U.S. News & World Report’s story called “Law School Grads Face Tougher Economic Times” that all prospective law students should read before going to law school. Bottom line: most students will run up massive debt for the privilege of competing for scarce lawyer jobs that may not pay a high salary in a down economy.
Above the Law has an interesting, but sad post about actual lawyer jobs advertised at $10 an hour and below.
Interesting feedback from Elie Mystal who attended a conference of 75 law school deans on what’s wrong with law school. Harvard Law School and New York Law School sponsored the Future of Education conference last week. The author of “Just How Crappy Is Legal Education Today?” said:
” There were five panelists and a moderator (on my legal pad I made the notation ‘five person panels are dumb’). And between all five of them, I guess you could say that ‘everything’ is wrong with American legal education. But each of them in turn highlighted different aspects of the process that needed fixing…”
See Elie Mystal’s post called “Corporate General Counsel Puts Fear of God into Legal Educators (And You Should Be Worried Too)” about an earlier session in the same conference. Here’s my favorite quote from the high profile panelist speaking to the law school deans:
“We don’t allow first or second year associates to work on any of our matters without special permission, because they’re worthless.”
I hope the deans were paying attention, but I doubt it. The deans tend to live in their ivory towers unaware and unconcerned about the real world in which their law school graduates must enter.
See also “The Future of Legal Education: Get Real.”
Above the Law has a post about an actual ad for a lawyer placed in Craigslist where a Chicago firm sought to hire a lawyer for $12 an hour. It mentions a story called “Top Lawyers” about the opposite end of the pay spectrum.
Wall St. Journal Blog: “Earlier this month