Difficult Facts for Recent Law School Grads
Popular opinion questions question whether or not law school is a worthwhile investment. The number of applications to law schools in 2013 decreased 20% from 2012.
Publicized numbers vary, but it’s commonly agreed that finding employment after graduation is, at best, difficult for most.
However, there might be a different way to look at this data.
Analysis May Show Law School a Good Choice:
If law continues to entice you… you have a passion for it and believe that is a rewarding and worthwhile profession, then the current status of law school education might be working in your favor to make becoming a lawyer a reality for you. Now might just be a good time for you to apply. Consider the following:
- The law of supply and demand might just place you in a higher ranked school at a price that is easier to swallow.
- You must get into the best school that you can and negotiate with the school the lowest possible cost to you.
- Because there are fewer applicants to compete against, you might increase your chance of attending a higher ranked school than was possible a few years ago.
- The point above brings with it the possibility of better employment prospects after graduation. Graduates of the higher ranked schools are having less difficulty finding jobs.Law school admissions will still be competitive…there still is no guarantee that you will get into any particular school.
- No one can guarantee that a recent law graduate will step into their dream job…right away, this fact is not unique to law graduates. This is also true of other professions and careers.
- The need for legal transactions, civil disputes and criminal cases continues to grow with the population and business activity. See https://wp.me/p3idlm-11S.
Earnings comparison:
How much more does a law graduate earn than the amount they would earn if they had not pursued a law degree? Is that additional salary greater than the cost of law school?
Two well controlled studies reported by the Washington Post, indicate that a law school graduate receives a median earnings bump of $32,300 per year, and a mean bump of $53,300 a year. This earnings edge grows as the years of experience pass.
The study also looks at the bottom half of law school graduates. Even those at the 25th percentile get a lifetime earnings premium of $350,000 (before taking the cost of law school into consideration.) This earnings premium is equivalent to the 1996 premium. The Atlantic’s opinion of the studies:
As we all learned thanks to a certain Excel error, it’s a bit foolish to put too much stock in a single academic paper, especially one that hasn’t yet been subjected to a thorough vetting. That said, having scoured through it — and having asked the Hamilton Project’s Adam Looney, who has done similar work on college graduates, for a second opinion — Simkovic and McIntyre’s paper seems to be both based on a reasonable set of economic assumptions and a very by-the-book interpretation of their numbers.*
The Bottom Line:
Don’t base your decision of whether to apply or not on what others are doing. Be informed, yes. This will give you realistic expectations as you will know employment prospects, fields of specialty, salaries, etc.
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https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/law-admissions-lowdown/2013/04/29/take-advantage-of-a-smaller-law-school-applicant-pool
https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/debating-yet-again-the-worth-of-law-school/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/18/ignore-the-haters-law-school-is-totally-worth-the-cash
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/is-law-school-a-good-deal-after-all/277927/
Tags: law school
