Friday, January 16, 2009
Law Grad, 28: Do What I Did, If You Want... Or, Just Do What You Really Want!
I just read this article in the ABA Journal:
Law Grad, 32: Don't Do What I Do
In it, a 32-year-old law school graduate of Boston University who has $87,000 in student loan debt and who didn't end up getting the kind of high-paying job she thought she would get after graduation is "on a one-woman mission to talk people out of law school."
I guess I found this article late, because commenting on it was closed. I did read through several of the comments, ranging from "she's bitter and she must be an ugly woman who didn't work hard enough in law school" to "I completely agree with her; law school is such a rip-off."
It all made me think about my own experience and what I would advise, or not advise, a young woman who is thinking about law school.
The long and short of my advice would be the same as with most endeavors in life. Give it a lot of thought and do a lot of background research. Have realistic expectations and make practical decisions. But if it is your passion, your dream, and what you really know you want to do, then go for it, with all your heart, work hard and be true to yourself, and you will have a good life.
So I am against Ms. Wolf's crusade to convince people not to go to law school just because it didn't work out for her. Likewise, I would be against someone telling people to go to law school just because it worked out for him or her. We are all individual creatures, with separate goals, personalities, desires, comfort levels, etc. As is mentioned in the piece about Ms. Wolf, some people go to law school just as a "default" because they don't know what else to do, and they assume it will make them a lot of money. That plan is probably bound to fail and it's good to open up people's eyes that this is *not* a good reason to go to law school, folks. The law is like other areas of life: nothing good comes easily. The more you put into it, the more you get out. And even then, you might not get what you're expecting, so you'll have to come up with a Plan B. So yeah, warn people to make their own well-informed decision, and share with them how perhaps you didn't. But in my opinion it is wrong to tell someone what to do or not to do based solely on one's own experience, especially when it's delivered with a sour grapes type of message. On the other hand, I am not against Ms. Wolf or anyone else sharing his or her own experience, because it helps other people see what things *can* turn out like.
Here is my experience. In a way, I went to law school as a "default" and in a way I sometimes feel like a sell out. That is because my true passion is writing. I wanted to be (and still want to be, but my expectations are more realistic) a famous writer. I wanted to travel, read, write... I thought maybe I would be a professor of Latin American literature or a creative writing teacher in Spain, and a published writer. But the law was a career I had considered since middle school, because I felt I would be good at it and I always liked challenges. I am not from a family of lawyers and in fact I was the first in all of my family and extended family to receive a bachelor's degree. I always took pride in my intelligence and valued education; to me, a career in the law seemed like the reality of what my father always told me, and I truly believed: I could do anything that I wanted.
As I went to college, at a liberal arts school, I realized that I couldn't really be a full-time writer and/or traveler without having a trust fund or being severely broke. I wanted financial independence and I didn't want to rely on anyone but myself. So I started to more seriously look into the law as a way to find stability as well as that exciting challenge I was always craving. I knew I was good at reading, research, analyzing things and writing, and I felt up to the task of becoming proficient at oral arguments, my weakest link.
I admit I was also attracted to the salary I assumed that attorneys made, not because of any law school brochures like in Ms. Wolf's case, but because of society's image of the profession, which I totally bought into. I figured, even if I didn't like practicing law, I would make a lot of money and save it for a short time, so that I could "retire" very young and go on my traveling and writing expeditions. In that respect I was a little naive because I wasn't factoring in the realities of student loan debt, costs of living, and the fact that I had no idea whether I'd be able to get any job, let alone one that paid well. I think that is the myth that Ms. Wolf is looking to dispel, and in that sense I think her crusade is a good one. When people are young, the think the world is going to be handed to them on a silver platter, and law school is the ticket to megamillions. Too late they find out that education is pricey, the law can be tedious and hard and maybe they won't like it and then what? When I started law school I really hated it at first, and I felt trapped, because I had already signed on the electronic line for my student loans, and I didn't know how I could afford to pay them back without that ever-elusive paycheck at the end of the law school rainbow. In my case everything turned out fine and it was a *good* thing I couldn't easily drop out of law school. But I recognize that other people have other experiences, so I am just sharing mine.
One thing I think that Ms. Wolf neglects is that it's not only law schools that feature expensive price tags and huge promises. I think that the American education system in general has gotten way out of hand price-wise. I consider myself fortunate because the college that I wanted to attend -- Sarah Lawrence -- offered me a general financial aid package, and I came out with only $17,000 in undergraduate debt, and a big part of that was made up of my freshman year debt, in which I attended St. Louis University's campus in Madrid, Spain (not a cheap endeavor, but I was 18 years old and naive!) To be honest I didn't consider the price and I wanted to transfer to Sarah Lawrence so bad that I would have foolishly amassed large amounts of debt had the generous alumni not footed my bill for me. (I come from a very middle class family, but compared to many SLC students and alums, we didn't have money.) So now that I am older and wiser, I look back with absolute gratefulness that things happened for me the way they did, or else I'd be in a lot more debt right now.
*But* my younger siblings were not so fortunate. Neither of them have a law degree, and both of them have about as much in student loans as I do. My sister attended a private college in Virginia which advertised itself as having a music conservatory. She ended up doing music therapy and then got her Master's in secondary education counseling from a state (Pennsylvania) school. After realizing what a huge price tag her undergraduate education carried, she chose that state school and also chose to live with my parents during her graduate schooling so that she could afford it without debt. I have no idea how she did that without driving herself crazy, but I realize that her choice was smart -- and perhaps the only one -- financially. Now she is a counselor at a middle school who makes about $50,000 and has twice that amount in student loans. I am sure there are boards and journals where educators are complaining about their debt to income ratio and the high cost of education -- and in my opinion, they have more of a reason to be doing that than do attorneys!
My brother attended a private liberal arts school in Pennsylvania and just graduated last May. His student loans equal my sister's, and that's just for undergrad. I know he enjoyed his school (Elizabethtown College) but he's not enjoying his student loan payments, and I think it's a shame that education has gotten so pricey. He double majored in criminal jusitce and psychology (a real CSI type) and he is currently working as a juvenile detention center parole officer for probably about $10 an hour while going through a lengthy security clearance procedure that will end up in his new job: doing security for the U.S. Navy. He and his fiance, a middle school math teacher, will be married in June, hopefully around the same time he is cleared to start his new job, and they will have a comfortable life together, but it does come with his nearly $100,000 student loan price tag. He's probably never going to be rich, but he is happy, and I doubt you'd find him complaining on an Internet board.
So I think that part of it is expectations, and back to students who think their ticket to wealth is through the golden gate called Law School. Other people earn degrees in education or criminal justice, and they pay for them with expensive student loans, but they do it because they love it and because that's the life they envision for themselves, not because they expect to get rich. So I think anyone going to law school has to have some passion for it and some direction and, of course, realistic expectations, or they are going to be unhappy because they are actually doing it just for the money... which is the root of all evil of course!
So, back to me. After I knew for sure I wanted to go to law school, I poured my heart and soul into it. That is just the way I am. And I think that passion and dedication is very necessary for getting through law school and being an attorney, especially during these first few hard and confusing years. You have to have some internal motivation and drive to keep you going when everything external seems to be letting you down. So I am not trying to brag but I am just explaining what's worked for me and what I think is essential for anyone considering law school. Again, nothing good comes easily.
I studied for the LSATs and did pretty well on them. I applied to a lot of schools. Then I began to get my first dose of hard reality about the law, which is that its education is expensive!! Once I found out that reality, I had to make some practical choices. I *wanted* to go to Brooklyn Law or the University of San Diego Law School. Both of them were second tier, good local schools, and both of them were in areas I wanted to live in. But both of them cost $40,000 a year, *plus* the cost of living in those desirable areas. USD was going to give me the entire amount of tuition in loans, which Brooklyn was going to give me half in loans, and I have no idea what they expected me to do to come up with the rest of it. Nor did I have a plan to pay for living while I attended these schools, short of pole dancing, which I didn't think would fit in very well with my future career goals. ;)
I had researched a lot of different schools, and I had heard of the University of New Mexico School of Law from US News and World Report, which ranked its clinical education program one of the top 5 in the nation, and which ranked the diversity of its student body high too. I looked into it further, and saw that it offered a summer study abroad program in Mexico. (It turned out I wasn't able to afford this in law school, but it caught my naive pre-law school eye because I was interested in International Law and I loved to travel, especially to Spanish-speaking places). What *really* caught my eye was its price tag. As an out of state student, my first year would cost me $18,000 -- still *much* cheaper than the $40,000 from my other two preferred schools. After a year, I could become a resident and get in-state tuition of only $7,000 a year. (Or so -- it rose a bit each year but it was somewhere betwenen $6,000 and $8,000). To top it all off, it was ranked pretty much exactly the same as Brooklyn and San Diego!
I had never been to New Mexico, and at first I must admit I applied to it as a "back up" school (and it was the first I had heard back from with an acceptance) but I thought, well, my choice is clear. My choice was actually *necessary* because I couldn't realistically afford to go anywhere else, except my *really* back up school of CUNY Queens, where I could get in-state New York tuition for about the same price as at New Mexico, but it was a fourth tier school and it still involved living in and paying to live in New York City.
So off I moved to New Mexico. I thought I would go to school here and move elsewhere to get a job. I didn't realize how hard the move is from a local, well-known school to a big city that prefers its own local, well-known schools. I guess in a way I was kind of "stuck" although I know people who have moved out of state and I know I could do it if I wanted to... I just didn't want to do it that badly. I was lucky enough to make law review. I worked hard and, after a dreadful first semester, got pretty good grades. I got an offer for a summer clerkship from a good, "big" local firm (big in Albuquerque is a very relative firm... my firm was the third largest in the state, with about 55 attorneys). I then got a permanent offer from that same firm, and, coupled with the fact that I was in a permanent relationship with a guy who had pretty permanent plans to stay in Albuquerque, my choice was clear. I took the New Mexico bar and the job at the local firm.
Then, two years later, more fortune came my way. I think connections and networking are important, but not the end-all be-all, because I didn't know a soul when I first arrived in Albuquerque and, as I've already mentioned, I don't have any familiar ties to the legal world. I was just a girl and a dog (well, I got the dog the day after I moved here. ;) I didn't know anyone at the firm I clerked at until I had the on-campus interview and the second call-back interview. After two years of working at that well-known firm, I received an email about another firm, a regional one with an office in Albuquerque, that paid significantly more. It did help that I had the big firm experience, and that New Mexico is a small place where everyone knows everyone, so I had well-known and good attorneys who could vouch for me. But I proved myself. I worked hard and I put a lot of effort and passion into my work, and I think it shows. That is the advice I would give anyone: do what you love. Find out what you really want to do and go for it, no matter what anyone else says.
I'm not saying that I always love the law. After I moved to this firm, it was hard. It really pushed (and still pushes) my comfort level and there is a huge learning curve. Some days I am super stressed. Some days I want to quit. And other days, I finally feel like, I'm getting it, I can do this, all I need is hard work and passion, and if it happens to not work out, there are other opportunities for me. My possibilities are endless.
So. I obviously disagree with Ms. Wolf. But I am a different person with different circumstances. I made different choices. I forgot to mention that my law school education cost me about $80,000, which included living expenses in the form of private student loans. I did not always make wise choices. I wish I could go back and say NO to those extra student loans I didn't really need. I wish I had learned earlier to live within or below my means, make a budget, not use credit or unnecessary student loans to do fun things. But I have definitely learned that stuff being in the "real world" of working and paying bills and owning a house and looking at my overall portfolio. I am happy to have less than $100,000 in student loans for both undergrad and law school. So I say there are places where you can get a good education for less, you just have to look around and be willing to compromise. I feel fortunate to have a really good job because I do think there are aspects of luck and timing that come into it, like everything else in life. But no matter where I was working, I would feel like I came out ahead. But that might be because I put work and thought into the beginning of the journey. I didn't expect to make a gazillion bucks right out of law school, or even what I'm making now, three years out. I guess if you don't expect things to be handed to you, you'll be a lot more grateful when good things come your way, especially if you really feel like a lot of it is because you worked hard, counted on only yourself, and put all your effort and passion into it.
So, from this 28-year-old law school grad (I actually graduated when I was 25 so I'm not sure where the age thing comes in...), I advise people thinking about law school to first think about *why*. I would advise you to make sure you continue your other outside interests and not put all your eggs in one basket, either financially or personally (I am still writing and still planning on being a published author). Then think about the *how* and be sure to really lay out the numbers. Ignore the glossy brochures from law schools stating that average starting salaries are so and so. What does that even mean? That isn't a promise directly from the law school to you. That is just the law school trying to sell a product, and believe me, education has become a product. So just keep that in mind. Ask yourself this, if you get out of law school and you get a job that pays you $55,000 (a pretty good income for most Americans), will you be happy with your choice to go to law school and become a lawyer? If not, don't do it. Nothing is worth selling yourself out for, especially something that has no guarantee. With this economy and job market, I would think that law school graduates have to lower their expectations even more; I know many lawyers who are happy to have a job, anywhere, at this tumultuous time. So don't do it for the money because you can't count on money. You can only count on yourself. Only do it if you have a passion for it and you know you can dedicate yourself to it. If you do it and you're happy with your choice, then share the experience with other people. If you're not happy with your choice, also share that experience. But realize it is just an experience and everyone is different. Some people feel very fortunate to have been able to get into and go to law school, and some people are very happy with their choice to be an attorney. I am one of those people. Yes, my job brings me some stress and grief. (What job doesn't?) But it also brings me opportunities, challenges, and satisfaction that I don't envision myself being able to get out of any other career choice.
Don't do things just for the money and then you won't be let down if you don't make "enough" money. Figure out what you really want to do and go after it. If it's the law, then I wish you the very best, because I have found that it can be very rewarding.
Law Grad, 32: Don't Do What I Do
In it, a 32-year-old law school graduate of Boston University who has $87,000 in student loan debt and who didn't end up getting the kind of high-paying job she thought she would get after graduation is "on a one-woman mission to talk people out of law school."
I guess I found this article late, because commenting on it was closed. I did read through several of the comments, ranging from "she's bitter and she must be an ugly woman who didn't work hard enough in law school" to "I completely agree with her; law school is such a rip-off."
It all made me think about my own experience and what I would advise, or not advise, a young woman who is thinking about law school.
The long and short of my advice would be the same as with most endeavors in life. Give it a lot of thought and do a lot of background research. Have realistic expectations and make practical decisions. But if it is your passion, your dream, and what you really know you want to do, then go for it, with all your heart, work hard and be true to yourself, and you will have a good life.
So I am against Ms. Wolf's crusade to convince people not to go to law school just because it didn't work out for her. Likewise, I would be against someone telling people to go to law school just because it worked out for him or her. We are all individual creatures, with separate goals, personalities, desires, comfort levels, etc. As is mentioned in the piece about Ms. Wolf, some people go to law school just as a "default" because they don't know what else to do, and they assume it will make them a lot of money. That plan is probably bound to fail and it's good to open up people's eyes that this is *not* a good reason to go to law school, folks. The law is like other areas of life: nothing good comes easily. The more you put into it, the more you get out. And even then, you might not get what you're expecting, so you'll have to come up with a Plan B. So yeah, warn people to make their own well-informed decision, and share with them how perhaps you didn't. But in my opinion it is wrong to tell someone what to do or not to do based solely on one's own experience, especially when it's delivered with a sour grapes type of message. On the other hand, I am not against Ms. Wolf or anyone else sharing his or her own experience, because it helps other people see what things *can* turn out like.
Here is my experience. In a way, I went to law school as a "default" and in a way I sometimes feel like a sell out. That is because my true passion is writing. I wanted to be (and still want to be, but my expectations are more realistic) a famous writer. I wanted to travel, read, write... I thought maybe I would be a professor of Latin American literature or a creative writing teacher in Spain, and a published writer. But the law was a career I had considered since middle school, because I felt I would be good at it and I always liked challenges. I am not from a family of lawyers and in fact I was the first in all of my family and extended family to receive a bachelor's degree. I always took pride in my intelligence and valued education; to me, a career in the law seemed like the reality of what my father always told me, and I truly believed: I could do anything that I wanted.
As I went to college, at a liberal arts school, I realized that I couldn't really be a full-time writer and/or traveler without having a trust fund or being severely broke. I wanted financial independence and I didn't want to rely on anyone but myself. So I started to more seriously look into the law as a way to find stability as well as that exciting challenge I was always craving. I knew I was good at reading, research, analyzing things and writing, and I felt up to the task of becoming proficient at oral arguments, my weakest link.
I admit I was also attracted to the salary I assumed that attorneys made, not because of any law school brochures like in Ms. Wolf's case, but because of society's image of the profession, which I totally bought into. I figured, even if I didn't like practicing law, I would make a lot of money and save it for a short time, so that I could "retire" very young and go on my traveling and writing expeditions. In that respect I was a little naive because I wasn't factoring in the realities of student loan debt, costs of living, and the fact that I had no idea whether I'd be able to get any job, let alone one that paid well. I think that is the myth that Ms. Wolf is looking to dispel, and in that sense I think her crusade is a good one. When people are young, the think the world is going to be handed to them on a silver platter, and law school is the ticket to megamillions. Too late they find out that education is pricey, the law can be tedious and hard and maybe they won't like it and then what? When I started law school I really hated it at first, and I felt trapped, because I had already signed on the electronic line for my student loans, and I didn't know how I could afford to pay them back without that ever-elusive paycheck at the end of the law school rainbow. In my case everything turned out fine and it was a *good* thing I couldn't easily drop out of law school. But I recognize that other people have other experiences, so I am just sharing mine.
One thing I think that Ms. Wolf neglects is that it's not only law schools that feature expensive price tags and huge promises. I think that the American education system in general has gotten way out of hand price-wise. I consider myself fortunate because the college that I wanted to attend -- Sarah Lawrence -- offered me a general financial aid package, and I came out with only $17,000 in undergraduate debt, and a big part of that was made up of my freshman year debt, in which I attended St. Louis University's campus in Madrid, Spain (not a cheap endeavor, but I was 18 years old and naive!) To be honest I didn't consider the price and I wanted to transfer to Sarah Lawrence so bad that I would have foolishly amassed large amounts of debt had the generous alumni not footed my bill for me. (I come from a very middle class family, but compared to many SLC students and alums, we didn't have money.) So now that I am older and wiser, I look back with absolute gratefulness that things happened for me the way they did, or else I'd be in a lot more debt right now.
*But* my younger siblings were not so fortunate. Neither of them have a law degree, and both of them have about as much in student loans as I do. My sister attended a private college in Virginia which advertised itself as having a music conservatory. She ended up doing music therapy and then got her Master's in secondary education counseling from a state (Pennsylvania) school. After realizing what a huge price tag her undergraduate education carried, she chose that state school and also chose to live with my parents during her graduate schooling so that she could afford it without debt. I have no idea how she did that without driving herself crazy, but I realize that her choice was smart -- and perhaps the only one -- financially. Now she is a counselor at a middle school who makes about $50,000 and has twice that amount in student loans. I am sure there are boards and journals where educators are complaining about their debt to income ratio and the high cost of education -- and in my opinion, they have more of a reason to be doing that than do attorneys!
My brother attended a private liberal arts school in Pennsylvania and just graduated last May. His student loans equal my sister's, and that's just for undergrad. I know he enjoyed his school (Elizabethtown College) but he's not enjoying his student loan payments, and I think it's a shame that education has gotten so pricey. He double majored in criminal jusitce and psychology (a real CSI type) and he is currently working as a juvenile detention center parole officer for probably about $10 an hour while going through a lengthy security clearance procedure that will end up in his new job: doing security for the U.S. Navy. He and his fiance, a middle school math teacher, will be married in June, hopefully around the same time he is cleared to start his new job, and they will have a comfortable life together, but it does come with his nearly $100,000 student loan price tag. He's probably never going to be rich, but he is happy, and I doubt you'd find him complaining on an Internet board.
So I think that part of it is expectations, and back to students who think their ticket to wealth is through the golden gate called Law School. Other people earn degrees in education or criminal justice, and they pay for them with expensive student loans, but they do it because they love it and because that's the life they envision for themselves, not because they expect to get rich. So I think anyone going to law school has to have some passion for it and some direction and, of course, realistic expectations, or they are going to be unhappy because they are actually doing it just for the money... which is the root of all evil of course!
So, back to me. After I knew for sure I wanted to go to law school, I poured my heart and soul into it. That is just the way I am. And I think that passion and dedication is very necessary for getting through law school and being an attorney, especially during these first few hard and confusing years. You have to have some internal motivation and drive to keep you going when everything external seems to be letting you down. So I am not trying to brag but I am just explaining what's worked for me and what I think is essential for anyone considering law school. Again, nothing good comes easily.
I studied for the LSATs and did pretty well on them. I applied to a lot of schools. Then I began to get my first dose of hard reality about the law, which is that its education is expensive!! Once I found out that reality, I had to make some practical choices. I *wanted* to go to Brooklyn Law or the University of San Diego Law School. Both of them were second tier, good local schools, and both of them were in areas I wanted to live in. But both of them cost $40,000 a year, *plus* the cost of living in those desirable areas. USD was going to give me the entire amount of tuition in loans, which Brooklyn was going to give me half in loans, and I have no idea what they expected me to do to come up with the rest of it. Nor did I have a plan to pay for living while I attended these schools, short of pole dancing, which I didn't think would fit in very well with my future career goals. ;)
I had researched a lot of different schools, and I had heard of the University of New Mexico School of Law from US News and World Report, which ranked its clinical education program one of the top 5 in the nation, and which ranked the diversity of its student body high too. I looked into it further, and saw that it offered a summer study abroad program in Mexico. (It turned out I wasn't able to afford this in law school, but it caught my naive pre-law school eye because I was interested in International Law and I loved to travel, especially to Spanish-speaking places). What *really* caught my eye was its price tag. As an out of state student, my first year would cost me $18,000 -- still *much* cheaper than the $40,000 from my other two preferred schools. After a year, I could become a resident and get in-state tuition of only $7,000 a year. (Or so -- it rose a bit each year but it was somewhere betwenen $6,000 and $8,000). To top it all off, it was ranked pretty much exactly the same as Brooklyn and San Diego!
I had never been to New Mexico, and at first I must admit I applied to it as a "back up" school (and it was the first I had heard back from with an acceptance) but I thought, well, my choice is clear. My choice was actually *necessary* because I couldn't realistically afford to go anywhere else, except my *really* back up school of CUNY Queens, where I could get in-state New York tuition for about the same price as at New Mexico, but it was a fourth tier school and it still involved living in and paying to live in New York City.
So off I moved to New Mexico. I thought I would go to school here and move elsewhere to get a job. I didn't realize how hard the move is from a local, well-known school to a big city that prefers its own local, well-known schools. I guess in a way I was kind of "stuck" although I know people who have moved out of state and I know I could do it if I wanted to... I just didn't want to do it that badly. I was lucky enough to make law review. I worked hard and, after a dreadful first semester, got pretty good grades. I got an offer for a summer clerkship from a good, "big" local firm (big in Albuquerque is a very relative firm... my firm was the third largest in the state, with about 55 attorneys). I then got a permanent offer from that same firm, and, coupled with the fact that I was in a permanent relationship with a guy who had pretty permanent plans to stay in Albuquerque, my choice was clear. I took the New Mexico bar and the job at the local firm.
Then, two years later, more fortune came my way. I think connections and networking are important, but not the end-all be-all, because I didn't know a soul when I first arrived in Albuquerque and, as I've already mentioned, I don't have any familiar ties to the legal world. I was just a girl and a dog (well, I got the dog the day after I moved here. ;) I didn't know anyone at the firm I clerked at until I had the on-campus interview and the second call-back interview. After two years of working at that well-known firm, I received an email about another firm, a regional one with an office in Albuquerque, that paid significantly more. It did help that I had the big firm experience, and that New Mexico is a small place where everyone knows everyone, so I had well-known and good attorneys who could vouch for me. But I proved myself. I worked hard and I put a lot of effort and passion into my work, and I think it shows. That is the advice I would give anyone: do what you love. Find out what you really want to do and go for it, no matter what anyone else says.
I'm not saying that I always love the law. After I moved to this firm, it was hard. It really pushed (and still pushes) my comfort level and there is a huge learning curve. Some days I am super stressed. Some days I want to quit. And other days, I finally feel like, I'm getting it, I can do this, all I need is hard work and passion, and if it happens to not work out, there are other opportunities for me. My possibilities are endless.
So. I obviously disagree with Ms. Wolf. But I am a different person with different circumstances. I made different choices. I forgot to mention that my law school education cost me about $80,000, which included living expenses in the form of private student loans. I did not always make wise choices. I wish I could go back and say NO to those extra student loans I didn't really need. I wish I had learned earlier to live within or below my means, make a budget, not use credit or unnecessary student loans to do fun things. But I have definitely learned that stuff being in the "real world" of working and paying bills and owning a house and looking at my overall portfolio. I am happy to have less than $100,000 in student loans for both undergrad and law school. So I say there are places where you can get a good education for less, you just have to look around and be willing to compromise. I feel fortunate to have a really good job because I do think there are aspects of luck and timing that come into it, like everything else in life. But no matter where I was working, I would feel like I came out ahead. But that might be because I put work and thought into the beginning of the journey. I didn't expect to make a gazillion bucks right out of law school, or even what I'm making now, three years out. I guess if you don't expect things to be handed to you, you'll be a lot more grateful when good things come your way, especially if you really feel like a lot of it is because you worked hard, counted on only yourself, and put all your effort and passion into it.
So, from this 28-year-old law school grad (I actually graduated when I was 25 so I'm not sure where the age thing comes in...), I advise people thinking about law school to first think about *why*. I would advise you to make sure you continue your other outside interests and not put all your eggs in one basket, either financially or personally (I am still writing and still planning on being a published author). Then think about the *how* and be sure to really lay out the numbers. Ignore the glossy brochures from law schools stating that average starting salaries are so and so. What does that even mean? That isn't a promise directly from the law school to you. That is just the law school trying to sell a product, and believe me, education has become a product. So just keep that in mind. Ask yourself this, if you get out of law school and you get a job that pays you $55,000 (a pretty good income for most Americans), will you be happy with your choice to go to law school and become a lawyer? If not, don't do it. Nothing is worth selling yourself out for, especially something that has no guarantee. With this economy and job market, I would think that law school graduates have to lower their expectations even more; I know many lawyers who are happy to have a job, anywhere, at this tumultuous time. So don't do it for the money because you can't count on money. You can only count on yourself. Only do it if you have a passion for it and you know you can dedicate yourself to it. If you do it and you're happy with your choice, then share the experience with other people. If you're not happy with your choice, also share that experience. But realize it is just an experience and everyone is different. Some people feel very fortunate to have been able to get into and go to law school, and some people are very happy with their choice to be an attorney. I am one of those people. Yes, my job brings me some stress and grief. (What job doesn't?) But it also brings me opportunities, challenges, and satisfaction that I don't envision myself being able to get out of any other career choice.
Don't do things just for the money and then you won't be let down if you don't make "enough" money. Figure out what you really want to do and go after it. If it's the law, then I wish you the very best, because I have found that it can be very rewarding.
Labels: law school, legal profession
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