[addendum to part 2: depression in the law]

"...sometimes re-evaluating one's dream in the face of reality is a sign of maturity."

This comes from a comment of one of numerous people advising an aspiring law student to seriously reconsider his dream of being a lawyer (See the discussion here). At least for him, he is not one of the thousands of inexperienced, naive, and confused recent liberal arts grads. He actually has had quite a bit of experience in the legal field as a legal secretary and majored in legal studies. His dreamtalk and determination talk remind me of how my parents raised me: that if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything here in this country. Hell, that's how my family made it. We're one of the dime-a-dozen immigrant success stories, and yeah, it does inspire me to do great things when I reflect on my family's development here.


But back to this kid. He has a mediocre GPA and a poor LSAT score, even after several test attempts. He has anxiety problems, especially test-taking. Now, let's review these key points:
1) Law school admission is highly weighted on GPA and LSAT score, much like med schools with GPA and MCAT
2) In law school, the summation of your grade is determined by one or two cumulative closed-book, subjectively-graded exams per semester
3) Umm, debt?
4) Umm, terrible employment prospects for anyone outside (and even inside) T14?


And yet, he is dead-set on law school, ready to accept $100k+ in debt from a Tier 3 or 4 law school just so he can get into anything at all. Why is he posting on LawProf's blog and TLS (top-law-schools.com, frequented mostly by 0Ls, or aspiring law students; FYI 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls are of course current law students in respective class years), then? He was just wondering whether he should settle for the Tier 4 or postpone his jump and study for the LSAT again in hopes of getting into Tier 3. 

And so I come back to the above-bolded comment. It's been taking a lot of strength for me to come to terms with myself.  Like this kid, I had often thought I would "win the lottery ticket" and "beat the odds" with my sheer determination. Throughout my life, my parents have taught this to me because we did beat the odds and have made it really well here in the U.S. And for me personally in my academic life, I have shown to beat the odds. Frankly, I didn't see why not study my ass off, save money, etcetera. All I would lose were some hours of sleep, social time. I had much better things to gain. The trade-off was worth it.


But are soaring debt and the prime years of my life worth the risk for an oftentimes depressing school experience and job (if I even get one)? By depression, I wish I were exaggerating. Studies have shown that on average, 9-10% of 0Ls are depressed (that is, overwhelmingly mentally healthy and optimistic), but by the end of the first year of law school, this figure goes up to 32%, and by third year, 40% . Furthermore, from a 2007 study by the American Bar Association, only 4 out of 10 lawyers said they would recommend the law to others, and less than 50% of lawyers reported having job satisfaction. We must consider that many of the people who come out depressed or dissatisfied must have been those who did not research enough into what they were getting themselves into. But still, these stats are something to bear in mind, along with the rest of the happy-happy-happy stats surrounding the current law market. 


Call me a dream killer, or call me a pragmatist. Unfortunately, times have been changing, and for recent grads who don't have $100k to throw around or aren't the children of a parent who owns a law firm (or have some other way of a secure attorney position), if you want to pursue law, you really need to think hard about it.


[Thankfully, the kid I mentioned earlier eventually did mention in the linked discussion that he will take some more time off to consider his future. I forgot to mention that he still has that job as a legal secretary making a decent $35k a year, so he's doing quite well in that regard compared to other yuppies. Good for him.]


And to close, I leave you with this gem that's far more succinct than me:


Eager law student (YouTube)

[and this happy picture]