11 Jul, 2007
More on Graduating Law Students' Employment Prospects
I've often brought up the large gap in biglaw starting salaries compared to non-biglaw starting salaries as it equates to the difference in law students in top percentile/law students at elite schools compared to law students not in that group. Like in the Elite vs. Non-Elite Schools post/reader comment reply.
This is now a major topic of discussion at two of the most popular legal blogs out there...
See More Below
Wall Street Journal Law Blog and Above the Law are currently having indepth discussions about this article. My thoughts follow...
I don't think anyone has a problem with the fact that a pay gap exists between students in the top of the class/students at elite schools and students who are not. That's the way it is. And there are certainly in-between salary opportunities out there for new graduates. It's not like it's $160k for 10% of graduates and the rest make $35k.
The problem lies in that law students are shocked to find out this pay gap exists after completion of a year or two of law school. So who do we blame for law students not knowing, or just ignoring the way things are in the legal world for graduating law students?
BLAME THOSE WHINY LAW STUDENTS!
It's easy to, and a lot of the commenters to those posts do, throw blame at the law students for having unrealistic expectations and/or a sense of entitlement.
But is it possible for future law students, many of whom have no real world experience at all (let alone legal experience or connections in the legal world, to comprehend the unusually polar salary structure that exists for law school grads?
I don't think this is a phenomenon students generally experience in undergrad. It's not like the top ten percent of economics majors in the class at State University make double, sometimes triple of what the rest of their graduating classmates make. There is usually a pretty standard range for starting salaries out of undergrad for like graduates of a school in my experience.
And potential law students see constant media coverage about associate salary raises. Unsurprisingly, there are no sexy press releases about what the public defenders in their area make.
Future law students see employment numbers on potential law schools' websites that look amazing on paper. But those numbers are usually a bunch of averages or medians and are broken down into public or private sector so that the big numbers from the large salaries of those who land at big law firms stick out the most. No raw data available, of course.
Seriously, what would you make of this chart taken from an unnamed top-tier law school's website. Note that other than percentage of students going into each of these fields (which happened to be on another page) there was no other information posted:
Wouldn't most reasonable undergraduates with no clue about the legal world believe that if they went to this school and chose private practice, they would make around $90,000?
But those of us who have been around know better. Not all students can just choose to go into private practice at that salary. We also know that the deviation in those salaries might be quite large.
Additionally, the ABA only publishes each school's group of graduates' 9 month out employment numbers. They look a little like this:
These are sure to always paint a rosy picture, aren't too specific about what type of employment a graduate has, and there are numerous rumors about law schools playing with these numbers through sketchy practices...some even discussed in that article above.
So somehow in spite of this lack of meaningful and reliable information from credible sources; it's these spoiled, whiny, self-entitled law students' faults that they have unrealistic expectations.
I guess the onus is on the student to read internet diatribes about starting legal salaries, not unlike this one, and believe that over what they see on official law school websites or on press releases from a big firm.
Sure these false hopes of law students only happen because students really want those really big salaries.
But I ask you this. Even when a scam artist runs a scam that plays on the mark's greed, when the mark comes forward do we laugh and condescend to the mark that he should have known better? Or do we try to hold the scam artist accountable for taking advantage of another's weakness?
SO WHO'S FAULT IS IT?
Now, I'm not saying law schools are bunch of scam artists. They're not. But they are businesses. Cash cows for most universities.
And the problem here lies with the way law schools, and the ABA that allows law schools to, advertise and play with their employement statistics so that the numbers can be used 1) to pander the rankings and 2) as a marketing tool.
This is not naivete on on the part of the students. Look at the information, especially that which is passed off as official information, law students have to work with prior to law school.
I do believe a certain number of law students are tricked, maybe not overtly, each year into believing that they have a good shot at high salary upon graduation. ("Even if I'm average, I'll still make 90k. Can't be much worse than that if I'm not average.")
So they naturally take out an inordinant amount of loans to pay for an inordinant amount of tuition because they believe that they won't have any trouble paying the loans back. And law schools are for the most part complicit in this.
WHAT I'D LIKE TO SEE
I just wish there was more disclosure about the hierarchy that exists among new lawyers. Real, meaningful, and realistic employment statistics from schools (or at least from official party) at a given school.
More checks to make sure advertised employment information coming from schools is accurate and meaningful.
Warnings from financial aid offices (or some party in an official capacity) about the dangers of paying for school completely on loans, especially at schools with tuition equal to that of first tier schools that traditionally cannot place many graduates at high paying jobs.
More disclosure about the potential of losing scholarships (IE, when 75% of students are being offered a scholarship that only renews upon finishing first year in the top 25%...see this post for more on this).
More information about how many, which, and what type of employers conduct interviews at a given school and what those employers' GPA and class rank standards are to even sit down with a student from a given school in OCI.
AN ASIDE
I hate to dwell on this topic and I sometimes worry if mentioning it so much sets too negative of a tone for this blog.
But part of why I do this blog is to attempt to paint a realistic picture of law school and to help people avoid pitfalls and mistakes that I know are obviously being made.
I don't hate my law school, or the fact that I went to law school. I have very much enjoyed law school and am happy with where I am and what doors may open because of it.
But I do think something needs to be fixed regarding the mixture of high tuition cost at almost every school, overuse of loans, and the unrealistic expectations that many students are somehow starting out with.
I personally never expected to make $160,000 out of law school. But I was completely shocked at the difference in opportunities of the top 10% at my school and the rest.
This problem isn't just a product of a student's arrogance, naivete about real life, or self-entitlement. Not enough is being done by the parties that matter to get meaningful information into student's hands before they decide on where to go to, or whether even to attend, law school.
Wow! That was much longer than I expected. If you actually read this whole thing, feel free to email me your thoughts.