The State of the Law

Did you know that only 55% of the graduating legal class of 2011 found jobs upon graduating? Did you know that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who hold a J.D. (Juris Doctorate) that are stocking shelves at Wal-Mart and serving fries? Did you know that the average law school graduate is almost $150,000 in debt? Did you know that on average the nation creates openings for an additional 28,000 lawyers per year and yet law schools are turning out over 40,000 young attorneys?



All of this came up during an interesting conversation that I had earlier today with some friends of mine from college and law school. The state of the legal community today is just in shambles. There are even lawsuits where unemployed young attorneys are suing their Alma Mater's for fraud. People are mad, they are claiming that law schools are lying to them and website have popped up all over the internet about how law school is a scam and certain law schools need to be closed down. Essentially, there are people who are claiming the sky is falling.



So, is this the point where I say don't go to law school? You won't get a job and you will be a debt serf for the rest of your life. Or, worse yet, you'll actually get a job and hate it. Well, not at all. I encourage people to go to law school. If you want to be an attorney there are still great opportunities out there for you. The only thing I'll tell you is that don't fool yourself about the reality that you face. Getting a J.D. is no longer the instant ticket to unbelievable riches that it used to be. The legal field has finally reached a level where its inclusive enough to make it as competitive as business was decades ago. Go to law school if you want to be a lawyer but first know some fact and take a good hard long look at yourself in the mirror before you do.



I was once asked by a young member of MT about law school. Well, I'm ashamed to say that the advice I gave him is already probably out of date. When talking about law school the first thing that comes up is the all important question of where to go? Do you want to go to Harvard? How about the little Christian school down the street? What if I can't get into U.S. News and World Report's no. 72 ranked law school? Should I go thousands of dollars into debt to go to no. 31 or go to no. 123 for free? The answers are not as simple as we've been led to believe. If you want to be the big time attorney working for a giant firm like in the movies then a top flight school is going to be a big help to you. The nasty little secret is that your grades and your personality are going to be far better indicators of where you will wind up and if you love your job or not. In this county though we don't like to talk about intangibles because they make us take a good hard look at ourselves. It makes the fat kid with acne and no social skills with a 170 LSAT and a 3.9 GPA reconsider his place in the world and ask himself if there is something better that he could do with his life. Should a kid who got a 150 on the LSAT and who drank their way through Frat houses while screwing hot women and making friends on their way to a shining 2.8 GPA not go to law school? The fact is, in the right situation and with the right people the "idiot" in this circumstance is the guy I'd rather hire.



The world is full of anecdotal evidence. The thing is that no matter how useless anecdotal evidence is in trying to prove something on a grand scale they are decent indicators when the circumstances and the question are very limited. Take myself for example, I've been practicing for only a hand full of years now. I've done, well I wont be shy about it, astronomically well. How did I do it? Harvard? My family connections? Paying people? Did I play my hand right according to the general knowledge in the industry? The answer to all of this is a resounding NO! Where did I go to school? Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham Alabama. My family doesn't have anything in the way of connections in this city where I was educated and where I work. Did I pay people? In a way I did. I certainly didn't give anybody any money but I always showed up and on time to boot. Did I play my hand right? Thats to say did I go to the highest ranked school I could get into? Nope! Samford is ranked a whopping 148, it wasn't ranked when I went there, or something like that. Why did I go there? I must of bombed the LSAT and drank my way through college. In fact, I did drink my way through college but I graduated from the University of Alabama with honors. Then I cranked out an LSAT score in the mid 160s. Anyways, the point about Samford is that its one of the lower ranked schools in the nation, there are probably only 30-40 schools in the nation that the rankings squads say are worse. Why in the fuck did I go there? Am I making my test score  and GPA up? Hmmm, this is where the whole thing gets really interesting. How in the fuck did this happen? The prevailing knowledge is that anybody who went to a Third Tier Toilet, herein refered to as a TTT, shouldn't even be in law school much less practicing and taking a job from somebody who went to no. 23. BAM! We've finally hit the root problem of the whole damn industry.




What is that problem you ask? The problem is a focus on rankings and test scores instead of people. Hold on, I know that sounds fluffy and shit. It isn't, in fact, its more harsh than a 142 on an LSAT. The LSAT and GPA are just indicators, that are often times correct, of how smart somebody is and how good of a lawyer they will be. At Harvard, where the real best and brightest go, most of the folks in there are going to be successful but not because of Harvard. They are going to be successful because they are smart, hard working, and yes they went to Harvard but that is far less important than the first two. An interesting little fact is the bottom 15% of Harvard folks still can't get jobs. As you move down the rankings the percentages change a bit. When you get really low they get alarming. There are schools in California where only 18% of kids get jobs that require them to take the BAR. Samford's real employment rate is, supposedly, around half. OUCH! This is a really simple concept, as you move down the LSAT and GPA scale the people actually do become dumber on average, but not always. The single smartest attorney I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with went to Mississippi College in Jackson, which is even lower than Samford. He graduates first in his class. So now you may be wondering who is smarter, the Harvard kids or the one single solitary guy coming out of Mississippi College with a brain? Well, I can't answer that entirely. The thing is though that that man deserves every bit as much respect as any Harvard grad because he is their equal. Sure, the bottom 50%, or even the top 6-20% from Mississippi College aren't. This is generally where people get lost now especially bright eyed young kids looking to become big time attorneys. They say, well if he can do it then I can do it because I'm a special little snowflake. You aren't. "I'm going to go to law school and be first in my class." Good luck, you are aware that there is a 99.9% chance you wont right? "Nobody can measure my will to work hard and study hard, I will do this!" The chances are that you wont and the fact is that this statement is not true. No, the other part isn't true. Somebody actually can measure how hard you are going to work and how well you will do, you will. If you couldn't be bothered to take 20 minutes to study an LSAT book, or put 20 minutes into studying to get a C in HY 201 then you probably wont magically reverse yourself and do well in law school. That isn't saying that it isn't possible but you need to take a good long hard look at yourself. Did you get a C because you didn't try at all, your mom died or what? Or, did you get a C because the shit was difficult and you never tried because you were too afraid to fail and would prefer to keep telling yourself how special you are instead of facing the fact that you really aren't?



Well, we'll call this part one of my coming series if anybody is interested. I'm off to dinner with tits from my previous blog.