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Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

reuters.com

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Re: Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

#91

Post by adrianN »

chrisseaton wrote: post #90
rayiner wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law is a well paying profession in general, insofar as many can make high five figures and low six figures. That’s good money for real life. You’re correct that only a relatively few people make the kind of money people think lawyers make, and the profession is highly segregated by education. Most people at my law school (northwestern) went on to a big firm job with a salary of $200k rising to $500k after 8 years. A…

> can make high five figures and low six figures. That’s good money for real life. High five figures is not good money for a professional in the US.

That depends on the location, no?

Re: Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

#92

Post by fukmbas »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #23

Man, so many people are going to be in for a world of hurt: 1. The increased applications and class sizes means there will be more competition for a smaller number of jobs when these folks graduate (tech is automating away a lot of legal work, too). 2. As others have commented, a huge percentage of lawyers regret going to law school. This is actually in direct contrast to many other professional degrees, e.g. MBAs sc…

Well for starters I could do an MBA in my sleep, it's a total joke and so are most of the people that do them.

Re: Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

#93

Post by sincerely »

bawolff wrote: post #42
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #23

Man, so many people are going to be in for a world of hurt: 1. The increased applications and class sizes means there will be more competition for a smaller number of jobs when these folks graduate (tech is automating away a lot of legal work, too). 2. As others have commented, a huge percentage of lawyers regret going to law school. This is actually in direct contrast to many other professional degrees, e.g. MBAs sc…

Is tech really automating away legal work? Maybe secertarial work related to lawyers, but i doubt its automating away actual legal work.

Tech is automating away a lot of the work being done by people currently called lawyers. Whether you think that work is "secretarial" or "actual legal work" is a matter of opinion.

Re: Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

#96

Post by Mumps »

bawolff wrote: post #42
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #23

Man, so many people are going to be in for a world of hurt: 1. The increased applications and class sizes means there will be more competition for a smaller number of jobs when these folks graduate (tech is automating away a lot of legal work, too). 2. As others have commented, a huge percentage of lawyers regret going to law school. This is actually in direct contrast to many other professional degrees, e.g. MBAs sc…

Is tech really automating away legal work? Maybe secertarial work related to lawyers, but i doubt its automating away actual legal work.

I work in legal tech (AI). No, it's not automating away work, much more work is being done to increase ability to do _interesting_ and otherwise challenging work (say, more efficient research loops, so a lawyer can uncover more legal connections between documents).

Re: Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

#98

Post by checkyoursudo »

hutzlibu wrote: post #60
brundolf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My girlfriend was a lawyer for a few years. Shortly after we met she went to a bootcamp for coding, immediately got a new job, and now (a couple years later) makes something like 4x what she did as a lawyer. Of course she was doing contract work for a small local firm, but that was the best job she could find in the job market as it was.

I always wondered if studying law, also prepares your mind for coding. Lots of complex preconditions, trying to find clauses that catch all side effects - sounds familiar to me. So transitioning from law to coding is maybe "just" learning some programming language and technical details, but the mind is already somewhat prepared to the thinking?

I was a lawyer for 15 years or so. Before law, I was a PHP programmer and a C/lisp dabbler. After law, I have been a university researcher doing tons of JS and Python for building experiments and running complex computational modeling analyses. However, I was a philosophy major who focused on logic, which is also a precursor to both law and coding, so it's hard to know what influenced what. Anyway, I would say that they can certainly be quite compatible, if ...

If you are a certain type of lawyer, then law and coding are a natural fit. There are several different types of lawyers. Some like the code aspect of law (literally, the legal code), some like the more social aspects of lawyering -- like negotiating deals and trying to bullshit the answer when you are about to lose your case and networking and just all around helping people out.

My wife is a lawyer. My brother was a lawyer. My wife's brother is a lawyer. Of those three, my brother would not have been a very good programmer, and my wife's brother would rather launch himself into the sun. My wife would be good at it (and she is; I have taught her a little to work on our own family web project), but she is also a good mathematician and good scientist, so it's hard to say how much of it might be from legal training.

Re: Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

#99

Post by qeternity »

otterley wrote: post #15
jl2718 wrote: post #8

Summary: entry-level jobs dried up, so people are going to law school instead. Also political motivations. Editorial: More lawyers make the country more complicated and less competitive. We need more and better people going into industrial and medical skilled trades. Think CAD/CAM, not plumber. On the other hand, I think basic legal education would probably have been more relevant than almost anything I’ve ever learn…

> Think CAD/CAM, not plumber. Have you tried to hire a skilled plumber, landscaper, carpenter, or mason in a major city lately? There's a massive tradesperson shortage.

You can thank the unlimited backstop of federal student loans for people to study at any subpar school in any number of useless degrees.

This has siphoned off the historical supply of labor in trade schools.

Re: Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble

#100

Post by AllegedAlec »

jseliger wrote: post #32
arn wrote: post #9

Apparently med school applications were up 18% (in 2020). Which surprises me, I would think COVID might have scared more people off. https://www.ama-assn.org/residents-students/preparing-medica...

I would think COVID might have scared more people off Or talking to doctors, or listening to what doctors write and say: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-n...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuP1_f8Z-xQ
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