Practice Management

We all know lawyers who planned big only to be disenfranchised by the size of the obligations they ran up.  That is nowhere more true than choosing an overpriced law school because of the image that you believe it reflects due to its U.S. News rankings.

Susan Cartier Liebel over at Build A Solo Practice has covered this subject, and I recently posted on the study of William Henderson and Andrew Morriss in this regard.  Now the pair provides you more of their thoughts on the subject in a LawJobs.Com article.

As the article points out, where to go to law school is the biggest financial decision most applicants have ever made.  Yet, most applicants lack an understanding of the entry-level job market for new graduates in their area.  They improperly use U.S. News rankings to make their choice, and law schools flaunt these rankings to get a student to pay dearly for the costly education the law schools offer.

I have said, and will continue to say, that law schools that continue to hike already high tuition by double digits each year, and cannot seem to control spending, believing that they can do what they wish because they have manipulated the rankings enough that students will incur a morbid amount of debt, are disrespecting you as an applicant who just wants a decent legal education.  No matter what their ranking, if you have any choice in schools, let the option of attending that school go.  Send them on their way.  They are bad for you.  They may ruin you financially.

Further, if your alma mater is doing this, tell them to grow up.  If I hear or read one more law school describing their goal as being the premiere law school I think I will just throw up.  It is an excuse and it is code that means they are willing to gouge you, their students, the state, and their benefactors to benefit their selfish selves.  My solution?  Tell them to stop worrying about prestige and start worrying about raising decent, quality law students that are not teetering on the edge of financial oblivion.  Also, stop giving the school money.  You are only encouraging this bad conduct.

You can forget my pettiness. but part of what Henderson and Morriss tell us is:

"During the last three decades, the size and geographic dispersion of the global economy has dramatically increased the demand for sophisticated corporate legal services. In contrast, the demand for personal-services legal work -- wills and estates, personal injury, family law, simple business contracts, etc. -- has grown at roughly the rate of population growth.

These dynamics have resulted in a "bimodal" income distribution, in which there is a heavy concentration of salaries in two distinct ranges, based on salary figures provided by NALP. At the high end are the large corporate firm starting salaries that so interest the media. In 2006, salaries in the largest firms in major markets jumped from $125,000 to $135,000 to $145,000. Thus out of 22,684 starting salaries reported for 2006, 4,809, or 21.2 percent, were in the $125,000 to $145,000 range. (In 2007, this mode moved further to the right due to associate "salary wars.") Yet prospective lawyers need to remember that most new lawyers do not earn $160,000 a year at a large firm. Many earn $40,000 to $55,000 per year in small to midsize firms and solo practice. In 2006, 8,577 reported salaries, or 37.8 percent, were in this range out of the 22,684. The payments on $100,000-plus worth of law school debt look quite different to someone earning $50,000 than they do to someone earning $160,000 a year."

There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be a modest, wholesome, pure and nice person who believes it is worthy to make $50,000 your first year or two out of law school.  After all, you are virginal.  You are goodish.  You are as satisfactory as any Big Law aspirant.  You still have a ways to go, and a good deal to learn.  But, your future can be bright.  The only thing that makes this reality seem insubstantial, skimpy, weak or puny is the immovable mountain of debt that these schools have deluded you into taking out to pay for their whims.  The money they charge is too often not about you as it is about them.

Law school should be an adventure.  It should represent your aspiring future.  It should feel like a great accomplishment.  What it should not be is a sense of indentured servitude because of the gargantuan debt you were made to incur for the privilege of going to a U.S. News top ranked school.