Even lawyers are stung by 'evolving' economy
It's called "the race to the bottom." We work harder and harder for less and less. The only thing that improves is technology. Our working hours are longer. We have less free time.
Some comments from the ABA Journal reporting on this story:
posted by AndytheLawyer - 19 hours, 59 minutes ago
Boomers aren’t “making room” in the workplace for new grads because they can’t afford to. In case you spent the past couple of years in a cave, the economy’s collapse included the evisceration of their retirement portfolios—assuming they had any to begin with, since today more than 90% of the USA’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of the upper 1% of asset holders. This isn’t a generational issue—it’s a greed issue that transcends generations. None of this is likely to change anytime soon.
Yeah. I agree. It is a fundamental change for the worse.
Posted by Liz - 18 hours, 14 minutes ago
Please tell me why schools are charging six figures for a legal education that teaches neither the skills necessary to practice, nor the information necessary to pass the bar.
Ditto to Come On. It’s not “entitled” to expect not to be scammed.
Maybe the law school deans and admins are getting kickbacks from banks making student loans.
Posted by FailedAtLife - 18 hours, 6 minutes ago
I agree that it is not ‘written that a law school degree and Bar admission is a guarantee for a job and a successful career.’
However, it would have been nice if someone wrote 4 years ago that the only business you have in staying in law school is to incur two years more debt to help pay scholarships for Law Review members.
Now I am unemployed, and forever unemployable as a lawyer since there will be a supply of laid-off current big firm lawyers from T-14 schools, not to mention future T-14 ones.
Fight back and hurt them by telling the truth.
Posted by Liz - 17 hours, 46 minutes ago
” If not for the generosity of parents, many recent college grads would be homeless and scrounging for food. “
The question is: How long can these parents keep providing assistance, given the skyrocketing healthcare costs, and hits to retirement savings? Each law school grad is dragging down an entire family unit. This is a real problem for our economy. It’s not just about the grads. As hard as it is to be an indebted and unemployed lawyer, it’s unimaginably worse to have worked and saved your whole life, and tried to give your child a chance, only to end up subsidizing $250,000 salaries for law professors and administrators.
The whole mess is just ridiculous.
One big problem with america is that we have little economic Leftism. Lots of social Leftism, but not much economic Leftsim. Until we address this deficiency, we are doomed to get worse.
Posted by FailedAtLife - 17 hours, 41 minutes ago
Sisyphus had better odds of forcing the rock up a mountain than lawyers effectuating any change in the system. Record numbers are enrolling in law schools, due to the bad economy. The ABA advocates for a greater availability of loans, because THAT is what the economy needs right now- an escalation of debt.
Keep telling the truth on the internet. Make videos and put them on youtube.
Posted by Liz - 13 hours, 5 minutes ago
You have it exactly backward, LS. The problem isn’t that too many people are diluting the once elite pool. The problem is that too few opportunities exist.
We outsourced the factory jobs, and everyone said, “You have to get an education to compete!” We outsourced the administrative jobs. Same line. We outsourced every possible job that wasn’t tied to this country, and we devalued the pay for those, and again, assured anyone who didn’t like it that “education is the answer to competitiveness!”
Now we’ve finally outsourced the outsourcers, and there are no jobs left. Nursing is over crowded. Teachers are being laid off everyone. They don’t even dig ditches anymore, literally.
Law was just about the last path left for people who wanted to better themselves - advertising, journalism, and all the other professions gave it up long ago. Now it turns out the legal education system was just a way for some people to benefit from the strivings of those who wanted to work hard and maybe contribute to society.
The problem isn’t outsourcing, per se. The problem is that education isn’t a path to anywhere, and given all the outsourcing, there’s nothing left for anyone to do. Do you really want a world where graduates of 12 schools run everything and the rest of us compete with Thai teenagers to dig the very few ditches anyone still needs? Don’t you think that’s a completely unsustainable and unstable society, not to mention a waste of all our forefather’s work to build something better?
You haven’t thought your argument through at all.
Great comments, Liz.
Posted by Liz - 12 hours, 53 minutes ago
I guess I think it’s a lot more cynical to charge $100,000, plus $50 study aids to interpret the $300 textbooks, plus $10,000 bar prep, plus $3,000 bar exam fees, and then turn around and say, “Oh, we were just giving you a chance…”
Once again, Liz sees the big picture clearly. And it is refreshing to see someone who can say things that have not been fed to her by academia and the media.
Posted by anonymous - 11 hours, 17 minutes ago
...but I would say outsourcing is only making everything much, much worse! How the hell can American attorneys compete w/ people from the third-world? Whoever is minding the store ought to be sued!
Or hung.
Posted by Liz - 10 hours, 37 minutes ago
“That may not sound comforting, since it means we, collectively, have to work harder.”
You want a world where we’re all willing to work as hard, for as little, as a starving teenager with no options?
And national protectionism has been working really well for China and the EU.
Media and academia have been programming us to accept this ever worsening race to the bottom
Posted by Too Many - 5 hours, 34 minutes ago
There are simply too many law schools and lawyers for the market to handle. There’s not enough work. It’s easy to get into law school, easy to graduate and fairly easy to pass the bar. The entry barriers are weak, and too many law students have flooded the market looking for the same, but limited $. The market will clear out a lot of the unemployed and eventually, things will work out.
That is the bottom line
"The market will clear out a lot of the unemployed..."
ReplyDeleteThis is true. Those of us who are unable to find a legal job will eventually abandon the J.D. and find something else to do with our lives.
"...and eventually, things will work out."
Not as long as the schools continue falsifying their employment stats with no one to call them out on it. Until that happens, the cycle will continue. There's too much money involved for this to stop.