[slampley]

I will be moving too the Lansing area for law school this summer and I have a daughter who will be in 5th grade next year. I am looking for a safe, affordable place to live that is in a good school district. My husband is experienced in industrial maintenance. Any and all information is welcomed.

[teachbeach]

Grand Ledge, Okemos, East Lansing, Haslett, Holt/Diamondale or Mason would be the best places to look for housing. All are an easy (20-30 min) commute into Lansing (I assume you are attending Cooley). Have your husband use indeed.com or apply to the temp. agencies. Finding a house/apt. will be easy, a job not so easy.

[Bhaalspawn]

Out of curiosity, what are you hoping to achieve by earning a JD at a later stage in life? (You will suffer tremendous age discrimination in the lawyer job market.) Are you aware that the legal job market is very heavily glutted and that most new JDs are unable to find work in the legal profession (especially graduates from no-name lower tier law schools)? You owe it to yourself and to your family to investigate this matter deeply before you go $100,000+ into student loan debt that you cannot discharge in bankruptcy. Here are some links to sites that might help:

Exposing The Law School Scam (http://lawschoolscam.blogspot.com - broken link)
JD Underground

[ForStarters]

Originally Posted by Bhaalspawn

Out of curiosity, what are you hoping to achieve by earning a JD at a later stage in life? (You will suffer tremendous age discrimination in the lawyer job market.) Are you aware that the legal job market is very heavily glutted and that most new JDs are unable to find work in the legal profession (especially graduates from no-name lower tier law schools)? You owe it to yourself and to your family to investigate this matter deeply before you go $100,000+ into student loan debt that you cannot discharge in bankruptcy. Here are some links to sites that might help:

Exposing The Law School Scam (http://lawschoolscam.blogspot.com - broken link)
JD Underground

What he said.

[michiganbob]

Originally Posted by Bhaalspawn

Out of curiosity, what are you hoping to achieve by earning a JD at a later stage in life? (You will suffer tremendous age discrimination in the lawyer job market.) Are you aware that the legal job market is very heavily glutted and that most new JDs are unable to find work in the legal profession (especially graduates from no-name lower tier law schools)? You owe it to yourself and to your family to investigate this matter deeply before you go $100,000+ into student loan debt that you cannot discharge in bankruptcy. Here are some links to sites that might help:

Exposing The Law School Scam (http://lawschoolscam.blogspot.com - broken link)
JD Underground

I also have to agree with bhaalspawn on this one: law schools (Cooley especially) are cranking out graduates at a far faster pace than can be absorbed into the workplace and most are coming out with massive amounts of student loan dept . . . not a good combination. Happen to know a recent grad from a top East Coast law school who graduated near the top of his class and still is only able to get two part time jobs doing legal work and he is doing better than most of the people he graduated with this past year.

Five years ago a kid like this would have been snapped up by a top law firm, given a six figure income and put to work as soon as they paid for him to pass the bar. Now? Firms are still laying off recent grads (hired over the past two or three years) as the law schools pump more into the marketplace.

If graduating law school is your dream and you have the ability to open up your own shop someplace (maybe your home town) or have a job lined up already, then by all means go for it. But as far as landing a job after graduation . . . unless there is a dramatic recovery in the economy there won't be any when you graduate. Get on a message board for recent grads and ask them if you don't believe us.

And while we are on the subject: it might be hard for your husband to find a job in Lansing these days, regardless of how much experience or talent he has. Minimum wage jobs can be had, but others that pay well are extremely hard to come by.

If it was me, I would think long and hard about making this jump.

[slampley]

I do understand the difficulties that come with this decision, it is not one that has been made lightly. I have my own personal reasons why I pursue a legal education and appreciate your input.

[Bhaalspawn]

In that case, we'll all see you on the JD Underground discussion forum in a couple years after you've realized what an awful profession this is. Even if you can find a job, because of the tremendous oversupply of attorneys, keeping it and working it will be very miserable.

[KatieMarie10]

To the OP, I do not mean to be rude but would like to point out that the proper spelling is 'moving to'.

[Bhaalspawn]

Here is what may be the best, most recent article (a scholarly, published paper with citations, actually) on the subject. This should be required reading for anyone who contemplates taking the LSAT.

Opportunity Lost: How Law School Disappoints Law Students,
The Public, and the Legal Profession
By: Jason M. Dolin, Esq., Adjunct Professor
Capital University Law School
Columbus, Ohio

The Glut

Driving a lot of the change in the world of law practice has been the glut of lawyers
on the market; a glut fostered and even encouraged by the ABA and by law schools.
According to the American Bar Foundation, in 1951 there was one lawyer for every 695
Americans. Since then, in the year 2000 there was 1 lawyer for every 264 Americans.4
At that rate, in the year 2050 there will be 1 lawyer for every 100 Americans. I think it is
safe to say that, as a nation, the supply of lawyers long ago outstripped the demand for
their services. There are simply too many lawyers and too many law schools in the
United States. Given the oversupply of lawyers, if law schools were at all sensitive to
market forces they would be shutting their doors or at least reducing their student
headcount. Instead, new law schools continue to open each year. Since 1970, 51 new
law schools have been approved by the ABA.5 In 2006 alone, the ABA granted full
approval to two new law schools and provisional approval to two others.6.

-------------------

The result of all this is that law practice today is faster, more competitive, and more
pressurized than ever before. Lawyers today face pressures and challenges unknown by
those who practiced as recently as twenty or thirty years ago. Lawyers, many new but
some old, struggle to survive in such a marketplace. The temptation to cut ethical corners
increases as it becomes more difficult to make a living. According to former Chief
Justice Rehnquist, “The greater the pressure of maximization of income, the more likely
some sort of ethical difficulties will be encountered….”10

---------------------------------------

Law Schools Make Money

Why then, given the glut of lawyers, do new law schools continue to open and
existing law schools continue to graduate new lawyers in large numbers? The answer, of
course, is that by and large law schools make money. Law schools and their affiliated
universities have benefited handsomely from the increased number of those who desire
law degrees and they continue to mint graduates in large numbers. Whereas many, if not
most, graduate programs are money losers for their universities, law schools are
moneymakers and profit centers. Law school tuition is high, there is relatively little
tuition discounting, and relatively little outright scholarship assistance. Since 1985, at
public law schools, median tuition and fees have increased over 600% while private law
school tuition and fees have increased almost 500%.11 According to the ABA: “Since the
early 1970’s, there has been a steep and persistent rise in the cost of legal education and
in tuitions law schools charge students. During the period 1992 – 2002, the cost of living
in the U.S. has risen 28%, while the cost of tuition for public law schools has risen 134%
(for residents) and 100% (for non-residents) and private law school tuition has increased
76%.”12

Simply stated, law schools are university cash cows, contributing dollars to the
university’s bottom line.

Note that the ABA also recently issued an ethical opinion approving the foreign outsourcing of legal work and that the ABA is now considering accreditation (!!!) for foreign law schools! (Imagine having to compete against tens of thousands of U.S.-licensed attorneys in Mumbai and Peking.)

Also, the current lawyer-to-population ratio in the U.S. is now about 1 lawyer for every 215 people based on the number of JDs produced over the past 40 years and the current U.S. population.

(I don't mean to be obnoxious, but I wanted to post that link to that excellent scholarly paper and to do what I can to try to help someone from making what could be a life-destroying mistake.)