Op here, thank you for the great replies.
Re: the MYOB reply, I understand where you are coming from, but my brother has been struggling with this for a few months and has been asking my opinion on it. I know there are a lot of lawyers on this site so I thought I would ask

At any point in time in the past oh... 30 yrs or so, there are a lot more people who went to law school than are practicing law. I went to law school but am a SAHM so did my contractor, fav bartender, my hubby's personal trainer, etc. Actually, just about everyone I know in DC went to law school but only a few of them are practicing lawyers and these are people who went to law school before the economy hit the toilet.

No. Stop him. He is making a huge mistake. Really.

Most people that go to law school don't actually want to practice law. The like the idea of being lawyers, but not the actual lawyering. I think a HUGE percentage of those unemployed lawyers self-selected out.

Worth it or not, it is (generally) the only way to become a lawyer unless you are in one of the few random states where you can apprentice and take the bar. Honestly from a practical standpoint, all this about jobs and whatever aside, there are still going to be people who want to be lawyers and it is an expensive means to an end w/o a scholarship (ha!) etc.

If your brother isn't mature enough to realize the purpose of attending, I doubt you will be able to talk him out of it. And you never know, it could be his calling, he might do well there and get a great local job. Or, he might drop out 1L year. He's a big boy, let him live his life.

MYOB unless you're going to be asked to bail his ass out in the future. In that case, it becomes your business.

Agreed, 90k of undergrad debt needs to be worked off before going to law school. Why the fuck are folks getting into so much debt these days?

I graduated in 1993 with 17k of debt and that precluded me going into journalism.

MYOB.

No. Even at top tier law schools much of their graduating class is graduating without a job and schools are doctoring their numbers. My sister went a top 10, graduated in the top 30 percent and can't find a job. Over 50% of them are unemployed. Really sad state of affairs.

Anonymous wrote:Not worth it especially if you have to take out loans for it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html

Great article.

And all those losers can remain cash-poor for a long time. “I think the student loans that kids leave law school with are more scandalous than payday loans,” says Andrew Morriss, a law professor at the University of Alabama. “And because it’s so easy to get a student loan, law school tuition has grossly outpaced the rate of inflation for the last 20 years. It’s now astonishingly high.”

The 90,000 in debt he already has would terrify me. That's just for undergrad? I assume he's going to law school because he can't think of another way to earn money to pay back this debt?

Not worth it especially if you have to take out loans for it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html

Not worth it, and actually pretty difficult to find a job if he doesn't have great grades.

I agree with pp, unfortunately. Check out the other thread about struggling financially. That couple has $370,000 in student loans from college and law school and the husband has a $65,000/yr public interest job. Your brother can probably find something else to do in public interest without going to law school and not incurring the debt.

No. Unless you go to a top tier law school, it isnt worth it. Espedcially if he intends on practicing law around here.

Recent posts have me scared about this. My brother is headed off to University of Miami for law school. He already has 90,000 in school loans from DePaul, Miami was pretty much the only school he could get into that was in a warm climate with his grades. (he had bad grades from his 1st attempt at college, he later went back and had much better grades). I don't thik he is really all that passionate about law and is considering going into public service(?) as opposed to big law where he could make enough $ to pay off his loans...
University of Miami is extremely expensive and he has been dreading graduating with all this debt.