What Kind Of Job Can You Get With A Law Degree?

I just posted an answer on WikiAnswers.com, and I thought I'd share.

The question: What kind of job can you get with a law degree?

My Answer:

The most obvious answer is: an attorney. After obtaining a law degree from an ABA accredited law school, a person becomes eligable to take a state bar exam and, if they pass the bar exam, may then practice law within that state. An attorney who has passed the bar exam is allowed practice any field of law, with the exception of maritime law and patent law (which have their own national bar exams -- note, the patent bar exam requires a minimum amount of science credits). Although a person may specialize in tax law without also being a certified public accountant, prior tax experience is generally required for any position specializing in tax law.

In most states, attorneys are also eligable for other licenses, including a real estate license, allowing them to become a realtor or broker, as well as a notary public license. Common alternative careers for persons with a law degrees include business administration, human resources, government administration and non-attorney positions within the insurance industry. Entertainment and media are also not uncommon field for former attorneys: notable figures ranging from John Grisham to Geraldo Rivera were once attorneys.

Generally, a legal training indicates that a person is skilled in analytical reasoning and argumentation, and has the ability to distill large amounts of information or complex fact patterns. Although law school is considered a "professional" education, aspiring law students should realize that the law, by itself, is either an academic or political discipline, and law practice generally draws on skills from other fields. Although not required, if a person has a desire to practice a particular field of law, then a background in a particular industry is helpful before entering law school.

The notion of entering law school because it is supposedly a "versatile" degree has been heavily challenged, and aspiring law students should take caution that a law degree is not an alternative to an MBA. A non-legal job is generally considered a backup for a person with a law degree, and as a general rule a person seeking such a job either tried and hated actual law practice, failed to achieve success as an attorney, or some combination of the two. A law degree is expensive and, generally, meant for persons who intend to practice law (or teach law, if you can get into a TOP school).

When an aspiring law student indicates a desire to enter law school because they do not know what they want to do and they perceive law school as a spring-board to a successful career, a good admissions consultant will encourage them to gain real world experience (either in other industries or within the legal profession) before entering law school. In fact, many top law schools will consider prior experience as a non-quantatative factor in making an admissions determination.

As a side note, there has been a series of terrific articles on alternative careers for lawyers at the Above The Law Blog, here.

Related Posts:

* Lack of Financial Responsibility Prevents Admission to the Bar: is it "Character And Fitness," or is "The Man," holding us down?

* How Law School Rankings Take Advantage Of Prospective Law Students

* Not Every Law Graduate Makes 160k

* False Advertising in Legal Education

* What Kind of Job Can You Get With A Law Degree

Re: Jobs At Biglaw Limited - So Why Is This News?

In "Jobs At Biglaw Limited - So Why Is This News?," here, Carolyn Elefant of the "My Shingle" Blog offers the observation that the recent WSJ article, describing how prospective law students misunderstand their future salary prospects, in part, because of misleading marketing by law schools, can be read "not as a caution to law students who attend lower tier schools but as a scare tactic to remind lawyers that as much as they hate their 80 hour billable weeks, life could be much, much worse"

Here's my comment:

Your take on the WSJ story is interesting. I think there are a few factors that played into the timing of the story. People have been complaining about misleading law school marketing for years. I know I started complaining about it, with many of my fellow students, during my second year of law school in 2004, and over the last year I have since written several blog pieces, and a letter to AG Cuomo. And many people have been voicing their complaints for at least as long, and often with more diligence.

One factor is the job market: it is getting worse. Another is the financial aid scandal, which led people to question the assumed integrity of institutions of higher education. A third factor is the big firm salary wars, and I think your "conspiracy theory" plays into that factor. For the past several months there has been a great deal of press coverage discussing BigLaw first year associate salaries, and many 1st year associates at large firms, despite making multiple times what their slightly lower-ranked classmates earn, legitimately feel that they are underpaid. Large mega-firms appear to simply have money to burn, so why not give it to the new associates. In fact, many new associates whose firms have raised to 145 or 150 but are still below the top firms salaries, feel that they are underpaid.
In that respect, the WSJ -- which is one of the newspapers that provided the most coverage to the salary wars -- was providing much needed scope to its coverage of the legal job market, and making amends for its role in proliferating the myth that a law degree is a license to print money.

One startling fact, however, is that -- unlike the financial aid crisis -- there has been little response to this issue other than increased traffic in the blogosphere. To my knowledge, none of the law schools named in the article have made any statements on the issue, and no public investigations have ensued.

The only somewhat related ameliorative measure is the government's new student aid package. Government financial aid, however, is a scam, even if well intentioned. Students do not borrow from the government; rather, the government subsidizes financial institutions who lend to students at a discount. The effect of this system is that higher education institutions raise tuition in response to easy money, the financial institutions push as much debt on the students as possible under the guize that there is a low interest rate. In the end, the private schools and the financial institutions are huge winners, while any benefit the students gained by low interest rates is negated by the increased debt load and the tax payers overall are hurt.
If nothing else, although it does not directly address the misleading marketing issue, a better system would be for the federal government to institute a direct lending program that is funded through a special bond release subsidized with a tax on high-tuition private schools. That would help unravel the tangled web of conflicting interests that have hampered higher education oversight.

Another step would be for consumer lawyers to start going after law schools for misleading marketing practices, but what self-respecting lawyer wants to sue a law school?