Is Law School Intrinsically Worth It?

The legal field today is a jungle. Unlike fields such as medicine and computer science, it is not a fast growing field by any means. It’s certainly not a declining field, but I can say with conviction that there aren’t any shortages of new attorneys in the country. There is also an enormous disconnect between expectations and real-life for many new attorneys. Many students reason that an almost guaranteed high student debt load will be paid off within a few short years when they obtain a high earning position post-law school. This expectation is very quickly shattered as a student learns more and more where 90 percent or more of new attorneys wind up after law school, and how much they are actually paid. These important factors and more should be considered by any aspiring student, and they beg the question “is law school intrinsically worth it?”

In this article I’m going to discuss the different factors that I believe anyone considering law school should consider. Before I decided to write this article I researched around a little bit to see what was already out there. I noticed that the opinions that were getting the most reads and views were frequently from people that admitted they had never been to or considered law school before! I personally think that telling someone they should not go to law school without ever having gone yourself is bordering on insanity. With that being said hopefully this article will be more helpful and honest than the junk that I have seen online.

Do you actually want to be a lawyer?

“Well duh Steve that’s why I’m considering law school”. I understand that many people may have this idea that they want to practice law and fight for indigent defendants that don’t get a fair shake or put the bad guy in jail. Believe me, I’ve wanted to be a lawyer since I was a small kid. I’ve always been interested in it, but before I made my decision to attend, I made sure that I would really be happy with a very difficult and all to frequently thankless career.

I interned for approximately nine months, four months at a Public Defenders Office and another five at a District Attorney’s Office. During that time I learned as much as I could, not just about the mechanics of a district court room, but also about the attorneys I interned for. What made them decide to go to law school, what schools they went to, what made them seek employment for the District Attorney or Public Defenders Office? Admittedly Criminal District Court is only a portion of the legal field and there are a lot of different specialties, but it gives you a really nice glimpse into what it means to be an attorney.

Before making that decision to attend law school I implore you to do something similar to what I did. Take an internship, work as a paralegal, at the very least talk with a few attorneys. The worst situation you want to be in is that you are a 3L law student with $100,000 in debt and suddenly you are realizing that you no longer even want to be an attorney!

Are You Interested For the Money?

During the introduction I mentioned that attorneys don’t make nearly as much on average when compared to many people’s perceptions. This could not be more truthful, the new lawyers that make $180k or more in BigLaw firms typically come out of T14 Law Schools and work 80+ hours a week. A much more realistic picture is what you will see interning at a District Attorneys office or a small private law firm. There, new attorneys typically make around $50k. I’m saying “typically” because it varies a lot depending on the area.

Not so attractive is it when considering that you could potentially end up with $150k or more in debt? This is not something that I say to dissuade you, it’s something that I mention to break a false expectation that some people may very well have. Just don’t expect to buy a new Mercedes Benz a year out of law school.

The problem is that the “average attorney” might make around $70-$80k out of law school, but that average number hides the enormous disparity in the legal field. Because there are enough attorneys at the top making those high salaries it inflates the average salary for the profession.

The Job Prospects

To some degree advice you receive about job prospects from law grads post-recession will vary tremendously from law grads prior. Like many other fields, legal jobs sunk like a bombed out ship when the Great Recession hit and for law students unlucky enough to graduate during this period they had a much tougher time finding a good job, if at all. There were many stories of grads having to take work as paralegals or outside of the legal profession completely. That is why if you do some research you will find that satisfaction with a law degree for graduates from 2008 until 2013 was significantly lower than in prior years. You will also find a much small percentage of graduates classifying themselves having a good job post-recession. Don’t forget that your job prospects will also vary depending on how you do during your time in law school.

Of course, it’s 2018 now and you should take note that the career prospects for new attorneys are much better than what they looked like in 2009. The prospects certainly aren’t what they were pre-recession, but they are much better. One of the major upcoming issues facing the legal field is the threat of automation. You are probably thinking that the legal industry requires highly skilled labor and couldn’t possibly be automated by a computer. Think again, junior associate work at Biglaw firms already looks quite a bit different than it did in the past. In years past a majority of junior associates time was often consumed with hours and hours of mundane “doc review”. Nowadays not so much, clients don’t like paying big law bills for a junior associate to perform doc review and to make matters worse there are now software programs that can do the work of five attorneys in a fraction of the time. What has that meant for big law firms? Less need for junior associates and this has correlated in a general decline of new associate hiring across the board in big law.

How is Your GPA & LSAT Score?

I had a friend of mine that worked the front desk at the District Attorney’s Office I interned at. I kept her up to date about my LSAT and law school application saga. One day after I had figured out what school I was going to attend, she let me know that she was considering attending law school and wanted to know what my thought process was going into it. I advised her that even if she is just considering law school she should take the LSAT.

Why? Because you’re LSAT score can open a lot of doors. If you are worried about the financial commitment, a good LSAT score can pave the way for merit scholarships from a lot of schools. If you are worried about job prospects, a really good LSAT score can get you into a really good school with excellent job prospects for graduates.

An LSAT score can also let you know that law school might not be your best option. Most resources will tell you that if you have anything less than a 150 you should either take it again or avoid law school all together. A low GPA can be forgiven, a really low LSAT score will not be.

Sure there are law schools that will take students with a sub-par LSAT score, but take a look at graduate’s job prospects from these schools. They are typically going to be atrocious, and honestly that is being generous. If you have a good LSAT score and GPA that’s great, law school is definitely in the cards. If your LSAT is poor, seriously consider re-taking or not attending law school all together.

Overall

After all of these considerations and more I believe that law school IS worth it, but it’s definitely not for everybody. Not everyone really wants to donate three years of their life to school, which is 10X as strenuous and time consuming as undergrad. Not everyone really wants to be a lawyer, and many that do have this idea of the television “Law & Order Attorney”, and boy do they freak out when they realize t.v and reality rarely merge.

Law school was worth it to me because I did receive a good LSAT score and received scholarships. Even though it is still expensive as HELL, I feel like the cost-benefit was good enough for me to go through with it. I interned for a long time before I made my decision, and I absolutely love the law. I’m not married and I don’t have any kids.

All of these things I factored into whether or not law school would be worth it for me. These might not be the exact same things that you factor in, but there is no answer that can be applied to everyone on whether or not law school is intrinsically worth it. It is different for every person debating this extremely important question in their life.

Unfortunately, law school is no longer the financial no-brainer that it was a few decades ago. However, it can still be well worth it for dedicated students with a real interest in the law and some scholarship money to support that interest.