I'm not sure what the solution is, but think I part of it has to be making starting up a new legal practice a more attractive and more approachable option.

rayiner 14y ago
> And at the same time legal services are still horrifyingly expensive. This is partly because law students have unreasonable amounts of debt. Somehow there's too much supply keeping jobs scarce and too much demand keeping prices high. Price is the equilibrium of supply and demand. Cost (the expense of educating each student at an accredited school) doesn't influence the price. The problem is that people are defining "supply" incorrectly. Firms don't want to hire just any of the 45,000 law students. They want to hire one of the 1,000 Harvard, Yale, or Stanford students, and then depending on the market one of the 4,000 students at the top regional schools like Duke or U Chicago. The enrollment at these top schools has grown only very slowly over the last century. The price of an associate at a big NYC firm is determined b how much it costs a top Columbia graduate to go to that firm as opposed to a competing firm. Associate salaries thus exploded in the 2000's as the demand for legal services far outstripped the enrollment at schools like Columbia, while they have effectively been cut substantially (due to reduced bonuses) in the last 5 years as the demand has dropped while enrollments have stayed constant.

rayiner 14y ago

> And at the same time legal services are still horrifyingly expensive. This is partly because law students have unreasonable amounts of debt. Somehow there's too much supply keeping jobs scarce and too much demand keeping prices high. Price is the equilibrium of supply and demand. Cost (the expense of educating each student at an accredited school) doesn't influence the price. The problem is that people are defining "supply" incorrectly. Firms don't want to hire just any of the 45,000 law students. They want to hire one of the 1,000 Harvard, Yale, or Stanford students, and then depending on the market one of the 4,000 students at the top regional schools like Duke or U Chicago. The enrollment at these top schools has grown only very slowly over the last century. The price of an associate at a big NYC firm is determined b how much it costs a top Columbia graduate to go to that firm as opposed to a competing firm. Associate salaries thus exploded in the 2000's as the demand for legal services far outstripped the enrollment at schools like Columbia, while they have effectively been cut substantially (due to reduced bonuses) in the last 5 years as the demand has dropped while enrollments have stayed constant.