http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/30/AR2010103000211.html
The Washington Post has published an amazing article that reveals the ugly truth about the current state of the legal education and the dire job outlook for many graduates. I really wish more undergraduates would read these types of articles and get a better idea of what they are getting themselves into when they sign up for LSAT test prep courses.
I read some employment statistic that every year there are around 45,000 new law school graduates each year, but for all of those JD's there are only 30,000 law firm jobs. In other words only two out of every three law school graduates will find jobs in law firms. The rest will struggle to find anything else out there to pay the bills and the big loan companies.
We have all heard that old joke they tell 1L's, a professor will tell the first year class "Look to the person on your left and look to the person on your right, one of these people will fail to graduate from law school!"
But they should replace that old joke with a new joke.
Law professors should tell 1L's " Look to the person on your left and look to the person on your right, one of you will graduate and never gain employment in a law firm."
30,000 annual law firm jobs and maybe a few thousand extra jobs for public sector type positions. There are only so many government jobs and clerkships, so the reality is that we only need about 35,000 new JD's per year in the USA (or less). The US Department of Education should take a firm stand on addressing this issue with the ABA and the student loan companies. If students can't get law jobs to pay back the loans, they will default and make the situation worse for themselves and for the loan companies.
There needs to be serious law school reform and the vast majority of third and fourth tier law schools should be shut down or limit their enrollments to less than 100 new students per year.
In other words, 1 out of every 3 new law school graduates will never get a job practising law. Many are taking jobs as paralegals, making my life even more difficult than it already is!
I highly recommend everyone read the article above, they even have links to all the great scam blogs!
two comments:
ReplyDelete1) when articles are three weeks old they aren't new. Especially when every blog in this vein wrote about the article.
2) The article is a reprint of a Slate article published a week prior, so actually the article is a month old.
Look, the ABA has another "brilliant" solution to the glut of American lawyers!
ReplyDeletehttp://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/08/overseaslawschools.html
The ABA will consider accrediting overseas law schools. Yes, that will alleviate the situation, right?! By the way, many Chinese law schools will be learning the Case method, American case law - and the curriculum will be entirely in English.
Hopefully, the ABA cockroaches were paid well for selling their corrupt souls.
I am much interesting to know more about the interview and recruiting process which are evolved. And i wanna thank you for posting this.
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