law school?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm going to go against the grain on this thread and say prestige is for the birds. I know DCUM is obsessed with it but you can have a completely lucrative career having gone to a public law school. The vast majority of lawyers in this country are not employed at big law and did not attend a top 10 law school.

In fact, most of the attys that I know who started up their own firms and now make $$$ went to public, no name schools. DCUM is a weird place for advice because it slants in one direction only - private, prestigious, big law, money, did I say prestige? In truth, there a multitude of avenues for success.

I went to a public, not highly ranked school. I started up my own practice because I wanted more freedom to raise my kids. I don't make big law money but at $400-500K, I'm doing just fine in a dual income home.

There are lots of ways to make a living in law, OP, more than gov't and big law. Chances are when your DC gets to law school interests will change.

This is really good. Is that your net? What practice area? Are you a solo? Any employees or associates? Any office overhead? ~~Another Lawyer

The range is gross. At October, my YTD gross is about $420K. I expect to hit about $455/470 by end of this year (gross) with $425-ish net. I'm 100% virtual so my overhead is about $30K per year. It's very low so I keep roughly 90% of what I bring in. This does not include my taxes (obv) just office expenses (e.g., virtual lease, softwares, supplies, some 1099 work, cc fees). I have one contractor who works on an as needed basis but otherwise I'm a true solo. I don't have the bandwidth for a full office with employees due to kids/family, though have been approached by other firms re: mergers. I'm just not interested. I'm in employment based immigration and have been doing this over a decade. Year 1, I made $20K so it was a steady climb.

PP here -- this is impressive. What kind of marketing did you do to make the steady climb? I would love to do this but don't think I currently have the portable book to make it more profitable than what I'm doing now, unless perhaps I took on my own contract work. What % do you pay your contractor? Sorry to derail the thread, but it does show OP that there is more than Big Law and Gov Law.

I pay the contractor a flat fee per project. She has given me a fee schedule per case. Because of the type of work we do, it's usually flat fee. However, I don't send out work that often - maybe a few a year. I don't do any marketing now. It's all client referral. The first few years, I tried marketing via online sources that yielded little. The key to solo practice is sticking in the game because it takes a while for the referral pipeline to build up. Salaries were Y1 $20K (but I started mid-year); Y2 $65K; Y3 $80; Y5 $111 Y6$132....Y10 $320K....Y12 $425(est). There are big bumps in some years because I gained large corp clients in some years, or COVID. I'm anticipating that I will level off, or have to hire someone bc I'm at max of what solo can handle.

And yes, there's so much more to law than just the govt & big law discussion. 80% of the attys that I know do something similar to what I'm doing. Maybe it's because I didn't start out in DC metro. Anyway, solo, small to mid size firms should not be overlooked. I have been at home virtually working for past 10 years. I've raised my kids and controlled my own time. I don't think that I'm missed out too much career ways because law is so flexible. Just something to think about, OP.

So you opened a solo practice straight out of law school? No prior legal experience? Did you have loans? What year was this?

No, I worked for a firm where I gained experience in my field of expertise for about 2 years. I did not start my firm with a book of business, though, as I'd left to have a baby. Yes, I had loans - about $80K. It was 2011. In the first few years, I had to do contract work on the side to supplement income until I got to a level where my practice was making enough to support me.

Ok. So your anecdote is completely dependent on law grads finding an entry level position to learn the trade. Pretty much no one opens a solo practice straight out of law school. The risk of a lower tier school is never finding that entry level job.

That is complete nonsense. Lower tier grads find jobs all the time. And that is my point. The posters on here just assume that the ONLY jobs are the prestigious law firms in downtown DC when, in fact, the vast majority of law firms in this country are small-mid sized firms. I worked at one of those. My first job was a small firm with 4 employees. The problem is that people on here thumb their noses at small firms as if that experience is neither good enough or helpful to the resume which could not be further from the truth.

And no one said opening a solo practice is dependent on getting a firm job first. I know plenty of attys who went solo straight out of school. There are a number of different paths. You just have to be entrepreneurial enough to find them.

Lots may find jobs. Lots also don't. That's what the data says. Lots of grads from lower tier schools with big loans and no job.

Which is why - upthread - I said to go to a cheap, public law school. Rankings are unimportant just be able to pay for it. And btw, there are lots of unemployed people from expensive grad schools - not just lawyers - so this advise could go to any graduate student, whether they're seeking a JD from an expensive school or a potential MFA from Wesleyan.

There are so many posters on DCUM who tell you all the things that you can't do. I'm offering OP an example of what you can if you're willing to work for it. You can go to a no-name, poorly ranked school and still make a decent living. It is all what you make out of it. If I had listened to DCUM 10 years ago, I'd still be sitting as an employee at a job I hated being miserable. Thank god there was no DCUM for me back then

There aren’t any cheap public law schools anymore. UVA OOS is now $98+ a year and being instate shaves off only a few thousand. Google it

Great. But most people aren't going to UVA law. There are cheap options where people can do well. DCUM just has to get out of the mindset that there are only two things to do with a law career - big law and govt'.
See - https://www.stilt.com/blog/2018/11/cheapest-law-schools/

And I'll preempt all the PPs that will say, but you cannot get a job by graduating from any of the schools listed here. That is just not true. And you graduate with considerably less debt.

It is not worth the time or money to attend any of those 13 odd schools you googled. It simply isn't. Not in this market, which is only going to get worse as the economy continues to sour.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think we’ve gotten a bit off track as usual. What about if someone has a very specific specialty area within the law? Better to go to a school highly rated for that specialty, even if it’s not t14?

No. Employers generally do not care about the specialities for a variety of reasons. First, because law school class work and real legal work are very different. Second, first year classes are all the same general legal classes (torts, contracts, etc.) and that is what big law recruits off of. Third, the professors teaching the speciality classes often won’t have much of any practical experience in the subject, so they lack the connections to help students get jobs in that specialty. Finally, it would help show interest for non-big law jobs but so would an internship, UG major in that field, or prior work experience in that field. If the law schools are similarly situated rank, cost and location wise, then a speciality program could be a tie breaker. Otherwise, law school rank, cost and allocation you want to practice in are the biggest factors.

thanks, my DD is interested in bioethics, and is a bioethics minor (major not offered). She wants to potentially do a dual degree JD/MA in the field. Looking at the list of top "health care law schools", there are some on there who are the usual suspects) but also some that are less expensive such as UMD right in the mix for this particular speciality. If she is ultimately going to look for a position as a clinical ethicist in a hospital or working in a law firm representing hospitals, the prospective employers would still weight overall ranking more than specialty?

She should not choose a law school based on specialty. She should also be very, very careful about JD/MA programs. She'll have a huge amount of debt and not be a good fit for entry level jobs. She needs to decide if she's going to be a lawyer or a clinical ethicist. If she chooses to be a lawyer, she'll need to find a first job practicing law at a law firm to get training. Most in house positions, such as at a hospital, are only open to those who have several years of experience.

This, as pointed out above, the first year classes are static. Your DD wouldn't be able to even start any courses relating to bioethics until second and third year.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:He needs to research environmental law jobs and understand what that actually entails.

He has started that a bit.

Getting a government spot doing environmental law means you need to go to a top school and do well. Those jobs are filled with Harvard and Yale grads. You'll have an okay salary, but will be counting on the government forgiving your loans.

The other option is going into BigLaw and to defend companies in their quest to destroy the environment. You will be able to pay off your loans, but it isn't a job for a value-driven environmentalist.

If you can't get a prestigious federal job or get into Biglaw, if you are lucky, then you will make a subsistence wage filing petitions for local companies and individuals. More likely you won't get a legal job at all.

EPA is starving for attorneys, there’s been a lot of recent turnover. You need to show commitment to the mission. Most Fed attorney jobs don’t hire right out of law school though, but you definitely don’t need to go to a T14 school to get there. If he’s committed to environmental law, he should also check out Vermont Law School and Pace. uMD hs a good environmental program too.

This is NOT good advice. Do NOT attend Vermont Law or Pace Law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The “T14 or Bust” crowd on DCUM is probably the same crowd who insists that you have to go to a brand name college to have any chance of success in life as well. Neither is true.

The key isn’t to go to a T14 - it’s to go to the highest ranked law school that you can get into that you can afford to attend without going into substantial debt. If you have to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to Harvard, yes, your employment options may be the best - but as a practical matter your options will be limited to the drudgery of Biglaw because you’ll need to earn that kind of money for several years at a minimum simply to pay your loans off. You’d be far better off attending a top 30 law school that gives you money and graduating debt free rather than a T14 that requires you to incur crushing debt.

Unfortunatey, the key is to go to a Top 15 law school (15 as Texas has a very robust market for attorneys) or to attend a school in the geographical region where you intend to practice on a large scholarship so that no student debt is incurred for law school.

Top 30 law school is not a significant distinction, but Top 15 is a meaningful distinction with respect to employment prospects.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The public or scholarship route works if you want to stay in the region where there are alot of grads at firms from those schools. It is not a good plan if you mean to move before you are an established practitioner. For example many firms in DC hire GW grads and they do well in this region - might not be the case right out of law school if you wanted to go to NE or somewhere on the west coast. And GW is ranked 25th - same holds even more true the further down the list you go. you can easily see this by looking at firm websites and searching for lawyers from a particular law school which is usually a filter.

The real issue is what happens to those who aren't at the top of their law school class. At top 10 schools, these folks still do well. At a top 14 school, only a few at the bottom of the class are locked out of legal employment. At lower tier schools as much as half to two-thirds of a law school class may never get a job as a lawyer. Those who are locked out with big loans never ever financially recover from their decision to go to law school.

If you can go to a state school for free or you have parents who can pay, then go ahead and roll the dice and go to a lower tier school. Maybe you will be at the top of your class and do great. If you have to take out loans, then it's a much bigger bet on your future.

How do I know? I had a good friend at my T14 in 2010 who was around the 50th percentile. He never could find a job as a lawyer, having been locked out of all entry level recruiting tracks. He was almost $300k in debt. He ended up becoming a high school teacher and is still trying to have his debt forgiven given the mess of loan forgiveness. His law degree and loans has been a noose around his neck for more than a decade. He was one of many during the last recession who never found legal employment. There's a small window to find a first legal job before hiring parties move on to the next graduating class in the pipeline and you're locked out forever.

OP, don't judge schools based on how their handful of best students do post-graduation. Look at how those grads who are below the 50th percentile do. Do they get jobs? What jobs? What do those jobs pay? You can't guarantee your son will be in the top 10-25% of his law school class. Everyone wants that and it's super competitive. You can't count on being in the tippy top of your class.

Excellent advice !

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm going to go against the grain on this thread and say prestige is for the birds. I know DCUM is obsessed with it but you can have a completely lucrative career having gone to a public law school. The vast majority of lawyers in this country are not employed at big law and did not attend a top 10 law school.

In fact, most of the attys that I know who started up their own firms and now make $$$ went to public, no name schools. DCUM is a weird place for advice because it slants in one direction only - private, prestigious, big law, money, did I say prestige? In truth, there a multitude of avenues for success.

I went to a public, not highly ranked school. I started up my own practice because I wanted more freedom to raise my kids. I don't make big law money but at $400-500K, I'm doing just fine in a dual income home.

There are lots of ways to make a living in law, OP, more than gov't and big law. Chances are when your DC gets to law school interests will change.

This is really good. Is that your net? What practice area? Are you a solo? Any employees or associates? Any office overhead? ~~Another Lawyer

The range is gross. At October, my YTD gross is about $420K. I expect to hit about $455/470 by end of this year (gross) with $425-ish net. I'm 100% virtual so my overhead is about $30K per year. It's very low so I keep roughly 90% of what I bring in. This does not include my taxes (obv) just office expenses (e.g., virtual lease, softwares, supplies, some 1099 work, cc fees). I have one contractor who works on an as needed basis but otherwise I'm a true solo. I don't have the bandwidth for a full office with employees due to kids/family, though have been approached by other firms re: mergers. I'm just not interested. I'm in employment based immigration and have been doing this over a decade. Year 1, I made $20K so it was a steady climb.

PP here -- this is impressive. What kind of marketing did you do to make the steady climb? I would love to do this but don't think I currently have the portable book to make it more profitable than what I'm doing now, unless perhaps I took on my own contract work. What % do you pay your contractor? Sorry to derail the thread, but it does show OP that there is more than Big Law and Gov Law.

I pay the contractor a flat fee per project. She has given me a fee schedule per case. Because of the type of work we do, it's usually flat fee. However, I don't send out work that often - maybe a few a year. I don't do any marketing now. It's all client referral. The first few years, I tried marketing via online sources that yielded little. The key to solo practice is sticking in the game because it takes a while for the referral pipeline to build up. Salaries were Y1 $20K (but I started mid-year); Y2 $65K; Y3 $80; Y5 $111 Y6$132....Y10 $320K....Y12 $425(est). There are big bumps in some years because I gained large corp clients in some years, or COVID. I'm anticipating that I will level off, or have to hire someone bc I'm at max of what solo can handle.

And yes, there's so much more to law than just the govt & big law discussion. 80% of the attys that I know do something similar to what I'm doing. Maybe it's because I didn't start out in DC metro. Anyway, solo, small to mid size firms should not be overlooked. I have been at home virtually working for past 10 years. I've raised my kids and controlled my own time. I don't think that I'm missed out too much career ways because law is so flexible. Just something to think about, OP.

So you opened a solo practice straight out of law school? No prior legal experience? Did you have loans? What year was this?

No, I worked for a firm where I gained experience in my field of expertise for about 2 years. I did not start my firm with a book of business, though, as I'd left to have a baby. Yes, I had loans - about $80K. It was 2011. In the first few years, I had to do contract work on the side to supplement income until I got to a level where my practice was making enough to support me.

Ok. So your anecdote is completely dependent on law grads finding an entry level position to learn the trade. Pretty much no one opens a solo practice straight out of law school. The risk of a lower tier school is never finding that entry level job.

That is complete nonsense. Lower tier grads find jobs all the time. And that is my point. The posters on here just assume that the ONLY jobs are the prestigious law firms in downtown DC when, in fact, the vast majority of law firms in this country are small-mid sized firms. I worked at one of those. My first job was a small firm with 4 employees. The problem is that people on here thumb their noses at small firms as if that experience is neither good enough or helpful to the resume which could not be further from the truth.

And no one said opening a solo practice is dependent on getting a firm job first. I know plenty of attys who went solo straight out of school. There are a number of different paths. You just have to be entrepreneurial enough to find them.

Lots may find jobs. Lots also don't. That's what the data says. Lots of grads from lower tier schools with big loans and no job.

Which is why - upthread - I said to go to a cheap, public law school. Rankings are unimportant just be able to pay for it. And btw, there are lots of unemployed people from expensive grad schools - not just lawyers - so this advise could go to any graduate student, whether they're seeking a JD from an expensive school or a potential MFA from Wesleyan.

There are so many posters on DCUM who tell you all the things that you can't do. I'm offering OP an example of what you can if you're willing to work for it. You can go to a no-name, poorly ranked school and still make a decent living. It is all what you make out of it. If I had listened to DCUM 10 years ago, I'd still be sitting as an employee at a job I hated being miserable. Thank god there was no DCUM for me back then

There aren’t any cheap public law schools anymore. UVA OOS is now $98+ a year and being instate shaves off only a few thousand. Google it

Great. But most people aren't going to UVA law. There are cheap options where people can do well. DCUM just has to get out of the mindset that there are only two things to do with a law career - big law and govt'.
See - https://www.stilt.com/blog/2018/11/cheapest-law-schools/

And I'll preempt all the PPs that will say, but you cannot get a job by graduating from any of the schools listed here. That is just not true. And you graduate with considerably less debt.

It is not worth the time or money to attend any of those 13 odd schools you googled. It simply isn't. Not in this market, which is only going to get worse as the economy continues to sour.

Alabama is a good law school. 92% of University of Kansas grads worked in bar-passage required full time jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The “T14 or Bust” crowd on DCUM is probably the same crowd who insists that you have to go to a brand name college to have any chance of success in life as well. Neither is true.

That's a strawman, and a bad one. Read this chain: Lots of voices stressing that law school is NOT like undergrad, that prestige matters a lot for law school and very little for undergrad.

Not as accurate as it could be. Prestige matters a lot for law school, but less so for undergraduate school. My point is that elite schools add value to one's degree for both law schools and undergrad schools.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The “T14 or Bust” crowd on DCUM is probably the same crowd who insists that you have to go to a brand name college to have any chance of success in life as well. Neither is true.

That's a strawman, and a bad one. Read this chain: Lots of voices stressing that law school is NOT like undergrad, that prestige matters a lot for law school and very little for undergrad.

I went to a tier 3 undergrad and would happily send my kid to one if it was the best fit.

I'd never ever let my kid attend a tier 3 law school. To do so is playing roulette with your future. Most lose.

-lawyer

Solid advice !

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm going to go against the grain on this thread and say prestige is for the birds. I know DCUM is obsessed with it but you can have a completely lucrative career having gone to a public law school. The vast majority of lawyers in this country are not employed at big law and did not attend a top 10 law school.

In fact, most of the attys that I know who started up their own firms and now make $$$ went to public, no name schools. DCUM is a weird place for advice because it slants in one direction only - private, prestigious, big law, money, did I say prestige? In truth, there a multitude of avenues for success.

I went to a public, not highly ranked school. I started up my own practice because I wanted more freedom to raise my kids. I don't make big law money but at $400-500K, I'm doing just fine in a dual income home.

There are lots of ways to make a living in law, OP, more than gov't and big law. Chances are when your DC gets to law school interests will change.

This is really good. Is that your net? What practice area? Are you a solo? Any employees or associates? Any office overhead? ~~Another Lawyer

The range is gross. At October, my YTD gross is about $420K. I expect to hit about $455/470 by end of this year (gross) with $425-ish net. I'm 100% virtual so my overhead is about $30K per year. It's very low so I keep roughly 90% of what I bring in. This does not include my taxes (obv) just office expenses (e.g., virtual lease, softwares, supplies, some 1099 work, cc fees). I have one contractor who works on an as needed basis but otherwise I'm a true solo. I don't have the bandwidth for a full office with employees due to kids/family, though have been approached by other firms re: mergers. I'm just not interested. I'm in employment based immigration and have been doing this over a decade. Year 1, I made $20K so it was a steady climb.

PP here -- this is impressive. What kind of marketing did you do to make the steady climb? I would love to do this but don't think I currently have the portable book to make it more profitable than what I'm doing now, unless perhaps I took on my own contract work. What % do you pay your contractor? Sorry to derail the thread, but it does show OP that there is more than Big Law and Gov Law.

I pay the contractor a flat fee per project. She has given me a fee schedule per case. Because of the type of work we do, it's usually flat fee. However, I don't send out work that often - maybe a few a year. I don't do any marketing now. It's all client referral. The first few years, I tried marketing via online sources that yielded little. The key to solo practice is sticking in the game because it takes a while for the referral pipeline to build up. Salaries were Y1 $20K (but I started mid-year); Y2 $65K; Y3 $80; Y5 $111 Y6$132....Y10 $320K....Y12 $425(est). There are big bumps in some years because I gained large corp clients in some years, or COVID. I'm anticipating that I will level off, or have to hire someone bc I'm at max of what solo can handle.

And yes, there's so much more to law than just the govt & big law discussion. 80% of the attys that I know do something similar to what I'm doing. Maybe it's because I didn't start out in DC metro. Anyway, solo, small to mid size firms should not be overlooked. I have been at home virtually working for past 10 years. I've raised my kids and controlled my own time. I don't think that I'm missed out too much career ways because law is so flexible. Just something to think about, OP.

So you opened a solo practice straight out of law school? No prior legal experience? Did you have loans? What year was this?

No, I worked for a firm where I gained experience in my field of expertise for about 2 years. I did not start my firm with a book of business, though, as I'd left to have a baby. Yes, I had loans - about $80K. It was 2011. In the first few years, I had to do contract work on the side to supplement income until I got to a level where my practice was making enough to support me.

Ok. So your anecdote is completely dependent on law grads finding an entry level position to learn the trade. Pretty much no one opens a solo practice straight out of law school. The risk of a lower tier school is never finding that entry level job.

Worth repeating: The risk of attending a lower tier law school is never finding that entry level job. Even worse if one has student loan debt.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think we’ve gotten a bit off track as usual. What about if someone has a very specific specialty area within the law? Better to go to a school highly rated for that specialty, even if it’s not t14?

No. Employers generally do not care about the specialities for a variety of reasons. First, because law school class work and real legal work are very different. Second, first year classes are all the same general legal classes (torts, contracts, etc.) and that is what big law recruits off of. Third, the professors teaching the speciality classes often won’t have much of any practical experience in the subject, so they lack the connections to help students get jobs in that specialty. Finally, it would help show interest for non-big law jobs but so would an internship, UG major in that field, or prior work experience in that field. If the law schools are similarly situated rank, cost and location wise, then a speciality program could be a tie breaker. Otherwise, law school rank, cost and allocation you want to practice in are the biggest factors.

thanks, my DD is interested in bioethics, and is a bioethics minor (major not offered). She wants to potentially do a dual degree JD/MA in the field. Looking at the list of top "health care law schools", there are some on there who are the usual suspects) but also some that are less expensive such as UMD right in the mix for this particular speciality. If she is ultimately going to look for a position as a clinical ethicist in a hospital or working in a law firm representing hospitals, the prospective employers would still weight overall ranking more than specialty?

She should not choose a law school based on specialty. She should also be very, very careful about JD/MA programs. She'll have a huge amount of debt and not be a good fit for entry level jobs. She needs to decide if she's going to be a lawyer or a clinical ethicist. If she chooses to be a lawyer, she'll need to find a first job practicing law at a law firm to get training. Most in house positions, such as at a hospital, are only open to those who have several years of experience.

This, as pointed out above, the first year classes are static. Your DD wouldn't be able to even start any courses relating to bioethics until second and third year.

To OP - you mentioned above that your DD is interested in bioethics and UMD. All the posters saying you don't attend law school for a specialty are correct. Also UMD is 67,549 for instate, living on campus and $85,782 a year for OOS. Not cheap.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm going to go against the grain on this thread and say prestige is for the birds. I know DCUM is obsessed with it but you can have a completely lucrative career having gone to a public law school. The vast majority of lawyers in this country are not employed at big law and did not attend a top 10 law school.

In fact, most of the attys that I know who started up their own firms and now make $$$ went to public, no name schools. DCUM is a weird place for advice because it slants in one direction only - private, prestigious, big law, money, did I say prestige? In truth, there a multitude of avenues for success.

I went to a public, not highly ranked school. I started up my own practice because I wanted more freedom to raise my kids. I don't make big law money but at $400-500K, I'm doing just fine in a dual income home.

There are lots of ways to make a living in law, OP, more than gov't and big law. Chances are when your DC gets to law school interests will change.

This is really good. Is that your net? What practice area? Are you a solo? Any employees or associates? Any office overhead? ~~Another Lawyer

The range is gross. At October, my YTD gross is about $420K. I expect to hit about $455/470 by end of this year (gross) with $425-ish net. I'm 100% virtual so my overhead is about $30K per year. It's very low so I keep roughly 90% of what I bring in. This does not include my taxes (obv) just office expenses (e.g., virtual lease, softwares, supplies, some 1099 work, cc fees). I have one contractor who works on an as needed basis but otherwise I'm a true solo. I don't have the bandwidth for a full office with employees due to kids/family, though have been approached by other firms re: mergers. I'm just not interested. I'm in employment based immigration and have been doing this over a decade. Year 1, I made $20K so it was a steady climb.

PP here -- this is impressive. What kind of marketing did you do to make the steady climb? I would love to do this but don't think I currently have the portable book to make it more profitable than what I'm doing now, unless perhaps I took on my own contract work. What % do you pay your contractor? Sorry to derail the thread, but it does show OP that there is more than Big Law and Gov Law.

I pay the contractor a flat fee per project. She has given me a fee schedule per case. Because of the type of work we do, it's usually flat fee. However, I don't send out work that often - maybe a few a year. I don't do any marketing now. It's all client referral. The first few years, I tried marketing via online sources that yielded little. The key to solo practice is sticking in the game because it takes a while for the referral pipeline to build up. Salaries were Y1 $20K (but I started mid-year); Y2 $65K; Y3 $80; Y5 $111 Y6$132....Y10 $320K....Y12 $425(est). There are big bumps in some years because I gained large corp clients in some years, or COVID. I'm anticipating that I will level off, or have to hire someone bc I'm at max of what solo can handle.

And yes, there's so much more to law than just the govt & big law discussion. 80% of the attys that I know do something similar to what I'm doing. Maybe it's because I didn't start out in DC metro. Anyway, solo, small to mid size firms should not be overlooked. I have been at home virtually working for past 10 years. I've raised my kids and controlled my own time. I don't think that I'm missed out too much career ways because law is so flexible. Just something to think about, OP.

So you opened a solo practice straight out of law school? No prior legal experience? Did you have loans? What year was this?

No, I worked for a firm where I gained experience in my field of expertise for about 2 years. I did not start my firm with a book of business, though, as I'd left to have a baby. Yes, I had loans - about $80K. It was 2011. In the first few years, I had to do contract work on the side to supplement income until I got to a level where my practice was making enough to support me.

Ok. So your anecdote is completely dependent on law grads finding an entry level position to learn the trade. Pretty much no one opens a solo practice straight out of law school. The risk of a lower tier school is never finding that entry level job.

Worth repeating: The risk of attending a lower tier law school is never finding that entry level job. Even worse if one has student loan debt.

Yep took a cabinet secretary level connections to get my first job. After that things worked out. My friend who is ten years younger said why did you have so much trouble finding a job? He went to Boston College--not top 14 but higher than where I was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a lawyer and no have no idea if my college freshman will want to become a lawyer, but isn't this similar to what any graduate can expect when seeking a job? Some will immediately become gainfully employed, while it may take longer for others. Those who graduate from elite schools may have their first choice of jobs, while those who graduates from a school ranked 500 may take longer to find their place.

Either way, the likelihood is that no recent graduate, and I'd include those from undergrad and graduate schools, is going to remain in their first job for a long time. More likely, they'll bounce around from job to job during their 20s until they find something that sticks for them. So, why does it matter so much where you go to school unless you're aiming for a very niche career path like Wall Street, Big Law, etc.

I just think our kids should go to schools that won't put them or us in debt, where they can mature and START to figure out who and what they want to become in life. I just feel like DCUM especially makes this more complicated than it needs to be because there is so much focus on brand names.

Again, not a lawyer so what do I know.

You know nothing about law school and employment in the legal field.

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Anonymous wrote:I'm going to go against the grain on this thread and say prestige is for the birds. I know DCUM is obsessed with it but you can have a completely lucrative career having gone to a public law school. The vast majority of lawyers in this country are not employed at big law and did not attend a top 10 law school.

In fact, most of the attys that I know who started up their own firms and now make $$$ went to public, no name schools. DCUM is a weird place for advice because it slants in one direction only - private, prestigious, big law, money, did I say prestige? In truth, there a multitude of avenues for success.

I went to a public, not highly ranked school. I started up my own practice because I wanted more freedom to raise my kids. I don't make big law money but at $400-500K, I'm doing just fine in a dual income home.

There are lots of ways to make a living in law, OP, more than gov't and big law. Chances are when your DC gets to law school interests will change.

This is really good. Is that your net? What practice area? Are you a solo? Any employees or associates? Any office overhead? ~~Another Lawyer

The range is gross. At October, my YTD gross is about $420K. I expect to hit about $455/470 by end of this year (gross) with $425-ish net. I'm 100% virtual so my overhead is about $30K per year. It's very low so I keep roughly 90% of what I bring in. This does not include my taxes (obv) just office expenses (e.g., virtual lease, softwares, supplies, some 1099 work, cc fees). I have one contractor who works on an as needed basis but otherwise I'm a true solo. I don't have the bandwidth for a full office with employees due to kids/family, though have been approached by other firms re: mergers. I'm just not interested. I'm in employment based immigration and have been doing this over a decade. Year 1, I made $20K so it was a steady climb.

PP here -- this is impressive. What kind of marketing did you do to make the steady climb? I would love to do this but don't think I currently have the portable book to make it more profitable than what I'm doing now, unless perhaps I took on my own contract work. What % do you pay your contractor? Sorry to derail the thread, but it does show OP that there is more than Big Law and Gov Law.

I pay the contractor a flat fee per project. She has given me a fee schedule per case. Because of the type of work we do, it's usually flat fee. However, I don't send out work that often - maybe a few a year. I don't do any marketing now. It's all client referral. The first few years, I tried marketing via online sources that yielded little. The key to solo practice is sticking in the game because it takes a while for the referral pipeline to build up. Salaries were Y1 $20K (but I started mid-year); Y2 $65K; Y3 $80; Y5 $111 Y6$132....Y10 $320K....Y12 $425(est). There are big bumps in some years because I gained large corp clients in some years, or COVID. I'm anticipating that I will level off, or have to hire someone bc I'm at max of what solo can handle.

And yes, there's so much more to law than just the govt & big law discussion. 80% of the attys that I know do something similar to what I'm doing. Maybe it's because I didn't start out in DC metro. Anyway, solo, small to mid size firms should not be overlooked. I have been at home virtually working for past 10 years. I've raised my kids and controlled my own time. I don't think that I'm missed out too much career ways because law is so flexible. Just something to think about, OP.

So you opened a solo practice straight out of law school? No prior legal experience? Did you have loans? What year was this?

No, I worked for a firm where I gained experience in my field of expertise for about 2 years. I did not start my firm with a book of business, though, as I'd left to have a baby. Yes, I had loans - about $80K. It was 2011. In the first few years, I had to do contract work on the side to supplement income until I got to a level where my practice was making enough to support me.

Ok. So your anecdote is completely dependent on law grads finding an entry level position to learn the trade. Pretty much no one opens a solo practice straight out of law school. The risk of a lower tier school is never finding that entry level job.

That is complete nonsense. Lower tier grads find jobs all the time. And that is my point. The posters on here just assume that the ONLY jobs are the prestigious law firms in downtown DC when, in fact, the vast majority of law firms in this country are small-mid sized firms. I worked at one of those. My first job was a small firm with 4 employees. The problem is that people on here thumb their noses at small firms as if that experience is neither good enough or helpful to the resume which could not be further from the truth.

And no one said opening a solo practice is dependent on getting a firm job first. I know plenty of attys who went solo straight out of school. There are a number of different paths. You just have to be entrepreneurial enough to find them.

Please, do NOT believe this post. Terrible advice.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm not a lawyer and no have no idea if my college freshman will want to become a lawyer, but isn't this similar to what any graduate can expect when seeking a job? Some will immediately become gainfully employed, while it may take longer for others. Those who graduate from elite schools may have their first choice of jobs, while those who graduates from a school ranked 500 may take longer to find their place.

Either way, the likelihood is that no recent graduate, and I'd include those from undergrad and graduate schools, is going to remain in their first job for a long time. More likely, they'll bounce around from job to job during their 20s until they find something that sticks for them. So, why does it matter so much where you go to school unless you're aiming for a very niche career path like Wall Street, Big Law, etc.

I just think our kids should go to schools that won't put them or us in debt, where they can mature and START to figure out who and what they want to become in life. I just feel like DCUM especially makes this more complicated than it needs to be because there is so much focus on brand names.

Again, not a lawyer so what do I know.

Google bimodal lawyer salaries to see why that’s not entirely accurate. Law is unusually feast and famine.

Add to this that law can shut you out of other jobs as well. The real issue is that law schools will pump out another crop of law students before the recent graduates all secured jobs.

100% correct.

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Anonymous wrote:The “T14 or Bust” crowd on DCUM is probably the same crowd who insists that you have to go to a brand name college to have any chance of success in life as well. Neither is true.

That's a strawman, and a bad one. Read this chain: Lots of voices stressing that law school is NOT like undergrad, that prestige matters a lot for law school and very little for undergrad.

Not as accurate as it could be. Prestige matters a lot for law school, but less so for undergraduate school. My point is that elite schools add value to one's degree for both law schools and undergrad schools.

Neither law schools nor law firms care one ioata where you went to undergrad. Zilch.