What causes unemployment?

[crazy canuck]

I don't get why post-graduation jobs for law are so sparse.

I am not sure.  Most people with post-graduate law degrees go on to become professors in universities. 

[garbon]

My mother says she is getting out at 55. I don't really see that happening and have been trying to break it to her that she'd be unhappy without work.

[crazy canuck]

You're one of the good ones I can see CC keeping his job well into his 90's just to spite the young wiper snappers

Well maybe 85.

[Ideologue]

Well I think they have been going through life being told if they go down such and such assembly line everything will be great and then when they discover now they have to be creative and think for themselves it can be a shock.

Having said that I do feel for the people who were sold on getting a very specialized and expensive degree (like a Law degree) and then discovered there is actually very little demand for it.

If they were "sold" on it and didnt have the intelligence that their highly paid education assumes to look around to see its a competitive world out there they have no sympathy from me.  It has been a truism of law schools since at least the time I graduated that if you are not in the top X% - and we can quibble about what the X is - you are going to have a hard time of it.

I don't get why post-graduation jobs for law are so sparse. Why do law schools provide such an excess of seats if they know there isn't gainful employment for their classes? In medicine even the guy who is dead last in class rank is going to end up in a residency making on average 50 grand a year and after 4 years they'll be making on average 170 grand as a family medicine doc. 40% of US family medicine residencies every year go to foreigners because there aren't enough Americans to fill them.

Hey Ide, it's time to switch professions.

Actually, if I did have it to do all over again, I'd have majored in biology and then gone to med school (or maybe just become a biologist).  I frankly find it more interesting, but that might be in part because I wasn't exposed to it for three years' worth of dreary training.  In any event, it's obviously more marketable.

[Malthus]

Well, the actual value of a truly junior lawyer (say, a couple of years out) is generally going to be close to negligible.  One hires for the future.

Agreed, and the wage expectations ought to follow from those assumptions.

Problem is that while really junior lawyers are of negligible worth, law firms do need a steady influx of young, competent middle-year lawyers. Paying junior lawyers is simply a way to attempt to lock them in, much like offering summer positions and the like.

Certainly, one strategy could be to not hire really junior lawyers at all and simply attempt lateral hires from the firms that do ... but most young lawyers by that time will have developed client and mentor contacts and be less willing to leave.

In short, there are rational reasons to pay juniors, even though their work at the moment is not of great value - it is an investment. 

[HVC]

what's he average pay for a first yearer in your firm, malthus? if you know.

[Malthus]

I don't get why post-graduation jobs for law are so sparse. Why do law schools provide such an excess of seats if they know there isn't gainful employment for their classes? In medicine even the guy who is dead last in class rank is going to end up in a residency making on average 50 grand a year and after 4 years they'll be making on average 170 grand as a family medicine doc. 40% of US family medicine residencies every year go to foreigners because there aren't enough Americans to fill them.

Hey Ide, it's time to switch professions.

I think a primary reason for this is that law is unlike medicine in that one does not have to plan one's educational career so as to get into it. Thus, it is more a sort of "default" profession for (admittedly smart) folks who educated themselves in some pursuit that interested them at the time but did not lead to a career.

Few people think to themselves "oh, my four years education in early medieval literature did not pan out into a paying career - I think I'll become a doctor". Being a doc requires lots of prerequisites in terms of education, and a narrower focus of aptitude. If you aren't already into those prerequisites, you would have to go back and do undergrad all over again. Not so law.

This leads to an abundance (perhaps over-abundance) of very bright people of all sorts chasing law as a career choice, which makes it quite competitive.

[HVC]

I think you (or perhaps BB? ) ralied agaisnt the idea of "pre-law" degrees. but if the scenario you outlined is indeed a problem perhaps a focues education would help weed down the over supply of the law feild.

[Malthus]

what's he average pay for a first yearer in your firm, malthus? if you know.

I know, but I'm not supposed to tell, since it is confidential. 

[Fate]

I don't think a pre-law degree would be required to reform the system. Law schools could raise the bar on their admission standards and decrease class sizes. Only let the top X% into school instead of allowing the 1-X% to waste their money.

Pre-med isn't a major. It's a set of 10 introductory level science and math courses that generally overlap with a good chunk of natural science degrees. A lot of incoming freshmen start with up to 80% of them fulfilled thanks to high school AP credits in physics, biology, general chemistry, and calculus. Even if you didn't have any AP credits you could knock them out in two semesters.

[Malthus]

I think you (or perhaps BB? ) ralied agaisnt the idea of "pre-law" degrees. but if the scenario you outlined is indeed a problem perhaps a focues education would help weed down the over supply of the law feild.

That wasn't me, since I don't remember it.

I dunno, why would such "weeding" be a good idea? Really, it amounts to cutting smart folks out of an opportunity artificially.

I dunno why having a highly competitive but highly lucrative field open to smart folks who did not specialize young is a "problem" to be solved. 

[Malthus]

I don't think a pre-law degree would be required to reform the system. Law schools could raise the bar on their admission standards and decrease class sizes. Only let the top X% into school instead of allowing the 1-X% to waste their money.

Pre-med isn't a major. It's a set of 10 introductory level science and math courses that generally overlap with a good chunk of natural science degrees.

I disagree that a law degree that does not lead to a legal career is a "waste". It is often the springboard to all sorts of other career opportunities.

In Canada at least, the Law Society does attempt to exert some control over the number of law students.

My point concerning pre-med is that generally, those taking the right courses tend to have planned it in advance. If you study pure humanities, for example, you are unlikely to have the right "mix". And it is people who have taken humanities who commonly find no paying job results.

[Barrister]

I think you (or perhaps BB? ) ralied agaisnt the idea of "pre-law" degrees. but if the scenario you outlined is indeed a problem perhaps a focues education would help weed down the over supply of the law feild.

That was me - but I complained about them because they are false advertising.  Because there are no pre-requisites to law school, calling your program pre-law is just wrong.

And I'm going to guess $95k for a 1st year lawyer at Malthus' firm.

[HVC]

And I'm going to guess $95k for a 1st year lawyer at Malthus' firm.

I have now sided with CC, but only for law students

[Valmy]

I disagree that a law degree that does not lead to a legal career is a "waste". It is often the springboard to all sorts of other career opportunities.

In Canada at least, the Law Society does attempt to exert some control over the number of law students.

Well that was a major selling point and one of the reasons for the current law school bloat.  But obviously when you have so many JDs out there they just become another degreed job seeker.  I am glad Canada is stepping in to put limits on it.

If anything else it is just a matter of educating the students and the public about the current state of the Legal field.  The money from running a law school is so lucrative that marketing campaigns selling a chance to be a big time lawyer are hard for cold hard facts to compete with.