| Topic Name: |
SAD but TRUE facts about the legal profession |
| Message Name: |
Asinine? |
| Date Posted: |
04/30/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
assine. I'm sorry - but it is.
It's never about working hard. It's politics and how the firm can use you.
They hire grads from the top 10% at the top 20 schools because it looks good for them - the firm - and because they can bill out the associates at obscene amounts per hour.
Pedigree is everything.
Is it fair that the 90% of lawyers who graduate can't get a job at a reasonable salary to pay down their 60-80-100K debt?
Is it fair that they won't even get the opportunity to go BIGLAW?
They can work hard all they want, but ranking and prestige for one year in law school has determined their career.
Who benefited? The school they went to. The school has the money. The graduate has a non-dischargable debt.
The 90% made it possible for the 10% to get the BIGLAW job.
Even then, it's contacts and whether you have 'the look' sometimes. Sometimes that will make up for grades and/or pedigree.
Before you go around calling other people losers, get your facts straight. And as you haven't said you have an MBA or PhD and that you were "headed for law school" i.e. not yet a graduate facing these potential issues, it seems to me you don't have much standing to say what you have said.
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| Message: |
You might be right.(It was late when I wrote it.)
But my point is this, no matter your profession it is a dog eat dog world. It's a race to the top of the food chain. The law is the worst about this when it comes to what school you went to, but once your in BIGLAW or even MIDLAW your in. The foodchain becomes mgn partner, partners, and associates.(This is the best part of being in a firm.) The so-called career ladder is short and realistic --unlike the business world with jr execs, regional managers, ceo's, VPs, etc.. Law firms don't have the endless ocean of middle mananger despots. I know a hundred partners of great law firms and only a handful of CEO's of a couple little ass company's.
Your right about this, law schools rip-off and misrepresent their schools and how the profession works. It's wrong, but it's no more wrong than my undergrad profs telling me that I can find plenty of jobs with a BA in English literature or any teacher or parent who tells you that a good education can take you anywhere. Law schools are just participants in the education myth. Despite what we've been told, diplomas are not priceless.
Everyone should ask him or herself how much it's worth.
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