Posted on 01/09/2011 5:40:41 AM PST by reaganaut1
...
To judge from data that law schools collect, and which is published in the closely parsed U.S. News and World Report annual rankings, the prospects of young doctors of jurisprudence are downright rosy.
In reality, and based on every other source of information, Mr. Wallerstein and a generation of J.D.’s face the grimmest job market in decades. Since 2008, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs at large firms have vanished, according to a Northwestern Law study. Associates have been laid off, partners nudged out the door and recruitment programs have been scaled back or eliminated.
And with corporations scrutinizing their legal expenses as never before, more entry-level legal work is now outsourced to contract temporary employees, both in the United States and in countries like India. It’s common to hear lawyers fret about the sort of tectonic shift that crushed the domestic steel industry decades ago.
But improbably enough, law schools have concluded that life for newly minted grads is getting sweeter, at least by one crucial measure. In 1997, when U.S. News first published a statistic called “graduates known to be employed nine months after graduation,” law schools reported an average employment rate of 84 percent. In the most recent U.S. News rankings, 93 percent of grads were working — nearly a 10-point jump.
...
Apparently, there is no shortage of 22-year-olds who think that law school is the perfect place to wait out a lousy economy and the gasoline that fuels this system — federally backed student loans — is still widely available. But the legal market has always been obsessed with academic credentials, and today, few students except those with strong grade-point averages at top national and regional schools can expect a come-hither from a deep-pocketed firm.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Oh, they will. They will have to work for the govt. in ways and places they never dreamed.
Are there any types of jobs in this country that are NOT vanishing???? I read somewhere — this country is dying; the economy at least. Becoming a 3rd world country is JUST around the corner — here in some big cities....
What do you call 10000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start.
What is the difference between a lawyer laying in the middle of the road and a snake laying in the middle of the road?
There are skid marks before the snake.
Law school is a winning game ONLY if you are in the top 10% of your class or go to an Ivy League school. Otherwise, it is rare that someone who goes to law school gets a high paying job. These days, if you don’t go to a top 20 school and are at or below the middle of your class, you’ll end up unemployed with a huge debt.
What happens is so many students graduate and cannot find jobs that are suitable to their high standards. They then decide they want to be a lawyer.
Anyone that wants to go to law school can. There is more than enough money for them in the way of federal grants and loans. There is some sleazy school that will more than gladly accept their money.
The problem is that we don’t need more lawyers. We’ve got 20x what we need already. Colleges and universities are big-business and they want to keep their classrooms full. If someone cannot afford it, taxpayers pay for it even though we don’t need it.
Why not end the whole NEA with its dirty lawyers and teacher unions and regulators that destroy education and make children into the most evil of peoples,that is, liberals and rinos?
Not too surprising, given the large number of lawyers there are.
What we need is for more people to become doctors, and fewer people to become lawyers. But as long as you have laws that restrict the number of doctors, you’re going to have more young people going into other professions.
the Law is vehicle of control and suppression for the Feds. It is their most valuable tool.
Given the tremendous drag on the economy that lawyers are, this is a good sign.
I've never understood why they think so much of themselves.
Lawyers have infested & perverted every aspect of our lives. Remember that at any given time trial Lawyers vote between 95 to 98% Democrat.
Democrats get more money from Trial Lawyer PAC’s than every other source combined.
Virtually all national & local Democrats are Lawyers.
If you ever stop to wonder why a company does some silly thing it is almost always because of Lawyers. I just bought a ladder that is covered top to bottom with stupid warning labels in 5 languages, like at 54 I do not know how to use a ladder without the help of a filthy lying liberal Democrat Lawyer.
What happens is so many students graduate and cannot find jobs that are suitable to their high standards. They then decide they want to be a lawyer.
I thought most lawyers just got bored selling used cars.
One should not have to go to law school or be licensed by the bar to be a lawyer. It is corruption that created this barrier of entry.
I thought most lawyers just got bored selling used cars.
So many are like used car salesmen. Some are good and some are bad. Either way, there’s just too many of them and they’re a burden on society.
Law schools should be putting out about 20% - 30% of their current number of lawyers. They’re not going to stop it, however, because it’s too profitable for them.
...it's only worthwhile to go to law school if you graduate in the top ten percent and make Law Review.
That's why the powers that be made sure His Precious Oneness graduated in the top.
The lower ninety don't get job interviews, period.
All you need to make a lawyer is a classroom, books, teacher...that's why there are so many basement walkdown law schools. You need a hugely expensive infrastructure to educate doctors, dentists, PAs...
So if you think some kind of guild system kept you out of medical school, you've been living a life of misguided resentment.
Actually, the laws do restrict the number of doctors, albeit indirectly. You need to be legally licensed, and in order to be licensed, you must (by law) graduate from an accredited medical school, and in order for a school to be accredited, it must receive the approval of something called the Liason Committee on Medical Education, which is a committee whose members are 1/3 appointed by the AMA, 1/3 appointed by the teaching hospitals, and 1/3 appointed by the medical schools themselves. The LCME uses its control over the accreditation process to restrict the capacity of the medical schools to accept medical students and reduce the number of graduates, which obviously ultimately reduces the number of doctors that can be licensed. They’ve been doing this for almost 100 years, and that has built up a significant distortion of the number of doctors relative to the population.
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