The National Law Journal recently convened an online forum of educators and others interested in the future of law school and the legal profession. The forum is a must-read for anyone considering law school — both the main entries and the comments sections are filled with rich and provocative commentary. The forum starts here, in a post at the bottom of the page dated 10/27/11. To follow the debate properly, you should work your way backwards up the page and to page 2 and page 1 (it’s all in reverse chronological order, with no easy way to re-order it). You can also read a “highlights” version here, at least for now (law.com has an unfortunate habit of hiding their articles behind pay walls after a little time has elapsed).

There is broad consensus among the commentators that the practice of law and legal education are (or should be) undergoing major structural changes; the debate centers on how those changes will play out, and how law schools should adapt to best serve the profession. Make no mistake: these changes will affect the practice and study of law during your career. As you make decisions regarding whether and how to pursue a legal career, it’s critical that you take into account the likely changes, and the debates surrounding the future of the legal profession.

What a crazy conglomeration of events we’ve got scheduled next week, all catering to the legal eagles out there.  I’m out of breath just listing them all.  Here’s the rundown:

*Just added*
Vermont Law School Admissions Visit
Tuesday, 11/15, at noon
E23 Machmer

Vermont Law School boasts the most respected environmental law program in the country.  Come meet with a VLS Admissions counselor to learn more about the school.

Color of Justice panel
sponsored by the National Association of Women Judges
Wednesday, 11/16, 3:00 – 5:30 pm
Western New England University School of Law (Springfield, Mass.)

A truly unparalleled opportunity to meet and hear from over a dozen female judges and attorneys about their career paths and experiences.  Click through the title for the list of jurists at all levels of our state judiciary — from the Supreme Judicial Court on down to several local trial courts. (I’m so excited about this one, I’ll be heading down to Western New England myself!)

* Just added *
CMASS Law Night
Thursday, 11/17, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Wilder Hall 201

Hear the success stories of ALANA students  from UConn Law and Western New England Law, and get your questions answered by the admissions directors from both schools (as well as your faithful pre-law advisor). Brought to you in part by the Center for Multicultural Advancement and Student Success (CMASS).

Lawyer-Alum career talk: Carrie Pollak, Esq.
Friday, 11/18 at noon
W13 Machmer

You’ll definitely want to hear UMass alum Carrie Pollak (Legal Studies and English ’04, Cornell Law ’08) talk about her experiences in both a very large law firm in Boston, and her current mid-size firm in Ithaca, New York.  Attorney Pollak, a former Army National Guard soldier, practices in the areas of environmental law and land use regulation.

UMass Mock Trial: Second Annual Thanksgiving Classic Invitational Tournament
Friday 11/18 – Sunday 11/20
Isenberg School of Management

Come see a dazzling display of legal skills from over two dozen teams, as they battle it out in a criminal trial.  Come for one round, or come for all four.  Rounds start Friday at 6:30 pm, Saturday at 9 am and 2 pm, and Sunday at 9 am.  This is for anybody who has ever thought about trying out for Mock Trial, or who just wants to watch some excellent trial skills in action.

This just in from the Career Services office:

Join Special Agents Patrick Carnahan (UMass Alum), Adrian Softic, & Kevin
Hool on Wednesday, November 9th at 6:00pm in Herter 231 as they speak about
the Intelligence Analyst and Special Agent positions offered through the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.  They will discuss the basic qualifications
of these positions, how to best position yourself when applying for
positions at the FBI, the hiring process, and what to expect.  There will
also be plenty of time for Q&A, so bring any questions you might have as
well!

The primary purpose of law school is to train lawyers — that seems to make sense. But recent data indicate that a surprising number of law school graduates do not end up practicing law straight out of school. Prof. Brian Tamanaha, who writes frequently about legal education, portrays these numbers in stark fashion:

[F]or the class of 2009 (nine months after graduation), at 30 law schools, only 50 percent or fewer of the graduates obtained jobs as lawyers. At nearly 90 law schools, one-third or more of graduates did not land jobs as lawyers nine months after graduation.

Click through for more elaboration on the numbers, as well as a list of the schools with the lowest lawyer-employment rates.  (Prof. Tamanaha based his analysis on number provided by Law School Transparency, which in turn got the numbers from US News);  Prof. Tamanaha casts this situation as a failure of the law schools to adequately place their students in the kinds of jobs for which they went to law school.  He makes the very reasonable assumption that students attend law school solely to become lawyers.

In the comments to the blog post, several people (including myself) question this assumption, but his basic point is valid: far fewer law grads become lawyers than most people assume.  Those who don’t become lawyers fall into three categories: those who never intended to become lawyers, but went to law school for another purpose; those who initially thought they’d be lawyers, but changed their minds while in school; and those who would like to be lawyers, but can’t find work in the field.  The critical (and unanswered) question is how many people fall into each of these groups?

Prof. Tamanaha assumes that those who can’t find work are the biggest group, and there are many reasons to agree with him.  Without doubt, we know the job market for new lawyers is not as good as it once was.  But just how many law grads are still actively looking for lawyer work nine months after graduation remains an open question.

I asked representatives of two of the schools listed in Prof. Tamanaha’s post — New England Law / Boston, and Western New England University School of Law — to respond to the report, since they are such popular schools for UMass students and alumni.

Michelle L’Etoile, the Director of Admissions at New England, had this to say:

·       While the legal employment market has been challenging for several years, it is important to remember that the worldwide financial crisis has impacted almost every sector of the economy, and hiring numbers are down in almost all fields.

·       Employers who hire New England Law graduates report a very high level of satisfaction with their training and skill level.  New England Law graduates are well-prepared for the work place, as evidenced by the July 2010 bar pass rate of 94% and the extensive practical skills experience most have during law school.

·       Not all individuals who graduate from law school intend or want to practice law.  Jobs for which a J.D. is the preferred degree and where the work is connected to the legal field are a good match for many graduates.

·       New England Law is very aggressive in building connections with employers and supporting its graduates in finding employment.  It is the only law school in Boston to offer its graduating class complimentary memberships to the Boston Bar Association to assist with their networking.

·       For the Class of 2009, 63.7% of graduates were in jobs that require or rely on their law school training.  Of these, 52.9% were employed in bar passage-required jobs (e.g. practicing attorneys, law clerks), and 10.8% were in J.D.-preferred jobs (e.g. accounting firm, management consulting firm, or law school or law firm administration).  An additional 7.1% were in other professional jobs, in which their legal training may be an asset.

·       We anticipate that as the overall economy improves, more job openings that require bar passage or rely on legal training will become available.

·       Increased transparency in reporting employment data and claims is an important goal for legal education.  With that information available, it is the responsibility of each prospective student to determine whether law school is a good career decision.

Prof. William Childs, the Associate Dean for External Affairs at Western New England responded as follows:

The data is what it is, and we pride ourselves on providing our outcomes in a straightforward way.  You can in fact see the full look at our 2010 data at:

http://www1.wne.edu/assets/14/Employment_Stats_2010.pdf

We wish it was a better picture for our grads and for grads of law schools all over the country, but we think it’s important to provide that information (and have done so for several years).

A couple of comments on the post itself.  First, it’s of course not entirely true that everyone who attends law school does so to become a lawyer.  Some students (including some I’ve had) come in with the plan of getting the background to be helpful in an already-existing career (insurance, etc.).  Others decide while in law school to go another route.  For those students, law school was a benefit, not a disappointment.  But certainly, more of our graduates want and need jobs than have them.

Second, I’ll observe that we already did exactly what he suggests immediately after the data — we intentionally reduced (significantly) the entering class and expect to continue to have smaller classes for the foreseeable future.

I expect you already give your students the advice I’d give: don’t go to law school because you can’t think of something else to do.  Go only if you really want to be a lawyer (or have another purpose for that degree).  Examine the finances carefully — remember that most schools have robust scholarship programs (including ours), and that there are a lot of income-based repayment options.  But also remember that law is a lifelong career, and the JD is relevant not just nine months after graduation, but for the rest of your life.  We do firmly believe the market will turn around.

So, as I’ve urged you before, look at these numbers, take them seriously, but also inquire further — of the law schools themselves, and of new watchdog groups like Law School Transparency. Research this decision to go to law school the best that you are able.

UPDATE: For more of the conversation about transparency, check out the UMass Pre-Law Advising Facebook page.

Monday, September 26th, 2:00pm
E23 Machmer

Interested in immigration and/or family law?  Come meet with UMass alumni-lawyer Sean Chen (Communication ’03, Suffolk Law School) in an informal talk about legal careers, immigration and family law, and more.  Light refreshments will be served.

An unprecedented amount of attention is being paid to the job prospects and salaries for new attorneys, changes in the legal profession, and changes in legal education.  Much of it offers a bleak assessment of the job market for newly minted attorneys, and an even dimmer view of the cost-benefit analysis of going to law school, with the occasional more upbeat set of anecdotes.  If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I think this attention is overdue, and that prospective applicants should be very cautious when deciding whether law school is the right choice.  But the sheer number of articles and opinion pieces — much of it a mix of truth and exaggeration — can leave you wondering what to believe.  How do you sort out the analyses grounded in reality from those too deeply influenced by, say, the disgruntlement of a single unemployed law grad?

If you’re considering law school, you should be taking in as much of this information as you can.  But it’s so important to read it all critically: what is the basis of the author’s assertions?  Are there hard numbers cited or merely anecdotes? Do the numbers come from legitimate sources, or is there reason to be skeptical?  Is a lawyer in a big law firm who graduated from a highly selective law school generalizing about her experience, even though 90% of lawyers did not attend “Top 20″ law schools?

Even when you have hard numbers from legitimate sources — like the widely touted Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers of jobs for lawyers — you need to dig deeper and ask what they’re counting exactly, and whether it’s relevant to what you want to do as an attorney.  (BLS counts employees, but not the self-employed, and the latter category includes a significant percentage of practicing attorneys who are either solo practitioners or partners in law firms.)

You should also take into account the author’s point of view and frame of reference.  If the argument assumes something along the lines of, “law school used to entail a guarantee of a high paying job in a large law firm,” you need to know right away that it’s been at least 50 years since there was any truth in that statement for any but a tiny number of law grads.  Grads of the most selective schools who wanted jobs in BigLaw generally had a relatively easy time of it, certainly.  Those who went to the other 90% of schools, and those who had no interest in the small slice of lawyering that is BigLaw (but which is absurdly over-represented in the mainstream media) have always had to work hard to obtain the kind of jobs they wanted.   Nothing has ever been simply handed to the overwhelming majority of law grads.

If you’re interested in a small general practice in your hometown, or a job in a state agency, or a mid-sized firm specializing in insurance defense in a small city, or becoming a staff attorney in a public interest organization, then the job market in big law firms is at best tangentially related to your job prospects, and more likely, not related at all.  Research the types of jobs in the the types of locations you’re actually interested in.  Talk to  grads of the schools you’re most interested in attending.  It’s critical that you anchor your research in the realities of your particular interests, and not in generalizations.

So, keep your eyes on these changes in the profession as a whole, and in legal education — they’re significant for all of us who are, have been or will be lawyers.  But when it comes to making decisions about your own future, narrow your research to what’s most relevant to you.

(And if you’re sitting there reading this, thinking “But I don’t know what kind of lawyer I want to be, I just know I want to go to law school!” — keep your eyes out for a future post on what you need to know about the law before you decide to go to law school.)

It’s the top cliché of job interviews everywhere (right up there with “I think my only real weakness is that I’m a perfectionist”), but it’s also what it takes to be successful as a lawyer.  That’s always been the case, but all the more so these days.  It’s not about liking to argue a lot — law schools are looking for applicants who are self-directed, entrepreneurial and know how to get along with others.  Not surprisingly, this is what we heard over and over again from hiring attorneys and law school admission officials at the recent conference of the Northeast Association of Pre-Law Advisors.  I’m working on some more in-depth posts from the conference, and you’ll see them soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to share this article with you about the increase in solo practitioners — it provides some more evidence about the importance of taking the initiative, and creating your own opportunities.  The money quote comes from Rachel Rodgers, a 2009 Cardozo law grad who runs her own practice out of her home in Phoenix:

“I say screw the economy,” Rodgers said. “You worked hard, you got your law degree, so make something happen with it.”

The National Association for Legal Career Professionals (NALP) has issued its findings and analysis of employment trends for the law school class of 2010, and it’s almost all bad news. The annual NALP hiring report examines the employment status of law grads in February, nine months after graduation.

• “[A]t 87.6%, the overall employment rate for new law school graduates is the lowest it has been since 1996.”
• “[O]f those graduates for whom employment was known, only 68.4% obtained a job for which bar passage is required. This compares with 70.8% for the Class of 2009 and 74.7% for the Class of 2008 and is the lowest percentage NALP has ever measured.” (emphasis added)
• “[O]nly 71% of the jobs reported were both full-time and permanent. Overall, nearly 27% of all jobs taken by members of this class were classified as temporary . . .. Eleven percent of all jobs taken were classified as part-time [and] 8% of all jobs were both temporary and part-time.” (emphasis added)
• “[A] much higher percentage of this class reported that even though they were employed, they were still looking for work (23% reported that they were still seeking work even though employed, compared with 16% for the Class of 2008), suggesting that graduates took jobs they may not have been satisfied with simply to be able to earn some money to offset their living expenses and begin paying on their student debt.” (emphasis added)

(All quotes from NALP, Employment for the Class of 2010 — Selected Findings (PDF))

But wait, there’s more: AmLaw Daily reports that, according to data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the legal employment market continues to bleed jobs, losing 1,000 in May, and 2,700 since this time last year.

The bottom line remains the same: a law degree (and the time and money it takes to get one) does not guarantee you a job.  Moreover, the likely financial return on the significant initial investment in the degree (on average around $100,000 these days) does not make sense on a purely cost/benefit basis.  Now more than ever, it is critical that you explore the field in depth before deciding to apply to and attend law school, and make sure that you will love being a lawyer — enough to make the investment worth it. Don’t rush into law school on the assumption that a well-paying job will be waiting for you at the other end.

Seamus Brennan graduated from UMass Amherst in 2007 with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in History. He received his law degree from Rutgers-Newark this past May, and now works in the international tax law division of a prominent financial services firm.  Seamus recently contacted the Pre-Law Advising Office, offering to be of assistance to undergrads and alums who are considering law school.  He kindly answered a few questions about his experiences for publication on the blog.

Why did you choose Rutgers-Newark?
I am from northern NJ and I wanted to attend a law school in the metro New York area. Rutgers enabled me to do this while keeping my law school debt low due to the scholarship they gave me and the low in-state tuition.

Which parts of law school surprised you?
The amount of work required the first year exceeded my expectations. Everyone I talked to who graduated from law school told me the first year was the hardest. They weren’t kidding.

What did you enjoy/dislike about law school?
Generally, the one thing I really disliked about law school was that one three or four hour exam determined your entire grade. Hours of reading and studying are distilled to one exam at the end of the semester, and that one exam is the only metric used to determine how well you did in that class.

The experience I enjoyed the most at Rutgers was participating in the federal tax clinic. The tax clinic allowed me to use what I learned in the classroom and apply it in a practical environment. As a member of the tax clinic, I represented low income tax payers before the IRS and I argued motions before the U.S. Tax Court.

What did you do during your summer internships, and how did you get those jobs?
The summer after 1L, I worked at a small law firm (25-50 attorneys) in NJ. I got this job through networking.

The summer after 2L, I split my time between the law firm where I worked the previous summer and the N.J. Tax Court. I got the job at the N.J. Tax Court by sending my resume to every N.J. Tax Court judge and calling every judge’s chambers until I got an interview.

Was it difficult to get a job?
It was very difficult to get a job. Two weeks into the on-campus interview process Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. This made a tough process even harder. I had over 30 on-campus interviews while I was at Rutgers, with almost every type of employer: big NYC law firms, big NJ law firms, federal government agencies, state government agencies, smaller NY/NJ law firms, accounting firms, consulting firms, banks, etc.

In the end, I was able to get a great job with a prominent financial services firm doing international tax work in New York City. I believe this was possible because I showed a demonstrated interest in the field: I had great grades in all of my tax classes, I worked in the Rutgers federal tax clinic and at the NJ tax court, and I was the research assistant for a well known tax professor.

What do you enjoy/dislike about your job? How many hours a week are you working?  What kind of work are you doing?
I really enjoy my job because every day I learn something new.  I work anywhere from 50-70 hours a week, depending on what our clients are doing. I work on the tax issues that arise from cross-border M&A [mergers and acquisitions], foreign companies investing in the U.S., U.S. companies investing in other countries, and the tax treatment of different financial instruments.

Is there anything you would have done differently, or anything you’re particularly glad you did do?
I am very glad I found an area of law that interested me while I was in my first year of law school. Because of this, I knew what I wanted to do when I graduated and I could work towards this end the remaining two years.

A relatively recent law grad and UMass alum (ISOM, mid-2000′s) contacted me earlier this month with a desire to share with prospective law school applicants from UMass some of the harsh realities he’s faced as a new attorney in today’s economy.  I asked him to write up his story for the blog, and the result is below.  (He’s asked to remain anonymous for this post, but he’s happy to be in contact with any current applicants who would like to learn more — if you’re interested, just email me for his contact information.)

Following my graduation from UMass a few years ago I enrolled at a Top 60 law school in New York City.  Having not known any lawyers growing up, I did not know what to expect or what I wanted to do – only that I enjoyed reasoned arguments and that many of the jobs I aspired to were filled by persons with law degrees.

I realized law school would cost over $40,000 per year in tuition with at least an additional $20,000 in loans annually.  Nevertheless, I was reassured in brochures and in person by law school personnel by the near 100% employment rates, the quoted starting salaries of $160,000 and the summer associate positions worth $30,000.

Indeed, many of the graduates I talked to or heard about in my first years at law school had obtained positions with this range of compensation from large NYC law firms.  Then, in the fall of 2008 the bottom fell out of the global economy and the legal employment market.

Unfortunately, law school is not like college – you cannot wait until the third or fourth year to figure out what you want to do.  There is a predetermined track to obtain gainful legal employment beginning with the summer following your first year.  Generally, you have to get in as a summer associate with a firm and eventually be offered a full-time position.  Failure to follow this path can leave you scrambling down the road.

I did not think I ever wanted to practice law.  However, I eventually realized (a little bit too late) the tremendous value of practicing law for a few or several years.  Even many of the positions I was interested in that are non-legal are often nevertheless filled by persons who practiced law for at least three or four years.  In some ways it is a further continuation of your education, just paid and with a lot more stress.

Perhaps most importantly, by your third-year of law school the loan amounts will be menacing.  Practicing law is one of the few realistic ways in which to even begin to pay off your loans.  By the time I graduated I accumulated over $200,000 in loans.  $200,000!  That’s the equivalent of a small house and a mortgage.  I will be paying that off into my fifties.  And, I assure you, I am a fairly frugal person.

Should you have the opportunity and choose to practice law, your qualifications in legal employment are quickly narrowed.  If the only job you can get out of law school is working in employment law – you will become typecast and have a difficult time changing your practice to a different area of law.  Consequently, the earlier you can identify which area of law you want to practice, the more effective your employment searches can be.

I was a fine but not spectacular student in law school – top 40% GPA with a few extracurricular activities.  Nevertheless, most law firms had simply stopped hiring when I needed a job.  In searching for a job, I compiled a database of every graduate from my law school at law firms in which I was interested in the New York area.  In sum it was over 1,000 lawyers at over 150 law firms. The database took a long time to amass.

I emailed all of them.  I got lots of words of encouragement and sympathy with a few phone calls for networking purposes.  Ultimately, I obtained three interviews out of that massive effort.  In the meantime I had also contacted hundreds of non-legal entities about employment and regularly checked several job boards, including those through my school.  I estimate that I mailed about 2,000 letters and resumes, about 1,500 emails, and spent over 150 hours seeking employment in the year preceding my start of full-time employment.

I accepted a position making less than half what I might have had I graduated three years earlier in an area of law on which I am lukewarm.  Nevertheless, I was tremendously excited to have any employment whatsoever as my loan payments loomed around the corner.

I can only imagine what my law school reports as the employment statistics for my class, the preceding class and subsequent classes.  Most likely they will state that employment was near 90% or something absurd – in reality, the percentage of students who left law school with the type of employment they expected when they entered law school was probably in the single digits.

The truth is law schools produce far more future lawyers than are necessary or can be sustained.  My story applies mostly to those people who are looking for legal employment in a major city, but not necessarily with a BigLaw firm.  There are probably still reasonable opportunities as a suburban lawyer, but the pay will obviously be much less and you’ll be dealing with less interesting work.  Then again, you will probably also work less.  There are important considerations to be balanced.

The legal industry has and is continuing to fundamentally and permanently change.  Legal work is going overseas and law firms are doing the same work with less people.  The fact that law schools and enrollment continue to grow is sad and deceitful.  A law degree can be a tremendously rewarding and valuable accomplishment.  However, most people who start the process of obtaining one have no idea about the realities of legal education or the legal profession.  I didn’t and I sorely wish I did.