Wall Street Journal Law Blog Focuses on Financial Aspect:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/04/04/more-than-50-of-graduates-arent-making-a-living-study/
On April 4, 2013, Jacob Gershman posted a Wall Street Journal Law Blog piece labeled “More than 50% of Graduates Aren’t Making a Living – Study.” Look at this opening:
“More than 50% of law school graduates from the 2011 class aren’t earning enough to buy a house, according to a new study.
The study was done by University of St. Thomas Law Professor Jerry Organ, who wrote up the results in a forthcoming article in the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy.”
TIME Takes a Swipe at the Law School Pigs:
http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/11/just-how-bad-off-are-law-school-graduates/
TIME published Adam Cohen’s article “Just How Bad Off Are Law School Graduates?,” on March 11, 2013. Check out the following excerpt:
“A grim sport has emerged of exchanging stories about just how bad things are. Many lawyers are stuck doing tedious, document-intensive contract work for as little as $25 an hour — not the worst job in the world, certainly, but not what many of them envisioned when they spent three years of their lives and $150,000 to get a law degree.
And there are plenty of worse jobs. “Above the Law,” a website that follows the grim legal market closely, reported one listing on Boston College Law School’s job site that offered an annual salary of just $10,000 which “Above the Law” insisted the firm “had to have known” was “below minimum wage.”
And it gets worse still. There are a surprising number of job postings for lawyers that offer no salary at all, including government law jobs. That raises the question — as one headline put it — “Would You Work as a Federal Prosecutor — For Free?”
Being unemployed — or working at minimum wage — is rough in the best of circumstances. But it is especially crippling for students who get out of school with six-figure debts that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. The average debt load for law school graduates is now over $100,000 — and at some schools, it tops $150,000.” [Emphasis mine]
Salon Bitch-Slaps the Law Schools Again:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/06/law_school_is_a_sham/
On April 6, 2013, Slate provided an excerpt from Steven J. Harper’s recent book on the legal “profession.” This entry is simply titled “Law school is a Sham.” Review the portion below:
“Today there’s a lawyer for every 265 Americans—more than twice the per capita number in 1970—but for future attorneys, there won’t be enough legal jobs for more than half of them. In 2008, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimated that for the ten-year period ending in 2018, the economy would produce an additional 98,500 legal jobs. In 2012, after the Great Recession decimated the market for attorneys, the BLS revised that estimate downward, to 73,600 openings from 2010 through 2020. Another prediction considered attrition in combination with the number of anticipated new attorneys on a state-by-state basis and concluded that through 2015 the number of new attorneys passing the bar exam would be more than twice the expected number of openings. Whichever of these statistics turns out to be closest, there’s little doubt that law graduates are already feeling the crunch. Fewer than half of 2011 graduates found jobs in private practice. Nine months after graduation, only 55 percent held full-time, long-term positions requiring a legal degree.” [Emphasis mine]
The British Are Now Covering the U.S. Law School Cartel:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/apr/04/law-students-uncertain-jobs-debt
The UK’s Guardian posted a piece by Katie Rogers, under the headline “Law students face uncertain future with jobs scarce and debt high,” on April 4, 2013. You should read the entire article, but take a look at this excerpt:
“For many legal graduates, the law is now a freelance profession. Tammi Gaw graduated from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in 2007 with $185,000 in student debt. Gaw currently works as a contract attorney in Washington, DC and says her story is common. She makes about $65,000 per year. Her loan payments are $1,500 per month.
"It could end at any time, which is a reality of these contract jobs," Gaw, 38, told the Guardian. "Some people find themselves looking for a new contract every two to three weeks."
Permanent jobs with high-paying salaries are a thing of the past for many graduates, and a handful of attorneys are suing against what they feel were misleading job success rates posted by their law schools.” [Emphasis mine]
Coverage by the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-law-grads-20130402,0,1312864.story
On April 1, 2013, Maura Dolan’s article, entitled “Law school graduates aren't finding much on the employment docket,” appeared in the Los Angeles Times. The piece focused on the lawsuits against ABA-accredited diploma mills.
“Nearly 20 lawsuits — five of them against California schools — are being litigated at a time of dim employment prospects for lawyers. Much of the work once done by lawyers can now be done more quickly by computers.
Online services have made law libraries largely unnecessary, allowing corporations to do more work in-house. Software has sped the hunt for information needed in discovery and other legal tasks, and Web-based companies offer litigants legal documents and help in filling them out. Even after the economy improves, some experts believe the supply of lawyers will outstrip jobs for years to come.” [Emphasis mine]
Conclusion: These mainstream articles illustrate the extent of the law school scam. These reports show that the U.S. attorney glut will not go away. The “professors” and deans at these schools are FULLY AWARE of the job outlook facing their graduates. Yet, the cockroaches continue to enroll too many students. Crushing levels of NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt compound the problem. Automation and outsourcing have further reduced the need for lawyers. Once the overall job market improves, do not expect benevolent businesses to ditch software programs - in order to pay more, by hiring people.