A rebuttal of sorts

Upon reading through a discussion on reddit which references one of my recent posts, it appears I need to clear a few things up.

1. Desire to be an attorney.

Look, my wife is an attorney and has been for nearly a decade now (9 yrs & change). I knew plenty of other attorneys before I applied to law school, both through her and through my own networks. I knew what law school would be like, I knew what the bar exam would be like, and I knew what the work of being an attorney actually entailed. I went to law school to become an attorney. For the most part, I have enjoyed being an attorney.

The issue not whether I "really wanted" to be an attorney. The issue is the lack of employment opportunities in the practice of law.

2. Debt load management.

It is a brute, and it is a major portion of our monthly outlay. My situation is a lot better than the five or six folks I staying in contact with since graduation. That does not mean my situation is what I'd like it to be. Are we swimming in discretionary income? No. But, we can manage. Barely some months.

Our debt load is not the issue. The issue is the lack of employment opportunities. My wife works in a solid, full-time position and makes a decent living. She has a decade of experience. Yes, we are still paying her student loans. I work two (might soon be three) part-time gigs. The reality is that I made a more money before I earned a J.D. Therefore, I would likely be in a better position to contribute if I had not gone to law school.

3. Lack of research.

I should just call this point "blame the victim" or "I am a special snowflake." See 1, supra. Far too often the first response to the bitter economic situation of many recent law graduates is that he or she didn't go to the right school, get good enough grades, or network enough, etc. The inference is that the recent graduate is either the sole cause of their own misery, or the majority contributor to it (i.e., it is somehow deserved). The added point, either stated or inferred, is that the responding writer is going to succeed where others have failed because he or she will go to the right school, get good grades, network it to the max, etc. (i.e., the writer is a special snowflake that will beat the odds).

Yeah, right. I did the research. I spoke with several attorneys. I read the materials my law school provided me detailing employment rates nine months after graduation and average starting salaries. What I expected a reasonable return on my investment of time and money. I went to a poorly ranked law school because (as I have already explained in an earlier post) it was located in the state my wife is licensed to practice law. It was not the only in-state school; it was the in-state school that accepted me. I could have left the state and attended a school of higher rank. However, I did not want to relocate my family. We could not afford a terminate my wife's income.

I am sick and tired of people, current law students in particular, who cannot seem to get their heads around the fact that you are tied to the state you are licensed in. Moving to a different state is a big deal when you'll be out of work for half the year until you can (a) sit for the bi-annual bar exam, and (b) get your results. There are not a lot of employers whom will pay an unlicensed attorney to sit around doing non-attorney work. Sure, such opportunities exist (a friend of ours did so around 2003 or '04), but those opportunities are few and far between, if they even exist at all anymore. Instead, my wife was able to leave one position and start a new one a week later because we did not leave the state she was licensed to practice law in. Our income stream barely rippled. Moving out-of-state would have been a big deal for us. It should not be discounted so quickly.

4. Bad life choices.

This is more of that "blame the victim" noise. Yeah, I get it, it's my fault. I bought the ticket, now I get to take the ride. Awesome. High five later.

Ultimately, all I wanted was a chance to sit for the bar exam. I got that. But, damn if that three year program of study couldn't have been reasonably compressed into two at most.

Seriously, is it so hard to understand that the law schools are in the practice of publishing job placement and earnings statistics that are misleading at best and simply untrue at worst? The mandatory grade curve and resulting attrition rate are not exactly advertised on the front page of those glossy brochures the schools sent out to anyone and everyone who signed up for the LSAT. That rather nasty surprise was discovered during the first year of school, not before.

The "law school scam" movement was in it's infancy when I was applying to law school. It is a far different landscape now. Go back seven years to 2006. That's where I was standing. That's the landscape I had before me. It was different then.

Two notable websites that come to mind are Third Tier Reality and Inside The Law School Scam (there are many others). These two sites were not in existence until 2009 and 2011, respectively. http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/2009/08/third-tier-reality.html; http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2011/08/welcome-to-my-nightmare.html (yeah, yeah, last checked today). These websites and their authors have made a rather large impact on the discussion. And, the second one, ITLSS, isn't even an active website anymore.

As a related and important point, I am an attorney. I am currently working as an attorney. I'm not some pretender. This is my life. 2012 was bullshit (we moved between cities, I was Mr. Mom, see related posts I'm too busy to link, blah, blah, blah), but 2013 is shaping up. Am I making a good living? No. Not hardly. Am I busting my ass? Yes. I am looking for work everywhere, applying to any number of positions that I find every week, and saying yes to every short-term contract opportunity I find. I'm going to win at this game because I am too big to fail.

I do not cringe at your criticism.

I do not want your pity.

All this blog can stand for is what happened to one middle aged guy who thought it would be a good idea to go to law school. Then the bottom fell out of the economy. Life is a lot different now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. For me and a lot of other people. It is not going to get better overnight. Rather, it is going to take few years. Or, decades.

What happened to me also happened to many others. And, it may happen to you.