Thinking about going to law school p/t

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

and, again, hordes of grads are getting out of school with a ton of debt and either cannot find a job as an attorney or are working a soul-sucking job in an awful practice area like debt collections or low-level personal injury. try servicing 90-150k in loans on a salary of 40-50k.

dismiss this as "crazy hyperbole" at your peril.

There are certain things you can only do with a law degree, or even if the law degree is not strictly necessary, will get your foot in the door.

the "law degree is versatile and can open other doors" thing is a laughable myth. if anything, it holds you back. an employer thinks you are either insane for not wanting to be an associate making six figures or thinks you will be out the door the second one of those jobs open up (not knowing that such a job will never open up for your TTT ass).

To get government policy jobs a law degree can help, although so can other less expensive degrees.

[Anonymous]

I would bet that your relevant background experience is the important thing for a govt policy job; a law (or other advanced) degree might be a plus, icing on the cake.

That is not the same as some hapless liberal arts grad going to law school because s/he doesn't know what else to do. It is these people who suffer from the delusion that a law degree will help you out, even if you don't end up practicing.

[Anonymous]

I don't think that people should go to law school without any notion of why law school might improve their chances to do a certain career path; it is certainly a massive investment. However, sometimes when you are transitioning careers (i.e. interested in a government policy job, or other jobs that a law degree is "icing on the cake") sometimes the "icing on the cake" can push you over the edge in terms of getting your foot in the door. Also, for part time programs (which you are lucky that in DC there are a number of very good to decent ones), some of the cost of law school is a bit lower because your day employment can cover cost of living, and sometimes if you can kill the LSAT you can get some scholarship money. I'm not saying it's a wise choice for everyone...it certainly shouldn't be done out of aimlessness. But if you took the advice of everyone on this board no one would get a law degree, an MD, an MBA, a PhD, or a masters degree (especially in things like public health or other nebulous degrees that may or may not advance your career). Statistically those with graduate degrees out earn those with just bachelors degrees. Sometimes without risk, there is no reward. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Office of Consumer Protection in Montgomery County. They take volunteers, and you could see if it's something you really want to do. And/or apply for a job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think that people should go to law school without any notion of why law school might improve their chances to do a certain career path; it is certainly a massive investment. However, sometimes when you are transitioning careers (i.e. interested in a government policy job, or other jobs that a law degree is "icing on the cake") sometimes the "icing on the cake" can push you over the edge in terms of getting your foot in the door. Also, for part time programs (which you are lucky that in DC there are a number of very good to decent ones), some of the cost of law school is a bit lower because your day employment can cover cost of living, and sometimes if you can kill the LSAT you can get some scholarship money. I'm not saying it's a wise choice for everyone...it certainly shouldn't be done out of aimlessness. But if you took the advice of everyone on this board no one would get a law degree, an MD, an MBA, a PhD, or a masters degree (especially in things like public health or other nebulous degrees that may or may not advance your career). Statistically those with graduate degrees out earn those with just bachelors degrees. Sometimes without risk, there is no reward. YMMV.

There is tons of objective evidence that the legal job market is in the toilet and probably will be for many, many years to come. Unless you get a free ride or significant money from a school, or unless you get into one of the top 5 or so schools, you should not go, period.

[Anonymous]

Recent law grad here. I went FT to a top-10 law school and graduated just above the middle of the class. Did not have a job when I graduated, but eventually landed on my feet and have a job that I really love.

I was one of the lucky ones. An alarming number of my classmates have been unable to get decent jobs (often the pay is just laughable in relation to the debt), dozens are not practicing law at all, and most of the ones who are employed do very little besides work. Some of the people in the last category do like their jobs, but few of them are healthy or balanced. The truth is that you have very little control over where you end up on this spectrum - some of the people who struck out in the job market had much better grades than I did, were on law review, etc.

And this my experience coming out of an "elite" school. People coming from lesser schools fare even worse on average, and if you are outside of the top 50 or so schools and do not finish at the very top of your class - forget finding a decent job.

Part-time programs do not measure up very well in this calculus. In fact, I've yet to meet another practicing lawyer who went to law school part-time.

Short version: don't do it. Even if it is free. You are wasting your time. If you can get into a top school with a scholarship, then maybe consider going.

[Anonymous]

there you go. nobody should be graduating from a T10 without a great job lined up. law school is a horrible idea.

[Anonymous]

I know a bazillion practicing lawyers, including partners, who went to law school PT. However, I'm in patent law, and we have lots of people who attended law school PT while working as patent examiners at the PTO or patent agents at firms. That's not to say OP should do it. Just responding to the comment about not knowing any attorneys who went to law school PT.

[Anonymous]

Don't
- pt JD '05

[Anonymous]

I graduated from a part-time program (Catholic) in 2012 and landed a job in the government a few months after I passed the bar. That said, it took a lot of my classmates (especially those in the full-time program) a hell of a long time to find jobs. In the part-time program OTOH, almost all of us were employed.

Why? Because the vast majority of us had careers prior to (and during) law school. That experience made us a lot more employable than full-time students, who maybe had a couple of summers of work coming out of all of their education.