9 to 5
Krista123105
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Law school?
in 9 to 5
Hi Ladies,
I'm considering a career change, and law school has always interested me. What can you share about the law school experience, job prospects, potential salaries, work/life balance, etc? Additional info - I work FT and would need to continue that through law school, and I'm married with one child. TIA!
~Krista 
Re: Law school?
There have been TONS of articles recently about the terrible job prospects for law school grads. It costs a lot of money to go, and it seems that most grads these days aren't being hired. My brother's girlfriend went to Loyola Law School in Chicago. She graduated in May, passed the bar in September, and still can't find a job, any job. Unless you're among the top few grads at the top tier schools, jobs are hard to come by.
You might want to XP on P&CE. There are quite a few lawyers there, and this is discussed from time to time.
My Lunch Blog
Unless it's been changed recently, if you go to law school in WI you don't need to sit the WI bar to practice.
That's all I know.
Lol, I was thinking the same thing!
Katiescat hit the nail on the head with her description of job prospects. In this economy, many purple are attending law school in the hopes of a better, more stable career. Admissions are definitely on the rise. The problem is law schools keep churning out students and the.job market is shrinking. A couple years back huge firms closed or.laid off hundreds of.lawyers country wide. Which means competition for jobs isn't just limited to other graduates.
As far as pay, law isn't always lucrative. Both my husband and I are attorneys. I make more than he does, but neither of us are pulling in the bucks. In fact, he makes slightly more than a public school teacher and substantially less than a college professor. Jobs are so scarce that many places can afford to offer really low salaries because someone will take it.
Work/life balance depends on the type of law you practice. DH doesn't make much, but he's home everyday by 5:30 and only works weekends if there's an event (like Saturday there was a community event he helped plan with bmxers, skaters, etc.). On the other hand, I don't get a nice set schedule. Some days I'm in early and some days I work late. Sometimes I have to work on the weekend. My first job out of law school I worked 8am to 10pm everyday, brought work.home with me every night, and worked every weekend.
The above statements seem to rarely dissuade people from attending law school, but it's definitely important to know them so you're not completely surprised when you graduate and can't find a job but have a hundred thousand dollars in student loans to pay off.
Read all the blogs & websites about why law school sucks. They aren't all true but you should read them anyway. If you still want to go to law school . . . crucnh all the numbers. Will you still be happy with $100k in debt, making $40k per year & working 60+ hours per week? If the answer is yes & you don't have big law dreams, go. Work toward that big law goal b/c the money can be fantastic but don't buy into the lifestyle.
Married with a child + work FT + law school = no sleep for you & almost never seeing your child. Is your spouse on board with being the primary parent?
Post this on MM and you'll get some very honest/eye-opening responses.
You really need to think about why. DH went to law school because he felt like what else could he do with a bachelors in political science? Marquette is the only law school in Milwaukee, and I'm guessing that Marquette is where you're aspiring to go unless you plan on commuting the 90 miles to Madison (I'm also a Marquette alum, but undergrad, not law).
The others are very, very, very right about the dismal prospects. Sure, if you go to a school in Wisconsin you don't have to take the Bar Exam, but then that really limits your prospects in practicing in Illinois or Minnesota. (In fact, many UW and MU grads will take a bar exam just to have a bar exam under their belt) But you are competing against not just those who attended school in Wisconsin but those who went to school in other places who want to practice in Wisconsin. My cousin graduated from Penn State in 2009 and just got a full time job and it's now 2011. That's two years and she's taken and passed the bar in two competitive states.
My DH went to Saint Louis University and graduated middle of the pack. He passed the bar and had some offers, but this was back in 2005 when the market was a lot stronger. He now works in sports law as an athletic administrator at a university here in NYC but even that job is really competitive - he recently had an opening for one person and had over 200 resumes, many of which had amazing credentials from Tier I schools. And guess how much this position paid?
$40,000. For Manhattan. That is ridiculously cheap.
Others are right - if you don't have your heart set on the big firms like Foley Lardner or Quarles & Brady then you could be okay, but it's still competitive for the mid-level to small firms. DH practiced for only a year, didn't like having to schmooze for clients and went into administration. His hours varies depending on the workload but he enjoys it immensely - but he also gets paid less. Same thing with my cousin who went to Penn State - she also works for a university and her hours go back and forth. I have friends who work at mid-level firms and they put in hours going from a standard 9 to 5 to 9 to 9. I have one friend who works for a big Chicago firm and she is chained to work - because when she goes home she's still linked with her Blackberry.
I just asked DH his thoughts and he suggested you really figure out what your motivation is. Considering the cost (combined our student loan debt is about $130,000 and that's actually below average for many SINGLE law grads now) "just because it interests you" isn't good enough.
Marquette is pretty supportive as a community but also, as it's risen in the rankings, it's gotten more competitive. You might want to contact admissions and see if there are "meet and greets" so you have a chance to talk to some students about how they feel about their work life balance as a student.
good luck. DH just said "Don't do it!" We love our alma mater, but law school sucks.
I think you should definitely research this more before jumping into it. Job prospects tend to be tough in major metropolitan area....I think you have to be very sure that this is what you want to do because there is a lot of money and a lot of effort. Salaries are high in very competitive difficult firms, even midlevel position tend to be hard to get. Because of the current economy, many legal employers are offering attorneys (even with great credentials) very very low salaries.so that is something you have to be okay with accepting (at least initially).
I should add that work-life balance varies by firm - really large firms have more hours but something midlevel or even low paying firms will have you working until 7 or 8 (not that late but not a nine to five).
I haven't posted here in a loongggg time but I felt compelled to jump in on this.
In my opinion, law school itself didn't suck THAT much. Of course I went to school in Miami, so that made it better
I also really like my job and am lucky enough that I work at a relatively small firm with good pay and nice bosses that expect me to have a life and not work 100 hours per week.
BUT. I'm the exception. Most places, you are either working for the government and making barely enough to pay off your loans (and gaining little respect from your legal colleagues - I know, I did this too) or you are working for a firm that expects you to work tons and often pay you not as much as one would expect. Then of course there are the big fancy firms that others mentioned, that will start you off at over $100K, but (a) they are hard to get and (b) you can say goodbye to your social life and spending time with your child.
This is all of course assuming you can GET a job. The market is horrendous. I just switched to a private firm from govt. and it took me over 8 months to find a job. I went on interviews that went fabulously, but someone else was always just a little more qualified. The problem is that there are experienced people out of work and willing to take what used to be an entry-level job, so what happens to the entry-level people straight out of school? You can use your imagination on that one.
Anyway that's my two cents. I enjoyed law school and enjoy being a lawyer, but again I think I got really lucky, and I wouldn't recommend to anyone to enter that world until the economy picks up. Good luck with whatever you decide!
This. I recently interviewed for a paralegal position. I was told that 8 of the 10 people they were interviewing were law school grads.
Law school is tough right now, as PP's have mentioned, it really isn't the "guaranteed" high-earning career it once was. I graduated in May 2011, as of right now, about 1/2 of my class is still unemployed. Of those employed they having the following salary/job breakdown:
1 - Government (city position) 50k
2 - Private law firm (Corporate litigation) - 48k
3 - Private law firm (civil litigation) - 36k
4 - BigLaw - 140k
5 - University contract specialist - 55k
6 - Clerkship - 50k
I decided to go into an LLM program following my JD. I just received my first offer at an accounting firm, it's better money than most of those salaries above, but it isn't great either. I currently hold 245k in student loan debt. (a little from undergrad, all of law school, and all of LLM program).
Law school isn't easy or cheap, if you are planning on going PT (b/c of FT job no way you could do both FT) you will finish in about 5 years give or take. Things may have recovered by then and the job market will be great, things could get worse and the job market along with it. I assume if you are working full time you will also be paying tuition (or most of it) along the way, so you won't have as much debt when you graduate.
Personally, I loved law school. But I'm also weird.
WOW. I knew the market was bad, but I thought average starting salary was more in the 60s/70s. I'm not planning to go to law school, but this was interesting - thanks for sharing!
I went to SLU Law and graduated in 2007!
I absolutely agree that you should consider your motivation. If you want to go to law school to be a lawyer, then that is a good place to start. If you want to go to law school because you think you might like it, I wouldn't bother. I would spend lots of time talking to lawyers, perhaps even shadowing someone. The law you see on TV is NOTHING like how the practice of law really is.
All that being said, if I had to do it again, I wouldn't do it. You would be shocked out little $$ I made as an attorney. And that was when I was lucky enough to find a job. I got laid off in December and stopped looking for legal jobs in September. I decided I didn't want to do it anymore and am actually switching careers myself.
Also, you mentioned working which would mean you would have to go to school part time and not every school offers a part time program.
Good luck with your decision! But please, please think long and hard about making that commitment.