DailyDirt: So You Want To Be A Lawyer..?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Lawyers often get a bad rap -- sometimes rightfully so. But does the entire profession really deserve endless lawyer jokes and derision? Despite the hate, thousands of people still study to become lawyers, racking up a pretty hefty amount of student debt in the process. Here are just a few interesting links for those of you who might be considering (or going through) this educational process.

• Some big law firms haven't held up well during the recession, and 12 major firms with over 1,000 partners have disappeared over the last decade. There are still about 150-250 firms that belong to the Big Law club, but it's not entirely clear if the business cycle will continue to support the traditional business models of large law firms. [url]
• Roughly, about 44,000 new law school students graduated in the last year, but only about 21,800 new jobs for them exist. And it's not unusual for students to have over $150,000 worth of student debts for their education. [url]
• Maybe it's not all bad news for lawyers: a recent study concludes that the average lawyer will earn about $1 million more than the average college grad over the course of their career. Ahem, past performance is not indicative of future results -- but you can read the study yourself to see if you agree with its assessment of the economic value of a law degree. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: career, economic value, education, law degree, law school, lawyers, profession, student debt