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The American Bar Association wants you to think again. As we have consistently reported here, the cost of law school has been skyrocketing while the number of jobs and the starting salaries for new lawyers have been dropping. The ABA makes the case that with state funding and endowments for public and private law schools on the decline, another tuition increase is likely for 2011 and the trend is not likely to reverse itself in the coming years. Meanwhile the number of graduates from law school continues to rise without a matching increase in
positions for lawyers in the industry. All of this adds up to larger student loan debts with fewer jobs paying less money in an industry that can't employ the lawyers already in the system.
Once thought to be both a prestigious degree and an all but guaranteed path to a well paying career, law degrees are still viewed by undergrads as highly desirable. In turn, new law schools continue to open, increasing the supply of freshly minted JD's. Alaska is the only state without a law school and state Representative Scott Kawasaki is planning to introduce a bill before the state legislature this January to create one. Several other law schools have opened in the past few years including the high profile school at UC Irvine, headed up by famed Constitutional Law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky. More law schools are planned in states across the country.
Although 2010 was a better year than 2009 for law firms, hiring has not come close to returning to pre recession levels, salaries and benefits remain depressed, and summer internships are way down as well. If you're considering attending law school, this might be a good time to rethink things. Are you going because you see it as a ticket to a well paying job and a lifelong career? If so, we strongly urge you to reconsider. But if law is something that gets your blood boiling and you're attending law school out of a passion for all things legal, then you owe it to yourself to approach it with your eyes wide open.
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