Law Students Who Do Not Become Lawyers--Legal Educators in Denial

Michael Olivas, the President of AALS, responded to my post showing how law schools benefit from the federal loan program by reiterating a claim often made by legal educators: You can do great things with a legal education even if you don't become a lawyer. 

Legal educators who make this claim never back it up with any concrete support.  It's an article of faith that getting a law degree must be good--no matter what it costs or how much debt a student takes on to get it. 

Olivas fails to mention that what my post showed (based upon data provided by Thomas Jefferson) is that graduates who got jobs as lawyers earned the highest pay of graduates of the class of 2010 at Thomas Jefferson, and even the graduates who landed lawyer jobs did not earn enough to pay off the average debt of the class.  The graduates who did not land jobs as lawyers--two thirds of the class--were undoubtedly worse off.

Consequently, while the many graduates who did not land jobs as lawyers may have benefitted in some way from their law degree (as Olivas claims), most did not benefit financially.  More to the point, almost all of the graduates with the average debt who did not land jobs as lawyers are in dire economic straits.  What good are all these abstract benefits of a law degree to graduates if they have graduated to decades of financial hardship?

What basis does President Olivas have to sanguinely assert that a law degree is still worth it for all those graduates--two thirds of the class-!-who did not get jobs as lawyers?  A good number of them don't have any job at all.  

It is truly unfortunate that legal educators with leading positions (President of AALS, the Chair of ABA Section on Legal Education O'Brien) continue to deny the severity of the situation by invoking old platitudes while making assertions without providing any factual support.

Brian Z. Tamanaha

Comments

[BL1Y]

Often overlooked by schools are outcomes for students 5-10 years out. The person who gets washed out after 1-3 years of Big Law isn't that much better off than someone who never got a high paying job to begin with.

Why don't schools have employment surveys past the 9 month mark? Maybe my thinking is a bit too simplistic, but if schools cared about where their grads were 5 years out, they'd ask. The fact that they don' ask seems to indicate that they don't care.

[LSTB]

"As in the past, some graduates may have to accept positions outside of their field of interest or for which they feel overqualified." --"Lawyers," Occupational Outlook Handbook, Bureau of Labor Statistics

The BLS doesn't buy the "versatile Juris Doctor" myth, so why should we?

[BL1Y]

LSTB: The ABA Jobs Board (http://www.americanbar.org/resources_for_lawyers/careercenter/search_for_jobs.html) likewise does not believe in the versatility of a law degree.

Based on current entry level postings, the things you can do with a law degree are be a lawyer (1 opening, litigation in Arizona), be a paralegal (2 openings, business immigration in New Jersey), or do doc review (30 openings in Pennsylvania).

[Barbara Seville]

From Professor Merritt's comment yesterday -- "Won't an applicant who wants to lobby, work in a public policy position, or become an entrepreneur after law school be pleased to see that some of the schools' grads go into non-law positions?"

Are the likes of Professors Merritt and Olivas really under the impression that lobbying firms, think tanks, political consultants, start-up companies, venture capital companies etc. are falling over themselves to hire new graduates from their law schools? If so, they're delusional.

[Deborah J Merritt]

Barbara: I certainly don't think that, as I think the rest of my comment (and other comments I've made on this site) indicate. My comment pretty clearly criticized the positions that other academics have taken. I also offered specific suggestions for change.

I'm pretty thick-skinned after more than 30 years as a lawyer and law professor, but there is a risk in responses like yours and others I've received here. If commenters attack even professors who offer ideas for change, then it's pretty hard to get other professors to support our positions--or to start any constructive change. I'm surprised at how few of the comments on this blog engage with any of the positive suggestions for change. One value of a forum like this is to refine suggestions, come up with better ideas, and create momentum for change. But that doesn't seem to be happening. Maybe the internet just isn't the place for that--I'm finding much more receptivity to change in face-to-face discussions.

[BH]

Prof. Merritt,

I tried to make that point in another thread
on this site. These are very serious issues, and dealing with them on blogs may not be the best policy. For highlighting the problem, yes, but for coming up with solutions, no. At least the evidence so far indicates not. The problem has been put out there in national newspapers and magazines and is the subject of attention all over. So, highlighting the issue is not the point anymore.
The level of personal nastiness is an obstacle to problem solving on the Internet. Again, I mentioned that on another blog and was roundly criticized as "pearl clutching", even by the host who offered that the site was a place to vent, no matter how virulent and, in some cases, defamatory the comments were. I've seen your posts on other venues, and you are clearly concerned about these issues and have offered constructive suggestions only to be slammed and insulted by some of the people making comments. Some people commenting have noted that few professors who come on to these sites and comment, and take their absence as evidence of not caring. For folks who don't typically read blogs or comment on them, why come on and set yourself up for that, particularly when there are other ways to do make a difference?

This way of communicating is not peculiar to blogs about law schools, although there is some anecdotal evidence that law blogs are particularly virulent. One professor who has dealings with law and philosophy blogs noted that there is much less overt racism, sexism and all out hostility on philosophy blogs as compared to law blogs.Lawyers are an aggressive sort, and the people on these sites, who tend to move from one to another, seem to know but one command: attack. I said earlier that face-to-face interactions with people are likely to produce more change. I can see people eschewing these fora and working on their own on these matters without the headache of dealing with uncalled for crudity and meanness. None of these people, unless they are crazy, would ever say some of the things that have been said if they were actually talking to the person face-to-face.

[BL1Y]

Deborah: I think much of the reason why you see backlash against professors offering ideas for change is that many of the changes are minor and don't really do much for students (and nothing for recent graduates), and as for bigger changes, there's no real sign that professors are doing any more than just batting ideas around.

The idea that this forum might "create momentum for change" is a symptom the larger problem. Why wasn't the momentum for change there as soon as fresh graduates started getting Lathamed or having their offers revoked? Apparently watching thousands of lawyers have the rug yanked out from under them and their careers irreparably derailed isn't enough to kick the academic machine into gear.

What has legal academia done in the last 3-4 years to give anyone reason to have faith in it's ability to fix anything?

[Deborah J Merritt]

BH: Thanks, I remember your other post and I think you're right.

BL1Y: I agree that legal academia has done many things wrong--I've said that in several posts here and elsewhere. Practitioners have also done many wrongheaded things, particularly with respect to you and your classmates. But institutions and people do change, even with respect to deeply held biases like racism and sexism. On the issues we're discussing here, I personally have lots of reasons to think that law schools will change, and I hope those changes will occur in connection with practice changes. But these comments seem like an unproductive forum to explore those reasons.

[BL1Y]

The legal academy's response is a bit like saying they're looking at health care reform (and have been interested in the idea for decades), while the problem is that young lawyers are bleeding, and the academy keeps stabbing new people.

Stop stabbing people! Go find some bandages!

[Steve]

They should sue.

[Yup, calling you out, former radical]

"If commenters attack even professors who offer ideas for change, then it's pretty hard to get other professors to support our positions--or to start any constructive change."

You reference yourself here, obviously.

But you offer your proposals from inside the student-funded, tenured sinecures that are part of the system impoverishing school-misled students. Accordingly, I am hard pressed to see why commenters should not attack you. YOU, and those like you Prof. Merritt, are the problem, after all. The problem is not "institutions", which have no ability to act at all. The problem is the people in those institutions. You are that person, Prof. Merritt. You are the power structure.

The fact that you talk about change does not alter that fact. Not. One. Bit.

As a genders studies sort, surely you would not give a pass to some oppressive sort inside an "institution" who nodded sympathetically in support of the oppressed, while that same person continued cashing the checks and enjoying the prestige institutional oppression granted them.

You, Prof. Merritt, are that person, I believe, just writ small in the world of graduate school.

Funny how when people get older, and they get *their* iron rice bowl filled by unfair methods, suddenly, they become the conservative, defending the unfair status quo. Or at least asking people to be less aggressive in attacking the unfair status quo.

[Stu Young]

The real problem be it law school or college is that probably around 50% of the "students" do not belong there. The schools are set up to perpetuate the careers of the professors and that requires perpetual tuition payments. This crisis has been building for a long time and soon the bubble will burst. There is only so much money in America and it it goes towards massively inflated tuition costs it can't be used to fund 401K's for the parents, or buy houses for the new graduates etc. etc. Higher education is a sort of scam for many students that will never pay off financially and will leave them/their parents with crushing debt.

[Kendall Isaac]

I used my law degree while working in human resources before I got a law firm job (and I actually took a pay cut leaving Corporate America for the big firm job) and later used it to run my own practice and finally used it to get into academia. And I have done all of this since 2005. While in HR, I had the benefit of observing people use their law degree to obtain well-paying jobs in the ethics department, and in contract marketing amongst other fields. Additionally, there are not many degrees that affords people the opportunity to become an entrepreneur and have clients readily available for their services. So it bothers me when people simply take the notion that a law degree is worthless without becoming a lawyer in someone's law firm. Just like anything else in life, the degree is what you make of it. What people need to decide is whether they will get out there and hustle and make the degree pay for itself in a multitude of career paths or whether they will just complain about the legal marketplace and the cost of a legal education. I, for one, have always chosen the path of greater gain and greater good as opposed to the complaining road to nowhere.

[Kendall Isaac]

I used my law degree while working in human resources before I got a law firm job (and I actually took a pay cut leaving Corporate America for the big firm job) and later used it to run my own practice and finally used it to get into academia. And I have done all of this since 2005. While in HR, I had the benefit of observing people use their law degree to obtain well-paying jobs in the ethics department, and in contract marketing amongst other fields. Additionally, there are not many degrees that affords people the opportunity to become an entrepreneur and have clients readily available for their services. So it bothers me when people simply take the notion that a law degree is worthless without becoming a lawyer in someone's law firm. Just like anything else in life, the degree is what you make of it. What people need to decide is whether they will get out there and hustle and make the degree pay for itself in a multitude of career paths or whether they will just complain about the legal marketplace and the cost of a legal education. I, for one, have always chosen the path of greater gain and greater good as opposed to the complaining road to nowhere.

[BL1Y]

Kendall: Do you have a link to an entry-level HR position that would hire a fresh-out law grad with no other work experience?

[Kendall Isaac]

I do not have a link but I would encourage someone to go to www.shrm.org to find positions and also to contact local headhunters/recruiters. I had no HR experience when I broke into the industry and a headhunter was instrumental in lining me up with interviews.

[excel training]

In the US, there are no undergraduate law students. All US law schools are grad schools. Tuition+fees+room & board usually adds up to a total of $50,000-$60,000 per year. But there are some scholarships and financial aid grants available if you have good grades/test scores, and/or you have low income.