To continue with the theme of law school tuition, I want to know if the astronomical amount people spend to become an attorney
has hurt the profession.
Law school costs a lot of money. Students spend more than what the average worker at a minimum wage job would earn annually to go to law school for a year. When it’s all said and done, many students graduate thousands of dollars in debt. According to an April 2009 New York Times article, the average graduate leaves with more than $80,000 in debt.
Some students are lucky – they get scholarships, can work to help pay off their loans while still in school, or have a relative helping out.
Not everyone is so lucky, which brings me back to my original thought. With law school tuition being so high, are we pricing people out of the profession who may make great lawyers but just can’t afford the cost of law school?
Diversity is something law firms strive for. Not only diversity in race and gender, but also in people’s backgrounds and experiences. A white male who grew up attending private school and living in a 5-bedroom house may bring something different to the table than a white male who grew up on welfare.
The profession is making strides in being more diverse, but obviously, there is still more to be done. A co-worker told me she read a blog online that made the argument that law schools are becoming “too elitist” because they are pricing people out of school.
The high price of tuition may be hurting the diversity of the profession, but it also may cause graduates to forgo their idea of working as a public defender or at a legal services organization. If you’ve got $80,000 of law school debt, and your job as a public defender only pays half of that a year, but being a first year at a private firm pays $100,000, suddenly the private firm becomes more attractive. That same NYT article said two-thirds of students said debt prevented them from considering a non-private firm job.
There will always be people who want to be lawyers and people willing and able to pay for it. I do wonder that if law school was more affordable, whether the profession would look differently from a diversity perspective than it does today.
Law school costs a lot of money. Students spend more than what the average worker at a minimum wage job would earn annually to go to law school for a year. When it’s all said and done, many students graduate thousands of dollars in debt. According to an April 2009 New York Times article, the average graduate leaves with more than $80,000 in debt.
Some students are lucky – they get scholarships, can work to help pay off their loans while still in school, or have a relative helping out.
Not everyone is so lucky, which brings me back to my original thought. With law school tuition being so high, are we pricing people out of the profession who may make great lawyers but just can’t afford the cost of law school?
Diversity is something law firms strive for. Not only diversity in race and gender, but also in people’s backgrounds and experiences. A white male who grew up attending private school and living in a 5-bedroom house may bring something different to the table than a white male who grew up on welfare.
The profession is making strides in being more diverse, but obviously, there is still more to be done. A co-worker told me she read a blog online that made the argument that law schools are becoming “too elitist” because they are pricing people out of school.
The high price of tuition may be hurting the diversity of the profession, but it also may cause graduates to forgo their idea of working as a public defender or at a legal services organization. If you’ve got $80,000 of law school debt, and your job as a public defender only pays half of that a year, but being a first year at a private firm pays $100,000, suddenly the private firm becomes more attractive. That same NYT article said two-thirds of students said debt prevented them from considering a non-private firm job.
There will always be people who want to be lawyers and people willing and able to pay for it. I do wonder that if law school was more affordable, whether the profession would look differently from a diversity perspective than it does today.
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