1/3 of newly minted J.D.'s can't find jobs

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-greenbaum8-2010jan08,0,4457698.story?track=rss

No more room at the bench
The American Bar Assn. allows unneeded new law schools to open and refuses to regulate them. The government should consider taking steps to stop the flow of attorneys into a saturated marketplace.
By Mark Greenbaum

Remember the old joke about 20,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea being "a good start"? Well, in an interesting twist, thousands of lawyers now find themselves drowning in the unemployment line as the legal sector is being badly saturated with attorneys.

Part of the problem can be traced to the American Bar Assn., which continues to allow unneeded new schools to open and refuses to properly regulate the schools, many of which release numbers that paint an overly rosy picture of employment prospects for their recent graduates. There is a finite number of jobs for lawyers, and this continual flood of graduates only suppresses wages. Because the ABA has repeatedly signaled its unwillingness to adapt to this changing reality, the federal government should consider taking steps to stop the rapid flow of attorneys into a marketplace that cannot sustain them.

From 2004 through 2008, the field grew less than 1% per year on average, going from 735,000 people making a living as attorneys to just 760,000, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics postulating that the field will grow at the same rate through 2016. Taking into account retirements, deaths and that the bureau's data is pre-recession, the number of new positions is likely to be fewer than 30,000 per year. That is far fewer than what's needed to accommodate the 45,000 juris doctors graduating from U.S. law schools each year...

Such debt would be manageable if a world of lucrative jobs awaited the newly minted attorneys, but this is not the case. A recent working paper by Herwig Schlunk of Vanderbilt Law School contends that with the exception of some of those at the best schools, going for a law degree is a bad investment and that most students will be "unlikely ever to dig themselves out from" under their debt. This problem is exacerbated by the existing law school system...

Given that we have millions of laws.


Lawyer. N. expert in circumventing laws.

Liar. N. see above

Each and every one of them.

The person who doesn't understand that laws (and lawyers) are useless without state coercion is accusing me of being biased and lacking in perceptive ability. I'm so hurt :eyes:

That you cannot acknowledge it is evidence of your deficient perspective.

If anything, the Feds should prosecute all the lawyers who helped break laws for past administrations.
that will open a few slots for hiring.

Graduate school was the worst mistake I've ever made. I am now in the hole for over 100k and I'm not even using the degree (1/2 of that amount is interest). A big part of that is my fault for not thinking things through, but unless someone really knows what they want to do, and it pays A LOT of money, they should think twice about enrolling in grad school. (Unless, they are independently wealthy or Mommy and Daddy are footing the bill.)

In my state the bar association surveys its members regularly. The average male attorney here earns less than half of the average general medical practicioner. The average female attorney earns less than half of the average male attorney. Whan you factor in experience (or lack thereof) the average newly minted female attorney earns less than she would working the cosmetic counter at the mall - and odds are she has significant educational debt. Public defenders and legal aid attorneys in most of the state earn below average income relative to all workers in the state. Well over seventy-five percent of all attorneys in the state are fully self-employed. The average law firm consists of fewer than five attorneys. A large percentage of lawyers here lack meaningful access to healthcare and are not able to afford healthcare benefits for their staff.

You apparently are under the impression that all lawyers are rolling in money. Me thinks you've been watching too much TV.

Very, very progressive of you. :sarcasm:

The students need to get real information however, and I would support the regulation of accurate data being displayed by all parties involved.

If the number of graduates vs jobs is regulated by the government in this field, they'll have to do it in all fields or it would be unfair. There are other fields people get advanced degrees in where there are not enough jobs to sustain.

I know it will probably offend some of those in the legal profession, but frankly we have too many lawyers in this country and it is a detriment to our society.

As a result we've become an extremely litigious society which is never a good thing.