When was it a "Winning Proposition?"

Room for one more?

There has been a lot of talk recently about the "value-added proposition" of a legal education, and the "lose-lose" game of going to law school these days.  A recent New York Times article features this addition to the fray. Well, far be it for the New York Times to exaggerate a story (snark). The Times seems to indicate that all is doom and gloom. Recent law school grads and current 3Ls are in the "perfect storm" of unspeakable debt, scaled back employment options, and an ever-increasing backlog of competition.

Others have been talking and writing about the prestige and opportunity that come merely from having a J.D.  Simply expand your search parameters outside of Big Law, and you too can join the ranks of the successful Juris Doctorates. If you aren't being tapped for interviews for your "dream job," it's your own fault for having such limited dreams. Besides, no one promised you a rose garden. It's a tough world out there. Suck it up and stop feeling entitled.

The truth, of course, is rooted somewhere in the middle. It is a horrible job market for people looking to be associates in law firms (big or small). However, you can bet that by the time you have thought of an alternate career, there are 1,400 other applicants in ahead of you who already thought their way out of that same box.  Simply looking for other ways to make use of your J.D. really isn't going to be enough for everyone.

Why are we in this pickle? Are law schools to blame? Law firms? Clients? Dirty hedge funds, Ponzi schemes, and unregulated banking? If you picked "E: All of the Above", you're right. For decades we have been inundated with images, real and fictional, of the glamor and prestige of legal careers.  Law firms overpaid young associates in order to attract bright talent, and tuition rates skyrocketed commensurate with graduates' salaries. Clients spared no expense, and didn't bother questioning exorbitant legal fees, because people grew accustomed to massive legal bills.  Law firms charged what the market would bear, but now we know just what the limits of the market are.  Clients scaled back in a panic over cost-cutting measures (and many reached for the smelling salts when they noticed partners charging $600 per hour for legal "work"). Rather than trimming budgets and bringing expenses in line with sanity, firms went into massive lay-offs and hiring freezes. Think Billy Zane pushing the last half-empty lifeboat away from the Titanic.

So why does this matter, and how does it affect evening students?

It matters because people graduating law school feel so overwhelmingly ill prepared to practice law, that we are made to believe working in a multi-practice law firm is the only way to really get our feet wet, and build up credibility with clients.  (That's largely true. Law schools could benefit by being more pro-active in prepping students for real-world practice, and balance that with the need to prepare them for bar exams). The European practice of apprenticeship makes a lot of sense - there is too much to know and too little that can be covered in doctrinal classes. (see my piece on the importance of Clinics). So, we are looking at a very large wave of the next generation of attorneys who are being shut out from perhaps the best form of on-the-job training. That sound you just heard was a collective "gulp" from the next generation of clients.

However, much like the poor in 1929, evening students were already in a bad position to start with, so this current climate hasn't changed things much for us at all.  If anything, we are slightly better off economically if we have maintained our income while in school.  So there are fewer jobs out there, students have to do more to distinguish themselves, and work harder to network and make good connections.  Welcome to the world of evening students! This is nothing new for us; there are just more people in our lifeboat now.  Cue Billy Zane.

Just please, PLEASE, no Celine Dion!