| Topic Name: |
SAD but TRUE facts about the legal profession |
| Message Name: |
Are you me? |
| Date Posted: |
04/27/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
I wish I had had a dose of some of the reality dished out in these threads prior to going to law school eight years ago.
For instance, I wish I had known that the law school's name is everything. Go to Harvard or Yale and graduate bottom of your class? Still got the right school on your diploma, though. You're not going to get in with a top firm but someone will be impressed enough with the school's name to hire you. Go to Podunk School of Law and graduated top of your class. Where? Best to be prepared to practice in the area where the school is located so employers will at least recognize the name.
And by the way, no matter where you graduate in your class, the price is the same. Unless your parents are paying for it all, post-JD you can only afford to take jobs that will allow you to pay back your student loans and make your rent. Otherwise, thank god for forbearances and deferments. I was doing better financially before I got my JD. I didn't like the field I was in (insurance) but at least I didn't have a literally mortgage-sized (with no house to show for it) student loan hanging over my head.
My advice to potential law students, for what it??s worth: Unless you have an absolutely visceral desire to either (a) fight for justice at any cost (and your first disillusionment in law school will be that the practice of law only rarely has anything to do with justice), or (b) make money (and ?? this is important! ?? you are smart enough and tenacious enough to realize that goal), don??t do law school. There are better ways to spend your money.
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| Message: |
Great post--my situation is almost identical--no research into what "law" really is, took advice of all and sundry to get the JD. Didn't pay much attention, either, to the importance of school pedigree-BIG MISTAKE! I've found, as have many others apparently, that pedigree is (almost) everything! I was fortunate enough to graduate top 10%, but from a lower-tier school. Now in Big 5 consulting, and like what I'm doing, but that 80K in debt I incurred isn't gettin' much smaller, and my salary (4 yrs out) is about 1/2 of what the more "skilled" (HA!) graduates of the top 10 schools earn. I wish I knew then what I know now..........
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