To start off, I think I accidentally omitted a critical point from my last post. Regarding money and such, given the current economy (oh no! another “economy” post … please, stick with me) the metaphorical “buck” has to stop somewhere — and it certainly cannot be with young, impressionable early 20-something pre-law students. What I mean is, so many college undergraduates, or recent graduates (myself included, in both instances), view becoming a lawyer as a very lofty and prestigious goal. Everyone often hears about doctors and lawyers being coupled together when referring to “good” careers. So, from the get go, many young people are pressured by their parents or mentors to follow on of these paths (I suppose, business being the other desired career field).

To add to this idealism of becoming a lawyer, so many law schools publish radically skewed statistics regarding employment and salaries of graduates, in an effort, I guess, to recruit young graduates to come to their school and fund their programs via the extremely high tuition payments I mentioned in my last post.

To be honest, it is very disturbing to me how some institutions are able to influence young people into giving over tens of thousands of dollars (perhaps over $100K or $150K) in loans, which cannot be bypassed by filing for bankruptcy, in return for a law degree that perhaps will not further their career goals much more than if they had foregone law school altogether. There seems to be a certain amount of preying on eager young adults and it seems that perhaps some kind of regulation or oversight is necessary.

There may be some fairly strict ABA policies in place now that limit the amount of increase in accredited schools, but maybe more is needed. For instance, maybe some schools just need to be shut down (in the extreme), or maybe there should be some oversight body that ensures schools are distributing realistic employment statistics and data that actually reflects a graduate’s prospects. Again, given the state of the legal market, the environment may be ripe for producing a significant portion of our generation (or perhaps 5-10 years) of graduates entirely and quite literally lost in debt. The buck has to stop somewhere and I find it very troublesome to place that responsibility on those just beginning their professional lives when so much more could be done by those with much more experience and with much more control in their, as well as others’, professional lives.

Also, grades came out. Earlier in the year, I think some upperclassman sent out an email something to the effect of: “Don’t worry 1Ls. Somewhere in the wilderness when you were born, a wolf howled and there and forever determined your law school GPA.” How true. I don’t want to say that all law schools grades are entirely random so as not to discredit anyone’s hard work and persistence (especially those with really good grades), but I will say this: remember that Elements class that I was so sure to fail in??? Yeah, somehow, someway, I managed to get an A. So, once again, law school grades are, as far as I am concerned, random.