Do Not Go To Law School

Do not go to law school. I know that this is a Finance board but I suspect that some people on here have an itch for this. Trust me. You do not want to do it to yourself.

Listen. All law schools will tell you what you would like to hear. Listen to your own inner voice. There is literally nothing there. I suspect that 80 to 90 percent of students have no job and no income for 36 months and graduate with nothing. You will not get a job. Orientations are run by students to trick people into doing what they otherwise would not do in the first place, which is enroll. If the orientations were run by faculty and staff, you would smell their crap from day one. Your antenna would be on high alert.

You will not be in the top 10 or 20 percent. You won't even be in the top 33 percent. You will be in the bottom 2/3 of the class, bottom 80 percent or bottom 90 percent. You will not be able to get a job at all.

To make matters worse, your undergrad degree will lose value. You will graduate from law school and find out that recruiters and HR professionals ignore you more than they did coming out of undergrad. If you thought it was hard to get a job out of undergrad, wait til you tack on a degree that they don't value on your resume. They want linear resumes that they can plug into their company. The JD is the disease, the virus, the ultimate resume gap.

Despite the abysmal employment prospects, 150 suckers per year enroll any way, thinking their outcome will be different. There is nothing there!

You will not get a job.

Wait there's more. When you finish your JD program, you will be really kicking yourself when you find out that your classmates from undergrad will have passed you by. They will have been promoted 2 or 3, even 4 times by the time you finish your JD which will have you jobless. They will have an upscale apartment or condo or house. You'll realize then you were really screwed.

There is nothing there.

Don't even waste money on an application.

Keep your head up and keep looking for a job out of undergrad and go from there.

 

Are you saying that 80-90% of students graduating law school and passing the bar will not have a job for 3 years or are you talking about people that get a JD and look for a job in finance? I have friends that are lawyers and after they passed the bar it seemed like they all had decent gigs lined up, maybe not at all top firms but they're making a decent living.

giddy up
 

No but I think his point is that you're probably not going to be as good as you think you are. Like I read something about how at a law school orientation session, the speaker asked the crowd how many of them were the best writers in their college/hs classes, and like every hand went up. And from what I read, at the bottom of the T-14 you have to be at least in the top 50% to get a good job.

 

Exactly what I'm saying. You are walking into a trap. Btw it is not common knowledge that one should look at top 14 or not at all. Otherwise you wouldn't have 150 suckers enroll per year below that tier. Frankly, I'd go so far as saying you shouldn't look at anything below top 7.

 

What are your credentials and experience in the legal professional expertise? Everyone is different, and clearly you're unfit to have your skin in that particular game. Your all-knowing "don't go to Law School" because I know "so" based on "cutthroat competition" is utter embarrassing trash advice.

Real life is a competition itself, but the effort and will you exert can prove to be fruitful. Damn I hate these defeatist I failed so you'll fail threads.

Edit: Holy shit, I even have to edit my post again to emphasize how sad this thread is.

 

Assuming people have that burning passion and love law it is completely possible to get a six figure job coming out of a lower tier law school. You don't need to join a large corporate firm to make that kind of money. If you goto law school get good grades, network (which is usually mandatory to some degree because of mentorship programs), and intern most people will be fine. Will they work in a major law firm...probably not. But that probably wasn't that persons goal to begin with.

 

There are a lot of problems with law school and the legal profession but I'm not sure you've emphasized the right ones. Law school can be a great idea for people who actually want to be lawyers, or people who have excellent grades and want to a well-paying professional career (200k for a 25 year old right after graduation is a damn good gig for most people, even with debt).

That said, I think a lot of other business jobs end up being more interesting than corporate work, with better hours and better long-term earning potential (without the three year opportunity cost). Agree with other posters above that going to anything below T14 is risky employment wise (and way more so below T1), but there's tons of information about that and that topic has been beaten to death on other forums.

 

Wtf is this? My law school friends are smart but arrogant as fuck that's why they can't get a job. They don't get the real world so they're useless... Unless they want to be politicians of course

Overwhelming grasp of the obvious.
 

And to be frank, I think that careers such as lawyers and doctors are more reliable (i.e. more stable in economic downturn) because there is a higher barrier of entry than investment bankers (especially below Director level). No one really need to go to school to become an investment banker. You can train a monkey to become an investment banker if you force him to do one year of bulge bracket full time training. By 2-3 years (at Associate level), you already know all there is to know about investment banking. You can't say the same thing on being a lawyer or a doctor (i.e. I can't just quit my job; get 2 years of training at emergency center to become a fully license doctor). Just saying.

 

Thanks for posting this. I think it's pretty well-established in other threads on this site as well as law-centric sites like ABT that law school isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

This flowchart from Above the Law, a pretty good legal news service, pretty much covers all the reasons you shouldn't go to law school:

http://abovethelaw.com/2013/10/deciding-to-go-to-law-school-in-one-epic… (link to article)

http://abovethelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/DGTLSU-Flow-Chart-Two… (actual flowchart)

The perception of the JD was valid in the past when most educated people could get a law degree to indicate their level of intelligence and transition into numerous other industries - today, as you mentioned, most HR departments will view you as being overqualified/likely to jump ship quickly if you receive a better offer. That being said, I do know some successful people who went to a top tier law school with no intention of becoming lawyers and who still recommend a law school education simply for intellectual benefits it gives you.

My personal view is that the tradeoff between corporate law vs. banking is not worth it because you get paid less and work (slightly) more at any legitimate law firm. In the past, you'd have a more risk-averse career but I can't say the same now.

 

Sint est cumque ut dolor rerum. Quos quibusdam doloribus unde voluptatem qui ut eveniet. Non est non ad harum impedit dolor. Et culpa cupiditate eum dolores nam a esse. Consequatur pariatur recusandae inventore quas. Totam sed earum odit consequuntur quia.

Fugit nemo voluptas similique odit minus. Laudantium vitae saepe repellat distinctio. Laudantium autem exercitationem voluptates illum facilis aut. Excepturi maiores recusandae assumenda quibusdam sed neque. Vero consequuntur distinctio molestiae veritatis alias.

Sit nobis cumque est assumenda. Provident illum voluptas aspernatur quod facere dolorem totam. Voluptate consequatur et necessitatibus quia et. Ducimus et beatae autem alias reiciendis eveniet sunt. Sit molestiae in reprehenderit dolore. Rerum dolorem quo enim necessitatibus quo est id. Exercitationem at vero eos sed reprehenderit porro ut.

 

Sed eius assumenda corrupti amet repellendus eos. Architecto ex occaecati consequuntur in impedit.

Quisquam sed maxime et ut delectus. Harum ea laboriosam est rerum similique. Quos laboriosam tempora aut numquam et maxime magnam. Aperiam rerum delectus aut in id voluptate. Atque ipsa laudantium perferendis veniam.

Facilis iure esse ut nesciunt nihil vitae. Debitis amet autem sit libero ut aut. Omnis et esse sed praesentium consequatur consequatur praesentium velit. Ullam quo est rerum illum. Consequuntur quibusdam aliquam et. Error nam consequuntur quidem asperiores et ut.

Facilis dolor facere assumenda eveniet. Eveniet voluptas repellendus quis nostrum sed sit nam. Dolore rem voluptas velit illum.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
3
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
4
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
5
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
6
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
7
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
8
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
9
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
10
numi's picture
numi
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”