Tuesday, January 05, 2010

The Value of a Law Degree

A commentator at Above the Law writes:
I never thought I would see the day where a plumbing degree from Ashworth College (an online institution for the non-erudite) carries more value than a law degree. I recently paid my plumber $425.00 for 45 minutes of his time. Clearly, this handy chap makes more money than most working attorneys in this nation.
Two points: one, he heeds to get out more. The potential top income for a lawyer has been (and remains) quite high, compared to the population as a whole (if not compared to, e.g., investment bankers). But the mean is usually rather lower than the commentator seems to realize. Every year some law grads go off to be parole officers, high school teachers, whatever--some willingly, some because it is the best alternative on the table. And even now as we stand here, some lawyer is "practicing law" in a terry cloth robe at the kitchen table. Again, that may or may not be a bad thing, but it's not the kind of thing that deans and alumni offices like to hype, especially not when they are trying to reel 'em in for $40,000-a-year tuition.

Two, he needs to take the long view. The blip in time during which a law degree was a road to riches--that blip is about the same length as the blip during which a guy like Homer Simpson could support a wife and 2.3 kids in a nice home in the suburbs on a factory wage.

I think the inflection point was the moment I started law school--fall of 1963--when the dean who welcomed us offered congratulations because we were moving into (as he said) an underpeopled profession. He was right: law hitherto had just not been that dazzling a choice. You really had to want to be there.

Sepecificaly: lawywers often had to scrounge for work in the Depression. There was more work after World War II but also more lawyers. In the 60s, wo things changed all that. One, biglaw jacked up its compensation schedules for beginning associates, enriching the associates themseves and setting off a ripple that rolled through the market as a whole. Two, the Federal government started to fund legsl services for the poor.

[A third factor that drew a new wave of applicants to the law schools was the civil rights revolution in the South, which added an aura of prestige and respectability to law which it had perhaps never enjoyed before. This surely increased demand for places in law school, although it didn't affect compensation directly.]

One unhappy consequence was that for a generation now, we've had a lot of kids in law school with no special vocation to be there, but who were looking for the big bucks. Surely that motivation is gone, or at least severely constrained. The Pope has been neard to say tht he wouldn't mind a smaller and stronger church. Who knows, the current uproar may induce just such a revision in the practice of law.

For a much more fully informed discussion, go here.

Three things changed

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

That post you cited is from a perennially unserious poster who acts out as an over-priviliged character in those forums. His posts are all an act.

Anonymous said...

Obviously the $400+ he/she paid for the plumbers time included parts as well as labor. Well, unless this is a different kind of "plumbing," if you know what I mean.

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Anonymous said...

Sepecificaly? WTF?

Anonymous said...

Shame on you for writing an article based on a fictional character created by a law student. Only a non-peer blog would get fooled like this.

Anonymous said...

If all one cared about was money there is a good argument to be made that by going directly into a blue collar profession right after HS, avoiding the cost of college and then LS, and investing aggressively for that seven years, one could START life at age 25 with a $300K+ net worth--that earned compound interest.

But the value of an education is not just economic, and I would not trade my USF undergrad experience or my USF law degree for any amount of money. My education was a part of my intellectual development and has enriched my life in ways unrelated to the practice of law and will continue to do so.

Anonymous said...

I met "Partner Emeritus" on December 17 at Rick's Cabaret. I recognized him since I was once employed for 2 years at the "peer" firm he recently retired from. PE, thanks for the drinks and advice. I wish you the best in your retirement and remember that you have nothing to prove to anyone. You are a legend and I am thankful for your contributions to the legal profession.

A.E.S.

Anonymous said...

Top plumbers make more than top lawyers. How much do you think the guy who owns Roto Rooter is worth?

Also, a law degree is not valuable. People *think* it's valuable because you have a *chance* to get a high paying job out of it. Unfortunately, there is a lot of imperfect information in the marketplace for law degrees (largely because law schools publish false and misleading data about the employment outcomes of their graduates).

smith said...

The only way to succeed in law school and its unique Socratic method of teaching is to experience it – to invest countless hours with professors in a classroom environment.


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