So how bad is the law market?

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by cee4

I don't plan to go to law school unless I can get into a t14. I am expecting 80 hour work weeks and that in itself is not more than I what I handle now (full time student + full time worker for over 3 years).

I also extensively travel for my job and have no issues doing so for any future employer.

I am a double major (urban studies/ english critical language) so I do have backup plans if I do not get into a t14 school.

I just need to actually study for the LSAT because I am taking it in October of this year. Hopefully I can get within my score range with a few months of preparing.

My greatest strengths would be building rapport with clientele and I do have the gift of gab in person so hopefully what I do now translates toward the law field.

Well best of luck with the LSAT because that will be critical! Study, study, study! I also agree, don't go unless you can get into one of the best schools. These days it's too much of an expensive risk with the lesser schools -- especially the lowest tier ones -- unless you are a person who has huge family, political and social connections to get a job or a person who plans to start your own business serving consumer market (most people looking for DUI and traffic, divorce, family law, bankruptcy, criminal, real estate, wills, etc., etc., aren't going to care where someone went to law school).

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by redroses777

This.^^^ I once spoke with a guy who graduated with a degree in history and couldn't find a job. He went to law school because he wanted a great job and didn't want to start at the bottom with a company. He is now $300,000 in debt and still unemployed. Very sad.

I know another guy who is a paralegal and worked his way through community college. He has $0 debt. He did get a job, but did say the market was tough. Of course, at least he has no student loan debt.

That is a mortgage on a modest house where I live! Poor guy! How will he get out from under?

[Coco6163]

As a lawyer who has practiced nearly 20 years, starting with a "big firm", leaving just before the partnership was presented to me, and starting my own solo and now small firm practice, I was very tempted to post nothing more than: Read markg's post on page one, and you will have your answer. It is truly excellent, and it is the kind of thing that needs to be read several times to appreciate the depth of wisdom offered.

But the posts that followed have caused me to offer a couple of other points. First, graduating at the top of your class from a tier 1 law school is the best path toward getting into a big law firm (or any other place looking for new lawyers). But other paths exist. When I started, I joined a law firm that was recognized as "big" in my mid-market-sized city. Before I left the firm, we had about 200 lawyers. I attended a law school that has been through the years considered somewhere in tier 3-4 out of 5. I had good grades and graduated near the top of my class in the mid 1990's. After my first year, I had several offers to be a summer law clerk at various big firms, some of which were among the nation's largest but all of which were in the same city as my law school. Most of those clerks, like me, were offered full-time jobs at the end of their clerkships. My debt was 1/3 of the grads from a nearby, bottom of tier1- top of tier 2 law school, but I am sure I could have afforded lower grades from a better school and had similar offers. That is the trade-off and risk you take when choosing your school in terms of the immediate job opportunities your diploma will yield.

Second, to echo what mark seems to suggest, your choice of going to law school should depend on many factors, and I would place current market conditions low among the list of those factors. It is certainly true that the market is "competitive" as stated above. It is also true that many new law school graduates struggle with their debt in light of the difficulty in finding work that pays more than, and in some cases less than, middle-class wages. But just as entry into a big law firm is no guarantee of high-- or even comfortable earnings -- throughout your career, graduating without an immediate job as a lawyer does not sentence you to the poor house forever. If you are good at learning law (which is a matter of a lot of discipline and a little of intelligence), you remain enthusiastic about helping people solve or prevent their problems, and enjoy working with others, you will almost inevitably find a way to succeed personally and financially. But those conditions are a lot easier to write than they are to meet, especially over the course of a career that can be as long and as challenging as a career as a lawyer.

Most markets have too many average and poor lawyers. Very few, if any, markets have enough good lawyers. Take plenty of time to decide whether to tackle law school. If you decide to do it, go all-in. Commit yourself to being the very best law student you can be. A few students do well because they are brilliant. Most students who do well simply worked their butts off. If you are either brilliant or a hard working law student or both, you will be well prepared to become a good lawyer, and nearly everyone on the planet could use you at some point or another. If you don't want to make that kind of commitment, then find another way to make a living. There are many other ways, and many of them are much more lucrative and require a lot less effort than lawyering does.

Good luck!