And the money keeps rolling in...

I'm glad to see that the New York Times has published another article critical of the law school scam.

“'I once joked with my dean that there is a certain amount of money that we could drag into the middle of the school’s quadrangle and burn,' said John F. Duffy, a George Washington School of Law professor, 'and when the flames died down, we’d be a Top 10 school. As long as the point of the bonfire was to teach our students. Perhaps what we could teach them is the idiocy in the US News rankings.'”

Funny he should say that, because that is essentially what students will be doing with their money if they decide to enroll in law school next month.

But George Washington University is not at the center of David Segal's article.  That would be New York Law School.  Check out this charming excerpt, courtesy of the Dean of NYLS:

“'What I’ve said to people in giving talks like this in the past is, we should be ashamed of ourselves,” Mr. Matasar said at a 2009 meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. He ended with a challenge: If a law school can’t help its students achieve their goals, 'we should shut the damn place down.'

Given his scathing critiques, you might expect that during Mr. Matasar’s 11 years as dean, he has reshaped New York Law School to conform with his reformist agenda. But he hasn’t. Instead, the school seems to be benefitting from many of legal education’s assorted perversities. 

N.Y.L.S. is ranked in the bottom third of all law schools in the country, but with tuition and fees now set at $47,800 a year, it charges more than Harvard. It increased the size of the class that arrived in the fall of 2009 by an astounding 30 percent, even as hiring in the legal profession imploded. It reported in the most recent US News & World Report rankings that the median starting salary of its graduates was the same as for those of the best schools in the nation — even though most of its graduates, in fact, find work at less than half that amount."

How does he justify this disconnect between his actions and his words?  Here's the moral of the story:

"Asked if there was a contradiction between his stand against expanding class sizes and the growth of the student population at N.Y.L.S., Mr. Matasar wrote: 'The answer is that we exist in a market. When there is demand for education, we, like other law schools, respond.'"

The whole article is well worth a read if you want to see some shocking figures about the economics of law school.  I only wish that these articles would focus on the travesty that is the second tier.  By focusing on the lowest ranked schools, the media implies that the way the second tier schools operate is acceptable.  (Although, thankfully, Mr. Segal does admit in his article that there is no drastic difference between the way NYLS runs and the way other law schools run.)  That said, Mr. Segal has done a great job in making his ultimate point, which is that there is no way change is going to come from within the schools themselves.   If someone like Mr. Matasar, whose earlier words and philosophy showed so much promise, cannot be relied upon to at least attempt to instigate change from within, there is little chance of it happening.

Another day, another misleading study from industry apologists

With everything that has been going on in my life over the past few weeks, I missed this trash when it came out a couple of weeks ago.

If you have been keeping up with the blogs recently, you have seen that we have been inundated with articles and studies pointing out that salaries are falling for new attorneys, and that the legal industry is losing jobs.  You might be surprised to find anyone ballsy enough to pretend that there is good news for recent law graduates.

Enter NaTTTional Juri$t.  This sickening publication should be familiar to all current law students or recent grads.  At my school, there were bins of it all over the place for people to read between classes.  Sandwiched between advertisements for foreign study programs and LLM programs ($$$) you will find the occasional article.  Since I graduated I have not had the misfortune of encountering one of these, but someone passed along this article from the website.  Here's the intro, and it is quite a hook:

"Recent law school graduates on average have more disposable income than they did ten years ago, this despite higher student loan debt and a worsened job market, according to an exclusive study by National Jurist magazine."

Really??  Despite higher student loan debt and a worsened job market, I should have more disposable income than law grads ten years ago???  THERE  IS HOPE!  Tell me more, tell me more... like, can I buy a car?

Not so fast:

"But that is not true for graduates who get jobs at the smallest law firms, or for those underemployed or unemployed. Students entering private practice with a law firm between two and ten attorneys saw an 8 percent decline in standard of living from 1998 — largely because salaries dropped from the Class of 2008 to 2009. But, if the students take advantage of the income-based loan repayment plan that took effect in 2009, their standard of living actually increases by 26 percent." 

So basically their point is this:  if you land a job at a big firm, your standard of living will be significantly higher than similarly placed law graduates ten years ago.  True or not, this issue is moot for the vast majority of recent graduates.  Their second point is that if you work in public interest or government, your standard of living will be a modest 6% better than similarly situated graduates a decade ago.  I am almost willing to believe that. Many schools now have loan repayment options for recent graduates in public service (if you can qualify for them), so it is a possibility.

But the misleading conclusion that the study draws is that recent law graduates in general have more disposable income.  When so many recent law graduates are either unemployed or flipping burgers, how can that possibly be the case?

I do not doubt that the new loan repayment options have helped some people.  But what about the unemployed?  Don't they count?  You can't publish a study that almost completely ignores an entire, substantial demographic and expect to draw anything meaningful from it.  As the NY Times pointed out, the unemployed have become invisible.

Can't make this stuff up...

This woman, a Wellesley graduate with an M.A. from George Washington University, is so overqualified for the positions that interest her that she has taken a job as a nanny in the Washington, D.C. area because she cannot even get interviews anywhere else.  In fact, the title of the article profiling her is "In a Down Economy, Overqualification is a Killer."

Her solution?  Law school.

I'm not trying to mock this young woman, or belittle her.  She has an impressive background and I am sure she is intelligent.  But is the solution for being overqualified for positions that interest you to get another degree?

Luckily there is still time for her to change her mind.  I sincerely hope that she either a) gets into Yale or b) realizes that more school is not always the answer, no matter how much she likes being a student.

Lookout For Falling Salaries

The Wall Street Journal has a short piece today on attorney salaries and the NALP Employment Report and Salary Survey on the Class of 2010.  This is the key part:

"Even so, the national median salary for newbie lawyers – at least for those with full-time work – still stands at $63,000, according to the report. That doesn’t sound so bad, except for the fact that only about 64% of law school graduates found full-time employment in a job requiring bar passage. The rest found non-legal or part-time work, and more than a quarter reported biding their time in temporary jobs."

Let that sink in:  according to NALP, only 64% of law school graduates whose employment status is known are working in a full-time job requiring bar passage.  For what it's worth, NALP says that in the graduating class of 2010, they know the employment status of 87.6% of graduates.

From the NALP press release itself:

"We have been watching this market deteriorate for several years now," Leipold offered when asked about the significance of some of these changes, "but even I was surprised to see that the percentage of graduates employed in a full-time job requiring bar passage had dropped to 64%. In this market far more graduates are stringing together several part-time or temporary jobs to approximate a full-time equivalency for themselves. Leaving clerkships aside, one in five jobs obtained were temporary. That represents a dramatic change in the entry-level market."

Run, don't walk, from law school.  It is just not worth it.

Some sound advice

Here is some sound advice from TIME Moneyland.  There is really only one thing I would add.  At the end, Mr. Bissonnette suggests that people only pursue law school "if the career you are passionate about involves being a lawyer."  It's not that this is incorrect per se, but I would add that prospective students should also educate themselves about what being a lawyer actually entails before deciding law is their passion.  Most people have little or no idea going into the law school application process what their career will actually look like if they are fortunate enough to actually get a legal position upon graduation.


But that minor point aside, it is always nice to see mainstream publications picking up on and spreading this message to their readers.

Employment Update

When I resurrected this blog, I promised I would keep readers updated about my search for non-legal employment.  Since graduation, I would estimate that I have sent out approximately 50 resumes, possibly more.

My first lead was for a position that seemed like a perfect match on paper.  A non-legal position, in one of my areas of interest.  I'm not going to lie and say that I was extraordinarily enthusiastic about the organization itself, but a paycheck is a paycheck.  Alas, despite a great conversation with the employer, and being told by him that I am "perfect for the job" (a direct quote from both the agency and the employer) they were not interested.  Believe it or not, I was not too surprised.  I am somewhat familiar with this organization and I have an idea of the type of person they would like to hire for that kind of position.  (For starters, not a woman.)  Don't get me wrong: this is not a card I like to play.  I know the reality of the job market right now, but I have always had a suspicion about some of the higher-ups here.

My second lead:  Another employer received a resume I sent out, asked to schedule a phone interview, and then called for what seemed like the sole purpose of telling me that they really were looking for someone with a skill set I do not have.  Um, thanks?  Must have been some kind of quota they were looking to fill, for interview calls.  At least I appreciate that the conversation was short.  About two minutes, start to finish.  Might as well cut to the case and not go through a whole interview charade if it is hopeless.

My third lead:  A phone interview for a position with an organization that seemed cool.  The person I spoke to on the phone was nice and friendly, told me my qualifications were excellent, and spoke to me for about half an hour.  I hung up with a pretty good feeling.  Then, radio silence for two weeks.  I saw the writing on the wall, but figured I would follow up with a quick and professional email.  His response was basically, "Your editorial work is great, but we are looking for someone with specific experience in a certain area."  It was frustrating to hear that, but so it goes.

I know I'm not alone here.  It can be really disheartening to have what you feel are good interviews, and have them go nowhere.  It is also frustrating when people call to ask you to interview and then point out that you do not have the experience they are looking for when your resume and cover letter could not make that any plainer.  I guess I don't blame the employers per se; they have a position to fill, and right now they basically have their pick with the job market the way it is.  If anything, I blame myself for being in this position when I had a perfectly good job before starting law school.  Now I have to explain away that time, and explain away the poor judgment that led me here.

I have two interviews lined up for next week - real life, in-person interviews.  Both of them are on Wednesday.  I am keeping my fingers crossed, as both positions seem good.  I have read both listings at least four times since scheduling the interviews and there are no qualifications listed that I clearly do not meet.  Let's hope that, based on the calls, the toxic J.D. on my resume has not completely scared them off.

Loan Deferral Drama

While I try to keep this blog law school focused, or at least legal-field focused, I have been experiencing such a headache with my undergraduate student loans for the past few weeks that I could not resist writing about it here.

Because I graduated in May and do not have a job yet, I called the company that handles my undergraduate student loans and requested an unemployment deferral.  Charmingly, the loans go into repayment on your last day of classes, as if that's the day that you will magically have the money to start making payments again.  They sent me some forms to fill out, which were simple enough.  I faxed them back and it all seemed painless as one could expect.

A few days later, the phone calls began.  First, they claimed not to receive my fax.  Then, they claimed they only got the cover sheet.  Then magically, another page appeared.  But still, more than half of my loans were not in deferral-mode.  Calmly, I went back to the UPS store and had them faxed again.  These are people who essentially send faxes all day, for a living.  I think they know how to do it.  I informed the company that I faxed the sheets once again, and that should have been that.

And a few days later, the phone calls began again.  Apparently no fax was received.  This is not rocket science; I used the number on the site, which was the same as the number the service rep gave me.  I calmly explained that I have no job, and every time I have to fax something to them it costs money.  But, I faxed it again.

Now, the harassing letters have started arriving, threatening to report me to collections for the half of my loans  for which the form was apparently faxed into the ether.  Collections, after how many days?  Really?  Just for the cherry on top of the whole situation, I received an email telling me that they received mail back from my address marked as undeliverable.  Which is pretty astonishing as I have received mail from them before, at this address.  Beautiful.

I'm sending it again today with a tracking number, snail mail.  I know that there is nothing remarkable about this story, but here's the thing:  My student loans and the knowledge that they are looming over my head is a constant source of anxiety and stress for me.  To be bombarded with calls, letters and emails as if I am some sort of criminal deadbeat is very upsetting, especially when I tried to do everything right from the outset and get the loans deferred.  It is also a painful, constant reminder that I cannot put this stuff off forever.  (A reminder which, believe me, I don't need.)  I find it hard to believe that the company has the documents and is lying about it - if I had to guess someone profoundly inept has been receiving them and misplacing them.  But these are people who have been hired to handle things that are absolutely critical to people's lives.  A little organization is not too much to ask for.  But why should I be surprised?  This is all par for the course.  Prospective students, take note:  you could very well be in for this type of humiliation down the road.

The Single Life

When I discuss the state of the legal job market with people outside of the field, one of the most common reactions I get from the over-forty crowd is:  “Why don’t you just put out a shingle?  In my day you could just put up a shingle and make (fill in the blank) dollars a day/week/month, just by dealing with things like wills or real estate closings, or DUIs.”
 

Apparently, that mentality is making some inroads with the new generation of law grads. This article from MSNBC claims that 5.7 % of graduates of the class of 2010 who are employed in the private sector work in a solo practice.  That number does not seem especially high to me, but it is an increase.

Here are a few interesting parts of the article:

'Chetson doesn’t blame his school’s career services for focusing more on maintaining long-standing relationships with bigger, more established companies. But he does blame law schools for being as expensive as they are, causing students to rack up a large amount of debt only to be faced with meager job prospects.

“Law schools recognize that to get people to keep coming, you’re going to have to hold out the hope that you’ll be able to make $150,000 at the end of the year,” he said.'

Sounds mostly right, except for the part about not blaming career services for focusing more on maintaining relationship with big firms, when the reality is that the lion's share of law graduates stand little to no chance of ever getting a job at a big firm.  The fact that they do that is a large part of the second problem he mentions, which is that schools have to hold out hope that you will get a $150K job, knowing that it is nonsense.

'Aaron Street, co-founder and publisher of legal resource blog lawyerist.com, said a majority of law schools continue to focus on how to interview for jobs or submit resumes for job postings, rather than honing the skills needed to be a successful business person.

“Current or prospective law students need to understand that you can’t just sit back and have classes spoon fed to you and think it’s going to be done,” he said. “You’re going to have to figure out things on your own and if you’re not prepared for that don’t go to law school.”'

 Well, yes.  I agree that if you don't want to figure things out on your own (or if you don't want mountains of debt and poor job prospects), you should not go to law school.  But I still think that is a failing on the part of the schools.  I have said in numerous posts that no one deserves to get anything handed to them.  But we are not asking for things to be handed to us.  Rather, we are PAYING schools for a SERVICE.  That service is not just to hear some egotistical professor blather on about substantive due process.  The goal is to become employed, and it is the school's job to prepare you for that position through training and to assist in placement because that is what they advertise.  Mr. Street is correct that as a law student you will have to figure all of these things out on your own, but there is no reason that should be the case given the sticker price.  Which is the point Mr. Chetson makes earlier in the article.

Do any of my readers have experience with solo practice?  Is it really a viable alternative for people who are struggling to find a job?

It's life's illusions I recall...

I'm wondering if anyone else with crippling student loan debt and few or no job prospects finds themselves incredibly nostalgic for times in their life that were distinctly mediocre while they were happening.

For example, I hated high school while I was in it.  Not for any special reason, but for the reasons most people give for not liking high school.  I felt out of place, and I was more focused on getting into college than most of the other students which alienated me somewhat from the "cool" groups.  Between that and the fact that I had to spend almost all of my free time caring for my younger siblings, those did not feel like the best four years of my life.  Nothing unique to complain about, for sure, just the usual growing pains that many college-bound high school students feel.

Well, I remember my high school years as BEYOND PARADISE right now for two simple reasons:  I had a part time job working at the mall that paid almost $10/hour (which would be impossible to get right now), and I had NO DEBT.  Real happiness truly boils down to the divide in the eras in my life:  After debt, and before debt. (B.D.) I don't really count my undergraduate debt.  Although it is not exactly trivial, it was manageable even when I was working as a paralegal.  (God, why did I leave that job?)

I wish I could go back in time and tell my sixteen year old self to avoid graduate school at all costs, no matter what pressures come in the form of college career advisers or parents.  Failing that, I wish I could at least tell myself to lighten up and enjoy high school more, because it is the last time I would enjoy true freedom from the ball and chain of crippling, non-dischargeable debt.

This op-ed makes a lot of sense...

in opposite world.

I think this is my favorite part:

"We’ve learned that during prosperous economic periods the number of law positions increases substantially; the reverse is also true. Even so, the largest group of people ever to take the law school admissions test did so in 2009-10. More than 1,600 first-time test-takers who indicated Indiana as their permanent residence took the LSAT last year."

So, let me get this straight... we are not in a prosperous economic period, which means that the number of law positions has decreased substantially, according to his rationale.  The president of the university is admitting that there are fewer law jobs, but justifying opening up a new law school on the basis that more people are taking the law school admissions test.  Where does he expect these people to work?  Does he plan on hiring them?  I wonder if their "feasibility study" considered that question.

"We have four law schools in Indiana, and each serves law students quite well. Yet we know that many well-qualified prospective law students who apply to our law schools are not accepted."

And why exactly is this a problem?

You see, this doesn't surprise me anymore.  We know why universities do this - they want to cash in on naive applicants.  But it does not make it any less sickening.  I do not know much about Indiana.  But notice that while he talks about the fact that there are only four law schools in Indiana, and that law students are leaving the state to attend school and end up practicing in other states, he does not once imply that there is a need for lawyers in Indiana that is not being met by the current schools.  He only states that students are choosing to go elsewhere.

Hopefully prospective students will use their own critical-thinking skills, see the gaping hole in the logic here and avoid this trap.

The Sound of Silence

Here's an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer, commenting on Villanova's response in the face of the data inflation scandal that broke four months ago today. Or rather, their lack of a response. It seems that Villanova's strategy could be summed up as: "Least said, soonest mended."

Is that a smart move? I think it probably is. Unless they plan on taking extremely proactive, positive steps to deal with the larger problem, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose from the story getting any media attention at all.

I think the most interesting part of the article is buried at the bottom.

"Two American Bar Association committees are working on revamping the reporting requirements in an effort to better inform prospective students. One of the participants, David N. Yellen, dean of Loyola University School of Law in Chicago, says he doubts there's much that can be done to prevent the kind of out-and-out academic fraud that occurred with the Villanova numbers.

He says the upside is that it probably is very rare - there are only so many Bernie Madoffs in the world. The employment information is another matter. That is reported every year and used by U.S. News & World Report. Yellen says it is often misleading because it makes no distinction between full- and part-time employment. Moreover, salary data often are reported from a misleadingly small sample of graduates."

Is it really rare? Or is it just rare to get caught?

School's Out Forever

Hi everyone,

I know it has been a really, really, inexcusably long time since I have blogged. And I am sure that I have lost most of my links or readers. But I want to check in with a little update in case anyone still looks because the scam-busting movement is just as important to me as ever, if only from the sidelines.

Graduation came and went with little fanfare on my part. I told my family not to bother making the trek because I don't feel there is really anything to celebrate about graduating with a ton of debt, no job and a group of friends in the exact same situation. None of my close friends from law school have jobs yet, and only a few of my acquaintances do. I will say that if I feel good about anything, it's the fact that I will never be in a classroom again and no one will ever get another tuition dollar from me. That said, graduation also marked my official transition from depressed law student to completely unemployed law graduate. Yes, I am unemployed for the first time in my life since I was fourteen, which is pretty demoralizing even if it has only been a few weeks.

A few things going on in my personal life convinced me to put off taking the bar until February. I have been looking for non-legal jobs and if I find one I like I might not take the bar at all. Or even if I find one I don't like. Who knows? At this point what I really need is a paycheck; I don't want to mooch off of my fiance forever.

I literally have nothing but time right now, so maybe I will take this opportunity to post more often. So many of the really important scambloggers have done a great job advocating for various types of reform, and I think they will be better advocates for such things than I will. They are more eloquent and, frankly, more creative. But perhaps I can turn this into a job-search journal. I have been applying for non-legal jobs for three weeks now. In that time I have had two interviews. (Two and a half if you count a phone interview that lasted about a minute.) Perhaps I will post more about those later, but the real take-away from all three is what I (along with many others) have been saying all along. A law degree is NOT an asset in any field but law. The law degree scares people away. A position that you are fully qualified for and could perform well in will be out of reach because the employer will be scared that you will leave for a "$100,000 law job."

Plenty of people go to law school not knowing what the practice of law entails, and therefore not knowing that they might not like it. That is bad enough, but what really pains me is to hear about people who plan on getting a law degree *knowing* that they have no desire to practice, thinking that they can "do anything" with a law degree. The employers I spoke with beg to differ.

I will be checking in with some job market updates as I get them. Once again, I am sorry for the months with no updates, but I can tell from reading the scam blogs that the movement has not suffered! The truth has a way of getting out eventually, and it feels good to know that I have played even a tiny part.

Missing the big picture...

Like most current law students, I flip through “The National Jurist” when I'm bored It is usually right there between classes. One of their features is called “Good and Bad.” In this feature the editors name people or institutions who had either a good or bad month and why. Apparently, January was a good month for prospective law students. Before you get too excited, I checked and this does NOT mean that they are shutting down TTTs, lowering tuition, or providing more transparency in employment statistics.

According to the National Jurist, prospective law students had a good month for two reasons: the University of Delaware announced that it hopes to enroll students in a new law school by 2015, and Kaplan is going to open up a law school in Washington, D.C. Because when I think of American cities and metro areas that don't have enough law schools, D.C. is the first city to spring to my mind. And Delaware... while I'm not 100% familiar with the Delaware market, I know that in addition to Widener the Philadelphia area law schools send a fair number of their graduates to Wilmington. So I'm not sensing a huge unmet need for lawyers there.

Neither of these two stories are breaking news, but this is just an example of how out of touch people in the industry really are. Just because it will now be easier for prospective law students to get into law school does not mean that is a good thing for them. So I guess among other things it was a bad month for long term perspective.

In case anyone is curious, it was also a good month for “World Domination” due to the ABA considering accrediting foreign law schools. And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

NOTE: I could not find the “Good and Bad” feature online. It could be that it is only in the hard copy of the magazine.

Your Morning Outrage

Another warning to students contemplating taking on massive debt in this economy:

The ABA Journal recently reported on the plight of Hassan Johnathan Griffin, a recent graduate of Ohio State University Law School. He has $170,000 in law school debt, in addition to $16,500 in credit card debt. He is working part time at the public defender's office for $12/hour. As a result the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the Ohio Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness, finding that Griffin has "neglected his personal financial obligations" in that he has "chosen" to work part time for the PD rather than pursue full time employment. Thus, he failed the character and fitness portion of the bar.

Are you there Common Sense? It's me, Rose. This is wrong on so many levels.

First, and most obviously, why should anyone drop $170K on training to become a lawyer (ha!) when they are going to be punished for that debt by being refused admission to the bar?

Second, do we honestly think this guy would be working part time for $12 an hour in the hopes of being promoted to a full time PD if there were other options available to him? Seriously, who would do that? Why wouldn't you just take a high paying job until the PD's office starts hiring again if that is really your dream job?

Third, I would say the title is misleading. This law grad has a plan to pay back his debt, it just hasn't played out yet because of the miserable job market. Instead of refusing people admission to the bar on these grounds, why don't we deal with the excessive number of toilet law schools? If we take on the over-saturation of the legal market, attorneys would not have to work part time for $12/hour.

Further coverage:

Jobless Juris Doctor
Above the Law

Great Start to 2011!

I'm coming into this a bit late in the game, but I am overwhelmed by the response I have received to the recent NYT article which included a link to Rose Colored Glasses. I think the article explores many important points. If there is a weakness, it is that the author should have mentioned more of the scamblogs such as "But I Did Everything Right!", Jobless Juris Doctor, and numerous others that I link to in my blog roll.

The fact that this movement is finally getting real, mainstream publicity makes me very happy. I have been accused by some of whining and looking for pity, or feeling entitled, but the fact is that if all this blog is is a chance for me to rant about how miserable I am in law school and the legal field, and for like minded people to respond in kind, it hasn't done anyone much good. The real point is to reach people who are CONSIDERING applying to or enrolling in law school and make sure that they really know what they are getting in to. I honestly don't think it is my job to be “fair and balanced” because frankly, the 0Ls get enough law school cheerleading in the echo chambers that are admissions boards. It is my goal to make sure that the pitfalls get any attention at all. The other side is well-covered and well-funded. It wouldn't be productive for me to pay token lip service to a bunch of pro-law arguments that I do not espouse.

While no one is entitled to a job, no less a six figure job, one thing that we are ALL entitled to is transparency when we are making a huge financial investment, and I would hope that even the law school apologists could agree on that. The more transparency the better, and the fact that the NYT article was the most emailed article yesterday can only be a step in the right direction.

Every silver lining's got a touch of gray...

I don't know if I have ever had such conflicted feelings about the end of an era in my life as I do about the start of my last semester as a law student.

On the one hand, I'm glad school is coming to an end. Law school is a generally miserable experience. I have met people who enjoy it, or at least claim to enjoy it, but they are few and far between. I'm tired of the charade and have been going through the motions for at least the past year. I am particularly tired of the arrogance and uselessness of the Socratic method. Fear of what comes after is what prevents me from being totally elated about the end of the era. And of course bitterness that I wasted so much time. It sounds strange to say but I just feel like I was so much YOUNGER when I started law school. And of course, I was. But that was two and a half years ago and I feel like I have aged at least a decade during that time period.

Once classes start up again, I hope to post more updates about my classmates' employment prospects. While I am not optimistic, I do hope for some good news. My sense is that career services has all but given up on the 3Ls who do not yet have jobs and is focusing on finding summer gigs for the 2Ls which (while painful) are not quite as hard to come by and thus give them a higher success rate.

Any 3Ls out there who can comment on the job market at their schools? My school is T2 for what that's worth.

The Final Countdown

As we get ready for the New Year's countdown, and to say goodbye to 2010, 2011 will be ushering in a new reality for law grads: true unemployment.

As a 3L, I have the opportunity to talk to many of my classmates about their job search and prospects for the coming year. The forecast is grim. This is no exaggeration: I know of two (2!) law students graduating from my second TTTier law school in 2011 who have jobs lined up and both of them are patent-bar eligible. (Which introduces an interesting conundrum - people who are patent bar eligible are the only people who seem to be able to make law school work at a non-T14 these days, and yet they are the very people for whom law school is essentially a waste of time, as they could make a fine living without the three-year hiatus from the work force. Rendering law school a good idea for... essentially no one.)

I'm sure that there are a few people with job offers lined up that I don't know about, but none of them are friends of mine. The strange thing is that those of us who don't have jobs lined up really don't have anything tangible we can do about it. The school tells us to send out tons of resumes, but there are no employers for a 3L to send resumes to. When I ask people where they have applied, the response is always an embarrassed shrug. And I totally understand the awkwardness because it counters everything we are told about a bad economy: "Don't be complacent, don't be shy, network, etc..." Local governments are on hiring freezes and we are not in an area with big federal placement, the private firms are really only hiring from top schools, and public interest organizations are mostly hiring people with experience... there's really not much to do. There's a sort of purgatory consisting of a ton of people who need jobs and would love nothing better than to send out tons of resumes but really don't have anywhere to direct that energy.

I know that many people were counting on job fairs or OCI to get the ball rolling to an extent. No such luck. I have already written about the pathetic number of employers hiring 3Ls in OCI. The job fair numbers were equally pitiful. I know of a handful of people who did screening interviews and no one who got a callback.

The most annoying part by far is listening to the 2Ls who think that the world is sunshine and roses because they got an offer to work for a DA's office in an unpaid internship this summer. THAT is their evidence that the job market is turning around. I actually overheard a 2L with a position like that saying that she couldn't understand why the 3Ls can't find jobs because it was just so damn easy for her to find a "job" as an unpaid hack. (I may have added the last part.) I wish I could take pleasure out of the rude awakening she is about to face, but it's just too tragic.

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone! I will be enjoying my respite from law school with a nice chilled bottle of five dollar champagne. Cheers!

Lowering the Bar

One of the first things I learned about law school, well before I applied, was that a J.D. is not worth the paper it is printed on without passing the bar exam in at least one state.

Since I have the misfortune of attending law school at a time when my degree will not be worth the paper it is printed on with or without bar passage, and I no longer have any desire to practice, is taking the bar even worth it?

The thought of going to three years of law school and then forgoing the bar all together is sort of a scary one. On the one hand, as many of my non-law friends say, "now is the time." The odds that I will want to take the bar exam five years down the road are not good. At the same time, if I don't want to practice the idea of going through the aggravation and expense is not particularly enticing.

I don't want the same indecision that kept me from dropping out at one of the several points along the way where I wish I had be the force that pushes me into useless stress and expense. But part of me does worry about how this will appear to non-legal employers. I just don't know.

One thing is for sure: I will not be taking it this summer. If I take it, it will be in February of 2012. Something tells me I won't have a job that requires bar passage by the time I graduate. Just a hunch.

(Sidebar: I'm sorry I do not post very frequently, and while I have probably lost what readership I had at this point I hope to get back in the swing of things. I always welcome your comments and emails and I look forward to your feedback!)

Ten miles behind me...

...and ten thousand more to go. :(

Sadly, the job situation fell through. It was always far from a sure thing. It's really my own fault. I did not start looking for non-law jobs until too late in the game this summer and put all my eggs in one basket. So now, here I am. Back in law school. Unfortunately dropping out without a job lined up is not an option for me because I have to somehow pay the exorbitant rent on this crappy apartment for another nine months.

Having been back at school for a couple of days, I can say that the mood is somber. The 3Ls are supposed to be happy - this is supposed to be our easy year, the payoff for having stuck it out. But, because no one has jobs (or even interviews), everyone feels the same pressure to perform that they have always felt. The only consolation we have is a sort of morbid sense of humor about our predicament, the kind I imagine ER doctors use to get them through the day, but without the sense of accomplishment that accompanies an ER shift.

I will try to update more frequently. I have been too depressed lately. But I do want there to be a voice from the trenches, letting 0Ls know how bad things are here. It is too late for me, but other people still have time.

Apologies and Updates

I have been slow to update for awhile, and I apologize for that. For the past couple of weeks I have been focusing on finishing up the work at my summer job and exploring my options. I appreciate the advice from the comments in my previous post.

There is a chance that I might be able to get a job starting in September. I don't want to get my hopes up, but it is a possibility. It's a little scary because previously the idea of dropping out of law school was a pipe dream. But the only reason I didn't take it seriously is because I thought there was no chance I would get a full time job. If I get a job, I will have a big and scary decision to make.

I realize I could be getting ahead of myself. But here's hoping. Regardless of what happens with this job situation, I plan on spreading the anti-lawschool gossip to anyone who will listen!