f*%$k it, i'm going to law school

[johnnyleston]

anybody else with me? william carlos williams was a doctor, wallace stevens was an insurance lawyer. they didn't need grad school, and neither do i.

/bitter rant.

[PaperChaser]

anybody else with me? william carlos williams was a doctor, wallace stevens was an insurance lawyer. they didn't need grad school, and neither do i.

/bitter rant.

Me-got flat out rejected from VERY unselective PhD programs 5 years ago. Went to law school. Got a good job at a reputable firm against all the odds and the horrible economy AND the extreme glut of unemployed lawyers in NC. I'm deferring a year to pay down six-figure debt and then going to do what I actually WANT to do.

Go to law school if you WANT TO BE A LAWYER. Don't go because you think you'll luck into a job. You won't. Don't go because you think it's a good way to wait out 3 years. It's not. It's extremely stressful, expensive, and antagonistic. I have seen the absolute WORST in humanity from my fellow law students and practicing lawyers. Not all lawyers are bad people, but MANY of them are very unhappy people who-like me-went into the law because Plan A didn't work out or didn't come easily. If your sole motivation to go to law school is because you are frustrated with your other options, PLEASE do some research and spend a few days "shadowing" real lawyers (by that I mean people who have only been practicing a few years, not John Grisham).

If you think graduate school is brutal, the law is MUCH worse. It works out for some people, but those are the people who truly love the law and believe in the system. If that's you, maybe you WOULD be happier in law school, but if you're smarting from MA or PhD rejections (I've been there! It freaking sucks!), give it another year or two before you sell your soul...

[johnnyleston]

i have heard that before. it is all true. i am a writer who happens to have a social conscience, and i would be very happy being a prosecuter or a public defender. or engaging in nuisance lawsuits against school districts in an attempt to destroy the failed experiment of mass public education.

i hear what you are saying, and it is good advice. i happen to have a wide variety of things i can do that will give me sustaining happiness.

[minnares]

After 15 years of working in both criminal and civil law firms, I'd not only like to echo what Paper Chaser brought up but point out that the process for making partner or gaining advancement in law is as bad if not worse than gaining tenure. In many firms, it's also an "up or out" attitude. There are so many lawyers getting churned out of law schools that we have a revolving door of new associates who get hired, don't hack it (as far as the higher ups are concerned), and get let go. Nice people and hard workers all. That said, I lucked out and have worked for my current firm for almost a decade. Working for the DA's office was brutal. The office was highly dysfunctional and everyone was low paid since it's technically government work ($13/hour for support staff when civil pays in the $25-$35/hr range). So, it's wonderful that you'd like to investigate this as an option. Just a word to the wise from many years spent watching it all from my tiny Cubicle World .

~ m

[herself the elf]

Re: everything Paperchaser said-- I could not agree more.

If you are a smart person who generally likes to think within the box, and a person who wants a profession to make your parents proud, go to law school. It is a lot of hard work for not a lot of payoff, and right now the profession is suffering from an excess of attorneys, including from abroad (!). If you want to make money, go into finance.

If you are the type who dreams of being in academia, researching interesting topics and being around creative thinkers, being a lawyer will feel like your intellectual soul is rotting.

That being said, I think being a lawyer made my PhD application a lot stronger and will bring something else to my research. But unless you get tons of scholarships it is too expensive to do it for that reason.

I'm sorry if I come off as cynical, I just wish someone had said these things to me 10 years ago.

**edit, post-script** when I say "from abroad," I literally mean outsourced legal jobs at small fractions of what lawyers in the US are paid for the same work. I welcome people who want to come from abroad to be US attorneys in the US

Edited March 5, 2010 by herself the elf

[outlawesq]

Agree with everything stated here! I'm also a recovering lawyer who saw the light. Yes, I admit getting accepted into law school was much easier than this grad process has been. And yes you can go to a mediocre school and do very well academically and still end up at a top firm with a 6-figure salary. BUT they will own you. They give you blackberrys so they can email you work at 3am they expect to be done when you get to the office at 8!

And forget about being a law professor! Even if you go to Yale it may never happen without real research and publications. Check out the CVs of some new law faculty. A lot of them have JDs & PHDs.

With all that said, go to law school if you have a real interest in the law and it will add to your current research. I never would have gotten into a phd program without my accomplishments in law school. I graduated with honors, was a research and teaching assistant , worked for a federal judge, and have 5 publications. My research is rooted in legal history so the JD enhances my application. Good luck whatever you choose!

[outlawesq]

wow....we should start a "former lawyers getting phds " forum!

[amormundi]

After 15 years of working in both criminal and civil law firms, I'd not only like to echo what Paper Chaser brought up but point out that the process for making partner or gaining advancement in law is as bad if not worse than gaining tenure.

Is this true? Do you mean the process is more demoralizing or that the odds of it working out are worse? The former I could buy, but the latter, with the academic job market (especially for the humanities) being what it is, seems incredible to me. Of course, I have neither a JD nor a PhD, but everybody I know who's just graduated from law school seems to have been able to find a job. I definitely can't say the same for everybody I know who's just gotten a PhD in literature.

[PaperChaser]

Is this true? Do you mean the process is more demoralizing or that the odds of it working out are worse? The former I could buy, but the latter, with the academic job market (especially for the humanities) being what it is, seems incredible to me. Of course, I have neither a JD nor a PhD, but everybody I know who's just graduated from law school seems to have been able to find a job. I definitely can't say the same for everybody I know who's just gotten a PhD in literature.

Currently (check US News or other "reliable source") the job market for lawyers is at a 20-year low. Out of my class of 100 people, EIGHT (including me) got job OFFERS. Three were for Legal Aid, which pays LESS than an assistant professorship. How does one pay back $150k+ in student loans on $35k a year? Oh wait....you don't. Maybe Lit PhDs have the same stats in terms of the difficulty in GETTING a job, but unless they paid for all of undergrad and grad school on student loans, there's no way that they'd have that kind of debt. I know the job market is better in Rhet/Comp, which is what I'm going to do. I agree with the posters who say that a JD DOES make you stand out (all of the program directors I've talked to mentioned that), but it was absolutely NOT worth 3 years of hell, summers (and for me, year-round) working my ass off at a good old boys firm, and going from being a relatively optimistic person to a total pessimist. Not that every person who goes to law school comes out broke, miserable, and jobless, but...right now, like 85% go that route.

A friend of mine who went to a top PhD program in English (Michigan) and published significantly bounced around several medium-sized schools for about ten years before realizing that he was never getting tenure. He took out $100k in loans and went to a state law school (not Michigan!). He was at the top of his class, clerked for a federal judge, and....can't find a job. He's been out two years and is still doing $20/hour contract work. [Aside: $20/hr is decent money, but not when the "associates" in the next cube over bill $200/hr!] His age (pushing 40) may have been a little bit of an issue, but the bottom line is that the law currently offers no more opportunities than PhDs in the humanities.

One exception: if you have graduate work in the sciences, Intellectual Property lawyers make really good money (starting at $150k). The job market is less glutted because so few people qualify to be IP lawyers, but I wouldn't discourage someone with MS or PhD in biology, chemistry, etc from pursuing that path. A number of people from my school took that route, and they are among the few who got offers.

In the end, do what makes you happy. I just wouldn't want to give the impression that the legal job market is any less cut-throat than the academic one. If anything, it's MORE so for women and minorities....