Nearing the End of the Second Year of Law School and a bit JADED

I am nearing the end of my second year of law school and life has become a little bit more stressful. As much as I love the law, the prospect of becoming an attorney in the technology field at this moment is a little bit uncertain. The job market in Chicago is quite slim for lawyers and there are no signs that it's going to get any better.

What does it mean to be a law student in today's economy? It means the bottom of the totem pole. It means you get the job left over after all the unemployed lawyers who are licensed and willing to work for near minimum wage (in some states) don't take. The result is law firms unwilling to hire and pay law clerks for work they would normally be paid for if times were better. What does that mean?

It means all those loans that are given out every year to law students in the name of "education" and "a professional career" are never going to get paid back. (I heard a rumor that President Obama didn't finish paying off his debt to University of Chicago Law School until last year.) Eeek! Will I be 40-something years old and still in debt?

Tuition prices are rising, starting salaries at law firms are lower (between $50,000 to $80,000 for a small to mid-size firm) and nobody has made the connection that it might be impossible for law school graduates to pay off the $150,000 debt (for private law schools) incurred from law school in the allotted time limit (20-25 years for most loans). This figure doesn't even include debt acquired in college!

Even if law students try to "mitigate" (fancy legal term) their losses and attempt to find a nice firm to pay them for their hard work in an attempt to lower the amount they must borrow during the semester and summer, they are met with empty offers. "Work for us 40 hours a week with no pay and we will write you a nice recommendation." This wouldn't be so troubling if a nice recommendation would get you anywhere in this atrocity of a job market. If nobody is hiring and everybody is laying off their new associates, what makes anyone think a nice recommendation from an employer-firm will make much of a difference when the recent law graduate is sitting in a room filled with applicants with at least 1-3 years of experience? Law students are thus left with the option to incur more debt and gain "experience" or take a job working at retail job, which they are clearly over qualified for (remember, law students ALREADY graduated from college and received at least a BACHELOR'S DEGREE).

What happens if the law student decides to "mitigate" his/her losses and take the retail job paying minimum wage? Well, they then get reamed during the interview process for "lacking experience" or worse they don't even get an interview. 

The moral of this story is don't think twice before going to law school - think five times and then ask yourself - do I like the prospect of incurring huge amounts of debt with little payoff and rewards? Do I really love the law or just the idea of a high profile position as an attorney?

When I entered law school I was a bright and optimistic 21-year-old. Knowing me, I would have said, "Screw the odds. I can do it." And I am, I am doing it. But I am not going to lie, I often wonder what it would have been like to set my mind to another dream. Maybe I would have had a more likely chance of getting a making my parents proud if I would have pursued a career in business or become an engineer. Humph. Too late now.