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

#201

Post by colinmhayes » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

xphilter wrote: post #191

flavius29663 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how high 5 figures is not high salary. 100k is literally double the average salary for the US, and 3 times the median wage. And a lot of people earning the median are also deep in student debt. If earning 3 times the median is not good money, maybe your view of what "good money" means something else. The lawyer median wage is 125k, and the 75 percentile is 186k. I consider 186k to be a high wage, it's 6 t…

The vast majority of folks earning “high five figures” don’t have to waste three years on dubious education at a cost of $50k per year (not including debt for living expenses because you can’t work your first year at all). So you’re right, high five figures could be a great salary if you’re a manager of a target and didn’t go to law school, but it’s a bad salary if you had to go to law school to get it.

Source?

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

#202

Post by junipertea » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

xphilter wrote: post #191

flavius29663 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how high 5 figures is not high salary. 100k is literally double the average salary for the US, and 3 times the median wage. And a lot of people earning the median are also deep in student debt. If earning 3 times the median is not good money, maybe your view of what "good money" means something else. The lawyer median wage is 125k, and the 75 percentile is 186k. I consider 186k to be a high wage, it's 6 t…

The vast majority of folks earning “high five figures” don’t have to waste three years on dubious education at a cost of $50k per year (not including debt for living expenses because you can’t work your first year at all). So you’re right, high five figures could be a great salary if you’re a manager of a target and didn’t go to law school, but it’s a bad salary if you had to go to law school to get it.

There are a lot of people with 4 year graduate degrees (with same cost) that earn less.

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

#203

Post by HelloFellowDevs » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:25 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…

My parents steered me away from the thought of going into the trades due to the idea of working with your body/hands vs working with your mind. More or less saying "how will you be able to find work when you're physically ill/injured", of course this can happen to the mind too. For a lot of people at least the body goes before the mind does. Plus for some time my parents were in unskilled trades so maybe that was also an angle.

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

#204

Post by junipertea » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #160

Kye wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The factory job will destroy your body before your 50s. What good is high five figures if you can't do anything with it other that pay for insurance that barely covers the physical therapy you'll need?

And a sedentary life at a keyboard could leave one in poor health. Every job has its tradeoffs. I would argue that a job with physical activity is better overall - I'd take joint replacement over heart surgery or diabetes.

You can always exercise with an office job. You can not just sit down in a factory/amazon warehouse/coal mine

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

#205

Post by opportune » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #130

Other side of the coin: “Law school was once considered a surefire ticket to a comfortable life. Years of tuition increases have made it a fast way to get buried in debt. Recent graduates of the University of Miami School of Law who used federal loans borrowed a median of $163,000. Two years later, half were earning $59,000 or less. That’s the biggest gap between debt and earnings among the top 100 law schools as ran…

It’s basically “elite overproduction”. As someone with no dog in this fight I think it’s good in some ways that the amount of law school admissions aren’t being artificially restricted like they are for MD, bad that a lot of these loans are through the government and non-dischargeable, tying down people for a long time with debt and may still end up being forgiven, and interesting that oversupply of lawyers creates a bifurcated market rather than lowering prices across the board.

A lot of these problems probably stem from the government loans - if you’re not a school with a reputation to uphold, there’s pretty much no reason not to admit as many people as you reasonably can and charge them as much as possible. Of course with no loans, a lot of people from poorer backgrounds wouldn’t be able to go to school without some form of charity from universities or private donors which is also pretty bad.

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

#206

Post by closeparen » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

flavius29663 wrote: post #169

xphilter wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, this comment is wrong in so many places. “High five figures” is not a lot of money considering the opportunity cost (and actual cost of a law degree) (7 years and likely $200,000 all in). The 1 in 4 figure is not close to right either—it’s typically fewer than 1 in 10 get the actually high paying jobs outside of t-14 schools. And I’m glad commenter likes the grind, but most lawyers that I’ve worked with…

I don't see how high 5 figures is not high salary. 100k is literally double the average salary for the US, and 3 times the median wage. And a lot of people earning the median are also deep in student debt. If earning 3 times the median is not good money, maybe your view of what "good money" means something else. The lawyer median wage is 125k, and the 75 percentile is 186k. I consider 186k to be a high wage, it's 6 t…

$45k is right on the median for a college graduate.

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

#207

Post by kvathupo » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #12

haggy102 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a potential law student how would you frame your argument against lockdowns in a world where trust in subject matter experts is down across the board (on both side, pro and against lockdowns)?

There’s quite a few people I know as well who are considering going to school as well. The gist has been the same, the constitution doesn’t appear to be being followed and as a lawyer you have the ability to defend your rights. I’m not sure what caused this particular spike (a lot of alone time?) but I know a lot of people are feeling this way. In terms of an argument: 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th, 14th are amendments are clea…

You'd be surprised to learn that the 1st Amendment is the strongest it has ever been: I'd recommend reading Anthony Lewis's "Freedom for the Thought That We Hate." It covers how people were imprisoned for criticizing the government from as late as the early 1800s to the early 20th century in the United States. The power of the 1st Amendment is a new concept.

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

#208

Post by RussianCow » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

flavius29663 wrote: post #169

xphilter wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, this comment is wrong in so many places. “High five figures” is not a lot of money considering the opportunity cost (and actual cost of a law degree) (7 years and likely $200,000 all in). The 1 in 4 figure is not close to right either—it’s typically fewer than 1 in 10 get the actually high paying jobs outside of t-14 schools. And I’m glad commenter likes the grind, but most lawyers that I’ve worked with…

I don't see how high 5 figures is not high salary. 100k is literally double the average salary for the US, and 3 times the median wage. And a lot of people earning the median are also deep in student debt. If earning 3 times the median is not good money, maybe your view of what "good money" means something else. The lawyer median wage is 125k, and the 75 percentile is 186k. I consider 186k to be a high wage, it's 6 t…

> 100k is literally double the average salary for the US, and 3 times the median wage.

I'm not sure what source you're using, but no, it isn't even double the median US salary ($56k): https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm

It's good money, don't get me wrong, but it's not immediately worth it if you spend $200k paying for law school.

Edit: I misread the data above, but I'm finding similar numbers from other sources, so I guess it depends on where you look. Regardless, you're correct in your overall point, I just wanted to point out that a $100k salary does not necessarily make it worth going to law school.

With that said, you're right: if your goal is to go into law to make money, it shouldn't be very difficult earn well into the six figures a few years in. I imagine most competent lawyers earning less than that are working in public defense or a similarly underpaid aspect of law, knowing the tradeoff. For reference, the median salary for software engineers is only $110k, but that is clearly on the low end of what a competent engineer can make after even just 5 years in the industry.

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

#209

Post by fighterpilot » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

llimos wrote: post #102

cudgy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or most software developers.

That's an interesting question. Some software is valuable according to this definition, e.g. Google search. Some is not, e.g. Google ad algorithms. Software is an enabler . It depends what it's enabling. Would be interesting to know the proportions.

To clarify a piece of what you've said, devs working on Google ad algorithms are valuable to companies who are advertising. Your point is a higher level one that what these companies are buying from Google isn't of net value to society overall, even if it is of value to them.

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

#210

Post by fighterpilot » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

the_only_law wrote: post #166

reader_mode wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money isn't everything, there's a status component related to those professions (especially if you are coming from poorer background) and a lot of people like the idea of being a doctor or a lawyer. TBH you have to be a certain kind of person to enjoy sitting in front of a screen 8H a day to work on stuff most people would find meaningless (eg. getting paid to optimize ad revenue, speed up PHP execution to save data…

Occasionally the status thing will come up regarding jobs and I find it interesting. I suppose HN tends to view software developers as high-status, probably because of its roots in the bay sate startup scene, where to imagine, yeah. But when I tell people what I do. A large number still don’t know what the fuck it actually is, outside “something with computers”.

My impression is lawyers, doctors, bankers and consultants are the highest status among the general public, closely followed by engineers. Tradesmen below all of those, not quite at the bottom but in the bottom 60-70 percent.