TaxProf Blog: Welcome to the Law School Class of 2017: Should You Stay or Should You Go?

TaxProf Blog: Welcome to the Law School Class of 2017: Should You Stay or Should You Go?: "Forbes:  Law School Begins: Here's A Message to the New Crop of 1L's, by Michael I. Krauss (George Mason):

" Later this week I will teach the first Torts class to George Mason Law School’s newly matriculated 1L’s.  Here is my message, both to them and to 1L’s nationally.

You have decided to enter law school during “interesting” times.  The business model for the private practice of law is a-changin, and many say it is broken.  Law school tuition is higher than ever, yet incomes are stagnant and perhaps dropping.  Law school loans, guaranteed by Uncle Sam and not dischargeable by bankruptcy, help you pay for tuition, but every increase in the generosity of federal largess is yet another incentive for universities to capture rents by increasing tuition further.

Mason students are at a “top-50″ school, but many readers of this column will be matriculating at lower-ranked institutions (and others will be at higher-rated schools).

Most Mason students ranked near the top of their undergraduate class and did quite well on their LSAT.  But half of you will get GPA’s at Mason that are lower than you’ve ever experienced before, both because your undergrad institution had succumbed to grade inflation and because our mandatory GPA mean immunizes us against this to some extent.

Those in the bottom half of the class won’t be eligible for Law Review, and they generally won’t be invited to those coveted on-campus interviews with BigLaw firms.  For them, and for many in the top half of the class as well, “summer camp” at a BigLaw firm after 2L will never happen; and the famous $160K starting salary after graduation will be pie in the sky.  Most law grads learn to their sorrow that the income distribution for freshly-minted JD’s is quite bimodal.  And those who do catch that brass ring will be in for a life that is usually exhausting and often boring, if not soul-destroying.

Are these facts part of an effort to get you to rethink your decision to attend law school?  For some of you, frankly, yes; but for others, absolutely not.  ..."



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