The Risky Business of Law School

A characterization of the law student personality is “Type-A, risk averse, control freak”, the implication being that becoming a lawyer is something safe and manageable; a veritable nirvana for the neurotic. However, given the realities of the shrinking legal job market, particularly in Big Law, the option of law school is now akin to the risk taking behavior of asking your drug dealer if he accepts IOUs after a second hand needle shot of heroin. Opting to attend any American law school, perhaps with the exception of the top three, becomes the pursuit of the willfully ignorant and/or delusional, fed on the bedtime story of a pre-2008 world or it is a respite for the hopeless with a penchant for high stakes gambling.

That's just not true. And the only people who could be fooled into believing it are the ones at law school(s) number 4 in the meaningless ranking system. Here are some of the most privileged people in the world, whose opportunities for prosperity and significance are unimaginable to more than 99.98% of the human race, worrying about whether they can succeed in life. Were it not so ludicrous, it would be obscene.

The creed of legal education (Thurgood, The Folklore of Capitalism) “you are safe, you are someone” continues to be promulgated by top 14 law schools.

Did you proofread this? What has "Thurgood" to do with "The Folklore of Capitalism"? These memes you are describing above and below aren't creeds, in Arnold's sense, at all. They have nothing to do with defining the boundaries of organization. They're dogma, but of a different kind.

Simultaneously outside of the alabaster walls of academia, the hew populist creed forged in the vicissitudes of homelessness, poverty and high unemployment has invaded even the hallowed halls of the American Bar Association, the new creed being "the system is broken".

Debt Slavery

The unjustifiably high cost of legal education is a major component of the "broken system". The cost of legal education in the last 5 years has outpaced inflation and "among private law school graduates, the average debt in 2011 is $125,000."

I don't understand what sort of argument it is to say that a price has gone up faster than inflation. We've established that demand for that good or service grew with respect to supply, so the price in real dollars rose. But that alone doesn't give us a basis to infer anything else. As for the loan debt of law school graduates, the principle is reasonable, and shouldn't concern us much; the problem is that the interest rate is absurdly high.

Regarding my personal debt burden, factoring in my undergraduate loans along with the 7.9% interest rate of my Graduate Plus Loan, I will owe almost $300,000 in debt to the U.S. Federal Government if I graduate in three years. Every law student with a loan that is greater than 50% of their total cost of education could be called "a debt slave".

Why? The proportion of the price bought with future earnings in itself doesn't tell us anything. Inherently, any ability to pay a present price with future earnings is desirable, when the present purchase increases future earning power. There can be no doubt that having a law license increases future earning power. So the question is solely whether the price of the service and the money are both reasonable. Much as there is to deplore about the present state of Columbia Law School, there's no doubt in my mind that, properly used, the resources available here are well worth their price of purchase for every single student. Because, however, student loans are presently priced absurdly, students who don't need them shouldn't take them, which means that law school, like other forms of social mobility in America, is being sharply biased towards the rich.

Debt is the 21st century enforcer of the American dream and the instrument of the protestant ethos of "work hard, for hard work's sake" in the religion of capitalism in modern America. Debt is what drives recent college graduates to trade their lives to the U.S military for loan forgiveness, it's what keeps law students who have seen "the man behind the curtain" in the profession, it makes banks too big to fail and makes the American workforce prostitute their youth, intellect, bodies, health and sanity to 60 hour work weeks and minimum wage jobs working at multiple places on contract. The fear that debt foments is the instrumentality of control in modern society.

Which is altogether true about working class people, while being a shameful dodge from law students who are being given, in return for the price they pay, a license and a network more than sufficient to earn a fortune in almost any walk of life they choose. The debt is an economic problem only because the mortgage involved is too expensive, not because (even at this ridiculous rate) it will be an unbearable burden for young lawyers to discharge through earnings from their practices. What you have to fear, therefore, is fear itself. The debt is a nuisance: you need to refinance your practice as early as you can, because of these absurd and politically-determined rates. And so?

As most Generation Y narcissists (middle class, privileged, usually white young people) are wonton to do, the first instinct might be to blame others for the trap that we've walked into.

Wont isn't wonton. Did you proofread, or were dumplings on your mind?

"Generation Me" can blame the system itself for victimizing the law student, Congress for rescinding Subsidized Stafford Loans for graduate school, parents for not lobbying on their behalf, the law schools for charging a ransom in tuition, the tenured, high pay, low productivity, theoricians of the law a.k.a law professors, or the complacent, "Generation Me"; apolitical, irreligious, disciples of the Holy Trinity of the Church of Jobs-Page-Zuckerberg; a generation that cannot muster the energy to critique the establishment much less fight for our own educational and economic justice.

So there's politics to do, and you should be trying to get it done. But in the meantime, the nut's a little larger because of the artificially high rate. You prepay where you can, you wait for an opportunity to refinance your student debt by one means or another, you postpone consumption occasionally, and you get on with your practice. The idea that the debt is a life-altering disability is not debt-slavery, it's delusion-slavery.

Taking Responsibility

Externalizing and disassociating the problem to "the system" is both a truth and an excuse for the besieged law student. The manacle of debt does what it is meant to do. It disempowers students in an arena where they should be empowered. Legal Education at its best should be a tool of empowerment that aids the individual and groups to change their reality. It's an education in understanding the framework of civilization that helps people to strategize the reshaping of their world. Thus, taking responsibility for what was likely the bad decision of coming to a $50,000 tuition law school in a bad job market, in the world's declining hegemon, is ultimately on the student. It is the student's shortcoming for not demanding that the university, legislators and banks make education more affordable across the board, and not pressing on the argument of the unconstitutionality of making student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. In 1975 when this law was debated it was argued that "students should not be singled out for special discriminatory treatment in a denial of their right to equal protection of the laws". That argument should still be valid today. Generation Y will carry the social security system of the the preceding generations, along with student debts at interest rates higher than they've ever been and with zero to little real assets. As a group, student debtees are singled out by the federal government for discriminatory treatment in lending.

The Self Taught, $240,000, CLS graduate

One option after owning up to poor decision making and fear is dropping out and fighting the debt burden through personal litigation, a restructured payment plan that you never actually pay off or lobbying to legislators. "Door One" is always an option. The other option for changing the path of the overly academic, expensive legal education at a private law school is not well travelled but a feasible one for those who have the courage. Participating in semester externships and volunteering at legal organizations for a cause you believe in can help with gaining practical legal education. The other option is finding a mentor who is a practitioner of the law, who is willing to expose you to a working practice and will allow you to take on real world tasks and interacting with clients. Lastly it's about having the confidence to be self employed even now, attempting to do legal work for pay whenever possible and creating opportunities for yourself.

As the issue of empowerment relates to the collective group of indebted law students, as a whole a committee for legal education reform could accomplish much through networking. Bringing media coverage to the issue through protests, articles, petitioning to legislative representatives, imploring high powered alumni, filing a collective action lawsuit or even a lawsuit meant to bring the issue attention, can all help in reforming legal education and the profession. However, the most important element is leveraging the network of family, friends and alumni to aid their sons, daughters, friends, cousins and mentees, in becoming whole, empowered lawyers who serve the interests of people rather than corporations.