Got my first acceptance letter today (from a safety school). I figure more will be coming soon.
Be still my beating heart. Now I get to decide where to go in the fall. Anyone else starting a J.D. this year?
Excited!
Jeannine
Congratulations! Its scary and exciting, isn’t it? I remember when I applied for MBA schools, it was so much work. I got into every school except the Ivy League ones 
Not to rain on your parade, but if you don’t receive an acceptance letter from an Ivy League School… A law degree in America from anything but a top ten school is quite likely a bad investment.
Check the following blog… essentially the problem lies in WAY too many Law schools producing WAY too many lawyers - Excess Supply (huge number of new law schools per year) combined with a recent drop in demand (recession + outsourcing) = Precipitious drop in value for people in the profession. It is a REAL problem in the US right now.
Big Debt, Small Law
If you happen to be Canadian it isn’t so bad (we don’t have a glut of law schools and the association which gives accreditation isn’t accrediting 200 garbage schools a year like the US association is).
I’ve actually been weighing out going to GA state, which is quite cheap, I could go all three years for about 30 grand, assuming no scholarship (then if I was only making 70 grand a year like my two cousins who have been DAs for three years, who both went there, things wouldn’t be so bad – seems like a good investment to me). On the other hand going one year there, doing exceedingly well, then transferring elsewhere, which I believe I could do, might be a fine idea also.
And, of course, income contingent debt repayment is useful in this regard too… I do have one recent graduate friend who, with his 80k in debt, opted NOT to take the 150K a year corporate job (out of George Washington U, BTW, not a top ten)… wanted to do public interest work. So with his 64K a year salary (first year out of college), he can still swing his debt.
And my old high-school friend doing private practice in south GA who just got out of Mercer U is not doing so well, LOL…
No, it isn’t the path to wealth it used to be, but what is nowadays? My ex lover working human resources at a government agency just reviewed 20 MASTERS DEGREE HOLDERS (in liberal arts) for a mailroom position at that agency… so in some sense, no degree may be a good investment now.
However, I’m also not going into it to get rich. I’ve wanted to do it since I was a teenager, and I feel very passionately that I would like to help people who are getting screwed by insurance companies, and kiddos who are about to have their lives ruined for some stupid nonviolent indiscretion like having an ounce of weed.
So, yea… don’t worry about raining on my parade. I’m not going into anything blind. I understand and accept the risks. I also remember my friend working her ass off to maintain a 4.0 studying finance at a notable public ivy U, she then went to work for Goldman Sachs and just about killed herself with the hours, because she wanted to make money. Then that whole industry got turned on its ear, lots of them lost their jobs, and now she works long hours for a bit more than my cousins who are D.A.'s… so what do you think is a better option? I mean this seriously, do you think you can choose a degree based on how good an investment it will be?
I tried to think of that myself, and the only thing I could think of was to become a nurse, then a nurse practitioner, but the truth is I have no interest in that at all. I don’t know anything else that’s probably going to offer anything like absolute security or a “good investment” in the sense that law school used to.
And the other thing is that I kinda want to move to another country, perhaps New Zealand. I’ve been living abroad for the last couple of years and I’m addicted to it. I don’t really mean to stay in the states… so thanks for the link, in a way it kind of pushes me a little more in that way.
–Jeannine
My family has been practicing law since before the time the American Bar Association was founded, and before the time law schools existed. My grandfather “read law” in my great grandfather’s office then attended Harvard for a general education. Back then , you were known by your competence, not by your degree.
My grandfather always insisted that the art of good legal practice was knowing HOW to think… most students can memorize the rules but very few know how to think creatively with them.
The people who get their law degree then go nowhere are technicians filled with data. A great lawyer is a great thinker… closer maybe to a chess master or an excellent philosopher combined with a psychologist…
Law is pattern, knowing how to use the pattern is another plane of understanding. 