http://thepeoplestherapist.com/2011/05/04/someone-likes-a-quitter/
It’s Okay to Quit: Back on May 4, 2011, former Biglaw associate Will Meyerhofer wrote a brilliant piece that was entitled “Someone likes a quitter.” Look at his excellent opening:
“No one likes a quitter,” she quipped, exhaling a cloud of toxins.
Uh…huh. Except there’s a proviso in that statement – a “carve-out” in the contract language – covering the quitting of something self-destructive. Like smoking.
Or a pointless march through law school.
I’d like to speak in defense of quitting, and quitters.
Quitting can be about more than stopping whatever you’re doing. It can be about waking up and asking yourself if what you’re doing makes sense and is worth continuing.
If you’re plugging away dutifully through the legal education process with no real idea why – it might be time to quit.
Does this mean I’m seriously advising young law students all over the country to give up and drop out – simply abandon their legal education mid-way through?
Yes.
I am prescribing a mass exodus from law schools. A semi-mass exodus might do the trick.
Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.
If you don’t know why you’re there – and you’re not sure what you’re getting yourself into – if you’re not at a top school, or even if you are, and your grades are a little iffy, and likely to stay that way – then please, get out. Today. Before you spend another cent." [Emphasis mine]
Mr. Meyerhofer then refers to this filth as the legal education scam. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Harvard and his JD from NYU.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Legal/Lawyers.htm
U.S. Department of Labor Data: If you are considering a potential legal career, then surely you are familiar with the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, correct?!?! Take a peak at the entry for Lawyers. According to this source, there were 778,800 attorneys in this country, in 2014. BLS predicts that there will be 43,800 more lawyers in 2024 than there were ten years earlier. Still want to take the plunge, Dumbass?! From the handbook:
“Job Outlook
Employment of lawyers is projected to grow 6 percent from 2014 to 2024, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Competition for jobs should continue to be strong because more students graduate from law school each year than there are jobs available.” [Emphasis mine]
By the way, “growth” in this GLUTTED field tends to be from retirement and deaths, as this “profession” has been decimated by automation and outsourcing. Vendors such as LegalZoom have also reduced the need for attorneys.
http://www.nalp.org/uploads/NationalSummaryChartforSchools2014Class.pdf
Too Many Damn Graduates: Review the Class of 2014 National Summary Report, furnished by NALP. You will notice that there were a total of 43,832 law grads competing for 27,928 jobs where bar passage was required. In fact, the outlook is even weaker for those who want to work in private law offices. After all, only 18,587 members of this cohort ended up employed as private lawyers. This figure includes desperate-ass sole practitioners.
http://www.nalp.org/class_of_2014_salary_curve
Class of 2014 Bimodal Salary Distribution Curve: This organization also provided an important graph for this cohort. Look at the text below, which is under the chart:
“Note: Graph is based on 22,095 salaries reported for full-time jobs lasting a year or more. A few salaries above $205,000 are excluded from the graph for clarity, but not from the percentage calculations. The left-hand peaks of the graph reflect salaries of $40,000 to $65,000, which collectively accounted for about half of reported salaries. The right-hand peak shows that salaries of $160,000 accounted for about 17% of reported salaries. However, more complete salary coverage for jobs at large law firms heightens this peak and diminishes the left-hand peaks— and shows that the unadjusted mean overstates the average starting salary by just over 6%. Nonetheless, as both the arithmetic mean and the adjusted mean show, relatively few salaries are close to either mean. For purposes of this graph, all reported salaries were rounded to the nearest $5,000.”
By the way, this graph does not accurately reflect reality. It is based on salaries reported, which is a little over half of the collective 2014 JD class. Specifically, that figure represents 50.4% of the group, i.e. 22,095/43,832. Furthermore, it only includes full-time positions that lasted for one year or longer. Going back to the NALP National Summary Report, you will see that 1,090 grads ended up in firms of 101-250 attorneys, another 1,091 members of this class were employed in offices of 251-500 lawyers, and that 3,952 JDs reported working in law firms with more than 500 attorneys.
You can bet your ass that nearly everyone from these three groups furnished their salaries to their schools, which was consequently supplied to NALP. Tons of graduates chose not to provide their income data to their commodes, out of a sense of shame or failure. This skews the data further, in favor of those earning more. This makes the law school swine happy, since lemmings will see these numbers as proof that if they work hard they can be successful as well.
Conclusion: You are MUCH better off trying to explain a 6 month gap in employment – and taking out an additional $20K in student loans – rather than pissing away three years of your life, owing $190K in NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt, and scrambling for low-paid dreck. This is your life and the law school pigs are not looking out for YOUR interests. They merely want to get as many asses in seats as possible. The cockroaches will do and say anything to get you to sign on the dotted line.