Law school applicants surge 13%, biggest increase since dot-com bubble • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by hncurious » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #7

When I was considering going to law school I learned some sobering facts: - something like 75% of lawyers would not recommend their children go in to law - there is a high rate of burnout among lawyers - while the public perception is that lawyers are extremely high paid, that's only the case some elite lawyers that went to elite schools and work for elite firms[1] For someone like me, who doesn't just want to help t…

"I did well enough in law school to be hired by a big New York law firm, but it turned out to be a very strange place. From the outside, everybody wanted to get in, and from the inside, everybody wanted to get out."

— Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, on his “seven months, and three days” as a Sullivan & Cromwell associate, during his commencement address at Hamilton College on May 22, 2016.

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

#182

Post by giantg2 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #163

giantg2 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It’s a demanding, detail oriented, analytical job, and many of those people become quite disillusioned with it." I would love the detailed and analytical aspect of it. Sadly, I hate the contradictions, mistakes, etc that I have experienced with the system. With the vast number of laws and opinions, it seems it's just as much about making the judge like you because they can pick and choose what laws apply (just look…

> With the vast number of laws and opinions, it seems it's just as much about making the judge like you because they can pick and choose what laws apply (just look at stuff like split opinions). I tend to view this as analyzing the same problem under different rule sets. Like, making an argument to a “living constitution” judge can be different than making none to an origins list judge, but there’s an internal logic…

I kind of see that at the higher levels, but there can even be split opinions and contradictions in very simple cases.

For example a judge said that he wouldn't dismiss a case during a trial de novo because there was no record of the original trial (magisterial courts are considered courts not of record, but you are allowed to make a recording) showing that the objections were raised there. Then he later said he won't allow the use of prior statements at that magisterial trial to be used to discredit a witness. He also explained that the trial de novo is "a complete do-over". If it is in fact a complete do-over then why won't the petition to dismiss be considered? I understand that you can't introduce facts from the prior trial at a de novo trial, but any documented statement by a witness can be used to discredit them (ie you don't present it like facts in an appeal, but rather question the witness on why their answer is different from their prior statement). Too many details to list here to show the full legal argument.

Then take conflicts of interest and rules of statutory construction. If I have a precedential ruling saying that the letter of the law cannot be ignored to pursue its spirit, but the judge does just that... or how the judiciary has granted themselves special protections not found in the laws passed by congress, specifically that complaints against them are so secret that even if they contain exculpatory evidence it cannot be revealed. But this explanation would turn into a dissertation.

Perhaps the best example is that magistrates aren't even required to be lawyers. I had one think that I was calling him prejudiced for requesting that the case be dismissed with prejudice. How does one tailor their argument to a functional idiot while still adhering to legal procedures/ideas?

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

#183

Post by 310260 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #138

kaydub wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> useless undergraduate degree Pretty narrow thinking of a liberal arts degree. As someone that works as a software engineer with a liberal arts degree I've found a lot of my STEM degree holding peers to be lacking considering my expectations and all the high and mighty talk about STEM degrees.

The proof is in the pudding, very rarely do people with STEM degrees have to vouch for the usefulness of their degree. We already know why mechanics, engineers and statisticians are useful as career fields, it's the Create Haiku majors that always seem to have to explain the "value unseen" in their degree.

Yes. Because STEM degrees have perceived economic value and liberal arts degrees don't. That does not mean liberal arts degrees are useless. It is, at the very least, short-sighted to think so.

I majored in comp sci but I'm not gonna sit around and pretend every aspect of culture and humanity can be solved by my engineering work...

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

#184

Post by lizknope » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #150

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the pandemic has taught us anything it is that even though we are able to recognize how essential a lot of jobs are, we will still refuse to respect or properly compensate the people who work them. Maybe for some types of frontline workers, but certainly not for skilled tradesman, who are making bank right now and have for at least the past 20 years since I've lived in my current city. And in terms of "refuse to…

Ask yourself this though: why aren't people going to trade schools more often? If it's such a high demand career, with such reasonable pay, then surely it should attract talent; especially when one considers the extreme affordability of trade school in comparison to university education. But we don't see this, why? I posit that it is because people who work trades are looked down on socially. People point at the mech…

People I know look at restaurant workers and retail store employees as the people you say "You go to college so you don't end up like them."

I would never say that about mechanics, plumbers, and HVAC technicians. They have skills that I respect and value. I often ask them what was wrong and their analytic and problem solving skills often impress me.

I got a new HVAC system with a 2 stage compressor. Everything was working fine until the summer when it would shut off cooling just when it got hot even when the thermostat was saying it was cooling.

The technician determined that the system worked fine in "low" mode and when the thermostat went into "high" mode the enter system shut off.

He traced the thermostat wire through the crawl space and found a splice. 20 years earlier when the house was built someone spliced the cable and only spliced together a few wires that were needed for that simple system. He connected all of them and now the 2 stage compressor works great.

It took him an hour of debug going back and forth measuring stuff with a multimeter inside and outside.

I was impressed.

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

#185

Post by halfmatthalfcat » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

sincerely wrote: post #93

bawolff wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought that's what paralegals were for?

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

#186

Post by lizknope » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

cblconfederate wrote: post #173

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…

You can import CAD/CAM people on the cheap, but lawyers is pretty hard.

I know a few companies that are outsourcing legal stuff. The internet makes it easy.

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

#187

Post by halfmatthalfcat » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

My brother just did a joint JD/MBA, he said it was one of the hardest things he's ever done. I think it was a pretty smart move to hedge the JD though, due to many of the anecdotes in this thread.

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

#188

Post by lizknope » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #185

sincerely wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought that's what paralegals were for?

There are too many lawyers and a lot of lawyers end up doing things that a paralegal would do.

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

#189

Post by ghaff » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

skt5 wrote: post #135

diognesofsinope wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I will quibble with your first point a bit. Law is a profession that attracts large numbers of people who default into it because they can’t think of what to do with their liberal arts undergraduate degree. It’s a demanding, detail oriented, analytical job, and many of those people become quite disillusioned with it. Underrated comment -- literally half of all lawyers I've worked with (financial regulation) admit th…

Doesn’t the LSAT have a significant logic portion which IIRC was fairly challenging? I guess you could figure out a way to do well on the LSAT with a distaste for math.

Never taken the LSAT, but have taken GMAT and (semi-obviously) SAT. Yes, there's a certain subset of "math" on these tests. But there are a lot of people who grind test prep and do well enough to get by. (And logic is something a bit different--which lawyers absolutely do need to some degree.)

I have no personal familiarity with law school but I know in (a good) business school, I had plenty of classmates who struggled with anything beyond very basic math--and sometimes even that. Read any of the "my first year in business school" literature and an essentially universal theme is that the math part was really hard.

Which it's not. And I say this as someone who even back then didn't consider themselves especially strong with mathematics in spite of having an engineering degree.

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

#190

Post by jamesliudotcc » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #149

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…

>> It’s a demanding, detail oriented, analytical job, and many of those people become quite disillusioned with it. Maybe for you. For me, when I was practicing, law was a very human-oriented thing. My job was about convincing people and companies to do things that they didn't want to do (mostly security). I felt like Charlie Sheen's therapist: If they don't make any changes the client will wind up in jail. But push t…

I will echo what sandworm says here. I went from a philosophy undergrad to law school to a law career to a coding bootcamp to a programming career.

The job is certainly demanding and detail oriented. Analytical, I guess it depends on what you mean by analytical. What I became disillusioned with was how brutally incoherent legal arguments can be. And to be honest, the Python code I encounter is often in better English than the legal code that I encountered. You can try reading the Illinois Compiled Statutes if you would like a taste.