(Photos.com)
Here’s a smart take by Jonathan Tjarks on the current state of law schools — a rather depressing look at how the odds are similarly stacked against law-school grads and college football players. After opening with a reference to Sudhir Venkatesh‘s study of the economics of crack from Freakonomics, Tjarks’s piece boils down to the following analysis:
Admittance into a top-14 law school, like a scholarship from a top-10 college football program, is the culmination of a lifetime of striving. Of the over 100,000 high school seniors who play football, fewer than 3,000 sign Division I letters of intent. Similarly, the top 25% in Harvard Law’s 2009 class had an average GPA of 3.95 and a LSAT score of 175, which puts them in the 99th percentile of the over 100,000 test takers each year.
Yet, despite overcoming nearly impossible odds, each group still has the toughest test of their lives ahead of them — each other. NFL teams rarely draft players not at the top of the depth chart, even at powerhouses like Texas or Oklahoma. And even at Harvard or Columbia Law, “Big Law” firms — those with the coveted $160,000 starting salaries — don’t reach too far below the median class rank when selecting first-year associate.
As you go down the ranks, the odds only decrease. NFL players from non-BCS conferences were usually top-tier starters in college, while top-50 law schools typically send only 10-25% of each class to “Big Law”. And just as there are always a few DII and DIII players in the draft each year, students from tier 2 and tier 3 law schools occasionally beat out graduates of elite schools for jobs. But “small school” success stories are the best of the best — collegiate All-Americans, the top 1% of their class in law review.
Tjarks also compares the long term hidden costs of each profession:
The newest research on concussions indicates that the gravest threats to players are not the highlight-reel hits, but the trauma of endless low-impact collisions over years of practice. Football players, especially linemen, usually put on 30-40 pounds of muscle in college, locking themselves into eating habits that will become increasingly unhealthy when they no longer burn thousands of calories a day in practice.
Law students who miss out on “Big Law” in 2L OCI are often left with over $100,000 in non-dischargeable student loan debt that can take most of their professional lives to pay off. The high starting salaries of first-year New York City associates hide the bimodal distribution of law incomes — most lawyers earn modest middle-class salaries and have little opportunity to transfer into the “Big Law” salary structure, not when there are thousands of new students clamoring for spots coming in behind them each year.
At least the job market for NFL draftees has remained intact, pending of course the resolution of the NFL lockout. The same can’t be said for law school grads. According to a Northwestern Law study, some 15,000 jobs have been eliminated from the nation’s biggest law firms since 2008. Which was roughly the same number of newspaper jobs lost in 2009, according to another Northwestern study.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
But…law-school grads are not absolutely bound to the legal field and law firms [per the Northwestern Law study]. People with law degrees can find good jobs in government, teaching, management, finance, administration, banking, human resources, and various other worthwhile fields. A law degree is becoming what a Master’s degree once was. We shall see what the market has in store; in the meantime, we should try to hope for the best. Tjarks’ article is very fascinating and interesting, but it is a stark generalization to the ever-evolving market regarding football and law. Who knows, we may have a number of rival professional football leagues in the future comparable to the NFL today. And besides, even those players who fail to make it in the NFL can find worthwhile jobs as coaches and trainers. Tjarks discusses this; the pinnacle of football or law is not always about being in the “Big Show.” Further, the difference between law school and football is that in law school not everyone is working towards being in “Big Law” whereas in the NFL draft, the players are working towards being in the “Big Show.”
Not being able to “scale the mountain” does not mean the end of the world. The real problem for law students as Tjarks notes is the “non-dischargeable student loan debt that can take most of their professional lives to pay off.” However, we shall have to see what the market has in store in terms of the labor markets, unemployment, government intervention, and inflation in the future. A lot of things can happen economically, and we have to hope for the best whereas pessimism can be counter-productive. Even if there is a “pyramid-like labor chart” and even if the odds appear bleak and even if “the odds are stacked against the Millenials”, the market has ways of correcting things. The student loan issue and “pyramid-like labor chart” issue are small parts of a much, much larger generational, socio-cultural, and economic quagmire. Besides, a legal education in itself is not worthless. All in all, I believe there is a solution for these problems and it rests in one word: productivity.
Hot debate. What do you think?
18 
31
@Marcus – I generally agree with your comment, although I disagree with your assertion regarding the flexibility of a law degree. Before I went to law school, everybody I knew (at least the non-lawyers) told me over and over that a law degree is so broad that it can be used to get a job in almost any field, i.e. “government, teaching, management, finance, administration, banking, human resources.” Once I graduated from law school, I quickly realized that this is not the case at all.
Most of the jobs in non-legal fields require some kind of pre-existing experience or a degree specific to that field to get that job. If I applied to a job in the finance sector with only a law degree, I would receive little consideration. So almost all of the law grads I know are stuck in positions in the legal field unless they had some kind of experience in other fields before law school.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
38 
1
Agreed. My wife and I (both lawyers) have both ran into problems with applying for jobs outside of the law. Despite what the law school career services people and all sorts of others tell you, a law degree is largely meaningless outside of a job as a attorney. Sure, there are exceptions, there always are. But I also find that those exceptions were either hired long ago (when a law degree was a lot more prestiguous than it is now) or were qualified as a result of their undergraduate degrees alone.
In many cases, a law degree can actually hurt. I know law school grads who could not find even entry-level retail work (seriously) because of the “overqualified” factor. I’m thankful for my job, because it’s a bad, bad time to be a law school grad.
The NFL draft analogy and bimodal salary distribution is more telling than the article suggests. Most law grads either rely on their undergraduate backgrounds or become unemployable today. Many law grads attempt to erase the law degree from their resumes to avoid appearing “overqualified” for hour work.
The suggestion that “a law degree is becoming what a Master’s degree once was” is uninformed at best and untrue even BEFORE the recession.
Law degrees are so pervasive solely because the debt is non-dischargeable. So many students that graduate with humanities degrees and limited options go to law school because banks freely hand out loans knowing the debt is federally backed.
It’s the same government subsidized moral hazard that fueled the housing market that’s caused law school tuition to outpace inflation for 30 years. The difference is that a student can walk away from a bad home loan or even a bad weekend in Las Vegas through bankruptcy.
But that $150,000 for law school administrator salaries is there for the student’s lifetime garnishing any and all future income what-so-ever.
This is another strong article from Freakonomics.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
30 
2
@john:
You have good points, but we are going to have to agree to disagree on whether “a law degree is becoming what a Master’s degree once was.” The statement is far from uninformed and far from untrue. The knowledge gained in law school is not limited to the legal sphere and many attorneys today work outside the legal field in finance, politics, real estate, education, etc. From my experience previous undergrad backgrounds matter little save for fields such as Nursing or Engineering. A law degree is a valuable graduate-level degree; it denotes a class of people unlike most Master’s degrees. Lawyers can work in education, banking, human resources, government, education, et. al. And if there continues to be a shortage of legal jobs, I’m afraid that a law degree is going to have to become what a Master’s degree once was for such a thing as a law degree to exist in the future. The reason why I say this is because I would hope that the government is going to want make good on its investment in students. I mean, recent law grads have to be working somewhere, and I’m not sure where the unemployment figures play into this, but given the shortage of legal jobs law grads have to work somewhere. If society & the government are thinking that law grads are simply going to work at Starbucks or Burger King forever after passing the bar & that they’ll be able to pay off their loans in 10 years, then their forecast may be off. And if it gets to that point, I fear the game is over anyhow. The “pyramid-like labor chart” collapses, and it becomes time to start afresh…as the legitimacy & credibility of the legal & academic fields will be critically called into question on a national scale. As I said previously, the issue of law schools is but a small part of a greater generational, socio-cultural, economic quagmire. And I fear the labor-market pyramid is much larger than encompassing merely the legal & academic fields. What is going on with law grads is also going on in many academic fields.
And I mean, seriously, if a Starbucks barista (with say, a BA in Sociology) can become so discouraged with her work that she goes to law school and then graduates & passes the bar…and the only jobs she can find are working as a Starbucks barista?! I’m sorry, but in such a case, something is severely wrong. And at that point, the game is over economically. What, does she go back to school & take out $50K MORE in loans to get a BA in Nursing or what? The whole point of higher education for Gen Y was to escape fast-food & retail! What was all that loan money for? What were all those resources & time wasted for? We’re talking about a generation here. And the government will probably want to make good on its investment in college, graduate & law students…whereas the legitimacy & the credibility of the legal & academic systems are at stake. The problem is that the academic world and the labor market are so interwined so as to make a “higher ed bubble” cause great labor market confusion. Unfortunately, if it comes down to an army of college/law/grad students working fast-food and retail, then frankly that can only go on for so long. In such an instance, the game is over. At that point, one might as well attempt to be a recluse in the hills or a fieldhand at a kibbutz whereas at that point there is no point to higher education at all [if ANY degree one can get results in no upward career mobility]. At some point, the game of musical chairs has to come to an end.
Obviously there is “moral hazard” at work here and it’s probably the same that fueled the housing market crisis, but there are key differences between the housing market & law schools — namely, the fact that with a mortgage loan you have an asset (a house) & with law school you don’t, and with a mortgage loan you can discharge in BK & with law school loans you can’t. BUT there is hope… There are worthwhile ways to fix the situation, and as I said previously, the key is productivity. Either way, today’s students might be better off looking into learning farming…such a farming required for living on a kibbutz…maybe American society would be better off that way anyhow.
Hot debate. What do you think?
7 
24
Marcus, you have no clue what you are talking about. The arcane “knowledge” gained in law school is mostly useless in non-legal fields. It is mot even that useful in the practice of law itself! Most people learn to practice law on the job since legal education consists mainly of arcane legal case law study and theory which is mostly not useful in actual practice.
And most law grads in fact have to LEAVE OUT their law degrees on their resumes to get non-legal jobs! A law degree does NOT open doors in other fields and is in many cases even a hindrance! Most non-legal employers do not want to hire lawyers for various reasons.
The whole notion that a law degree is “versatile” is a myth that is not borne out by REALITY.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
25 
1
Marcus,
I have a law degree. I also have a top 5 MBA.
Recruiters were extraordinarily wary of me because of the JD. Few wanted anything to do with me when they could have someone that instead of the degree had 3 years of experience.
A JD is not some amazing door-opener. It is, in fact, a door-closer. The fact that people like you without experience here keep spouting the old line of “it’ll get you into anything!” is as incorrect as it gets. Worse is that you throw out banking. Yes, a JD can get you into banking, if you graduate in the top 5% of Harvard or NYU. In other words, if every door is already open for you.
It’s moderately infuriating to see those that are ignorant to reality keep pushing myths. It’s like those that say “just get a job in the mailroom and work your way up, the current CEO did it!” Yes, in the past this was true, but no longer. Today mailrooms are dead-ends, and often not even entry-level; they want someone with previous mailroom experience! Yet people will continue to claim it’s a way in, much like Marcus will keep claiming a JD is a $180k way to open any door…
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
28 
0
Gradutated football players can usualy get any teaching/coaching position at the local high school and be paid well for it. They can also be at the top of the list for any drug rep sales position (and if they deal enough meds they won’t have to live with Mom) or managerial position that most MBA’s/Attorneys would have to fight hard for.
I have to be honest, if I could hire a manager and he had experience in throwing 45 interceptions and only 7 TDs in one season, I might go with that then a recent grad of 6-7 years.
Honestly, beating the odds was never my intention. And as far as where this leads- it already has led there. So new?
Facetious comment:
Sooooo I guess I’ll just be a doctor then…..
I love the NFL Draft analogy. I’m on the outside looking in at the industry and it’s hiring practices. I’m an MBA-type (and former student of frequent guest author Justin Wolfers), not a lawyer. Something interesting that I’ve yet to comprehend about Big Law is their strict discipline in sticking with academic achievement as the #1 indicator for success on the job. My MBA application experience draws close ties to this article, at least the first paragraph. But the analogy stops there. Once in school the hiring process was much different. I was never once asked my GPA or class rank. Potential employers used my acceptance into the MBA program as a proxy for intellectual ability, and didn’t care whether I ranked 1st or 701st. They spent the valuable interview time figuring out my aptitude for the job, ability to grow in the corporate culture, and general fit.
Big Law’s process seems very one dimensional, but like I said, I’m only observing as an outsider.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
20 
0
Good points. You are right that Big Law cares a lot about the academic indicators at the application stage. Up until that point, the process is pretty one-dimensional. But that’s just the “getting in the door” phase. Once that has passed, the other indicators you mentioned (aptitude for job, fit, culture, etc) become more important. Big Law does nearly all their hiring through summer programs, during which applicants spend a number of weeks in the office. Big Law summer programs are designed to gauge those “other” factors and some programs do a fairly solid job of that. So it’s less one-dimensional than it looks at first glance.
Hot debate. What do you think?
7 
3
Just think of the massive intellectual waste here. These elite minds could have chosen to do something productive with their lives, but instead they run up overhead on useful activities by mostly pushing paper around. Just like the NFL I find it amazing that so many bright people can get suckered into a profession with such a high variance in return. I guess the sort of person that aspires to be a top lawyer is the sort of person who feels they will beat out the competition.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
7 
2
I personally know a few who go or have gone to law school. They are decently smart, but nothing exceptional. I mean, some are impressive, but the whole lot of them don’t “wow” me. So I don’t think much was wasted.
And the same thing goes for in the accounting profession.
Hot debate. What do you think?
4 
10
You can still have a very nice career outside Biglaw, if you have little to no student loan debt. If you have $100,000+ in non-dischargeable debt it is difficult if not impossible to start your own practice, even after a few years of experience. Law is no different from any other business. You need seed money. In fact Jay Foonberg’s solo bible states that a solo should have a year’s worth of expenses saved before starting a solo business. How can you do that with a $45,000 a year job and huge student loans?
At least players coming out of the NFL draft have no student loan debt! They get a free ride at college!
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
23 
1
Good analogy, but I would like to have seen something about the ever growing need for Pro-bono work. The people who tend to need legal help are they that cannot afford to pay it. Yet, should these clients receive the help needed, the client could gain financially and be repeat (and paying customer).
Also, NFL teams would do well to offer more free tickets to venues to non-traditional fans (females), in order to grow the fan base.
I think this impacts the early stages of the career, in that most beginning salaries are 40k or less.
Hot debate. What do you think?
2 
17
Pro bono is all well and good, but it by it’s nature it doesn’t pay the bills. You wouldn’t ask a tailor to go and devote all his time to making clothes for the less-fortunate. As a recent (unemployed) law school graduate myself, I need a job that pays me enough money so that I can pay off my $100+ debt. Pro bono work is an aspirational goal that doesn’t really have a place in this discussion. To focus on that is immensely shortsighted.
Mike,
You need to google IBR. 10 years of service for a county, and you would be debt free. 25 years of making a minimum payment based on salary/dependents and you will be debt free.
Your ignorance of recent tax legislation is IMENSLY short-sighted.
My wife graduated with a law degree last year. She spent 10 months unemployed and eventually got a job making exactly what I did with just an undergrad 3yrs earlier. With her 150k in student loans, we’ve pushed back starting a family until 2025.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
16 
1
Take your AGI together. Subtract 14,000. Take that number and multiply by 15%. Now divide by 12. That is the minimum you are expected to pay on both your loans under the new stimulus package enacted in 2009.
You are welcome.