From: The Best Colleges
In response to continual reports, from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal, the website The Best Colleges has created an informative chart meant to educate potential law students before somebody else does. It has long been standard to reply to any student who declares himself an English major, or Philosophy, Art, Music, or History major, with the damning question “and how are you going to use that once you graduate”? Most students of the humanities shrug it off, thinking to themselves — “but I love Hemingway! Why not study him full time?” — but they are not too shocked when they are telling customers at their Starbucks how reading The Old Man and the Sea is the perfect fit with a hot foamy cappuccino. Nowadays, it seems JDs are in the same boat.
Only they don’t know it. They should, but they don’t. The number of students applying at law school as at an all time high, while SIMULATANEUSLY, the number of graduates landing a job in law is at an all time low — about 50% of JDs never work in law. And those fancy-pants 6-figure paychecks? Maybe 5% of lawyers manage to work for Big Law, which might pay such respectable figures, and the rest are stuck with a 40-year student loan that persists like a mortgage yet with no analogous place to hang your hat.
It is refreshing the The Best Colleges has made it their mission to avoid bright students brimming with potential from becoming Law School dupes, who glow with admiration when their mother says “My kid’s gonna be a lawyer,” when the sad fact is that they are likely to deliver pizzas.
Nevertheless, law schools will probably continue to put more talent out there then the market has use for. After all, no amount of wisdom has stopped the regular supply of Philosophy students, History majors, and English buffs.
