This post from abovethelaw.com* regarding citi's sale of its student loan division seemed to be the perfect subject to get me back on the blog as it touches on issues of which those applying to law school need to be aware (student loans, law school rankings, and the dearth of the 160k job).
i feel that i need to be honest here and note that i am incredibly lucky and did not have to finance my legal education through loans, so i have no personal experience on this issue. however, through my friends and co-workers, i've seen the effect that the staggering debt loan can have on your career and life choices.
so, for those not in the know, there's a maxim that applies with respect to choosing where to matriculate for your J.D. -- go to the best school you get accepted to, regardless of the cost. makes sense, as the legal profession is all about rankings and image (and snootiness), right? well, the problem is that the overwhelming majority of the "best" schools are private ($$$$) and even the highly-ranked public schools, like the University of Texas, are incredibly expensive. of course, there are scholarships and other non-loan aid available, but, as you can imagine, the competition for scholarships at the top-ranked schools is insane.
now, if you have the grades/LSAT to be accepted to a top-ranked (tier 1) school, it's also quite possible that you could be a strong competitor for scholarships/grants in the schools in the lower tiers and thus come out with no (or less) debt. but, here's the kicker -- the chances of obtaining the coveted biglaw job decrease dramatically the lower down the tiers you go. now, it is possible to work at a biglaw firm from a lower ranked school but you have to be at the absolute top of your class (it's also possible that you don't care about biglaw, want to be a PI attorney, DA, public interest lawyer, etc., so this isn't an issue to consider).
take charlie** for example -- very smart guy, did well at kansas and the LSAT, and was accepted to two law schools, northwestern and new york law school. to attend northwestern, he'd have to take out substantial loans, but had a full scholarship to nyls. following the maxim stated above, he obviously chose northwestern. guess what? ten years later, he is depressed, absolutely hates being a litigator in a large firm, but can't really afford not to do it, because of the 100K+ debt load he had to take on to attend northwestern. so the decision that he made when he was 21 and graduating from college will now control him for a majority of his life.
now here's the thing -- what happens to the student loan payments when charlie loses his job? or what about leslie, who just graduated from vanderbilt law and has to start making loan payments, but can't find a job in the legal profession, even in public interest work? losing your job/not being able to find a job is incredibly stressful, but to add a 100K+ debt loan? it's no shock that depression and substance abuse are rampant in the legal profession.
jobs are still very hard to come by in law. again, for those not in the know, like many professions, the legal profession was substantially altered by the economic crash. in the years leading up to the recession/depression/end of time, biglaw firms had become amazingly bloated, particularly in the transactional arena, as there was lots of work and plently of people wanting to make that biglaw salary (myself included). and then there were the salary wars of 2007 -- basically, the way that biglaw works is that a new york firm will raise starting salaries and all other biglaw firms eventually follow suit, because they don't want to lose out on the best "talent" (read: cog) to a rival firm, which they will certainly do if they pay less. the problem is, as in all things in life, not all biglaw firms are equal nor should they all have been paying starting attorneys $160,000.
fast forward to 2008, and there's NO transactional work available, because if no one's buying/selling/lending, there's nothing for these lawyers to do (or if there was work, it was getting captured at the partner level, but that's a subject for a different post). and then the (stealth) layoffs started occurring and summer programs shrank, and the salad days of the mid-2000s came to an end. now it's incredibly difficult (and it wasn't easy in the first place) to get a biglaw job.
but, if you lost your biglaw job, how can you make the payments for the loans that you took out in order to get that job? and don't even get me started about the lost generation. those kids were screwed before they even had a chance.
* if you don't know what abovethelaw.com is (although i can't imagine there are more than two other people reading this, both of whom know atl), it's a (tabloid-esq) website on the legal profession, and is credited in part to causing the salary wars of 2007. it was super fun to read atl in 2008, where the posts everyday were about layoffs. it was also super fun to wake up on a thursday morning with a horrific hangover from a wednesday night event, check atl, and find out your firm is firing people that day. particularly when you work right next door to the MP. but enough about that.
** obviously i'm not using my friends' real names here or personal details. duh.
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