Academic

TROUBLE WITH THE LAW: Graduates of American law schools are finding that their chosen career is les?

By Glenn Reynolds

TROUBLE WITH THE LAW: Graduates of American law schools are finding that their chosen career is less lucrative than they had hoped.

THIS year ?The Apprentice?, a television show in which contestants compete for the privilege of working for Donald Trump, features 16 who are down on their luck, having lost previous jobs or otherwise having to start anew. No fewer than five of them are lawyers. The legal-job market in America remains dire. But the numbers applying to law school are still soaring, and students are taking out ever bigger loans as tuition fees grow faster than lawyers? salaries. Increasingly, they are graduating into a world of overblown expectation and debt.

Between 1996 and 2008 private law schools? median tuition fees almost doubled, to just under $34,000 a year. At public law schools fees grew even faster, albeit from a lower base: for those going to schools in their home state they almost trebled, taking the median to around $16,000. Starting salaries at the biggest firms?those with more than 500 lawyers?roughly doubled, to $160,000. But such plum jobs are hard to get, especially for graduates of the less prestigious public schools. At smaller firms starting pay has for years failed to keep up with soaring tuition fees, and of late has fallen (see chart).

Read the whole thing — especially if you’re thinking of going to law school. I’m not saying don’t go to law school, but don’t go into big debt in the expectation that big bucks will pay it off easily.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on November 20, 2010 (boomark / email).