9 ms·

Waning ranks at law schools

33 points by percept 12y ago

FlyingLawnmower 12y ago
The legal field is currently suffering from a huge excess of lawyers, and attending a law school outside of the top 10 (arguably top 20 with scholarships) is generally considered a poor investment. It's good for the legal field as a whole to see many of these T-3/T-4 Law Schools slim down and stop churning out so many law students that end up, unfortunately, unemployed (or in a job that doesn't use their JD in a meaningful way).
- atwebb 12y ago
  Perhaps it's also a pride and expectations issue? I know that in TN there is a lack of available lawyers for certain court case work, especially juvenile court and family cases. The pay isn't stellar for a lawyer but it's a solid 40 out/50 in-court. You go down and sign up for dates and the cases are assigned as they come in to the lawyers signed up for those days. I think there have recently been some changes in one court in one county to limit but mostly, it's sign up, get work. I know a few years ago you could get a degree from a capable, long term in-state institution for ~40k tuition (3 years). You weren't "allowed" to work first year so that could cause an increase.
- dccoolgai 12y ago
  To compound the problem, every South Middle Tennessee State -type school opened a law school during the glut because it was a huge cash cow for the parent university... so other than a complete collapse of admissions, there is no impetus for these T-3/4 schools to close. It's not uncommon for students to come out of these schools with 200+K in student loan debt and no job prospects to speak of. It's unfortunate, but the Legal Academy was all to happy to get drenched from the firehose of unemployable vague humanities majors that US Higher ed produces - now, at least, some of the students are starting to get a more realistic picture of what that undischargeable debt means for their future - but the damage is done.
  - atwebb 12y ago
    It's odd that we would both comment (at the same time) regarding TN, would you mind giving me your opinion of my post below? I'm referencing people who did moderately well at a non-top teir but established institution with a cost of 40-60k total and vacant positions (albeit contract type) at $40/hr minimum.
rayiner 12y ago
Business school applications are down too: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444433504577651962999932518 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044443350.... It's almost as if yearly tuition hikes in the face of stagnant salaries in professional services are having an impact on enrollment.
Retric 12y ago
There are currently 1,225,452 licensed attorneys in the United States which is a ridiculous considering only 116 million people have a full time job.
- etrain 12y ago
  Why is that number ridiculous? At ~1% of the workforce, this means that the average American laborer needs 2.5 days/year of lawyer time to keep them fully occupied, which honestly doesn't feel like such a stretch to me, given that they need to be involved in hiring/firing, expansion, policy changes, deals closing, etc. Also - note that not all licensed attorneys are practicing, so it may even be more like 1 lawyer-day/year per worker.
  - Retric 12y ago
    The problem is it's not being automated. Does every apartment complex in NY city really need a significantly different lease? I can buy I car without a lawyer why not a house? Do I really need a lawyer before highering a housekeeper? Something like LegalZoom seems like a reasonable option for 80+% of all deals that currently use a Lawyer. Edit: As to policy changes, a trade association could reasonably cover all most / all cab companies or even Hospitals.
    - LordKano 12y ago
      I would suspect that it has something to do with the fact that a scam artist seller will hurt you a lot more with a bad deal on a house than with a bad deal on a car.
      - Retric 12y ago
        A bad car can easily kill you. IMO, a large part of that difference is from how involved the State government is when selling a car. Property can also have far more limitations like a local homeowners association or right of way easement. Still, taxes can also be vary complex but few people need a Lawyer to look at them. Simply covering the 80% case can add a lot of economic efficiency.
InclinedPlane 12y ago
That's not really a problem. There has long been an oversupply of law school graduates relative to jobs in any sort of legal field.
graeme 12y ago
Two things happened with the recession. 1. Legal jobs went away. 2. There was a temporary, substantial INCREASE in law school attendance. You can see the large increase in enrolment just after the recession on this graph: http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1920w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/07/06/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Images/lawschool_NEW.jpg http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1920w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/07/06... When the economy went south, law school seemed like a "safe bet". This turned out to be a catastrophic mistake, as it came at the peak of the bubble in law school enrolment. There had never been such a gap between the number of students and the number of legal jobs. Articles starting appearing circa 2010 that described a nightmare of $160,000 debt and no legal job. As students began to realize the world had changed, the decline began. Parents are a big part of the problem. The boomers largely haven't caught on that a BA and a JD are no longer the good choices they were back in the 1960s and 1970s. I'm in LSAT prep and I talk to a lot of pre-law applicants. They're now generally far more aware of what's at stake. But I only talk to the ones who are good at planning – I expect there's a decent amount of students who go into law school without realizing it can ruin their life. Here on HN, we're in a bubble. Recruiters are a constant complaint. "Ugh, I hate all these people trying to offer me well-paying jobs". Consider what's it's like to be 26 years old, with a BA and now a JD. You have about $160,000 that cannot be removed through bankruptcy. You have no assets and no marketable skills. You can't get a legal job, for structural reasons. And non-legal employers now give you a wide berth because you're overqualified. Worse, you did everything you were "supposed" to do. Turns out it was cargo cult advice. That's the situations thousands of young people find themselves in. Even going for one year and quitting can be crippling. You get $40,000 of non-dischargeable debt for your troubles. If you happen to be giving career advice, here are the circumstances under which you should go to law school: 1. You have a burning passion to be a lawyer. 2. Said passion is based on actual knowledge of what lawyers do. 3. You can get into a T14 school, OR 4. You can get into a T100 school with a full scholarship, OR 5. You can get into a school very well regarded in the local area where you want to practice, OR 6. You have a legal job more or less in the bag upon graduation, through family, OR 7. You are rich and want to be a lawyer for what prestige it still carries That's about it. It's a terrible, terrible choice for anyone else. We need lawyers, and at some point the legal education market will sort itself out I'm sure. Schools will close, people will realize they need to do the math. I expect tuition will drop eventually. But while the bubble is bursting, potential law students need to exercise extreme caution.
Spooky23 12y ago
Not very surprising. Our recently hired office manager graduated from Law School in 2011. The previous person in that job was a former secretary.
malchow 12y ago
I have a friend who sometimes asks, to stoke conversation: "What's one thing you believe that no one else does?" One answer? The law school boom isn't over. I have a J.D. from Stanford (though I spend my time investing and working on my own projects), and though the legal education industry is in many respects quite hidebound and deserving of a downward correction, there is one swift wind filling the sails. It's what Milovan Djilas[1] called "the new class." Djilas was a Yugoslav Soviet dissident. For a brief instant he was a true believer. But Djilas saw by 1954 that a large government tasked with redistribution was giving rise to a new elite: the redistributors. He wrote articles about "the new class" and was kicked out of the Party. A friend of mine, a law professor in Knoxville, wrote about this in USA Today yesterday: "Here in the United States, a lot of programs officially aimed at the poor look suspiciously like subsidies to the New Class, too. Among "means-tested" programs, Food Stamps, now officially called SNAP, cover about 46 million people up to 125% of the poverty line (set at about $16,000 for a single mother and child). Other programs, such as the Earned Income Tax credit, cover people at slightly higher incomes, up to 200% of the poverty line. When federal spending on the dozens of programs are added up and state and local contributions included, the budget for assistance is about $1 trillion. "If we simply handed those people, perhaps 60 million of them, their share of the cash, that would be more than $16,500 each. A single mom and her baby would get over $33,000, twice as much as a poverty wage. A family of four would land more than $66,000, $15,000 more than the average family income. "So where's the money going? To people who aren't poor, such as doctors paid through Medicaid or landlords paid through Section 8. And to tens of thousands of members of the New Class, people like social workers, administrators and lawyers who run more than 120 different means tested federal programs."[2] And law school is the gate to a federal job. That's a powerful expansionary force supporting legal education. Also, a Maserati dealer has just opened in Arlington, Virginia. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milovan_%C4%90ilas#Dissident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milovan_%C4%90ilas#Dissident [2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/07/regulations-class-wealth-income-inequality-opportunity-reynolds-column/12266651/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/07/regulations... [3] http://www.arlnow.com/2014/07/07/maserati-of-arlington-now-open/ http://www.arlnow.com/2014/07/07/maserati-of-arlington-now-o...
- 1ris 12y ago
  The idea of just cutting all those social programs and handing out the cash instead seems like a huge vision for a new, freer, society. I really like that. OTOH especially the health sector does not work as a market, as demand is for health services for sick people is simple infinite (e.g. they pay every price). For the rest, I agree.
logicallee 12y ago
Could this be a hog cycle thing? Just a short while ago, we were reading about all these law school grads who couldn't get jobs, because there were just too many of them. So in the next cycle nobody enrolls.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
"Lowest since 1977" isn't as exciting as it might otherwise be considering how flat enrollment was until about 2003.
balbaugh 12y ago
Two recent Slate articles on why now is actually a great time to apply to law school. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/apply_to_law_school_now_yes_we_re_serious.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/appl... [2]http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/why_now_is_a_great_time_to_go_to_law_school_part_2.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/why_...
fenomas 12y ago
I am compelled to point out the potential for Spoonerism in the first two words of this headline.

33 points by percept 12y ago

The legal field is currently suffering from a huge excess of lawyers, and attending a law school outside of the top 10 (arguably top 20 with scholarships) is generally considered a poor investment. It's good for the legal field as a whole to see many of these T-3/T-4 Law Schools slim down and stop churning out so many law students that end up, unfortunately, unemployed (or in a job that doesn't use their JD in a meaningful way).

atwebb 12y ago
Perhaps it's also a pride and expectations issue? I know that in TN there is a lack of available lawyers for certain court case work, especially juvenile court and family cases. The pay isn't stellar for a lawyer but it's a solid 40 out/50 in-court. You go down and sign up for dates and the cases are assigned as they come in to the lawyers signed up for those days. I think there have recently been some changes in one court in one county to limit but mostly, it's sign up, get work. I know a few years ago you could get a degree from a capable, long term in-state institution for ~40k tuition (3 years). You weren't "allowed" to work first year so that could cause an increase.
dccoolgai 12y ago
To compound the problem, every South Middle Tennessee State -type school opened a law school during the glut because it was a huge cash cow for the parent university... so other than a complete collapse of admissions, there is no impetus for these T-3/4 schools to close. It's not uncommon for students to come out of these schools with 200+K in student loan debt and no job prospects to speak of. It's unfortunate, but the Legal Academy was all to happy to get drenched from the firehose of unemployable vague humanities majors that US Higher ed produces - now, at least, some of the students are starting to get a more realistic picture of what that undischargeable debt means for their future - but the damage is done.
- atwebb 12y ago
  It's odd that we would both comment (at the same time) regarding TN, would you mind giving me your opinion of my post below? I'm referencing people who did moderately well at a non-top teir but established institution with a cost of 40-60k total and vacant positions (albeit contract type) at $40/hr minimum.

rayiner 12y ago

Business school applications are down too: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444433504577651962999932518 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044443350.... It's almost as if yearly tuition hikes in the face of stagnant salaries in professional services are having an impact on enrollment.

Retric 12y ago

There are currently 1,225,452 licensed attorneys in the United States which is a ridiculous considering only 116 million people have a full time job.

etrain 12y ago
Why is that number ridiculous? At ~1% of the workforce, this means that the average American laborer needs 2.5 days/year of lawyer time to keep them fully occupied, which honestly doesn't feel like such a stretch to me, given that they need to be involved in hiring/firing, expansion, policy changes, deals closing, etc. Also - note that not all licensed attorneys are practicing, so it may even be more like 1 lawyer-day/year per worker.
- Retric 12y ago
  The problem is it's not being automated. Does every apartment complex in NY city really need a significantly different lease? I can buy I car without a lawyer why not a house? Do I really need a lawyer before highering a housekeeper? Something like LegalZoom seems like a reasonable option for 80+% of all deals that currently use a Lawyer. Edit: As to policy changes, a trade association could reasonably cover all most / all cab companies or even Hospitals.
  - LordKano 12y ago
    I would suspect that it has something to do with the fact that a scam artist seller will hurt you a lot more with a bad deal on a house than with a bad deal on a car.
    - Retric 12y ago
      A bad car can easily kill you. IMO, a large part of that difference is from how involved the State government is when selling a car. Property can also have far more limitations like a local homeowners association or right of way easement. Still, taxes can also be vary complex but few people need a Lawyer to look at them. Simply covering the 80% case can add a lot of economic efficiency.

InclinedPlane 12y ago

That's not really a problem. There has long been an oversupply of law school graduates relative to jobs in any sort of legal field.

graeme 12y ago

Two things happened with the recession. 1. Legal jobs went away. 2. There was a temporary, substantial INCREASE in law school attendance. You can see the large increase in enrolment just after the recession on this graph: http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1920w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/07/06/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Images/lawschool_NEW.jpg http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1920w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/07/06... When the economy went south, law school seemed like a "safe bet". This turned out to be a catastrophic mistake, as it came at the peak of the bubble in law school enrolment. There had never been such a gap between the number of students and the number of legal jobs. Articles starting appearing circa 2010 that described a nightmare of $160,000 debt and no legal job. As students began to realize the world had changed, the decline began. Parents are a big part of the problem. The boomers largely haven't caught on that a BA and a JD are no longer the good choices they were back in the 1960s and 1970s. I'm in LSAT prep and I talk to a lot of pre-law applicants. They're now generally far more aware of what's at stake. But I only talk to the ones who are good at planning – I expect there's a decent amount of students who go into law school without realizing it can ruin their life. Here on HN, we're in a bubble. Recruiters are a constant complaint. "Ugh, I hate all these people trying to offer me well-paying jobs". Consider what's it's like to be 26 years old, with a BA and now a JD. You have about $160,000 that cannot be removed through bankruptcy. You have no assets and no marketable skills. You can't get a legal job, for structural reasons. And non-legal employers now give you a wide berth because you're overqualified. Worse, you did everything you were "supposed" to do. Turns out it was cargo cult advice. That's the situations thousands of young people find themselves in. Even going for one year and quitting can be crippling. You get $40,000 of non-dischargeable debt for your troubles. If you happen to be giving career advice, here are the circumstances under which you should go to law school: 1. You have a burning passion to be a lawyer. 2. Said passion is based on actual knowledge of what lawyers do. 3. You can get into a T14 school, OR 4. You can get into a T100 school with a full scholarship, OR 5. You can get into a school very well regarded in the local area where you want to practice, OR 6. You have a legal job more or less in the bag upon graduation, through family, OR 7. You are rich and want to be a lawyer for what prestige it still carries That's about it. It's a terrible, terrible choice for anyone else. We need lawyers, and at some point the legal education market will sort itself out I'm sure. Schools will close, people will realize they need to do the math. I expect tuition will drop eventually. But while the bubble is bursting, potential law students need to exercise extreme caution.

Spooky23 12y ago

Not very surprising. Our recently hired office manager graduated from Law School in 2011. The previous person in that job was a former secretary.

malchow 12y ago

I have a friend who sometimes asks, to stoke conversation: "What's one thing you believe that no one else does?" One answer? The law school boom isn't over. I have a J.D. from Stanford (though I spend my time investing and working on my own projects), and though the legal education industry is in many respects quite hidebound and deserving of a downward correction, there is one swift wind filling the sails. It's what Milovan Djilas[1] called "the new class." Djilas was a Yugoslav Soviet dissident. For a brief instant he was a true believer. But Djilas saw by 1954 that a large government tasked with redistribution was giving rise to a new elite: the redistributors. He wrote articles about "the new class" and was kicked out of the Party. A friend of mine, a law professor in Knoxville, wrote about this in USA Today yesterday: "Here in the United States, a lot of programs officially aimed at the poor look suspiciously like subsidies to the New Class, too. Among "means-tested" programs, Food Stamps, now officially called SNAP, cover about 46 million people up to 125% of the poverty line (set at about $16,000 for a single mother and child). Other programs, such as the Earned Income Tax credit, cover people at slightly higher incomes, up to 200% of the poverty line. When federal spending on the dozens of programs are added up and state and local contributions included, the budget for assistance is about $1 trillion. "If we simply handed those people, perhaps 60 million of them, their share of the cash, that would be more than $16,500 each. A single mom and her baby would get over $33,000, twice as much as a poverty wage. A family of four would land more than $66,000, $15,000 more than the average family income. "So where's the money going? To people who aren't poor, such as doctors paid through Medicaid or landlords paid through Section 8. And to tens of thousands of members of the New Class, people like social workers, administrators and lawyers who run more than 120 different means tested federal programs."[2] And law school is the gate to a federal job. That's a powerful expansionary force supporting legal education. Also, a Maserati dealer has just opened in Arlington, Virginia. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milovan_%C4%90ilas#Dissident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milovan_%C4%90ilas#Dissident [2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/07/regulations-class-wealth-income-inequality-opportunity-reynolds-column/12266651/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/07/regulations... [3] http://www.arlnow.com/2014/07/07/maserati-of-arlington-now-open/ http://www.arlnow.com/2014/07/07/maserati-of-arlington-now-o...

1ris 12y ago
The idea of just cutting all those social programs and handing out the cash instead seems like a huge vision for a new, freer, society. I really like that. OTOH especially the health sector does not work as a market, as demand is for health services for sick people is simple infinite (e.g. they pay every price). For the rest, I agree.

logicallee 12y ago

Could this be a hog cycle thing? Just a short while ago, we were reading about all these law school grads who couldn't get jobs, because there were just too many of them. So in the next cycle nobody enrolls.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

"Lowest since 1977" isn't as exciting as it might otherwise be considering how flat enrollment was until about 2003.

balbaugh 12y ago

Two recent Slate articles on why now is actually a great time to apply to law school. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/apply_to_law_school_now_yes_we_re_serious.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/appl... [2]http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/why_now_is_a_great_time_to_go_to_law_school_part_2.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/why_...

fenomas 12y ago

I am compelled to point out the potential for Spoonerism in the first two words of this headline.