Fo0Ls Rush In. (Why, God, Why?!?)

From The National Law Journal, we have another piece about naïve, hubristic 0Ls.
Scambloggers have noted with dismay that law school applications are on the rise even as the legal profession continues to contract. With prospects for recent and future grads so horrible, and the word finally getting out through some mainstream media sources, one would hope that it had some deterrent effect. No need to worry, though, because "the applicant pool also appeared a bit savvier than its predecessors, as far as reading the fine print, admissions deans reported. Admissions offices fielded more questions than ever about job placement rates, career services and finances." Thank God, these kids are well-prepared and full of information fed to them by admissions deans. I was really worried there for a moment. If only the schools didn’t send out their best shills and respond to all of these queries by blowing smoke and lying their asses off about these very statistics, these kids might stand a fighting chance.

Yet even an industry cheerleader publication like the NLJ can't hide its disbelief about the naivete of prospective students. I especially like the lead photo montage of 0Ls with the caption "WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?" The article then goes on to talk about how law school applications are booming, deans are hungry for students, and 0Ls are ignoring the blood-curdling screams and foul stench of death emanating from the schools they are touring during admitted students day.

The piece also cited what is probably my favorite statistic from all of this law school meltdown mayhem: "In a recent survey of 330 prelaw student by Kaplan Test Prep, 52% felt "very confident" that they would land a legal job after graduation, although only 16% felt confident that most of their fellow graduates would be as successful." Not to minimize the hubris of 52% of these 0Ls, but how about the 48% who presumably do NOT feel "very confident" about landing a legal job? If about half of these prospective 0Ls aren't confident they will get a legal job, what possesses them to plunk down six figures for the degree?

What really boggles the mind about these articles is that they always manage to find some nontraditional student who already has a decent job, or someone who actually worked in a law firm, to interview.

Arline Laurer is among those banking on a turnaround during the next three years. The 21-year-old from a small town outside Rochester, N.Y., plans to begin studies at the University of Toledo College of Law next month. An internship at the Kings County district attorney's office in Brooklyn, N.Y., while an undergraduate at St. John's University solidified her ambitions.

"I've been watching [the legal job market] pretty closely — especially in the past year, as I get closer to going to law school," she said. "I'm obviously about to take on a lot of debt. I'm hoping by the time I get out of law school the job climate will be better."

One would think that, having worked in local government, where hiring freezes and working for free are the norm, this 0L would be skeptical of her chances of emerging as a salaried lawyer. The office she worked in was being staffed by UNDERGRAD interns, and certainly a host of unemployed volunteer law grads. When she looked around at all of the unpaid co-workers, did that not have any effect? Then there are the people who are pushing 30 and are ready to throw in the towel on their current career.

Law school has always in the back of Minnesota native Emily Johns' mind, but she gave it a more serious look during the past two years as her employer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, declared bankruptcy and offered buyouts.

"First and foremost, I'm doing this because I want to be a lawyer, not because I'm running away from these scary times in the journalism industry," said Johns, 28, an education reporter who will soon be a 1L at the University of Minnesota Law School. "But it did make me think seriously about my Plan B. I think I'm doing to right thing. There's no way you can know for sure."

After suffering through the journalism bloodbath, and being lucky enough to have a job as a reporter in that dying industry, I would be a little more skeptical before vaulting into another risky, dying profession. Especially if it had the potential to cost me $100,000 or more before ever working a day as a lawyer. Also, if she always wanted to be a lawyer, isn't that what she would have pursued after school, instead of journalism? Let's make up our minds, 0Ls. Which horrible, dying career field do you want to meet your doom in?

I was glad to see the scambloggers' old pal Professor Tamanaha make an appearance and offer this bold-faced warning (which no one will heed):

The tipping point — when the cost of law school will dissuade those are not seriously interested in practicing law — is on the horizon, Tamanaha said. He cautioned, however, that he has made that prediction before.

"In 15 years of teaching, I've known a lot of students who came here because they didn't know what they wanted to do," Tamanaha said. "A lot of this is about cyclical irrational decision-making. It's based on a very human trait, which is overoptimism. For the people who have always wanted to be a lawyer, they should go to law school. For anyone else, it's not a good decision."

There you have it, kids, straight from the professor's mouth. How many of us really, truly, "always wanted to be a lawyer." Not the majority of current or prospective students, who are mostly here because they (erroneously) believed that lawyers make decent money.

The piece ends with four short profiles of prospective students. Talk about ripe material. We’ve got lifelong lovers of the law, a nontrad, and plenty of willful ignorance. There's a theater major and future victim of Drake. There are people who turned down actual paying jobs, and lots of dreams of entering arcane, impossible-to-crack-into, or nonexistent practice areas.

"I was surprised by how many people were planning on going to law school," said Klatt, 22, who just graduated from St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, with a degree in ¬theater and English. "It may be because of the economy. Right now, in the job market, there's nothing."

Klatt isn't using law school as a delay tactic, even if some of her classmates are. She has wanted to be an attorney since childhood and saw no point in putting off her career ambitions because of turmoil in the legal industry. After months of research, she settled on Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa — a school she considers vastly underrated.

She hopes to become an advocate for the disabled, partly because she has watched people take advantage of her handicapped brother and other vulnerable people.

Although Klatt is confident that law school is the right choice for her, the price tag of a J.D. still leaves her a little queasy. Drake offered a scholarship that will cover half her tuition, but Klatt still expects to take out about $90,000 in loans.

I really, really hope Ms. Klatt finds her way over to Third Tier Reality before sending in that first semester tuition deposit.

Then there are the folks who claim they're aware of "how bad things are," but are steaming full speed ahead anyway.

Payne, 25, insists she's not looking at the legal world through rose-colored glasses. She has friends who have been laid off from paralegal and clerk jobs with law firms, and is well aware that the industry is unstable right now. Even so, she would like to land a job at a law firm and perhaps specialize in the legal issues surrounding social media — an area she manages for a Washington nonprofit.

So she's presumably witnessed your friends suffering layoffs and firms cutting back, and that the industry is "unstable." Better still, it appears Ms. Payne has a paying job with a nonprofit. How many 25-year-olds can say that, in this economy? How many liberal arts majors dreamed of working for a nonprofit, only to be on the part-time roster at Walgreens? Count your blessings, Ms. Payne. But you've got nothing on

Yazmin Wadia, who acknowledges that she hasn't been paying as much attention to the legal job market as she probably should, given that she is poised to start law school next month.

Granted, the 20-year-old has had plenty of other things occupying her time and mind — not the least of which was completing her undergraduate degree in political science and history in just three years at Arizona State University.

Wadia turned down a paying job at The Public Forum Institute, a nonprofit in Washington that promotes public discourse, in part because she felt that she wasn't yet ready to join the 9-to-5 workday grind. Instead, she plans to attend Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Ore., which lured her with a scholarship and a strong public interest law program. She hopes to parlay a law degree into a job with a large nonprofit in Washington such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Anti-Defamation League or Amnesty International.

While she hasn't done as much research as she knows she should into the job prospects for new law graduates, she understands that she'll face stiff competition to land her dream legal gig. "It definitely does scare me, knowing that you're competing in the job market with Ivy League graduates from Harvard and Yale," she said. "But it doesn't hurt to try. What's the worst that can happen?"

What's the worst that can happen? It'll only cost an inquisitive 0L three years and $100,000 to find out!

The Five People You Should Not Listen to When Considering Law School.

Ah, the good old summertime! It was only a few short years ago that I spent these few glorious months boning up on law school and preparing myself for the academic crucible of first semester 1L year. Looking back, I was an idiot, but I certainly didn’t know any better. A big problem for me was a lack of accurate, meaningful advice about just what the decision to go to law school entailed. Scambloggers and other disaffected lawyers have been trying to get through to prospective students that law is a shitty career, law schools lie through their teeth to get you in the door, and that legal hiring has been a bloodbath for some time. Sure, some of the class of 2013 will get jobs. A lot—and we’re talking many thousands—won’t get legal jobs at all. Maybe half of them will get temporary jobs or jobs they hate, just to pay the loans. In any case, the realities upon graduation will be a far cry from whatever expectations most people had during that last, glorious summer before they entered the abyss.

I received a lot of stupid advice from a lot of uninformed people, although I didn’t know it at the time. When you’re a wet-behind-the-ears 20something, it’s hard to ignore and disbelieve practically everyone who surrounds you and has guided you. Ultimately, the decision to go to law school is your own, as it was for me. However, when weighing this extremely perilous decision, there are a lot of people whose advice you should not heed. Thus, I give you, The Five People You Should Not Listen to When Considering Law School.

1. Your parents and relatives.

Your non-lawyer relations are, in a word, stupid. Every parent, even those who could never be described as “helicopter parents” likes the idea of their kid being a lawyer. Outside of born-to-the-purple sons of billionaires, a respectable professional job like doctor or lawyer represents the height of middle-class achievement for most people. Unless your family knows struggling lawyers, they will encourage you to go, and also resist your attempts to reconsider. Fight them. They will probably give you a few examples of a few acquaintances of theirs, fellow boomers who have built a successful small practice of some sort. You will probably get a line about how, “My friend Barb went to law school, and now she doesn’t even work in the law and makes $_ _, _ _ _ doing some bullshit.” Ignore this as well.

Your family is well meaning. They want you to succeed and are using their limited knowledge and susceptibility to occupational prestige to try and encourage you the best way they know how. The disconnect between your average layperson’s idea of lawyer salaries and the reality is huge. Unless you have lawyers in your immediate family, you’re not going to get the cold, hard facts. Many people trust and rely on their families, even long after leaving the nest. There’s nothing wrong with that… they’ve always looked out for you, and are still trying to, albeit misguidedly. This is one area where you must not let their good intentions get the best of you or color your decision to go to law school. It’s easy to feel complacent and that you’ve made the right choice when you’ve got a bunch of people cheering for you. Don’t fall into this trap. If need be, think of how hard it will be explaining to your loving, naïve family why you are still unemployed after graduation in a few years. Your family cares about you and loves you, yes. Most of the time, however, they are not footing the bill and won’t have to grapple with the personal consequences of going to law school for the rest of their lives.

New York-bound 0L should consider Fordham!

Above the Law did a nice little profile of a typical 0L who is headed to law school to kill time and ride out the recession. In New York, no less, where in addition to paying confiscatory tuition he can cough up for the ridiculous cost of living.

A lot of bloggers try to keep the kid-gloves on when talking about 0Ls. They think that by gently presenting the awful jobs data and sobering testimonials, 0Ls will see the light and reverse course. Prospective law students are really smart, right? Surely they can take these facts and arrive at a rational decision.

Apparently not, as prospective students continue to logjam themselves into schools and take the LSAT in record numbers. For every would-be biglaw associate over at top-law-schools, there are probably two or three times as many Ryan Kams. In my anecdotal experience from 1L orientation, those of us who frequented forums, blogs, and sites like lawschoolnumbers.com, numbered perhaps 30. This didn't make us any smarter, but we had spent the past six months learning what OCI was and trying to one-up each other on our reasons for going to law school.

This would-be 0L doesn't even feign an interest in "the law."

"As far as I'm concerned, evading the real world for a little bit is not a bad idea, especially with the current economic climate," Kam says. "Law school is a great way to kill time."

Yes, it's also a great way to kill your future and finances.

Perhaps we ought to take it to Mr. Kam directly. This can be a case study in shattering the law school myth. His mom joined the service out of college when there were no job prospects, something that in retrospect I also should have done. In any case, more 0Ls need to be taking a serious second look at a J.D. They can start by not believing the self-published employment and salary numbers schools put out. How might they find out what it's really like? Talk to the actual students.

One intrepid 0L over at TLS is on the right track:

“[H]ow would T20-40 grads at median be getting halfway decent jobs... ... ::bites lip:: ... are T20-40 grads at median finding decent law jobs???”

Glad you asked! And the short answer is no. I do give you props for asking, and for assuming that you'll be near the median at a mid-ranked school. Ten points for realistic expectations.

Let's take a look at one of these schools, number 34-ranked Fordham. While previously the top third of the class could look forward to good jobs, these days they're all screwed. And let's not forget what the bottom 2/3 of the class must have gone through, even before the recession. (This would include students at the median.) For only $62,000 a year, prospective students like Ryan Kam can also go to law school and end up working for free, or for $9/hour, like the poor souls in this article. Fordham self-reports 85.3% of its grads as employed, so you might still have a shot at an unpaid six-month volunteer position!

But hey, Fordham can't be THAT bad. I mean, Michael Clayton went there. Plus, it's in New York and is probably right up Mr. Kam's alley. Every prospective 0L who thinks they can hibernate near the median for three years in law school and emerge after the winter of recession, please listen to those who have gone before you:

"I mean, it's not just this summer we're talking about, this is the rest of our lives."

I couldn't have put it better myself, anonymous Fordham 2L. Perspective might be hard to come by as a 22-year old. It certainly was for me, and look where I ended up...in law school!

The problem with law school forums

For many prospective law students, online law school forums provide their first glimpse behind the curtain and opportunity to learn what getting a J.D. might really entail. Recently, the law school scamblogosphere has discussed the failings of these forums, nearly all of which are packed with bright-eyed 0Ls rather than battle-weary students or lawyers. Most posters on sites like top-law-schools.com, autoadmit, or lawschooldiscussion, possess an outlook on the legal industry and job market that is quite different from the perspective of current law students, lawyers, or casual readers of newspapers. Sites like these are replete with thread titles like: "Where should I go: Seton Hall (sticker) or Florida State (sticker)?" and "Is my 168 enough to get me into Vandy?" While they are not completely full of law school cheerleaders, the overall effect of these forums is to allow 0Ls with no experience to gas each other up about going to law school. Even given the current massacre in the job market, the majority of the posters have a certain...irrational exuberance...about the entire prospect of a legal education.

Nine times out of ten, any lawyer or current student who shows up on these boards and tries to dissuade prospective students from matriculating is greeted with skepticism at best. More commonly, jeers and personal attacks get thrown out. To be honest, I probably would have reacted the same way as a 0L, or at least told myself “this guy is just a bitter failure,” which is a fair point. I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m bitter as hell.

The problem is that there are a hell of a lot of “bitter failures” these days. A lot of us who have been through the meat grinder would sincerely like to save potential future victims from such a fate. 0Ls who lash out at anyone who dares to sully their legal dream aren’t the type to take bad news well. They probably aren’t the types to rationally approach spending $150,000 on a degree of questionable utility. I say let these types go to law school. Fill it on up. Those who are so full of themselves that they are sure they'll all make top 10% and law review, can only be dissuaded by hitting the brick wall of reality head-on. Nothing is going to cause these 0Ls to abandon ship, short of actually hitting an iceberg.

What all of these 0Ls fail to realize is that we were all like them, not long ago. Starry-eyed, self-confident, and positive we were going to show that damned law school curve a thing or two! I even was a member of one of these boards before I matriculated, and it sure made me feel smug knowing that all of my fellow 0Ls were stoking each others' dreams and sticking our heads in the sand. We had it all figured out.

Recently, a few noble scambusters took it upon themselves to venture over to TLS and make a direct appeal to prospective law students asking them to reconsider. They were greeted with sneers and insults. As a second attempt, primo scambuster Locke decided to double down and see if he couldn’t get at least one 0L to re-evaluate his decision to attend.

Let's take a look at how these 0Ls handled a little friendly advice to reconsider going to law school:

“Obviously you're unhappy with your own legal career, and you're compensating for that by telling ambitious 20-somethings that they will fail. You seem to get some kind of gratification out of all this, which is bizarre.”

Admittedly, some of the anti-law school types who show up on these boards are blunt and visibly angry with the law. Do these 0Ls truly all believe that they are going to be immune to the depression, burnout, and attrition that plagues the legal profession? As they all self-identify as “the elite” who are all destined to be at the top of their class, then perhaps they are.

Hell, I used to be an ambitious 20-something. I still am a 20-something, although law school has aged me terribly. (But you should see the other guys!) I don’t want to see any law student fail. My jaded outlook has nothing to do with wishing others ill. I’ve merely been hit head-on by the law school scambus and dragged beneath it, against the pavement, for several miles. Scambusting bloggers would really, truly like to see that as few people as possible suffer similar fates.

Many forum members are proud they bypassed the T14 and received a “good scholarship” from a crappier school. This is swell, if true, and if they can really go to law school for dirt cheap, more power to them. They will only be out three years of lost time. However, I’m willing to bet that more than one excited 0L hasn’t investigated just how hard it will be to keep the scholarship. Some schools can be fair with the minimum GPA required to stay on scholarship. Many others set the bar ridiculously high with the intention of yanking students off scholarship after their grades come in.

In the end, these 0Ls mount a valiant defense of their decision to go to law school. They are articulate and moderately well-informed about market conditions. They realize that the job market sucks. However, no matter how many of them cite their “actual desire to become a lawyer,” or “lack of expectations for biglaw anyway,” it’s clear many are in denial about their decision to gamble $90-150k on the off-chance that everything turns around by 2013 or 2014.

A 0L speaks:

“The regular posters…are extremely well informed, we've done the research on this. We know the economy is shit and that the legal profession is not likely to recover any time soon. If anything, maybe you could say we are cautiously optimistic that things might be better by the time the class of 2013 is looking for jobs. But there is NOBODY here that thinks everything is great and we're all going to get jobs.”

I must ask: then why the hell are you all going to law school? (“Because it’s not going to happen to ME!”) Yeah, bro, I thought the same thing just a few short years ago.

More from 0Ls:

“Most people on this site, it seems, are either getting substantial scholarships at riskier schools, or attending schools with decent odds. Is it gambling? Sure. Are many of us already faced with years of unemployment/underemployment due to our undergraduate degrees, many of which were sought simply to proceed to the JD? Absolutely. For a lot of us, this situation blew up after we were dedicated to this track. It's hard, Junior year of undergrad, to decide that you're suddenly going to become an engineer, or a Doctor.”

Dedicated to this track? As in, invested perhaps 100 hours studying for the LSAT, buying a few Powerscore books, maybe plunking down for an actual prep course? Consider that a fee for having learned to avoid law school. I know it’s hard as an undergrad seeing your plan torpedoed and not knowing what to do. Many of us felt like law school was the only thing to do given our undergraduate degree. The time and money you have “invested” in your law school dream is insignificant compared to how much precious time and money you are going to light on fire chasing that J.D. Write off what you’ve done so far as a learning experience, but don't let it color the future and make you think you have to keep chugging along.

As for deciding you’re suddenly going to become an engineer or doctor? How is it any harder than deciding you’re going to be a lawyer? In every case, you’re deciding to take on additional schooling and debt in hopes of getting a professional job. It’s exactly the same decision-making process involved in choosing law school. The economy took a dive after you decided you wanted to go to law school. Schools outside the T-14 are seeing double-digit unemployment rates. Even some qualified grads from the very top schools are working for free or not finding real, full-time work. I can’t emphasize enough how bad it is out there. 0Ls' optimism and self-confidence would, in other circumstances, be admirable. Having been there ourselves, we can say: please listen to the bloggers and disenchanted lawyers out there! No one has to stay on the track to law school just because it has been their plan. Things have changed; perhaps we all ought to as well. Is this really a radical proposition?