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[quote=Anonymous]Am I glad I went to law school? Yes, because I'm doing exactly the kind of public interest law I love and wanted to go to law school for. I'm a public interest attorney and have worked for DOJ and four non-profits in my field, never BigLaw (so no point of comparison there). Now, granted, I am a litigator so although I'm not working BigLaw hours all the time there are many weeks when I'm putting in very long hours. And I make shit money compared to BigLaw or federal government, so that part is not anything anyone would envy me for. And I still have law school debt to pay off quite a few years out. It's a good thing my dh makes a lot more than I do because if he were to be hit by a bus tomorrow we couldn't live on just my salary.

Would I recommend someone interested in "social justice" go to law school to get a law degree and change the world? Would I do it over again? Hell no. I wouldn't go to law school at all -- I'd be something besides a lawyer (preferably in a field where you actually learn something about something).

First, unless you can go to one of the top law schools in the country, I think law school is generally a waste of time (and I went to the top-ranked law school in the country, and it was still pretty much a waste of time in terms of teaching me anything I needed to know about how to be a lawyer. Brand name recognition, great, yes, but for as smart as our profs were they still weren't real lawyers, most of them, and law school was mostly an exercise in navel gazing and "learning to think about the law.")

Second, you're going to take on a crapload of debt, which will severely limit your ability to go work for a non-profit that pays little to nothing, even with loan forgiveness or assistance from your school. Most of the lawyers I know who went to school with visions of achieving liberty and justice for all sold out to BigLaw (back in the day when you could actually sell out to BigLaw pretty easily) because the reality of six figures of debt overcame the starry-eyed vision of achieving liberty and justice for all. Even without huge debt it's extremely hard to have a decent lifestyle on what many non-profits pay if you are in a high cost of living area.

Third, it's actually really competitive to get jobs saving the world, at least in my field. Most non-profits/social or other public interest organizations have no resources to train new lawyers, so they look for people who already have experience. But because there are so many idealistic young lawyers who want to save the world, they can be picky enough to want experience in the field -- and not just any experience. It can be one hell of a Catch-22 trying to get the right experience to go save the world when you are a new attorney. Also, referring back to point one, in my experience, brand names matter to non-profits, especially national-level ones. And the non-profits want not only post-law school experience but also dedicated summer experience, clinicals, etc. to show that you really are a born-again true believer and not just someone who couldn't get a job in BigLaw so thinks maybe public interest is a good-enough fallback position.

Fourth, the economic crash affected not only BigLaw but also legal services/non-profits that do legal work, because without charitable contributions and foundational giving, there's no money to pay staff. Plenty of non-profits downsized legal and other staff during the recession. There's no safe harbor because it's all connected, both private and public interest. So if the economy is doing poorly, it's often just as hard if not harder to get a public interest legal job as it is a private legal job.

It's great that so many people have the starry-eyed idealism that a law degree will help them change the world for the better -- but I think that a hefty dose of realism is critically important to the prospective law student who wants to go into public interest law. You absolutely have to understand what you're doing and not just assume someone will give you a paying job because you want to save the world.[/quote]

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