Paying For Law School: Law School As A Business Proposition

Website design By BotEap.comThe importance of meeting the admission requirements to a top-tier law school cannot be overstated. Put another way, if your credentials aren’t good enough to meet the requirements for admission to a top 100, or maybe even top 50 law school in America, you should seriously consider another line of work. Going to a bad law school can still allow you to become a lawyer, but it can also buy you some forms of debt-driven misery that you can’t imagine or understand.

Website design By BotEap.comThe truth is that most law students finance their education with debt. Lots of debt. Much of the debt comes in the form of student loans. Unlike most other loans, student loans usually have to be repaid. Student loans are extremely difficult to pay off in the event of bankruptcy.

Website design By BotEap.comTherefore, these loans exist. These loans are quite large. As an example, the sum of out-of-state tuition and fees at the school in the city where I practice is $44,000.00 per year. That’s tuition and fees. This does not include the cost of simple things like food and a place to live.

Website design By BotEap.comNow, if dad has $150,000-$200,000 lying around and he wants to send you for legal education, it doesn’t really matter if you qualify for a good law school or you’re going to a bad law school. If you’re going to go to law school on someone else’s pennies, that’s fine. You get to be a lawyer. It won’t cost you anything other than your time. That’s great. Go for it.

Website design By BotEap.comBut most of us don’t have a dad who has $150,000-$200,000 lying around. Most of us take out these loans. Many of them. And when the loans come due, you have to pay them back. The problem is that most lawyers don’t make a lot of money, especially when they just graduated from school, and paying off loans is incredibly difficult if you don’t make a lot of money.

Website design By BotEap.comI will give you an example. I went to a top 100 law school. A friend of mine graduated with a job that pays $30,000.00 per year. He had $100,000.00 in loans to pay off when he graduated and he broke his back for a long time. He was paying almost half of his salary in loan payments every month for the first few years of practice. He stayed slim living on ramen noodles. It wasn’t very fun.

Website design By BotEap.comNow you might be thinking, “Well, most lawyers make more than that… it won’t happen to me.”

Website design By BotEap.comYes, and that’s where you’re wrong. When I graduated from college, the average student graduating in my major earned $50,000.00 per year. The average lawyer, at all experience levels in my state, made $45,000.00. I remember these numbers very clearly, even though ten years have passed, because they scared me. Those numbers mean there are a ton of lawyers out there who aren’t making money. The average lawyer is not living the high life. The average lawyer has little income and lots of loans right out of school. Now, schools do a good job of hiding those averages so they can sell admission to unsuspecting victims.

Website design By BotEap.comYou see, it turns out that the figures that legal institutions quote about what their alumni earn in the job market are false. The way they pump the numbers is to “forget” to get information from people who are unemployed or don’t make a lot of money. If you do what I did and start with six figures, the guys at the professional services office make sure you fill out the form so they put you in the numbers. If you’re my friend and you make a third of that, the professional services office somehow forgets to provide the form.

Website design By BotEap.comSo, the numbers are cooked. Lawyers earn less than you think, and this is particularly serious in the current recession.

Website design By BotEap.comNow, there is a way to win the game… Maybe.

Website design By BotEap.comThe dirty little secret of the law is that the highest salaries for beginning lawyers are concentrated in a handful of top schools. If you meet the admission requirements to one of the major legal institutions, your chances of landing a job that allows you to eat something other than Ramen noodles improves dramatically. You still have to do well in that law school, particularly in the really tough economy we’re seeing right now, but there is hope.

Website design By BotEap.comThe secret is a dirty secret because most bad schools that teach law will not tell you that they are bad law schools and that their graduates are unemployed and hungry. You don’t find out until you go out into the job market and learn it the hard way.