Price and Job Prospects Are Real Negatives, At This Time.
The November 13, 2010 edition of The Economist has an interesting article entitled “Trouble with the law.” Unfortunately, it tracks the struggling economic times and provides some interesting statistics and insights for law school graduates.
*Between 1996 and 2008, private law schools’ median tuition fees almost doubled, to just under $34,000 a year.
*For those choosing less expensive home state public schools, median tuition fees still trebled, taking the median to around $16,000.
*In 2009, according to the National Law Journal, the 250 biggest law firms cut their attorney numbers by 4% and were projected to cut another 1.1% in 2010–the worst two-year period in 33 years of the journal’s surveys.
*One attorney of a globalized law firm opined that England and Germany do better at helping graduates make the transition to actual practice. Recent English law graduates spend 2 years combining work and study as a trainee solicitor. The same system is employed in the Referendar process in Germany. England does a good job of matching graduates to firms, while Germany produces exceptional legal technicians.
*American clients still complain about being billed at high hourly rates for recent graduates who are being trained to “get up to speed” on the ins and outs of practice.
The article ends with this somber observation: “Right now, many graduates wish they could get anybody to pay them for anything.”