Ran through the whole church program growing up, seminary, scouts, worthiness interrogations...I mean interviews, mission, byu, etc. Managed to not get married in happy valley(introverted personality saved my ass, all my friends are now married to other TBMs with 3 kids)Finally decided to do my 'due diligence' on the church a few years ago and well...you know how that turned out. I just started law school and am looking for advice from anyone that has 'been there and done that' thanks.

What are you asking exactly?

Should you stay in the Church?

That all depends on your situation, what you value, etc.

It is extremely helpful to be Mormon if you're going to be an attorney. Even outside the Western U.S., Mormons are disproportionately over represented among attorneys. Mormon attorneys watch out for each other.

OTOH, if you don't believe and don't see utility in the Church, staying is a high price to pay for a great professional network.

What on earth made you decide to go to law school? You did "due diligence" about the Church but did you do it about law school? Did you know that there are 45,000 law graduates every year and only 30,000 new jobs? Did you know that your student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy? Did you know that when you consolidate your loans, the interest rate could be as high as 8.25%? Did you know that if you are one of the lucky ones that gets a job after graduating, you may make as little as $40,000 a year?

What school did you get into? If it's not Top100, I would suggest dropping out after this semester. If you did get into a Top100 school, I would suggest dropping out if you don't finish in the top 25% of your class this semester.

Seriously.

Making a bad decision about Mormonism is one thing- you can get out. Going to law school? You'll never get out. You'll be a slave to your student loans till the day you die. You'll work a job you hate, you'll never see your family and you have 0% chance at upward mobility.

Leave while you still can.

So.......what's the downside? :) J/K
No, I wasn't asking about staying in the church or anything like that. I've long since made that decision. It was an easy one for me. Church was nothing more than a huge pain in my ass. Or better yet, church was for me was like getting mentally raped on a weekly basis.

Yes, I was aware of all those facts you quoted. The supply/demand numbers are exceptionally horrendous now due to the recession. Firms are not hiring. That being said, yes I am in a top100 school and the average starting salaries are around 74k. Average debt around 100k. The debt doesn't concern me so much. This is basically a second career for me. My first being in engineering. So I can always fall back on that if it's really as horrible as you say. I could work off that 100k in five years no problem. 0% chance upward mobility? Seems a little extreme. Never seeing my family? I doubt it's that bad. It sounds like you hate your job. My advice to you is if you hate life that much is to quit immediately and find something else to do that you are more passionate about. So far I've enjoyed law school. When you were in law school did you like it? Why did you go to law school? I'm assuming since your name is LawClerk.

LegitAsBalls - Law Clerk is doing his/her best to tell you like it is. Your comments lead me to believe that you have not done much due diligence with regards to law school and, more importantly, legal employment. I will admit that due diligence is particularly difficult as law schools mislead/lie about employment prospects, attorneys are reticent to bad mouth the profession to the face of a newbie, and the general public still thinks that lawyers make serious dough.

I recently graduated from BYU Law (Class of 2010), passed the bar a bit ago, and I am lucky enough to have a job. Say what you will about BYU, but it is ranked pretty well and it is cheap. Either way, about HALF my class still has no job. Probably 15-20% of my class will start out making pretty good money (75K+ - with some of them making well over 100K). The other ~30% of grads with jobs will make less than 75K (with even a larger percentage of them making 30-50K). And like I said, HALF of my class has NOTHING. When they do get jobs (and they will eventually because you have to buck up and take a job somewhere eventually), they will be underemployed (probably outside the law) and make a pittance compared to the "average" salary numbers reported by BYU's Career Services Office. And even at one of the cheapest law schools in the country, most of my friends still have more than 75K in debt. This is just a snap-shot of the 41st ranked law school in the country.

The last thing I want to say before I directly address your previous comments is that a law degree generally does NOT "open doors" outside the legal profession. If you go to a top school (think T-14), then it might, but it won't for the average law grad. Non-legal employers will wonder why you aren't practicing law if it is so lucrative and will think something is wrong with you. You will be "over-qualified" and under-qualified for many, many jobs. Law school just doesn't give you any truly marketable skills - IMHO it is a glorified liberal arts degree.

Yes there are plenty of folks who have had success outside the legal profession. But those folks just happen to have a law degree. It wasn't the degree itself in most cases that allowed those people to succeed. Many had connections or other skills or assets that would have allowed them to succeed no matter what degree they had. The causal effect is just not there in most cases.



As to the rest of your comments:

"The supply/demand numbers are exceptionally horrendous now due to the recession. Firms are not hiring."

Law Clerk already said it, but it deserves being repeated: the problems with legal employment, especially for recent grads, are not due to the recession. As LC noted, the recession has only exasperated a problem that already existed. The supply/demand numbers have been at least horrendous for some time now. This is the dirty little secret of the legal "profession".



"That being said, yes I am in a top100 school and the average starting salaries are around 74k. Average debt around 100k."

I have no idea where you go to school, but my best guess is that you go to a law school outside the top 50 or so. I say this because you could have pointed out your school was ranked much higher than ~100, but did not (correct me if I am wrong), and most of the top 50 law schools tout average salaries much higher than 74K (although the average salaries at any of those schools are certainly misleading if not outright fraudulent).

What you need to understand is that there is not much difference between the ~20th ranked school and the ~100th ranked school. If you do really well (i.e., top 10% grades) at any of the schools ranked between 20-100, you will have a pretty good shot at a six figure job right out of law school. The bar of success (i.e., top 10% grades) appears to be a bit lower (i.e., top 25% grades) the closer you get to the ~20th ranked schools. That might be the only difference between the ~20 and ~100 ranked schools. If you are outside of that 10-25% at any of the 20-100 ranked schools you will struggle to even get a job, let alone a high-paying one. There are exception no doubt, but the general rule stands.

"The debt doesn't concern me so much.

It should.

"This is basically a second career for me. My first being in engineering. So I can always fall back on that if it's really as horrible as you say."

I know plenty of folks who had worked in previous industries, went to law school, and then could not break back into their fields. Don't think it will be a cake-walk getting back into your previous field. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but don't think you will be able to just waltz right in there without a problem. The guys who couldn't get back into their fields all told me that the biggest problem was trying to convince people that their skills weren't stale after a 3+ year hiatus.

"I could work off that 100k in five years no problem."

Go check out a loan calculator. In order to pay off a 100K loan in five years at 8%, you are looking at a $2,027.64 a month payment. Unless you are making pretty good money, it would not be very easy to pay off a loan that large in five years.

"0% chance upward mobility? Seems a little extreme."

I agree.

"Never seeing my family? I doubt it's that bad."

For some it is, but for most it isn't that bad, I agree.


"So far I've enjoyed law school. When you were in law school did you like it? Why did you go to law school? I'm assuming since your name is LawClerk."

Law school is nothing like practicing law. Law school is pretty worthless in my opinion, and everything you learn there can be learned in just a few weeks time if you wanted. BarBri courses and the like do just that. I had a pretty good time in law school personally, but I am a huge critic of how the path to the legal profession is set up.

By the way, it is very difficult to just pick the area of law that you want to practice. Even for those lucky few who score great jobs, they very well may not get assigned to practice groups of their choosing. I know many, many people who tailored their classes and wrote papers on areas of the law in which they were interested, hoping to gain employment in that area of the law. With few exceptions, it didn't happen.

You can certainly have a desire to be a lawyer, and even enjoy law school immensely, but at the end of the day, you won't know whether you will actually enjoy being a lawyer until you are one.

Thanks all for the advice. I'll definitely consider all your comments/tips. If I cut and run after first semester they only got me for 12k. I will seriously re-evaluate the situation after first semester grades are out keeping in mind the job prospects for patent attorneys. Ahhh that's too much work, fuck it. i'll just pray and go with what feels good :)

1L,

The averages starting salary is *not* $74,000. The law schools lie to prospective students. These numbers are based on self-reporting by recent graduates, and are inherently skewed. My school reports that the average starting salary is about $80,000. Try $40,000. In the city where I live, there is only 1 AV rated firm. They have the pick of the litter of recent grads. They will hire 1 or 2 a year... and they pay $60,000. And these guys are the "luckiest" ones. You should go to your state bar website. Look up the recent grads from your school. Call them. Ask them, "Are you making $74,000 a year?" They will laugh at you (and inside feel stupid themselves for falling for the law school scam).

Seriously, though, if you don't make the Top 25% after this semester, you should drop out and go back to engineering.

I would LOVE to do something I feel more passionate about! But I fell for the law school scam. I am now a slave to my student loans (and I was in the top 25% in a Top100 school).

Also, you don't understand the oversupply of lawyers. It is excaserbated, though not caused by the recession. The economic recovery will not end the oversupply of lawyers. There is an oversupply of lawyers because law schools are gauranteed tuition money from federally backed loans. Federally backed loans are easily attainable because they can't be discharged in bankruptcy. So more and more people go to law school and every year new TTT law schools open... even though there is no demand for lawyers.

Our society doesn't need more lawyers. We need more engineers. Do us all a favor and go to work fixing our nations failing infrastructure. Let some other sucker like me do the personal injury work, bankruptcies, divorces and construction defect cases.

GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN!

My two cents. If you really want to be a lawyer, go for it. I actually love what I do. It is fulfilling and stimulating. I make a real difference in the lives of a lot of people. There are some days where the stress gets to me, but the freedom that I have and the good that I do in the world makes up for it. If you find a niche in the law you will be fine. If you don't you will probably bail out and go back to Engineering. Finding a niche is the key.

But I really can't relate to all that student loan debt. I was lucky, I went to law school in the state where I was a resident and DW worked. We got out of there with only $2500.00 in student loan debt. If we had a $100,000.00 albatross around our necks we would never have made it. Lawyers DO NOT make the kind of money people think. If you are money driven, I would say go back to being an Engineer. You will make more and probably have a retirement plan. I will never be able to retire. If service is more important than money, then you will be fine in law.

The TBM lawyers do kind of stick together. But where I live, it doesn't matter that much if you are a believer. And I live in the moridor. For every idiot who would only hire a TBM attorney, there is someone who doesn't want a TBM as their attorney. So, IMHO, it doesn't matter what your relationship is to the church.

In a weird way, you really won't learn a whole lot in law school. It is definitely true what they say...law school teaches you to "THINK" like a lawyer, but it doesn't teach you to be a lawyer.

Sadly, it probably won't come together until you study for the Bar Exam. Then all the topics, the order of analysis, etc. will finally start becoming clear.

Tip #1: Sign up for Barbri your first semester. By signing up now, not only will you save money, but you will also receive some very good study materials that will help you out for your first year or two school exams. Well worth the money.

Tip #2: Do NOT...I repeat...DO NOT take the first job that comes around during your first summer looking for employment. In fact, don't underestimate summer school. This will relieve your work load your final semester and free up time for work or bar study. And if you take a job, make sure its a good fit. Don't feel obligated to say yes to the first offer if you think its a bad fit.

Tip #3: Do NOT underestimate the benefits of using your law degree in a non-traditional manner. In other words, if you are committed to getting your law degree but are not sold on becoming a lawyer, then DON'T become a lawyer. There are countless career paths that you can take with a law degree. But be forewarned, that many employers will look at you differently if you have a law degree. You will instantly be OVER-qualified for many jobs. So, just look at all your options carefully. The market right now stinks! Even if you hang your own shingle and start your own practice, the income will be very low for a while. But there are options both within the career field and outside the field.

Tip #4: Government jobs are very secure, pay well, and decent benefits. BUT they WILL overwork you beyond any private practice. Again, the market is bad, so you will be expected to work long hours, but as an exempt employee, you will get no overtime. So balance whether you would like to work for more pay in a private practice (but never know if you will be let go) vs. whether you'd prefer a more secure employment (but have more demands on you and not get paid for it.)

Tip #5: If you want to pursue gov't jobs, get externships with the state/federal courts during your summers and/or during your third year. This will more seamlessly lead to paid clerkships with judges.

Best of luck!

The first year is the worst. Grow a thick skin. Some professors can be real asses. Start mapping your job search out now. The field is very crowded.

And plenty of former lawyers who are successful in non-law professions.

And plenty of losers with law degrees.

All the advice here simply boils down to one simple personal rule:

Where you end up depends more on your personal charisma, native intelligence, personal connections, and competitive drive than it does on your edumuckayshun.

Good luck.

LegitAsBalls, love your screen name. I've been in practice for ten years and have had a fairly wide range of experience. Based on my personal experience and that of close friends, starting salaries range from around $52k for the federal government to $160k for "biglaw" (a term used with respect to the top tier of law firms, most of which have multiple offices in the US and overseas). Local firms fall in between, mostly in the $60k-$100k range in cities where I've lived. Federal gov't jobs have a set salary scale and you hit $100k pretty quickly and top out around $135k (at least at the DOJ, SEC and DOE where I have friends). Biglaw salaries go up pretty quickly as well; however, the chances of making partner at one of those firms is only slightly more likely than Joseph Smith being right about moon quakers and there are other drawbacks to be aware of (quality of life issues, impermanence, stress, etc.). State government jobs pay less than federal and start at around $40k in my state. Given your engineering background, you could focus on intellectual property litigation or patent prosecution if you wanted. Both of those are fairly constant demand practice areas that pay a premium relative to less specialized lawyers. There is enough of a range that you will hopefully be able to find an area that is at least tolerable, if not somewhat interesting.

Anyway, I could go on, but I'll spare the board from further lawyer talk. I'd be happy to discuss further, however, so email me at clusterfetch@gmail.com if you'd like to talk offline.

You've already had great advice, and I will add only a couple of thoughts.

My law degree was earned over four years of night school; passed the bar on the first try in '74 while teaching full-time at the local community college. One of the other college teachers (history department) had a law degree. I asked him (after I was well into law school) why he didn't practice. He said he got tired of worrying about other people's problems. I have come to agree with him. A lawyer's job is to worry about the client's problems while the client sleeps peacefully at home.

Law school was a great education, and I'm glad I did it. I think there is no better training in clear thinking and rational argumentation. I did not give up my teaching, but practiced part-time with a small firm for a year, then a few years on my own. It was not fun, and not financially rewarding. After I retired from teaching and moved to another state I got a job as a law clerk, passed the bar again, and practiced full time with a small firm. Pay was adequate, but I hated it. The only thing I enjoyed was the legal research, writing briefs, drafting documents.

A survey of lawyers a few years ago showed that 60% of all lawyers wish they were doing something else. I understand why.

New lawyers in large firms are under tremendous pressure and time demands, doing drudge work. Lawyers in small firms often have a hard time making ends meet and often are unable to deal adequately with complicated cases.

Law is a very stressful profession. I have not practiced for 15 years now, but still have nightmares about it.

Richard
(recovering lawyer)

You can't want to be a lawyer because you want to make a lot of money or because you want to "help people." Many, even most, law students start law school with one or both those desires in mind. Many, even most, of those students will wash out of practice, or at least be utterly miserable in practice. You should want to be a lawyer because you want to practice law. Regardless of the practice area, practicing law is stressful and demanding. It requires long hours. It never gets less stressful or demanding, and the hours never get any shorter. I really have went weeks at a time without really seeing my family, and I don't work in one of the huge markets. Additionally, many lawyers never really retire.

I'll just say, you have to be just a little bit sick to do this stuff day in and day out. I really enjoy practicing law, but most people really aren't wired to be lawyers. It's not that they're not smart enough or not capable, it's just that it's not for them. Make sure you want to do it.

Also, the legal market is awful right now even for experienced lawyers. No one knows when or if it will get better. Personally, I think it will in time, but I can't say that will happen quickly enough to aid you in getting a job out of law school. If you continue with law school, you have to be prepared for the possibility that securing employment in the legal field may be extremely difficult, especially if you are coming from a school outside the Top 50.

I'm was in a similar boat as you are when I was starting law school - 6 yrs engineering experience to rely on when things went south. I went to a top 10 law school (graduated cum laude) and then to Georgetown for the Tax LLM. I also had a good clerkship on the tax court.

Once I started practicing law at a big firm ($160,000 to start), I was assigned to a key case that involved accounting, econ, software technology,etc. Because of my background, they had me on that case with very little opportunity for legal research, analysis, or writing outside of pro bono. My backgrounddid prove crucial, and after three years of 80+ hour weeks, we won the case.

Unfortunately for me, what they really needed once the case was over were people with 3-4 years of Legal experience. Since we had won the case in such a HUGE way, the precedent had been set, and my services and skillsets were no longer needed. When letting me go, they also informed me that since they had offered me NO opportunities for written legal work product, they would not be able to answer any related recommendation questions from future employers. They recognized that their position would require that I essentially restart my legal career, but they cared more for retaining their precious integrity.

Of course, you can't interview for 1st year jobs as a fifth year, because they'd know something's wrong and avoid you like the plague. If I interviewed for a fifth year job and accepted, they'd be forced to fire me within a week, or just as soon as they realized I don't have fifth year speed researching and drafting.

My options right now are to do contract law in discovery, which paya $10-15 / hour, or leave the profession entirely. I've chosrn the latter, but I've missed 10 years of tech developments. So really, I'll be doin web design and strategy, because I have seen a lot of businesses up close and personal, and unlike most rightbrainers, I can talk to the lawyers and accountants snd marketing types.

Moral of the story: be very, very careful going into law. If I were you, I'd quit for a year to be a paralegal to find out whether that environment is one where you can even be happy. Also, spend significant time reading AboveTheLaw.com. It's been publishing for four years, and tracked all the carnage coming from 2008 through 2010.

But this isn't a recessionthing (as someone mentioned above). The legal profession is going through a seismic shift, likemanufacturing and industry. Because of computers/internet, legal research can be done very quickly, thereby requiring less lawyers. Also, we regularly had our indian offices do this work.

Nutshell: demand for US lawyers is plummetting, but more legal students graduate every year. Note that you can't believe the schools' published employment numbers. If a recent grad has a 25-hour per week job as a professor's assisstant, or more likely, at a fast food restaurant, they can be included in the schools at-grad/9-months-out employment numbers.

Sorry to be so harsh, but this is a dying profession, and YOU ARE NOT YET IN $200,000 DEBT. There is no dishonor in coming to your senses. Don't make a desicion based on whether you like your classes - they bare almost NO reality to what lawyers do.


Sorry for all the typos. I'm using a mobile.

lawyer for 14 years
solid income - 100-150k a few years even better
able to pay 100k loans off
decent house nice car
good reputation

despite the above - biggest mistake of life

@ benben: Not sure why you are laughing. His/her story seems to be a good cautionary tale if you ask me. More somber than jovial, but that's just me.

Btw, are you an attorney? If so, how long ago did you graduate from law school and where did you go? The advice you gave, IMHO, was generally inaccurate for most current law school students. If you are wondering what I feel is inaccurate I would have no problem detailing it.

@ taxlaw: Are you in Utah? I'd be interested in speaking with an experienced tax attorney. Let me know if that might be possible. Thanks.

Wow these comments are amusing. 20+ years ago I was contemplating law school. I have a BIL and uncle who practiced law for awhile. When I had my bachelor's and was getting ready to take the LSAT both of them told me to stay out of law. They had practiced for a few years and then got out at the first opportunity. "Too much stress, too many lawyers, not worth it." Their advice was to do anything BUT practice law. Neither of them were able to make a living in private practice. One ended up in business, the other got into real estate. For awhile, one of them owned a restaurant. He told me he would rather wash dishes than practice law.

But since I just had this burning desire to be a lawyer, I went ahead...yeah, at times it really sucks, but looking back I really don't know what else I would have been qualified to do. On a good day I love it, there are days I think it's not worth it, but aren't most jobs like that anyway?

If you really want it, you can make it work.

And worst case scenario is what? You graduate and can't find a job and have a ton of student loan debt. No worries. You can become a custodian. You go to your bishop and tell him you are sorry for drifting away from the church. If you go back, he will throw you a bone, maybe make your rent payment for a couple of months if you promise to clean the toilets on Saturday.

Wow, this is all very fascinating, and I wish I had seen something like this before I went to law school.

Let's see, I went to law school from BYU inthe mid-80s. I was in a, oh I guess, Top 50 school (UC Hastings). I graduated in the Top Third of the class. And? I never really ever found a job in the legal profession.

Sure, I was a law clerk for the Presiding Judge at the Superior Court in San Francisco, I clerked at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, etc. But when it came time to go out and really get that job, nothing came my way. I think I had about 30 interviews over the years. Eventually you just get stale and no one will hire you.

I had some debt, though nothing like to day. It was about 35K in mid 80s dollars. Would that be 80K today? I eventually paid it off but I think I lost a decade or two of real work I could have been doing.

The most important thing to know though is that I've stayed in touch with quite a few of my former classmates. Only one of them is "happy" I think as a lawyer because he had real self-esteem issues. Every other one I know hates being a lawyer and would change professions if they could.

Also, all the lawyers I know who are now either partners or thereabouts have had their salaries reduced by about 30% in the last couple of years.

The irony is that everyone expects "actors" or "social workers" to struggle to find work and pay the bills, but no one expects that of lawyers. But I find it's just as likely you'll become a high paid fancy lawyer as you might become, oh I don't know, Julia Roberts.

I work for DOJ. I have been an attorney for less than 10 years.

1st Job 40K
2nd Job 60, but moved up to 78 quickly.
3rd Job, DOJ, 88K.

I am really not sure I would be a lawyer again. A lot of stress. Since I work for the government, the hours are managable, but it is way too much stress for the money.

One day, I can make as much as 150K, but it may take 10 years, and only if the economy does not get worse.

If I were starting over, and I knew I had 75K or more in student loans, there is no way I would do it. There are easier ways to make money. I am sure there are people who thrive in the law and love it. However, it is my experience that most don't. 15 or so years ago, I was in a law library, and spoke to two attorneys whom I did not know. Their advice: don't become a lawyer. They said "imagine your life as one big term paper about how to resolve other people's problems." I did not listen. Maybe I should have. Right now I actually like my job... but the stress is still too much, at least for the money I am paid.

Good luck.