T6 Law School vs. Average Medical School

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predilection05

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For discussion purposes only: assuming a person was equally interested in law and medicine, which career has better long-term job security, pay, prestige, interesting work, etc. What does everyone think?
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Medicine: Better job security, More prestige, More interesting work, higher income on average

Big Law: Better income potential at the upper limits


Equity partners at big law firms in NYC routinely make 1-4M per year. However your chance of becoming a partner from a T6 is probably about 10-15%. A person talented enough to do that could probably become a neuro/ortho surgeon or GI/IC in the med school route and also make 7 figures, but not above 2M.
 
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¿Por qué no los dos?

Are there any benefits really to doing a dual MD/JD outside of a potential career in policy making?
 
LebronManning said:
Medicine: Better job security, More prestige, More interesting work, higher income on average

Big Law: Better income potential at the upper limits


Equity partners at big law firms in NYC routinely make 1-4M per year. However your chance of becoming a partner from a T6 is probably about 10-15%. A person talented enough to do that could probably become a neuro/ortho surgeon or GI/IC in the med school route and also make 7 figures, but not above 2M.
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I know orthopods who make well above 2 million. Just FYI....
 
If you go to a T6 law school, you're generally going to have the option of going into biglaw. Starting annual base salary for associates in major law firms is around $190K. Every year, your salary increases by ~$20K/year, and then you get a huge pay jump if you become a partner. Unfortunately, the hours at these law firms is brutal, and most people don't make it to partner; they either get canned or quit.

From a purely financial standpoint, law is probably the way to go. If you're extremely hardworking and bright, and if you can survive in a major law firm, your earnings will far exceed those of most physicians.

However, from a work-life balance perspective, medicine is usually better. As a physician, you have the flexibility to work fewer hours at the same rate. As a biglaw attorney, you either work extremely long hours or you quit.
 
If you go after the right specializations, like derm + Mohs micrographic fellowship or ophtho + retina fellowship, you can put away millions and retire in your 40s, all with a pretty reasonable work/life balance (residency that doesn't destroy you for 100 hrs/week, no crazy middle of the night calls to the OR). Good luck doing that in law, banking or consulting. To hit payday in those fields you have to survive an up-or-out weedout with nonstop travel/horrible hours, tons of stress all the time. There's a reason a vast majority of people go out instead of up.

And that's assuming you get hired at the big firms in the first place. The average lawyer is lucky just to find employment that makes use of their JD
 
Anyone who is remotely considering law should actually sit for the LSAT and then come back with their impressions. I have a follow up response afterwards. I highly encourage TestMasters as a test taking resource.
 
I feel like T5 law school has a special kind of clout...
 
predilection05 said:
For discussion purposes only: assuming a person was equally interested in law and medicine, which career has better long-term job security, pay, prestige, interesting work, etc. What does everyone think?
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the United States has more than enough lawyers, thank you.
 
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Osminog said:
If you go to a T6 law school, you're generally going to have the option of going into biglaw. Starting annual base salary for associates in major law firms is around $190K. Every year, your salary increases by ~$20K/year, and then you get a huge pay jump if you become a partner. Unfortunately, the hours at these law firms is brutal, and most people don't make it to partner; they either get canned or quit.

From a purely financial standpoint, law is probably the way to go. If you're extremely hardworking and bright, and if you can survive in a major law firm, your earnings will far exceed those of most physicians.

However, from a work-life balance perspective, medicine is usually better. As a physician, you have the flexibility to work fewer hours at the same rate. As a biglaw attorney, you either work extremely long hours or you quit.
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Law is only the way to go IF you get into a T14 school AND you can do well AND you land a BigLaw job AND you can handle working 100 hour weeks (no hours cap on junior associates!) for 6-7 years to maybe make partner. But if you can do all that, you likely can match into a very high-paying specialty and out earn most of those BigLaw attorneys without the risk of getting canned along the way.
 
TBH, I feel like there isn't a wrong answer here. You'll be in good shape either way. The careers are very different however, and I would absolutely spend some time shadowing/working in each. I would suggest though for law to shadow a lawyer on a normal day, not like a day where they are in the courtroom. The courtroom is the exciting part of the work. The day to day is a completely different experience.
 
sumtimesuwonder said:
TBH, I feel like there isn't a wrong answer here. You'll be in good shape either way. The careers are very different however, and I would absolutely spend some time shadowing/working in each. I would suggest though for law to shadow a lawyer on a normal day, not like a day where they are in the courtroom. The courtroom is the exciting part of the work. The day to day is a completely different experience.
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Been to both civil and criminal court for a number of cases. Out of curiosity, what did you find exciting about the process?
 
Pina Colada said:
Been to both civil and criminal court for a number of cases. Out of curiosity, what did you find exciting about the process?
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I kind of liked the adversarial and competitive nature of it. The guy I shadowed for a court case had prepared for this case for months and months and the case was worth millions of dollars. Having all of that work pay off over the course of a trial seemed super rewarding and invigorating.

However, once I got into law school and did some internships for judges/ lawyers, I realized the day to day was not exciting in this way. So much reading by yourself in front of a computer, and writing briefs and answering to superiors.

I'm not saying that medicine isn't like that in its own way (so much reading, working for yourself is becoming less common), but I liked the day to day in medicine better. I spent a good amount of time (4 years) working as a medical assistant and then as scribe after I left law school to make sure that medicine was right for me/ get my application ready. I like the patient contact and the ongoing relationships you develop with patients.
 
IMO:
T14 Law School: MD
T30 Law School: DO

Rest is Carrib level gamble imo. Really imo the obstacle to becoming a physician is getting into med school, but the obstacle for law is to actually find a job, and being from a T14 helps a ton. I am mostly just jealous of the LSAT. My CS major would finally be useful but alas I have to go study psych/soc flashcards 🙁
 
Princeton Medical Student said:
IMO:
T14 Law School: MD
T30 Law School: DO

Rest is Carrib level gamble imo. Really imo the obstacle to becoming a physician is getting into med school, but the obstacle for law is to actually find a job, and being from a T14 helps a ton. I am mostly just jealous of the LSAT. My CS major would finally be useful but alas I have to go study psych/soc flashcards 🙁
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My only comment is that it’s not difficult for any physician who completes a residency to find a job in this country. And currently, it’s not difficult for a DO student to match some residency somewhere. We can go all day about the quality of that residency, but at the end of the day, both are going to have a job.

That may not be as true of a lower tier JD school versus a higher tier one - there’s a lot of equal-opportunity unemployment going on in law.

My point, I guess, is that I feel like this is a bad comparison because dropping from 14 to 30 probably has a dramatic consequence on hirability in the law field, not just prestige.
 
@sumtimesuwonder It's mind boggling to me that you couldn't abstract the day-to-day research that is needed from actually having been in court considering the only language they use is in statutes/legal precedence. Also, on addendum that someone who dropped out after being an L1/L2 student would type that law school is something that is still not a wrong choice when the loss of income & opportunity cost set you back by years. I really don't see a lot of job satisfaction from even successful lawyers and it's a notorious profession for burnout. So I'm having a hard time understanding why you would 50/50 someone into possibly going through the same exact path that you walked through in order to end up where you are right now.
 
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Pina Colada said:
@sumtimesuwonder It's mind boggling to me that you couldn't abstract the day-to-day research that is needed from actually having been in court considering the only language they use is in statutes/legal precedence. Also, on addendum that someone who dropped out after being an L1/L2 student would type that law school is something that is still not a wrong choice when the loss of income & opportunity cost set you back by years. I really don't see a lot of job satisfaction from even successful lawyers and it's a notorious profession for burnout. So I'm having a hard time understanding why you would 50/50 someone into possibly going through the same exact path that you walked through in order to end up where you are right now.
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Don't physicans suffer from burnout more often?
 
Pina Colada said:
Anyone who is remotely considering law should actually sit for the LSAT and then come back with their impressions. I have a follow up response afterwards. I highly encourage TestMasters as a test taking resource.
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You jest, but I'm actually taking the LSAT on June 3 and will report back with impressions. From doing some practice questions, it seems like one giant CARS section with logic puzzles mixed in.
 
puahate said:
Don't physicans suffer from burnout more often?
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Physicians are a fairly homogeneous group - there’s some pretty consistent themes in practice that make burnout easy to study. For example one could poll EM doctors about burnout and be reasonably certain they all share a similar practice style, job responsibilities, etc.

Law is much more heterogeneous. Some lawyers go to court, some spend all day reviewing contract documents, others spend their days trying to drum up business for the firm. Some make millions a year and live in NYC. Some are $300,000 in debt to a crappy law school, work at ticket clinic, and barely make enough to pay back their crazy interest rate private loans. Some work insane hours - worse than residency and for more years. Some have built an empire where they barely have to lift a finger and the cash flows in.

I’m sure there are some subgroups that are more burned out, and some that are less.
 
sb247 said:
everyone who gets through residency in medicine can make 200k, everyone

that's not true in law
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Very true. I have a family member who went to law school and now a lawyer. They’re doing well but they have some friends from their class and they’re not doing too well. In fact a couple of them are not even doing law anymore. And one still doing law can’t afford his spouse to quit her job so she can stay at home with the kids (something she really wants to do).
 
The job market for law has gotten bad and will probably get worse. It’s not what it used to be. I have family working in law but a quick google search will tell you this.
 
sb247 said:
everyone who gets through residency in medicine can make 200k, everyone

that's not true in law
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I am a simple man, so I am sticking with medicine. I could quit residency in 3 months, get a license and still be able to make 140k+ as a general practitioner.

Would not be able to do law anyway since English is a 2nd language. Thank God medicine is still a profession where one can command a good salary.
 
puahate said:
Yes...for now.
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I don’t think this is going to change anytime soon. There’s no way single payer has a majority support in this country, and I imagine that’s the main way physician compensation could decrease. But I do wonder what might happen with more NPs/PAs- maybe PCP salaries would go down to be competitive with primary care midlevel providers. Is there any possibility of that happening?
 
If you have that kind of academic chops, why not go for a PhD in mathematics from a top-30 school and then a quant position on Wall Street?
 
Walter Raleigh said:
If you have that kind of academic chops, why not go for a PhD in mathematics from a top-30 school and then a quant position on Wall Street?
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PhD in mathematics is not always required. I know a couple people who got jobs at places like 2sigma straight out of undergrad, some even dropping out to go to quant finance. These fields are where talent trumps degrees, letters, and UG.
 
If i was high IQ and didn't have this need to be connected to humanity I would go into quant above all else.
 
Pina Colada said:
@sumtimesuwonder It's mind boggling to me that you couldn't abstract the day-to-day research that is needed from actually having been in court considering the only language they use is in statutes/legal precedence. Also, on addendum that someone who dropped out after being an L1/L2 student would type that law school is something that is still not a wrong choice when the loss of income & opportunity cost set you back by years. I really don't see a lot of job satisfaction from even successful lawyers and it's a notorious profession for burnout. So I'm having a hard time understanding why you would 50/50 someone into possibly going through the same exact path that you walked through in order to end up where you are right now.
Click to expand...

I was a naive 22 year old who didn't have enough life experience to have context as to what that research actually meant. Also, just because my experience was bad for me doesn't mean that someone else couldn't find satisfaction in that kind of work. The fact remains that if you go to a T6 law school, you're going to get a job that pays well and offers you an opportunity to do almost whatever you want within the legal field. If you go to a top 20 medical school, you'll also have similar opportunities within medicine. Both careers are grueling in their own ways, but both rewarding in their own ways. Thats why I emphasized that to truly compare the two it is important to not make the same mistake I did and to gain experience in both fields before deciding either way.
 
What's interesting to one person is not interesting to the next person. In terms of job security, pay, etc., it's medicine hands down. In terms of flexibility and "usefulness" of knowledge, I would also say medicine. So the entire American population is aging and jobs for doctors aren't going away any time soon. And where there's increased demand, prices also go up. Now, you could argue that we're all going to end up with single payer healthcare and get screwed over by the government (aka lawyers), but I don't think that's going to happen without a huge fight. There's a lot of inertia against going down that route in this country and there are a lot of interest groups against that for financial reasons, as you might expect. In terms of using your knowledge, I would argue that since the law varies drastically between states and definitely across international boundaries whereas human pathophysiology is the same everywhere, your knowledge as a doctor is much more portable than your knowledge as a lawyer. You could always learn the applicable laws to any area you go to, but you don't necessarily need to relearn the medicine (maybe some terminology and how the health system works, depending on where you go).
 
But lawyers wear cool suits.
 
Princeton Medical Student said:
IMO:
T14 Law School: MD
T30 Law School: DO

Rest is Carrib level gamble imo. Really imo the obstacle to becoming a physician is getting into med school, but the obstacle for law is to actually find a job, and being from a T14 helps a ton. I am mostly just jealous of the LSAT. My CS major would finally be useful but alas I have to go study psych/soc flashcards 🙁
Click to expand...
Nahh i would say any med school DO or MD is more difficult to get into than any law school top or bottom tier. Yale law has a 9% acceptance rate and they are consistently top dog. Most if not all med schools have lower acceptance rates than 9%. Also You cant really stratify MD vs DO salaries they essentially make the same money. A DO orthopedist is getting paid the same as an MD orthopedist so not sure what you mean comparing T30 and T14 law schools to DO vs MD respectively
 
Deecee2DO said:
Nahh i would say any med school DO or MD is more difficult to get into than any law school top or bottom tier. Yale law has a 9% acceptance rate and they are consistently top dog. Most if not all med schools have lower acceptance rates than 9%. Also You cant really stratify MD vs DO salaries they essentially make the same money. A DO orthopedist is getting paid the same as an MD orthopedist so not sure what you mean comparing T30 and T14 law schools to DO vs MD respectively
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If you think getting into Touro DO in New York is tougher than getting into Yale Law School, you don't know anything about this. It takes a 98th percentile LSAT for most applicants to get into the law schools at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. Those people who get into those law schools could hack medical school admission if they were interested, but they aren't.

Financially there are pros and cons in the law vs. medicine debate but the key question is job satisfaction. I practiced law and despised it. How many people want to spend the rest of their lives talking out of both sides of their mouth? Yuck.
 
Princeton Medical Student said:
IMO:
T14 Law School: MD
T30 Law School: DO

Rest is Carrib level gamble imo. Really imo the obstacle to becoming a physician is getting into med school, but the obstacle for law is to actually find a job, and being from a T14 helps a ton. I am mostly just jealous of the LSAT. My CS major would finally be useful but alas I have to go study psych/soc flashcards 🙁
Click to expand...
This post is spot on. For fun I audit classes at a law school in the top 30 and I am hearing horror stories. If you aren't on law review, you could end up in some dingy office between a gas station and a nail salon hoping some poor schmoe walks in to file for a consumer bankruptcy.

The reasons that law is over saturated are technology and reforms of several former bread and butter practice areas like divorce and probate. You can stamp out a canned will in an hour. There is no need to send out an associate to perform research because everything is digitized and available on a laptop. In most states divorce is uncontested. Probate has been streamlined. All of these changes have reduced the cost and ultimately the price of legal services.
 
Obnoxious Dad said:
If you think getting into Touro DO in New York is tougher than getting into Yale Law School, you don't know anything about this. It takes a 98th percentile LSAT for most applicants to get into the law schools at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. Those people who get into those law schools could hack medical school admission if they were interested, but they aren't.

Financially there are pros and cons in the law vs. medicine debate but the key question is job satisfaction. I practiced law and despised it. How many people want to spend the rest of their lives talking out of both sides of their mouth? Yuck.
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Do the math most DO schools have an acceptance rate between five and 9%. even the top law schools don’t go lower than that yes the candidates for the top law schools could probably get into medical school but you can’t compare law school to medical school medical school is simply more difficult to get accepted to
 
Splenda88 said:
Modern IQ ranges for various occupations

Modern IQ ranges for various occupations

www.iqcomparisonsite.com www.iqcomparisonsite.com


Physicians seem to have a narrow range of IQ. I think that makes sense because it's hard to make it thru medicine with a low IQ.
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This is BS classist propaganda. The only thing that IQ tests are good for is telling you how well you can score on an IQ test.
 
kepler16b said:
This is BS classist propaganda. The only thing that IQ tests are good for is telling you how well you can score on an IQ test.
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My psych professor told me IQ test were accurate and valid though.
 
puahate said:
My psych professor told me IQ test were accurate and valid though.
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Yeah, IQ tests are accurate and valid for determining how you score on IQ tests.

Smdh physicians already have a problem with being perceived as elitist. This kind of discussion is not what we need.

"People who boast about their IQ are losers." - Stephen Hawking
 
Deecee2DO said:
Nahh i would say any med school DO or MD is more difficult to get into than any law school top or bottom tier. Yale law has a 9% acceptance rate and they are consistently top dog. Most if not all med schools have lower acceptance rates than 9%. Also You cant really stratify MD vs DO salaries they essentially make the same money. A DO orthopedist is getting paid the same as an MD orthopedist so not sure what you mean comparing T30 and T14 law schools to DO vs MD respectively
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My basis is on job security and not difficulty.
 
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