Thinking about going to law school, what should I know?

change your mind.

 

Unless you 1) know deep down you want to practice law 2) you have the financing (either scholly or family) or 3) you get into a top tier school...

DO NOT GO

 

All I know is that the Texas Bar has a lot of oil and gas questions on it. You have 5 chances to pass the Bar and thats what your 3 years of Law School come down to. Good Luck to you. It could be a very rewarding career.

 

If you can only get into a lower-tier law school, do not expect to make 100K right off the bat. I'm not saying it can never happen, but unless you're at the very top of your class with some very strong connections, this is very unlikely.

However, if you pass the bar and have decent grades, you may be able to make a middle-income salary (say, 50k-ish) while busting your a**.

That said, if you can pull off a decent salary now without the stress/financial burden that comes with law school, why do this now? Especially if your motivation is income.

 

This is the crazy thing to me. I knew GOING IN that I did not want to go BIGLAW, which is good since I didn't go to a top school. I remember after my first year grades came in (middle of the pack) the registrar saw me in her office and called me in.

"Have a seat, Fox."

"OK, is there a problem?"

"Well your grades are not where they should be if you want a corporate law job when you graduate." She had this really pained look on her face.

"I don't want a corporate job."

"That's GREAT!" she was elated.

 

Don't do it for the money unless you really want to chase that money....A middle of the road business major should make about the same as a middle of the road lawyer.

I have several friends working immigration, legal aid, or non profit organization type law who make significantly less than $100K/yr several yrs (a couple of decades?) out of law school. some less than half that...but they enjoy their work. There are many areas of law that are quite removed from the corporate boardrooms, or trial stuff you see on TV. Both in terms of work, prestige and income.

If the field interests you though, it's a great education.

If you're a business major, not a top top student, and sort of unsure, consider getting some experience first and going back for your law degree when you have more focus. Some of the better law students in my day were the ones who had 'real world' experience. And it will separate you from the litter when you do graduate.

 

For arguments against law school, see this blog and the blog roll on the right.
http://firsttiertoilet.blogspot.com/

For arguments for law school, check out this blog.
http://30somethinglawstudent.wordpress.com/

I say this as a successful, content attorney practicing nearly 10 years now. I recommend waiting things out until the legal sector improves. Unless you have a job lined up for you (e.g., your Dad is a partner at a law firm) or if you're entering an Ivy League school, I don't see the point of rushing into things at this time.

Edit: One thing I also want to add is that we're in the midst of hiring a legal secretary right now. Among the applications we receive are resumes from attorneys asking if the job is open to them. When I came out of law school, working for peanuts like that was unheard of. I know my story is anecdotal, but I assure you it's not uncommon right now.

 

BIGLAW is definitely not about being 'right.'

It's more about representing your client's best interest. Ain't a lot of room for philosophical preponderances of right and wrong.

 

good point.

But he doesnt care about other people and only cares about the money so he's got that going for him as a potential lawyer

 

I found that the best law students never gave a crap about being right. You need to be able to see both sides of an argument and the pros and cons about each side.

 

Based on this, I think this:

is great advice to take. Wait things out. Get some real world experience while you figure out what you want in life. Law school will always be there. I can also echo SoSoDef76's anecdotal experience with lawyers taking jobs that they are overqualified for. I knew of many entry level (and even sub-entry level) positions where lawyers with 1-3 years experience were applying to.

I will also reiterate that law school may not be the best avenue for financial gain. You aren't guaranteed six figures, or even anything close to that depending on how/if the legal job market rebounds by the time you would graduate, and you may be saddled with student loan debt.

 

Law Degrees Grow More Worthless Every Day

Did you do the stupid thing that a lot of people have done recently and go to law school, just because you're aimless and you figured it would be a productive use of time "in the long run?" Sucker.

The WSJ reports that most recent law school grads are now doing stand up comedy or "consulting" or dumpster diving or strongarm robbery, because the economy tanked and suddenly everyone figured out, hey, we don't really need to be paying insane salaries to thousands upon thousands of unmotivated twentysomethings languishing here at our law firm just because they couldn't figure out anything better to tell their dad they were doing after they graduated from Sarah Lawrence.

"The portion of law-school graduates who held jobs that required a law degree and passing the bar exam shrunk to 71% for the class of 2009, from 75% for the class of 2008, according to a survey by the National Association for Law Placement. The survey also found that nearly 25% of employed graduates said their work was temporary. And almost 22% said they were still looking for work even though they were employed, up from 16% in 2008."

http://gawker.com/5591636/law-degrees-grow-more-worthless-every-day

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/business/22law.html?_r=1

I read this recent article about how law schools are retroactively increasing the final GPA scores of alumni graduates. This is to make them more competitive in the search for a job. Kind of shady.

 

I need to call my law school and negotiate my donation...

 

A lot of employers will ask for class rank as well.

 

OP, I'm in a very similar situation, except that I'm in Canada. I'm entering the senior year of my undergrad in finance and I've been planning to go to law school since my freshman year. I took the LSAT last summer and got a 165, which is right within the median range for the top-ranked school in Canada (U of Toronto), but I'm taking the LSAT again this October as my GPA isn't ideal, so I'm hoping a higher LSAT score can make up for it.

I can't give you much advice on law school itself but I can tell you about the LSAT and prep.

1) To me, logic games aren't extremely difficult. To best understand them, I took an intensive 30-hour LSAT course which cost me $500, but I felt was worth it. I now get a perfect score in Logic Games on my mock LSATs almost every time.

2) Practice makes perfect. The LSAT's questions all follow the same format and you can find all the past tests on the torrent sites. Printing them out is much more economical as they cost $10 if you buy them individually. Do not bother with the ones you find in the Princeton Review or Kaplan books as they're not real LSATs. Why do fake ones when you have the real ones for free?

3) Don't overwork yourself on doing practice tests. I've been doing a practice test every day for this week (following time limits, with experimental section etc) and by Thursday I could feel myself getting tired when I start staring at LSAT questions. This morning my practice test was 5 points below the score I got on Monday. I'm going to take the weekend off and hit the tests again next Monday.

4) The Top-Law-Schools forums are extremely helpful for LSAT prep and also discussion about US law schools.

http://top-law-schools.com/forums/index.php

Question for Houstonians: How is UH's law school in comparison to the rest in the city or state? I looked it up and it seems I might be able to get in if I applied. Would it be worth 60K a year to attend it or should I stay in Canada? It's long been a dream of mine to actually live in Houston. I would only consider going to law school in the States if it can guarantee a fairly lucrative salary upon graduation and enough of a reputation to allow me some mobility. I've been getting recruitment mail from Cooley, St Louis and Minnesota etc based on my LSAT score but I'm not paying that much to go to a second-rate school, especially when I'm pretty much guaranteed a top 7 law school in Canada (There are only 14 in the whole country).

 

I may get flamed for this (since I work for UH system and I'm sure there are some UH law graduates on here) but I wouldn't recommend UH if you are getting a 165 on your LSAT's unless your GPA sucks.

The networking aspect is BIG for job placement and I don't see that UH has nearly the swing of UT Law School. Even the Texas A&M network that was really prevalent a STCL + the judge network that graduated from South Texas College of Law seemed better than the UH network.

edit: Let me add one caveat: UH is the highest ranked law school in the Houston area. TSU is... how can put this politely... absolute **** and STCL is a good school for advocacy but still a tier 4 school and it is private. That being said, Austin is not that far away from Houston.

Look at this first...

http://www.bc.edu/offices/careers/gradschool/law/lawlocator/match.html#A

 

word? what department? no stalk-o, I just finished a legal-related internship with UHS and had a wonderful time.