A recent commenter stated:
“I saw your other post. I guess I practice meconium law then. I may be a shitlawyer, but at least I don’t bite the hand that feeds me. Law school made me the person I am today.”

This commenter openly linked his practice page to his comment, and I dutifully took a look to see who it was. The commenter is a solo practitioner in New York who has enjoyed well deserved success for being a high profile criminal defense attorney. Kudos to him, but I believe he has missed the point largely of why law schools seriously deserve criticism. First, let’s establish his perspective. He graduated cum laude from NYLS in 1982.
In 1982: There were 171 law schools according to an ABA stat sheet from 2008. Currently there are 200 accredited law schools, 7 provisionally approved law schools, and of course the people’s school of law in California which I just fun to throw in there. As many as ten new law schools are in the works according to the National Law Journal in 2008. Google “proposed law schools” and you can go through page after page of every son of a bitch and his sister wanting to open their own law schools. In the 2000’s the ABA accredited 13 new law schools. In the 1990’s, 8. In the 1980’s 7.

Take a gander at this: ABA stats When the commenter graduated, there were 127,312 in law school, and 35598 new JD’s, one of which was said commenter. In 2008 there were 152,033 in law school and 43,588 JD’s earned that year. I’m operating on incomplete stats and I don’t feel like making a chart since I have jiujitsu class in an hour, but look at that enrollment column. Look good and hard at it. We blew through the 120s in about a decade. We blew through the 130’s in about the same time. The 140’s? Didnt stand a chance. 5 years. The 150’s are on target to possibly go faster.

What does this mean? Using the most rudimentary statistics, an average of nearly 140 thousand people went through law school each year between 1982 and 2009. Over 27 years thats 3.78 million. Now I know thats not fair since law school takes 3 years, and not everyone graduates. So let’s just take one third of that figure for the three years and round it down to 1 million. So 1 million people went through law school since you graduated. How much did they pay? How about their debt? I don’t have nearly as much stats but the ABA is helpful here:
Tuition Stats
When you graduated, commenter, for public schools, you were paying less than 2000 a year. One can only imagine the cost of private schools, but for sake of argument, let’s just double that.
In 2008, public school was 16836 a year. Note that each year the tuition increase is roughly 10%, far outstripping inflation.
The median tuition and fees for the 2007-2008 school year, in 2009 dollars, was $14,461 for in-state students at public universities, $27,383 for out-of-state students at public universities, and $33,042 at private universities. Cite

Are you starting to see the picture, Mr. Greenfield? That’s cost. Let’s talk about debt. How much are people being leveraged for these degrees? Meanwhile, the average debt for graduates of private law schools has risen from around $75,000 in 2001-02 to $91,506 in 2007-08 (same article just click that im not so pretentious as to Id. that)

So NYLS, a private law school, for a down and dirty average, cost you maybe 15000 in tuition over 3 years. Nowadays a NYLS student will spend that before they get to Duty Breach Cause Damage. ($34,500 per year). If you borrowed all of your tuition, you probably had it paid off in 5-6 years, easy.

Here’s the rub, commenter. The stats bear it out, enrollment is accelerating. Tuition costs are skyrocketing, and law schools get PAID. Nobody gets to sit in on Palsgraf unless they have their tuition paid. The law school is the bookie, they always get their money up front from the loan providers. Federally guaranteed loans are paid for by the government, so lenders don’t have as much a fear to lend. Some law school deans even own their own lending companies! (See Richard Matasar at Here Student debt is likely 9-10 times as much as it was when you were newly minted, and not every debtor has a JD or bar license! Have starting salaries increased to keep up? Unless you were working for 4 thousand a year, I highly doubt that.

More people going to more law schools that cost more and more money to attend, to get more and more into debt for fewer and fewer jobs that don’t pay enough to allow for a reasonable repayment of that debt, little to none of which is subject do discharge in bankruptcy court. The kids see law school as easy bucks, and the law schools have to know this. It’s constructive notice. They either directly know, are deliberately blind, OR JUST DON’T CARE.

Is this starting to make sense a little? Just a bit? Your law school made you who you are, congratulations. If I went to law school in 1982, I might feel the same. But law school back then might have been an education. Right now it’s whole other animal.

6 Responses to “We have to go back to the future Marty! It’s your kids! They went to law school and owe half a million in student loans!”