He’s in for a nasty surprise if he thinks that law school is a good path to riches these days
My wife graduated magna cum laude and she was pulling down $120k eight years later. Admittedly, she was working 60-80 hour weeks to bring in that $120k.
The debt isn't the real problem with law school. Like, yeah, a small mortgage sucks. But it's manageable when you're earning three times what you made out of college. The real problem with law work is that the hours are totally unforgiving. You're effectively holding down two jobs.
I had a friend who did Big Law up in New York for about four years. He has a story about his boss coming in with a contract that needed to be finalized in three days. This was on a Friday. So he pivoted from his normal 7-7 schedule to literally sleeping under his desk that entire weekend. Put in 120 hours total that week, with half coming in the last three days. He delivers the contract bright and early Monday morning, but his boss pushes it back and says "They just called and said the deal was off." He walked out of there shortly afterwards. Not even NYC Big Law money was worth that shit to him.
even our fancy barristers here in the UK can easily earn less than minimum wage, especially if they are acting as public prosecutors or defenders.
their average earnings sounds like a lot of money until you realise that:
it's skewed by the top earners
almost all of them are self employed
they have student loans to pay back
a court case can take a shitload of work, and they aren't usually paid by the hour
but you look at their fancy wigs and silks and you would think they were loaded
He's in for a nasty surprise if he thinks that law school is a good path to riches these days
You're basically fucked with 150k+ of loans that won't even get you a very good job if you don't go to an ivy league school
Lol that's what I first thought... Like, even if you make a lot of money, it won't be "I'm gonna go ahead and make my own dumb nerd utopia" money.
My wife graduated magna cum laude and she was pulling down $120k eight years later. Admittedly, she was working 60-80 hour weeks to bring in that $120k.
The debt isn't the real problem with law school. Like, yeah, a small mortgage sucks. But it's manageable when you're earning three times what you made out of college. The real problem with law work is that the hours are totally unforgiving. You're effectively holding down two jobs.
I had a friend who did Big Law up in New York for about four years. He has a story about his boss coming in with a contract that needed to be finalized in three days. This was on a Friday. So he pivoted from his normal 7-7 schedule to literally sleeping under his desk that entire weekend. Put in 120 hours total that week, with half coming in the last three days. He delivers the contract bright and early Monday morning, but his boss pushes it back and says "They just called and said the deal was off." He walked out of there shortly afterwards. Not even NYC Big Law money was worth that shit to him.
even our fancy barristers here in the UK can easily earn less than minimum wage, especially if they are acting as public prosecutors or defenders.
their average earnings sounds like a lot of money until you realise that:
but you look at their fancy wigs and silks and you would think they were loaded