i was accepted to start in the fall at Gonzaga in Spokane, WA. I am very excited to start but a bit nervous. Anybody have any good advice for a new law student? Or something you wish you knew when you were starting law school?

 
I wish I knew that there was a glut of lawyers caused by a glut of law schools, resulting in a very poor job market and depressed salaries.




Not meaning to crap on your parade, but law school is a very expensive education with poor prospects of payback.




I have been doing this for 22+ years and like many things about practicing law, but there are MANY things I hate and I would not recommend becoming a lawyer unless it is a true calling.




As for doing well in school, understand that the educational purpose is to teach you how to think and analyze issues. There will be a great deal of hiding the ball from your professors. Do the reading, get outlines to help find the ball, and have no fear in class.




Good luck.


 

ETA: From Wikipedia:


According to Gonzaga Law's official 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 60.2% of the Class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, bar passage-required employment nine months after graduation, excluding solo-practitioners.[24] GU Law ranked 57th among ABA-approved law schools in terms of the percentage of 2013 graduates with non-school-funded, full-time, long-term, bar passage required jobs nine months after graduation.[25]


GU Law's Law School Transparency under-employment score is 24.2%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2013 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.[26] 88.2% of the Class of 2013 was employed in some capacity while 4.3% were pursuing graduate degrees and 7.5% were unemployed nine months graduation.[24]


. . .


The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $202,601.[28]

I searched for "law schools sued". Unless your daddy owns a law firm and you are guaranteed a job, read these articles:


Law schools don't reimburse tuition.

Law schools sued for misrepresenting job prospects

12 more schools sued- misrepresented job data

eta There was recently a spate of such lawsuits: grads, disappointed at their poor job prospects, discovered that law schools misrepresented the job market for new hires.

Advice? I would give this post a long, hard read and really think about whether this is what you want to do.

Best advice I can give you is to save your money and find something else to do.

How's the attrition rate in law school these days? I haven't looked for a while, but it always seemed fairly high. Law school and law students seem to eat their own at a much higher rate than some other professions.


What's your plan for paying for law school? Gonzaga's tuition is $36K/year, so there's a quick $100K. If you live dirt poor, you might get out for $150K total. Spokane is not an expensive town as long as you're not silly about spending money.






I lived in Spokane for 3 years (family medicine residency). I enjoyed it there, and knew a few Gonzaga students.



 
 

Good luck with your decision, but I'd look long and hard at all of your current and future options.

So, greedy lawyers lying to people wanting to be greedy lying lawyers?  

I'm getting a half ride scholarship, the rest is on loans so while the cost is still nothing to laugh at I will bear the advice above in mind. I suppose an overpriced degree without a job to apply it to would be a waste of money. However I do see law as a calling and for now I'm staying the course.

I appreciate the replies so far.
Thanks

It's been a year since I passed the bar, and my firm just canned a fuckload of us.


Not so noble feeling right now.

IANAL, but have a couple in the family.

I think a lot depends on what area of law you intend to practice.  Most are no huge money makers - especially for new lawyers.  Don't be fooled by what the "celebrity lawyers" rake in - that's a very exclusive club.  For the mos part if you make a decent middle class salary, you''ll be doing better than most.  See the documentary "Better Call Saul" for the suckage factors.

OTOH, the Government seems to be mostly run by lawyers.

Gonzaga in Spokane?

never heard of it...enjoy working at Starbucks

Link

What grades/class rank do you have to maintain to keep that scholarship? Many law schools will hand their incoming 1L's great scholarships on paper, only to withdraw them at the drop of a hat because you couldn't maintain the required class rank. A friend of mine attended a state school on essentially a full-ride scholarship only to have it yanked after the first semester because he wasn't in the top 1-2% of his class. They give those scholarships out like candy because they know that 90+% of students will fail to maintain the necessary grades.

I've been lucky so far. My scholarship amount was increased after my first semester and so far I've managed to stay in my required bracket. I really don't even want to think about losing my scholarship.

A partner of mine keeps saying she's glad she's a 56 year old lawyer and not a 26 year old lawyer.  We were just talking about how few the lawyers we know have kids going to law school.

I'm glad I graduated 30 years ago.  I was able to meet and practice with a bunch of old school lawyers who could be cordial and professional.  Not sure that we will ever see those times again.

Good luck to you.

Some of the negativity upthread is over the top but the reality is that the profession is changing in dramatic ways.  You may have to rethink how law is practiced and come up with creative ways.  The big law firm model is dead and the dinosaur firms are rapidly collapsing.

There is no profession with more "ex-" members. And there are many reasons for that.  Consider whether or not you have the temperment to be an attorney - a profession that largely consists of one's days being filled with conflict.

I did not go but the following is the advice I got when thinking about it from 15+ attorneys.

Avoid all distraction your First year.  No TV is what attorneys told me 20+ years ago.  Today that would be no NETFLIX, HULU, etc.

To pass the BAR:

Spot the issues; don't argue the case.

Make as many contacts as you can, it is not what you know when you graduate it is who you know.

BECOME A JUDGE and de-legislate from the bench.

Find all firearms laws unconstitutional (you can find a reason); use strict interpretation of  the constitution.  

Last note on this:

In Tacoma, Wa years ago there was a solo practice attorney that worked out of his RV from the parking lot of the court house.  His clients paid whatever they could.  He wore a bright orange leisure suit to court..everyday.  One day a Judge paused court "Go to your RV and put on a tie, or I will hold you in contempt", he came back with his tie around his leg in a double Windsor, Judge looked at him, he said "I have a tie on, you didn't say how you wanted it worn", Judge shrugs and continues.

The penguin is right.  Conflict isn't the problem.  Finding a job is.  Students are exiting law school with $125-180k in debt and very poor job prospects.  The majority of the jobs are paying closer to $50k than the biglaw $160k.  Add to that, the problem that many of the jobs aren't very pleasant.  It's not the conflict, but rather the push to bill 2100+ hours per year to keep up profits per partner.  

I'm a 2012 grad and I lucked into a position at a firm that I clerked for while in school.  Most of my classmates were competing for jobs making the same salary as a school teacher in these parts with more debt than the average mortgage at twice the interest rate.  It's not a situation that I would have put myself in had I known then what I know now, and it's certainly not a situation that I can recommend for anyone today.  

This post says it all.

If you think law is a calling you've watched too many lawyer shows on TV. Do you personally know any lawyers? What have they told you?
Law is a grind -- everyday you're trying to make your billable hours as an associate at a firm if you have work, you're looking for new clients if you're the partner, or you're trying to do both if you want to make partner. Solo practitioners have their own special set of issues.

US News lists Gonzaga as ranking #110 and wanting $36,510 per year in tuition. Even at half-price it's going to cost you about $55,000 in loans plus books, a laptop, rent, food, utilities, etc. Make sure you do the math on how much interest you're going to pay on that $55,000+ loan over the next 10-15+ years. Gonzaga is not a "national" law school. You're basically going to be limited to jobs in WA that employ other Gonzaga grads for your first 3-5 years; if you can find a law job at all. What makes you think a couple pieces of paper that say you can practice law are worth a $55k investment?

Oh, and don't forget that "The risk of suicide is 6 times greater among lawyers than that of the general population."
http://www.thelawinsider.com/insider-tips/depression-suicide-and-lawyers/

Don't go. Just because "you got in" doesn't mean you should go. You've been warned.

Congratulations.  Here is a thread with some information you may find useful.  http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=123092

You need to understand the importance of your first year's GPA in landing a Summer Associate position for the summer after your second year.  Interviews for those SA positions will take place at your school's OCI (On-Campus Interview) program in August before your second year.  Medium and large law firms that hire freshly minted law school graduates use the OCI program for most of their hiring.  Your first year GPA will be used as the screening tool by law firms when they go to OCI at your law school.  If you don't get a SA position, you are left scrambling for a job after graduation.  

If you have some specific questions, I am happy to try to answer them.  The link I posted is part of a law schools forum that has a wealth of information about what you are embarking on.

I hear this garbage all the time-  XYZ degree isn't worth anything.   Poppycock.

A law degree, an engineering degree, or a medical degree is like buying a very sharp high-carbon knife.  Great, now you have the knife.

Do you hunt?  
Do you know how to cook?
Do you like sushi?
Can you splice?

Without a basic skill to add your knife to, it's worthless.

Find a field in which to focus your studies- your papers, your projects, etc.    If your passions overlap with a field that makes money, then it's a good investment.

International business contracts
Taxation
Oil exploration
Corporate reporting
Investments
Construction
Patent

Now add "law" to the end of each of the above.  Now we're talking.  

Or you can focus on:
DWI
Medical malpractice
Divorce
^^ and for those you can throw away any morals you have.  Your choice.

No matter what though, find a field that you can be passionate about.  That you read about when you have spare time.   Hopefully there are several fields, so you can rule out the "pro sports" fields like Constitutional Law and Gun Laws and Green Party Law, which are exciting but have a very low opportunity for employment, and less at being a superstar.

But go be something.  Not a lawyer.  An expert who has a law degree.

Congrats!

1) Try to keep an open mind so that you can be receptive to other areas of law that you might not have initially considered pursuing.
2) Every school is different and there are times when classmates can be nasty and will hide library books, or give/share notes that have mis-information so as to bring you down...remember everyone wants to be at the top of the class
3) Be careful with your loans and your budget. Someone once told me and I listened that "if you live like a lawyer when you are a student, then you will live like a student when you are a lawyer"
4) I think it is very important for you to find a few mentors that will help you along the way. Sometimes you just need someone to bounce things off. Try to identify these people early. It really should not be too hard as most folks like the feeling of helping out the "young ones" plus it does not cost them anything, other than time...

Enjoy your time in school. Wishing you the very best. Message me if and when you ever need an ear.

Make sure it does not become the 'road to perdition' for you.

I know an attorney that tried to get my favorite RE broker to pull something she was not comfortable with.

I now avoid all contact with him.
She is very very up front.
When I lost money on a sale (6 year rental turn over) she waived the whole commission and more.

I do not trust him farther than I can throw him.

Have a realistic plan.  For everything.  And think about these things:

1.  How are you going to get a job?
2.  How are you going to pay your loans?
3.  What will you do if you don't get a job?
4.  Almost as bad, what will you do if you get a job, and it's miserable? (That is a reality for many new lawyers)
5.  Honestly ask yourself whether you mind working 60 hour weeks, at times on mind-numbingly boring work.  In many of today's firms, if you don't hustle your career will be short.
6.  Assess what other skills you have.  Law degrees are a dime a dozen.  Having one, in and of itself, won't necessarily get you anywhere.  Other associated skills will help.
7.  Make sure you understand what a lawyer really does day-to-day.  Much of the work is not glamorous.  

As for me, I work in the Legal Dept. of a Fortune 500 company.  It's a very good job by legal standards.  But everyone here has law degrees from Top 12 schools, and most slogged it out in Biglaw for 2-10 years before being hired.  I think it's called "Paying your dues".  We're also starting to shift some of our more routine work to India.  We can pay an Indian lawyer $18,000/year to do the work we'd otherwise assign to a much more expensive U.S. lawyer.  And this trend is accelerating.  Fast!  Keep this in mind, because competition for jobs won't just be found among other U.S. law school grads.  This Indian lawyer, and 1,000,000 of his Indian lawyer friends, are also your competition.

Sorry to be so negative, but knowing what I now know, I wouldn't set foot in law school these days unless either someone else was paying for it, or I had a guaranteed job lined up.  The entire profession is changing, such that in the future many new lawyers are going to be "highly educated, low-to-medium wage help".  It's a VERY different profession than it was even 20 years ago, and the pace of change is only accelerating.

True, some people will graduate from law school and do well for themselves.  But those numbers are shrinking by the year, in line with the overall long-term downward adjustment of the U.S. economy.

Learn to argue over meaningless nonsense for no other reason than to cover your own ass for 60 hours a week for somewhere between $40-60,000/yr.  learn about personal injury law and learn Spanish to go along with that.  Practice indignantly objecting to providing your client's non-existant social security number over and over again.  Go to Macys and find a suit who's manufacturer you have never heard of and can't pronounce and buy ten of them.  To keep life interesting, memorize some Abraham Lincoln quotes to regurgitate when arguing trivial issues.  That should get you a good head start.

Do you intend to practice in the Pacific Northwest?  If not consider going to another school.  

If you are not going to a top 15 school, you should really try to go to school where you want to practice.  If you are going to rethink location, perhaps take another year, take a LSAT prep course and try to go to a cheaper/better state school.

Listen to this guy.  The one thing the off-shore guys will never be able to supplant is the courtroom litigator.  Off-shore guy can't make an argument to a judge as to why your meth-head son shouldn't go to jail.      

There is a lot of good advice above.  I went to law school more than thirty years ago. Since then, I have practiced with three "national" law firms and teach a class as a (very) part-time adjunct professor at a national law school. It has been a great run and I am very glad I did it. I particularly enjoy the contact with law students. But I have advised my 20 year old son. against the law school route. There are just too many young lawyers and not enough "good" jobs. As a result, there is--at least in the big cities-- an extreme emphasis on academic record (both where you went and how you did). For him to have the same opportunities I had, he needs to get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford or Chicago, or at least finish in the top thirty percent in one of the next-ranked 8-10 law schools. None of which is easily done. I strongly suggest that you rethink whether a Gonzaga degree is worth the debt you will have to incur. A better option may be for you to work a while, take some LSAT prep courses and raise your score, and reapply to better schools, many of which may give you some (small) edge in the admission process, as a mature student with work experience. If you do go to Gonzaga, my advice is that you to work your tail off, ace the first year, and apply to transfer to the best school you can get into. Best wishes.

Yep. On them. Making it work. Starting ti build up some clients.