Law School Not Such A Good Deal Anymore

[BostonPhil]

Now, now, as much of an insult as you wanted that to be, I live in Forest Hills Gardens. (Queens) Yes a boro befitting MY status.

 

An ass eating cock sucker?

 

Your wings must be Extremely Tired ?

 

Oh snap!

 

The broom does all the work.

 

Double SNAP!

[citylaw1]

It’s supply and demand pure and simple.

 

We have WAY too many lawyers in this country. It’s an unfortunate fact of life.

As a result, many will starve. The best fix is to come clean with undergraduates

who want to pursue a law degree. The field is beyond over saturated. That inevitably

leads to the “bottom feeding” behavior that gives lawyers such a horrible reputation.

 

Our country only has an honest need for about 10% of the lawyers that we have

currently. Until that problem is fixed, the legal “profession” will continue to suffer.

It is a noble profession that deserves better and it should be an asset to our nation

instead of the horrendous embarrassment it currently is.

 

Perhaps more parents should encourage their children to pursue trades, and work towards owning their own business. Pushing kids into college isn't always the right choice. Owning a plumbing outfit or a commercial painting business in NYC would be (and is) quite profitable.

[citylaw1]

The broom does all the work.

 

Actually very funny:)

 

Should I ever attend a Hooboy get together, most of you would love me. I would buy a few drinks, push a few wheelchairs and top off some oxygen tanks prior to my departure.

[citylaw1]

Your wings must be Extremely Tired ?

 

Did everyone on the QM12 turn around after giggled at your post?

[+ Lucky]

Actually very funny:)

 

Should I ever attend a Hooboy get together, most of you would love me. I would buy a few drinks, push a few wheelchairs and top off some oxygen tanks prior to my departure.

 

Hooville gatherings, named for us, but in honor of Hooboy, who first provided us the space here. And where would you push those wheelchairs? should we stick to ground floor meetings?

 

I will say this, when I did practice law, I didn't have the time to spend on the internet playing all day that you seem to have! At $400 an hour? :)

[BostonPhil]

I think it is time to move this conversation over to the Bukkake thread

[citylaw1]

Hooville gatherings, named for us, but in honor of Hooboy, who first provided us the space here. And where would you push those wheelchairs? should we stick to ground floor meetings?

 

I will say this, when I did practice law, I didn't have the time to spend on the internet playing all day that you seem to have! At $400 an hour? :)

 

I actually met Hooboy once about a year or two before his death. My job is ridiculously easy now to tell the truth. I mostly fly between NYC and Florida. Without divulging too much, I'm pretty lucky (no pun...) at this point in my life.

[Guest Connoisseur]

I actually met Hooboy once about a year or two before his death. My job is ridiculously easy now to tell the truth. I mostly fly between NYC and Florida. Without divulging too much, I'm pretty lucky (no pun...) at this point in my life.

 

Very happy for you, now let's raise your taxes.

[+ Lucky]

very happy for you, now let's raise your taxes.

 

lol

[+ Lucky]

I actually met Hooboy once about a year or two before his death. My job is ridiculously easy now to tell the truth. I mostly fly between NYC and Florida. Without divulging too much, I'm pretty lucky (no pun...) at this point in my life.

 

Then there must be more to your story than we know. If you joined in 2009, Hooboy was already long gone. Share! My guess is that you were a young escort, working your way through law school...

[Xander]

I think it is time to move this conversation over to the Bukkake thread

 

this

[orbital sander]

It’s supply and demand pure and simple.

 

We have WAY too many lawyers in this country. It’s an unfortunate fact of life.

As a result, many will starve. The best fix is to come clean with undergraduates

who want to pursue a law degree. The field is beyond over saturated. That inevitably

leads to the “bottom feeding” behavior that gives lawyers such a horrible reputation.

 

Our country only has an honest need for about 10% of the lawyers that we have

currently. Until that problem is fixed, the legal “profession” will continue to suffer.

It is a noble profession that deserves better and it should be an asset to our nation

instead of the horrendous embarrassment it currently is.

 

Agreed...we should continue to encourage them to move into being worthless politicians..

[citylaw1]

Very happy for you, now let's raise your taxes.

 

I support Obama (at least the version I thought we were getting) and raising taxes on the wealthy. I don't think I should be judged or punished for success though.

 

P.S. Clearly you never met Hooboy. He defined life of leisure.

 

Amend:

 

Actually there should be a flat tax. I paid 33-35% of my gross through income taxes alone. On top of this I travel a lot and pay city, usage, etc. while supporting local economies with regularity. We should tax corporations with a flat tax as well, eliminating deductions on both sides.

[citylaw1]

Then there must be more to your story than we know. If you joined in 2009, Hooboy was already long gone. Share! My guess is that you were a young escort, working your way through law school...

 

I was a younger, more immature version of my cocky self now. I posted under another moniker (at least I admit it) from about 2004 - 2008 or so, on and off without regularity. Reading my posts now I'm a bit embarrassed.

 

I was never an escort, just a client.

[robberbaron4u]

There is a fine line of demarcation betweenst self-assuredness, which arises from competence in one's abilities, and cockiness, which arises from self-delusion, in one's professional life.

[+ Lucky]

I was a younger, more immature version of my cocky self now. I posted under another moniker (at least I admit it) from about 2004 - 2008 or so, on and off without regularity. Reading my posts now I'm a bit embarrassed.

 

I was never an escort, just a client.

Thanks for admitting it, though. So many won't! I like your posts, admit that it is your money to spend as you see fit, but do hope that a good chunk of change makes its way to the truly needy. I see that as an obligation of those who have, and admire guys who follow through on it.

[+ Charlie]

 

We have WAY too many lawyers in this country. It’s an unfortunate fact of life.

As a result, many will starve. The best fix is to come clean with undergraduates

who want to pursue a law degree. The field is beyond over saturated. That inevitably

leads to the “bottom feeding” behavior that gives lawyers such a horrible reputation.

 

Our country only has an honest need for about 10% of the lawyers that we have

currently. Until that problem is fixed, the legal “profession” will continue to suffer.

It is a noble profession that deserves better and it should be an asset to our nation

instead of the horrendous embarrassment it currently is.

 

One could argue that we have way too many students in lots of academic fields, but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. Many of them will move into different careers, some of which have only tangential relationship to the field which they studied. They will bring a wider range of knowledge to those careers than someone who followed one straight academic track to the goal. Oliver mentioned that he had been out of college for ten years before he started law school. I'll bet he had a different perspective on the law--and a lot of other things--than students who decided at age 17 that they would become lawyers. Likewise, I don't think it is a bad thing for a restaurateur or an electrician to have a legal education; their greater knowledge may give them an advantage oveir competitors. The more widely educated the public is, including something as important as the law, the better citizens they are likely to be. (OK, call me a silly optimist.) I don't think legal training is useless just because one doesn't become a lawyer.

[+ Charlie]

The young attorneys that work under me are making around 70k in NYC; this is hardly enough to live in NYC.

 

.

 

LOL. My partner and I, both professionals, decided to leave NYC forty years ago when we concluded that our combined income of $17,000 would not be enough for a sustained middle-class lifestyle in Manhattan.

[Phil_musc]

Agreed...we should continue to encourage them to move into being worthless politicians..

 

Who can then write and legislate more incomprehensible laws that require another lawyer to explain in court.

[Phil_musc]

I support Obama (at least the version I thought we were getting) and raising taxes on the wealthy. I don't think I should be judged or punished for success though.

 

P.S. Clearly you never met Hooboy. He defined life of leisure.

 

Amend:

 

Actually there should be a flat tax. I paid 33-35% of my gross through income taxes alone. On top of this I travel a lot and pay city, usage, etc. while supporting local economies with regularity. We should tax corporations with a flat tax as well, eliminating deductions on both sides.

 

But won't this eliminate a lot of jobs for tax lawyers? They'll probably have to leave the (honorable?) profession and find honest work ;-)

[+ FreshFluff]

Finding a job at a liveable wage in NYC is a lot harder than most realize. You MUST graduate at the top of your class to really stand a chance. As I told my Nephew, you are better off graduating from New York Law School at the top of your class than Graduating from NYU in the middle. Yes, large reputable (profitable) firms hire more from NYU, however, they take the creme and the average student is left with a big bill and a middle salary.

 

I think Fordham Law is the best bet in NYC. Their education and alumni network is superior to most.

 

My friends who were in securities law told me the opposite: that it's better to be in the top 30% at Harvard/NYU/Columbia Law than at the top of one's class elsewhere. And if you come from Yale Law, you can pretty much write your own ticket no matter where you are in the class. But they were associates at firms similar to S&C, which is known from its snottiness. (I agree Fordham does put out some first-class lawyers. As an i-banker, I had a great experience working with a then-associate/now partner at a top firm who graduated from there.)

[uwsman2]

Top of the class just about anywhere, you are likely to get some decent job offers. But that's really top of the class, not top 10%.

 

The employment figures for Class of 2011 reported by the ABA are based on reports submitted by the schools based on surveys they conducted starting late in 2011 and continuing until mid-February of this year. That means students who went to the "top tier" schools and had jobs lined up before graduation were employed, of course, 9 months out. Students who didn't have jobs lined up then spent the next two months after graduation studying for the bar exam, and didn't start their job search until August 2011. For some kinds of practice jobs, you really can't get an offer until you are admitted to practice, so for some people their search would be hanging fire waiting for bar exam results, which don't come out until November or December.

 

So - in the abstract, people look at the "9 months after graduation" statistic without factoring in how that is not necessarily a realistic picture of how many law graduates will eventually find themselves practicing law. The stats right now are pretty discouraging compared to what they were in the middle of the last decade. But ask anybody familiar with what is going on in the court system whether we have too many lawyers, and the most likely knowledgeable response is that we have a maldistribution of lawyers - many litigants go unrepresented. The problem is that society is not willing to spend collectively what it would take to provide representation to everybody, regardless of individual ability to pay.

 

And lack of representation makes a big difference, in immigration court, in housing court, in consumer litigation.... The percentage of individuals who win political asylum or withholding of deportation is drastically higher for those with representation. Same thing with eviction cases in landlord-tenant parts. Matrimonials with unrepresented people are a problem as well.

 

The portion of law grads who want to practice could probably all find jobs within a year of graduation if we had adequately funded legal service organizations to provide representation to the poor. We've got the chief judge in NYS begging lawyers to give more time to free legal services, and recently proposing a new rule that law grads will have to volunteer a certain number of hours to represent the poor before they can be formally admitted to the bar. Because we have a shortage of lawyers to provide those services.

[Strafe13]

This. Well said and, sadly, extremely accurate.

 

Top of the class just about anywhere, you are likely to get some decent job offers. But that's really top of the class, not top 10%.

 

The employment figures for Class of 2011 reported by the ABA are based on reports submitted by the schools based on surveys they conducted starting late in 2011 and continuing until mid-February of this year. That means students who went to the "top tier" schools and had jobs lined up before graduation were employed, of course, 9 months out. Students who didn't have jobs lined up then spent the next two months after graduation studying for the bar exam, and didn't start their job search until August 2011. For some kinds of practice jobs, you really can't get an offer until you are admitted to practice, so for some people their search would be hanging fire waiting for bar exam results, which don't come out until November or December.

 

So - in the abstract, people look at the "9 months after graduation" statistic without factoring in how that is not necessarily a realistic picture of how many law graduates will eventually find themselves practicing law. The stats right now are pretty discouraging compared to what they were in the middle of the last decade. But ask anybody familiar with what is going on in the court system whether we have too many lawyers, and the most likely knowledgeable response is that we have a maldistribution of lawyers - many litigants go unrepresented. The problem is that society is not willing to spend collectively what it would take to provide representation to everybody, regardless of individual ability to pay.

 

And lack of representation makes a big difference, in immigration court, in housing court, in consumer litigation.... The percentage of individuals who win political asylum or withholding of deportation is drastically higher for those with representation. Same thing with eviction cases in landlord-tenant parts. Matrimonials with unrepresented people are a problem as well.

 

The portion of law grads who want to practice could probably all find jobs within a year of graduation if we had adequately funded legal service organizations to provide representation to the poor. We've got the chief judge in NYS begging lawyers to give more time to free legal services, and recently proposing a new rule that law grads will have to volunteer a certain number of hours to represent the poor before they can be formally admitted to the bar. Because we have a shortage of lawyers to provide those services.