Re Law schools

[Aznfarmerboi]

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So I have compared law schools to pharmacy schools in term of increasing class sizes and planned opening of new schools. The NYT and recently, WSJ have put up a few intersting blogs on this that takes aim at ABA.

"Meanwhile, as job opportunities abate, law school matriculation rates rise unchecked. Each year, the number of students who enroll at one of 200 law schools approved by the American Bar Association inches closer to 50,000. Even at Miami, where 32 students took Dean White up on her offer to defer, the school is still left with a first-year population of 527 — * 35 percent more than last year’s incoming class."

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/another-view-lock-the-law-school-doors/#comments

Hopefully this will lead to increase roles for school accrediation boards so that they can limit school without going into anti-trust issues.

 

[meister]

The ABA needs to close half of those schools. But that'll never happen because they get kick-backs from the schools and the schools get sweet money from the feds in the form of Stafford and grad PLUS loans.

Thus it's really the taxpayers' problem. The best part is that when these guys wind up in prosecutors' offices or working for an underserved community the feds will be subsidizing their loan debt again. America at work!

 

[Passion4Sci]

Same thing might eventually happen with Pharmacy.

I know the NY Times is covering the "lack" of jobs for lawyers pretty hard right now, and they've latched onto a couple of stories and one job faire (Yale's) but the fact of the matter is, only a small handful of graduates from the T14 and T25 schools will be unemployed post-bar.

The problem, as many articles cite, is not the T14 and T25s, it's the Tier 2s and Tier 3s and Tier 4s.

But really, how can you just out-and-out close law schools? Like say, effective 2010, Tier 2 and up schools are now finito... I don't know if that'd work. I'm no economics expert, but the implications of something like that seems like it'd be more extreme than what we're currently dealing with (like subsidizing loans for a public defender).

 

[meister]

Well it won't happen, that's for sure. But they graduate like twice as many lawyers a year as they need.

A friend of mine graduated from UVa law in May and still does not have a job.

 

[Passion4Sci]

Well it won't happen, that's for sure. But they graduate like twice as many lawyers a year as they need.

A friend of mine graduated from UVa law in May and still does not have a job.

UVA Law is pretty high too right? Well, your friend, as unfortunate as it might be, could be a fluke. The 1 or 2 students out of every 20 or 30 that don't get a job, due to their chosen specialization or any number of individual factors.

As a medical student, you're intelligent enough to know about sample size bias and anecdotal data. I know that for every "my friend..." story there are tons of stories on the other side of people getting jobs right out of the T14/T25... I'm not saying that it doesn't suck, but it's always happened - Even in 2000, between Yale, Harvard, Stanford, UCLA and Boalt, 5.6% of people did not have jobs in their first year. And that's in the middle of the easy credit splurge of America.

At ANY time there will be people without jobs for a variety of factors, right? The fact that your friend from UVA Law doesn't have a job could be due to a lot more than, say, the time s/he graduated in.

NOW! If s/he graduated along with 200 other people from U.VA who are similarly job-less, you've got a point and there's a problem. But I'm not willing to accept these one-off stories of people "not having jobs" in the first year and generalizing it to some systemic breakdown.

 

[glory4england]

Well it won't happen, that's for sure. But they graduate like twice as many lawyers a year as they need.

A friend of mine graduated from UVa law in May and still does not have a job.

I think its like a lawyer for every 300 Americans now... People at JDunderground are raging about the number of new lawyers being pump out each year and blogs are popping up everywhere warning new students about the law school "scam."

But as it is, law schools still get more applicants each year than they have spots. The public (most) has this notion that all lawyers either make 160k selling their souls to big corporations or are prosecuting murder charges and being the hero like in Law & Order.

I don't think pharmacy schools will ever be as bad as law schools since its considerably much easier to open up a law school than it is for a pharmacy school and HOPEFULLY, pray to any higher beings, that the ACPE wises up and see. Maybe when this law schools ship sink, the ACPE will realize it might be next.

Then again, we certainly will never see a hot shot pharmacist on TV solving unsolvable diseases or making super drugs or hot shot blonde pharmacy student got dump by her boyfriend and decided to enroll in UC San Francisco COP and discover cure for cancer and prove everyone wrong while looking fabulous doing it. (referring to legally blonde)

wonder how many people decided to be a lawyer after watching that *shudder*

 

[meister]

My friend isn't a fluke, he knows tons of people in his class who had big law jobs lined up whose contracts got rescinded after they graduated. There are dozens in his class without jobs.

 

[J ROD]

law sucks!!

 

[Taurus]

UVA Law is pretty high too right? Well, your friend, as unfortunate as it might be, could be a fluke. The 1 or 2 students out of every 20 or 30 that don't get a job, due to their chosen specialization or any number of individual factors.

As a medical student, you're intelligent enough to know about sample size bias and anecdotal data. I know that for every "my friend..." story there are tons of stories on the other side of people getting jobs right out of the T14/T25... I'm not saying that it doesn't suck, but it's always happened - Even in 2000, between Yale, Harvard, Stanford, UCLA and Boalt, 5.6% of people did not have jobs in their first year. And that's in the middle of the easy credit splurge of America.

At ANY time there will be people without jobs for a variety of factors, right? The fact that your friend from UVA Law doesn't have a job could be due to a lot more than, say, the time s/he graduated in.

NOW! If s/he graduated along with 200 other people from U.VA who are similarly job-less, you've got a point and there's a problem. But I'm not willing to accept these one-off stories of people "not having jobs" in the first year and generalizing it to some systemic breakdown.

I know quite a few unemployed lawyers too. Some of the contributing factors I have heard about besides the unchecked expansion of law schools are legal outsourcing and fixed-price billing vs. hourly.

Even if you're one of the lucky lawyers to get a job, is it worth going to into $150k debt for a 50k lawyer job?

 

[njac]

a friend of mine graduated from NYU in May, already having signed with a firm in San Francisco. He was paid $90K to defer starting until next year. The ones who were selected to start this summer and fall are likely to get laid off.

So he went to Asia for 6 months and will do some pro bono work when he gets back.

 

[Sparda29]

I think the thing is that lawyers are pretty much not that necessary of a profession to have. No one in my family has ever hired a lawyer. I considered hiring one for a speeding ticket, but after doing some research on them, I found out that you can save money by just defending yourself in court instead of hiring a lawyer.

You'll always need physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. There may come a time when lawyers are no longer needed for society to function.

 

[PumpkinSmasher]

I think the thing is that lawyers are pretty much not that necessary of a profession to have. No one in my family has ever hired a lawyer. I considered hiring one for a speeding ticket, but after doing some research on them, I found out that you can save money by just defending yourself in court instead of hiring a lawyer.

You'll always need physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. There may come a time when lawyers are no longer needed for society to function.

Can always count on you for the most ignorant post of the day.👍

 

[glory4england]

Everyone hates lawyers until they need one =D

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Everyone likes Johnny Cochran. He's my damn hero.

 

[type b pharmD]

Can always count on you for the most ignorant post of the day.👍

Maybe what he meant to say is that lawyers are much more subject to economic swings than pharmacists. You dont need as many lawyers if there's less economic activity , but you still need the same amount of drugs

 

[Sparda29]

Maybe what he meant to say is that lawyers are much more subject to economic swings than pharmacists. You dont need as many lawyers if there's less economic activity , but you still need the same amount of drugs

That's part of it.

 

[womp]

Sparda has a point. Japan doesn't have lawyers and their society functions just fine. The entire country of Japan has 22000 lawyers, one for every 5790 people. That's what I call bliss. Most civil stuff in Japan like malpractice is handled through mediation and a professional review board.

The US has 20 times more lawyers, per capita, than Japan. Scary thought.

 

[Jetninjin]

Thought #1 ... Johnny Cochran is dead. As is much of OJ's legal team. Coincidence ... ? Yes.

Thought #2 ... I've done as much stuff on legalzoom as I can to avoid hiring a lawyer. Even for something like drafting a will for my Crayola collection it's like $400 to pay one >.>