http://www.unews.com/thinking-about-law-school-1.1259408
Thinking about law school? By Evan Helmuth Published: Monday, March 8, 2010
The author of this short piece is basically warning 0Ls to not go to law school in particular and to think twice about any other graduate school program. Everyone in my generation, and I suspect others, has been socialized to think of an M.B.A., a J.D. or any number of different graduate degrees as being both prestigious and valuable.
Reality sometimes has a rude way of intruding on our notions that conflict with it.
The financial melt-down of 2008 changed a lot about the legal industry, along with a lot of other industries…
So so true. Attorneys’ families are still unable to understand how an attorney isn’t working, on the verge of homelessness or otherwise not living the ‘high life.’ Generations X, Y and whoever else inherited the debt of the earlier generations. The earlier generations lost their retirement, IRA funds and social security due to corruption and the economy. One cannot reasonably convince themselves in the midst of all this evidence that getting into excessive educational debt will benefit you long term. Maybe the U.S. job market will just turn all the department, convenient stores and restaurants into one huge educational campus. Many intelligent youth have been told by their parents how special they are, that they will make it big, and make “us proud,” that the smack of reality is probably causing nervous breakdowns across the country. Some of the educated stated “I did everything right.” Well, I also noticed a woman on one of these talk shows last year say the same thing. She stated that she waited to get married to have children, her and her husband obtained “good jobs” and they waited until the time was right to get a house. Guess what? Unfortunately, they lost everything. I don’t want to say that it doesn’t matter whether one “does things right.” I will say just know that the system doesn’t care too much and as you have witnessed or experienced, the rug will be pulled right from under you.My favorite quote in the column:
“It makes little sense to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an M.B.A. or J.D. if there are no transactions being done for attorneys to write and no businesses for M.B.A.’s to consult or manage.”
Touché. Learn a foreign language, relocate abroad (somehow), pay off your consumer debt (though I have no solutions concerning those wretched student loans). It’s done. The younger generations should consider themselves graced they even get the warning, the children born during the later 1970’s didn’t.
A Law School Victim
Life's Mockery 
Nando Said:
on March 22, 2010 at 12:28 pm
LM, I had a recent e-mail correspondence with this “University News” writer. Evan Helmuth is an undergrad student at Missouri-Kansas City. This young man realizes that both “professional degree ” programs are garbarge. I wish more undergrads knew the economic realities of attending graduate school.
One of my co-workers will start a PhD program at Syracuse in the fall – paying full sticker! Her goal? To teach Anthropology!!
A Law School Victim Said:
on March 22, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Ha! I knew someone who WAS doing a Ph.D. program in archeology and dropped out because it was “useless.” The educated world is such a parallel universe.
Brutus, Esq. Said:
on March 22, 2010 at 8:17 am
Amen, bro. Get a foreign language tutor. Go abroad and do an intensive language course for a few months and a few thousand dollars or less.
Though it costs more, you could try Middlebury. Learn Mandarin – the Chinese will need someone assist them with transactions when they stop lending to Americans and start buying American assets instead.
… Oh, that’s right. They already have started doing that.
Anyway, learn a real skill. Let someone else be ripped off for that piece of paper.
A Law School Victim Said:
on March 22, 2010 at 8:19 am
Umm, I’m a lady lawyer. I heard Middlebury is extremely tough mentally and about their restrictions of speaking English on campus and the limitation of family contact (phone calls), not sure how true it is though.