Questions for all LAWYERS!!!!?

CatLaw

I am an employment lawyer. I have my own firm. I am not rich. To the poster who said all lawyers are rich, please tell me how I can be rich when I only made $8,500 last year. The line that all lawyers are rich is wrong and totally out of date.

Since the 1970's law schools become more interested in selling classing than training a few talented lawyers to take up the few jobs available. If you go to one of those meet & greets put on by law schools the school's salesman (yes that is what that person is no matter what their title is) will promise you that you will get a job and make lots of money. Once you sign up for the school you will never see the salesman again -- you have been conned.

So now we have more lawyers being turned out from law school, twice a year, than there are jobs. And when the law schools report how many of their graduates get jobs they count anyone who works in a law firm or legal dept including secretaries, clerks, paralegals, receptionists. Two years ago the American Bar Assoc did a survey about salaries and found the average starting salary is around $40,000, and the the new attorney carries around $100,000 educational debt.

There is no guarantee that graduating from Yale or Harvard will help, but the facts are that more of those graduates get jobs. The only for sure way to know you will get a job is to have mommy or daddy in the legal profession and pull some strings for you.

Job security is the same as everyone else. Places like findlaw.com, the national law journal, and the American Bar Assoc newsletters are filled with massive layoffs from the big firms. Many of these huge firms have already announced they will not be hiring anyone right out law school until 2011. The only job security in this profession is owning your own law firm --- and then you will have the problem of putting all your time 24/7 into the firm and getting low pay.

Lubyloo

You don't need to be an ivy league grad to be successful in law. I graduated from a 4th tier law school (with honors and law review editor in chief) and I make a good living at a large law firm. I think it might actually be better in some ways to go to a less prestigious school and stand out, than to be one of the pack in a top-tier school.

I'm not sure if you're in law school, considering law school, or what, but the employment market is terrible for lawyers right now. It's so bad that many lawyers are applying for jobs as paralegals. Not a good field to go into right now. Trust me, you'll want a good paying job when you graduate with all of those student loans to pay off.

xingfiter

You determine your pay not your degree. Now to get into Harvard and Yale you have to be quite something already so it would make sense that you would make a lot. But in reality if you go to another top 10 or top 20 law school and graduate toward the top of your class you will be able to get a high paying job off the get go.
But again its you not your degree. Its all about how you talk to people. Being a leader. Being bold. Being new. That is how you propel a career.

Avacodo

lawyers are rich!

abaabbaa2000

i am not a lawyer but i need not to be to answer your question,think of what you just asked,if that were the case their would be a lot less lawyers,so wake up and smell the coffee!

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