In today's New York Times, Jodi Kantor profiles Barack Obama's days as a Harvard Law School student. (I guess today is my Write About Harvard People Day -- appropriate, given that I'm currently working out of Cambridge, MA.)

Interesting nuggets:

The peers who elected Barack Obama as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review say he was a natural leader, an impressive student, a nice guy.

. . . .

He proved deft at navigating an institution scorched with ideological battles, many of which revolved around race. He developed a leadership style based more on furthering consensus than on imposing his own ideas. Surrounded by students who enjoyed the sound of their own voices, Mr. Obama cast himself as an eager listener, sometimes giving warring classmates the impression that he agreed with all of them at once.

. . . .

Many of his former professors and classmates say they are cheering on Mr. Obama, 45, in his candidacy. But the skills he displayed in law school may not serve him as well in American presidential politics, which sometimes rewards other qualities — like delivering sound bites instead of deliberateness or fidelity to a base of supporters instead of compromise.

. . . .

Along with 40-odd classmates, he won a precious spot on the law review at the end of his first year through grades and a writing competition.... "Whatever his politics, we felt he would give us a fair shake," said Bradford Berenson, a former associate White House counsel in the Bush administration.... "I have worked in the Supreme Court and the White House and I never saw politics as bitter as at Harvard Law Review in the early '90s," Mr. Berenson said. "The law school was populated by a bunch of would-be Daniel Websters harnessed to extreme political ideologies." They were so ardent that they would boo and hiss one another in class.

The article goes on to discuss the racial politics Obama navigated at HLS. Fascinating reading.

Fast Company has an interesting article about Devi Vallabhaneni, a 37-year old CPA and Harvard MBA who founded the Association of Professionals in Business Management and created two separate tests to

verify what businesspeople know about things like marketing, manufacturing, operations, and human resources."Medicine, law, accounting, engineering -- they're all set up as professions, with certain predefined sets of knowledge,"  Vallabhaneni says. She thinks the four-part, 16-hour Certified Business Manager test will become the business world's equivalent of the bar exam or medical boards -- something new MBA grads will have to pass to prove their competency.

Fast Company won't make the article available online until next month, but current subscribers can access it here.

The Boston Globe Magazine has a little blurb today about Alumwire, a site founded (and self-funded) by Harvard sophomore Allan Sahagun and brother Aaron, a recent Berkeley grad (he has a bachelor's degree from the Haas school). The site is targeted at college students, alumni, and faculty, and users must have an .edu email address or an invitiation from an existing user.

On a separate note, Allan says he still takes four classes a semester despite working "constantly."

(I'd link to the Globe but don't currently see the blurb on their site.)

In a comment to my Brain Drain II posting, Neal asked the following question:

"I'm currently weighing options from different law schools and I have a choice between minimizing my debt at a good, but not 'famous' school or going broke for the brand-name. Talking to lawyers about this issue has just left me utterly confused, as about half say to avoid the debt and the other half say the branding is well worth the money.

I have a background in public policy and I was originally hoping to use the law degree to augment that career rather than replace it. But it's scary to read horror stories like these.

Under what conditions would you say getting a law degree is 'worth it', given the realities of practice you've sketched out?"

Excellent question, and a very difficult one to answer. I should start off by saying that there is no right answer, in part because the conditions under which pursuing a law degree is reasonable -- and worth it -- are different for everyone.

Generally I'm reluctant to advise people to obtain a law degree when they do not plan to make the practice of law their primary career. A lot of people talk about the "flexibility" of the degree, and they point to all the successful non-lawyers with law degrees. Most law school graduates practice law for at least a few years after graduation, but if you look 10 or 15 years out, you'll find many law school grads who have moved on to other careers -- some related to the law, others not at all. There are countless examples of Fortune 500 CEOs, policy makers, journalists, and even sports figures who have law degrees. (Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, earned a JD from Florida State before becoming a baseball coach -- he once said, "I decided I'd rather ride the buses in the minor leagues than practice law for a living.").

To me, though, that doesn't make the degree "flexible," or even reflect well on the degree. Rather, it suggests to me that lots of people go to law school, realize they don't want to practice, and then end up pursuing careers for which they didn't really need a law degree to begin with. (Do baseball coaches need law degrees to succeed as baseball coaches? Don't think so.) If we saw lots of top MDs leaving medicine and going off to try their hand at ice skating or accounting or social work, I don't think we'd be oohing and aahing about the flexibility of the degree; we'd wonder why they're all leaving medicine, and why the heck they invested all that blood, sweat, and tears in the degree if they didn't want to be doctors. Ask yourself how much value a law degree is going to add (especially once you net out the expense) in helping you get where you want to go. It's an investment like any other, and so you want to give a lot of thought to the expected return on that investment.

Can law school be fun? Sure. (Lord knows, not for everyone.) Can it be intellectually stimulating? Yes. Can it teach you "how to think"? Sometimes -- depends on the person, and depends on the school. Is all that worth six figures when you aren't going to join (or stay in) the profession? Far from clear.

However much the top law schools like to gussy themselves up as "policy oriented" and "interdisciplinary" and basically as a graduate degree in the humanities (take a look at the top schools' course bulletins sometime), law school is still in many ways a trade school. It's a "learned profession," but make no mistake -- it's still a profession. Nobody has ever come to me and said, "I desperately want to be an engineer. I have no background in engineering, don't know much about math or physics, have never even interned at an engineering firm, have no clue whether I want to be a civil engineer or a mechanical engineer or an industrial engineer or an electrical engineer or a nano engineer or a chemical engineer. I don't have the faintest idea what those different engineers actually do all day long, and I'm not even sure I want to practice engineering, but please, please, please help me get into a top graduate engineering program." And yet I hear the equivalent from law school applicants all the time.

Is it because they think that law is their best way to "help society" (that's usually as precise as most applicants can get about their motivations for applying)? Maybe, but does anybody really think this country needs more lawyers? I'd argue that society would be better served if the most talented twenty-somethings went off to discover vaccines or build lower-emissions engines or develop safe pesticides or build businesses or create beautiful things rather than hauling everyone into court. (Take a look at Overlawyered.com.)

The three years of law school are designed to teach both the fundamentals of the profession, and the skills necessary to practice it. Law school involves an enormous commitment of time, energy, and money. If you have no interest at all in the practice of law, you may want to reconsider your options. There are other ways to set yourself up for a career in public policy, many of which would not involve the same commitments (especially the financial ones).

With regard to your question about the "good" law schools v. the "name brand" ones, I would have to reiterate my earlier comment that conditions differ for everyone. Name brand schools traditionally have greater success at placing graduates at the top law firms and clerkships across the country, but going for broke at one of these schools may leave you broke -- especially if you decide to bypass the Big Firm payoff in the end. If public policy is your goal (and the practice of law is not a top priority), you might consider becoming a part-time law student so you don't have to borrow as much, or going to a "lesser" school that offers you money, rather than incurring the debt at a top school.

There are certainly good arguments to made on both sides, but ultimately, for me the question comes down to projected cash flow and whether that math works. The brand name isn't going to pay for itself very well if you don't hop onto a well paying firm track, at least for some period of time after law school. Either way, I would reflect on your desired career path before choosing a law school, or deciding to attend law school in the first place.

(By the way, I don't plan on morphing this blog into a law-school-only forum. I do find this topic worthy of exploring here in depth, however, because I know that so many people end up in law school because they're not sure what else to do with themselves, or because they have very fanciful notions about life as a lawyer, and that's highly relevant to my purpose in this forum.)

Guess law firms are hoping that throwing more money at associates will encourage them to stay (until they're up for partner, of course). This just in: Simpson Thatcher in NYC has broken from the pack and raised salaries...announced this afternoon.  See email below.

>  The Firm has been very busy and we expect the high level of> activity to>  continue. We are proud of the results we are helping our> clients achieve. >>>  We believe we have the finest legal team of any global law firm. In>  appreciation of your efforts, we are pleased to increase> associate base>  salaries as follows, effective January 1, 2007: >>>  Class of 2006 - $160,000>>>  Class of 2005 - $170,000>>>  Class of 2004 - $185,000>>>  Class of 2003 - $210,000>>>  Class of 2002 - $230,000 >>>  Class of 2001 - $250,000>>>  Class of 2000 - $265,000>>>  Class of 1999 - $280,000>>>  Class of 1998 - $290,000>>>  We are also raising the base salary for the members of the > Class of 2007,>  who will arrive in the fall, to $160,000.>>>  Counsel and classes senior to 1998 will be addressed on an individual>  basis.>>>  Again, on behalf of the Firm, thank you for your commitment > and hard work.>>>  January 22, 2007>>>  Pete Ruegger

I had started writing a reply to the comment Michael (the law school professor) wrote in my original "Law Firm Brain Drain" posting, and my response morphed into another long posting, so I'll start a new thread here instead.

First of all, thanks for your insight, Michael. I'm honored that my "Brain Drain" post has worked its way into a law school classroom discussion.

One clarification: Perhaps I'm not interpreting your comment correctly, but I never meant to suggest that graduating from law school with a lot of debt and going to Big Firm compromises or undermines ethical lawyering, or that one can practice ethical lawyering only by going into non-profit work. I believe -- strongly -- that Big Law attorneys provide a real and important service to their clients and add value that I appreciate even more now that I'm a businessperson myself (and not just a former corporate attorney). Not that I hire Big Firm attorneys — I am far from a Fortune 500 client -- but I do from time to time need the services of for-profit/commercial/business attorneys more generally and, well, God bless them. And there are people who take a lot of pride and derive a lot of enjoyment from their work at BigLaw, although I tend to think they are in the minority.

One of the messages I try to get across to law school applicants is that they are adults, that they are about to make a huge financial investment, and that they should be smart about it. There's no duress there -- no one is forcing them to take out huge loans to go to law school. There is, though, a lot of thoughtlessness involved in that decision-making, and that's why I'm trying to educate people about the financial and work-related realities of committing to law school so that they can make better and more informed choices.

I've reflected on Michael's comment, I still doubt very much that many students with substantial law school debt (or even without debt) can go straight to work for a prosecutor's office, the government, or JAG. Indeed, that's the reason so many end up paying their dues at Big Firm first. Here are some direct quotations that (again) speak best for themselves.

I asked a young prosecutor working in a major metropolitan area how his job works out financially. His response:

"A 'lifestyle job,' despite the conventional wisdom, does not mean 'few hours for mediocre pay.' 'Lifesyle' means being able to lay your head on the pillow at night knowing that you've done some good on behalf of people who need it (rather than corporations, shareholders, or fiduciaries--not that they aren't worthy parties sometimes).

But look at the salaries for prosecutors--$40,000 for rural areas, $44,000 for metropolitan areas. Do the math: $44,000 x .30 = $13,200 (federal taxes). That leaves you $30,800 after taxes -- and that assumes you have no state income tax. $30,800 is $2566 per month. Rent, utilities, groceries? Optimistically, those come to $1000. That's $1566 per month left over.

Health care/pension payments? I pay 11% of my gross in required pension payments, so let's say it's an even 10% ($4,400) per year. That's another $366 per month. Add vision, dental, life insurance, health savings accounts, and my take-home is down to $1100 per month.

So after all of those fixed costs, you still potentially have: undergraduate loans, law school loans, car payments, vacations, Christmas presents, clothes, a beer or two, and savings/retirement contributions (hahaha...as if that's possible).

I think it boils down to how you interpret the 'life' the professor is describing. JAG is an option for a lot of people (I considered it), but look at what you're comparing: $150,000 (if not more) to start at Big Firm v. $45,000...plus active military service. Lots of people enjoy it, but is that really what's required to have a life with a law degree? Enlisting in the military?

The prosecuting jobs and other public service positions are attractive for a lot of people, but most of my friends were unable to do it because of the size of the loans they were facing, and/or their positions in life. One of my closest friends got married during third year of law school and was planning to have a child. If you plug "wife and child" into the $44,000 analysis above, I think the balance would break down relatively quickly.

Or take me...I want to be able to buy a house at some point this year, and I'm single, have no children, and no significant debt. I did the spreadsheet routine with my starting salary (which is about $5000 lower than the median metropolitan area prosecutor's salary) and I realized I needed a second job. Between 25-35% of prosecutors in my office have another job because they just can't afford to live without the extra income. Those are full-time workers, mind you -- many of whom have wives and husbands, mortgages, and children.

I don't know...I guess you could say that there are choices out there that allow you to make a living doing non-law firm work. The issue in my mind is the discrepancy between the law firm salary and the public service salary. While law firms are keeping miserable people onboard by jacking up the pay, public sector jobs are bleeding qualified (and loyal/devoted) labor because they can't offer a reasonable salary. Each group 'endures' something in exchange for a reward, but they are very different burdens and benefits."

So we've got prosecutors working second jobs… and not necessarily glamorous ones. Take a look at this recent Boston Globe article that profiles prosecutors moonlighting as bartenders and house painters. One guy mans a supermarket deli counter in his spare time, while another works at a funeral home. That's probably not what most law school applicants see themselves doing after they graduate from law school. (One prosecutor in the article notes that his girlfriend — a law firm paralegal — makes more than he does.)

As for JAG Corps, I talked to another recent graduate who turned down a JAG offer. His response:

"I was offered commission into the JAG Corps and seriously considered it as an option before deciding not to pursue it. Ideological motivations aside, the reality is that it is difficult for graduates of private law schools and certain public law schools to seriously consider JAG and many other public interest positions as an option upon graduation. As many know, compensation is often less than what elementary school teachers make in certain geographic regions. I was offered $39,000/year salary (first year) and a graduated housing stipend that increases or decreases according to the assigned geographic location. I did the math, and the math did me in.

After deducting taxes from the federal salary, I would be bringing home $2400 a month. While the prospect of trying cases early in my career, representing the military and therefore the interest of the American public, and having the ability to travel to myriad destinations was very attractive, I came to the conclusion that ironically enough, I would be placing myself at a financial disservice in the name of public service. At this pay rate, I could not pay off my school loans, could not afford some of the luxuries I enjoyed in college, and would have to rely on my parents for additional income. Sometimes I wonder what good I am affording to the public while representing corporations and people with deep pockets. On the other hand, I am glad that I don't have to look at my parents and ask them for money. After all, I am not a teenager."

And think tanks?

Some of the most highly paid think-tank JDs make less than they did as a first-year associate at Big Firm, even factoring in all the free think-tank lunches and fabulous benefits.

I'm also not able to find many prominent think tanks that hire JDs straight out of law school. As a think-tank insider told me: "I can't imagine that there are more than a half-dozen such spots open every year, and not at any of the good think tanks."

The JDs I am able to find at the top think tanks (doing a cursory search) all have insanely impressive resumes and experience under their belts. A sample:

Brookings has three JDs:

• Robert Litan: Yale JD/PhD + experience in OMB and Treasury + former Deputy Asst Attorney General
• Huge Price: Yale JD + former CEO of Urban Institute + board of F500 companies + NYT editorial board
• Kenneth Dam: Chicago JD + Supreme Court clerkship + firm experience at Cravath + Chicago Law School professor + former Deputy Secretary at Treasury and State Depts

Center for American Progress has quite a number of JDs. A sample from just A's and B's:

• Mark Agrast: Yale JD + Board of ABA + former practice at Jones Day
• Jessica Arons: William & Mary JD + VA Supreme Court clerkship + former attorney at ACLU + private firm experience
• Melody Barnes: Michigan JD + former chief counsel to Ted Kennedy + former practice at Shearman & Sterling
• Spencer Boyer: NYU JD + clerkship at International Criminal Tribunal + former director of Georgetown's Constitution Project + former practice at Jones Day
• Cassandra Butts: Harvard JD + former senior advisor to Dick Gephardt + former assistant counsel to NAACP

Manhattan Institute has two:

• James Copland: Yale JD/MBA + Winter clerkship + McKinsey + board of two manufacturing companies
• Peter Huber: Harvard JD + MIT PhD in Engineering + two Supreme Court clerkships + name partner at law firm + Forbes columnist + MIT professor

Heritage has three:

• Edwin Meese: Boalt JD, former US Attorney General, former member of National Security Council, former law professor
• Todd Gaziano: Chicago JD + Jones clerkship + House subcommittee chief counsel + OLC
• Brian Walsh: Bowman clerkship + former practice at Kirkland & Ellis

Progressive Policy Institute has none.

American Enterprise Institute has two lawyers:

• Peter Wallison: Harvard JD + former GC of Treasury + partner at Gibson Dunn
• Ted Frank: Chicago JD + Easterbrook clerkship + experience at three Big Firms

Institute for Policy Studies has one:

• Stacie Jonas: Yale Law School student

Perhaps Competitive Enterprise Institute or Cato hire people right out of law school (I haven't checked), but that's more public-interest work than think-tank work.

I also heard the following from a think tank insider: "Drum Major Institute just got a lot of plaintiffs' bar money for a newly-minted law school graduate to be a hack, but that appears to be a temporary position." (That DMI position is advertised at $50K).

If there are JDs who took the think tank route right out of law school and made it work with substantial law school loans, I would love to hear from them. Maybe they're out there.

Let's turn to debt coming out private vs. public law schools. (Although note that the prosecutor I spoke with above had no law school loans and is still working a second job.) My research indicates that public law school debt is between $46,000 (ABAnet link below) and $51,000 (Newsweek link below), while private law school debt is between $70,000 (ABAnet) and $78,000 (Newsweek). Those numbers don't quite mesh with the general debt studies below (quoting $84,000 in average debt), but then there's also a Chicago Sun Times article reporting on Sen. Durbin's bill to reduce debt for public interest lawyers, and his estimate of average debt for public vs. private law schools is $66,000+ and $97,000 +, respectively. So graduates of public schools have plenty of debt themselves.

Here are the links on private vs. public law school debt if anyone wants to sleuth out the numbers some more:

• Newsweek
• ABA
• National Law Journal
• Chicago Sun Times

And studies on public interest vs. private firm salaries:

• NALP
• ABA (See in particular pages 10, 11, 17, 18)
• From Paper Chase to Money (a great article to read in its entirety)

And finally: yes, there are law school loan forgiveness programs, and this link offers more details on who's offering them. (Loan forgiveness programs are also called LRAP programs.)

A note of caution: Do not assume a given loan forgiveness program is well-funded enough, or that its eligibility rules are going to be generous enough, to make a meaningful financial difference in your intended career path. Once you have an acceptance offer from a law school as well as a financial aid offer, sit down with the person who administers the school's loan forgiveness program and ask her to run the numbers for a couple of realistic scenarios. Some questions to ask:

• At what annual salary would your loan forgiveness phase out?
• What happens if your spouse has a well-paying job?
• Does job X or Y count as a "public interest job" eligible for loan forgiveness?
• What about undergraduate or other grad school loan burdens?
• Does the program cover loans that aren't deemed "need-based" (i.e. you or your parents were deemed to have enough resources not to need loans when you first received your financial aid package, but you had to/chose to take them out anyway)?
• Does your financial aid offer letter even specify whether your loans are deemed need-based? (If not, demand that those amounts be broken out.)

These are just some examples of things to ask. (There's a longer discussion of loans, financial aid, and loan forgiveness programs in my book.)

Bottom line about loan forgiveness programs: Do not automatically assume the program will cover your future situation, and note that public interest jobs are still awfully hard to make work financially for a lot of people, even if they graduate debt-free or a loan-forgiveness program makes all of their debt go away.

Hat tip to the blog "Paragon to Pieces," which drew my attention to this recent article in the New York Post about the flight of Gen Xers from top New York law firms:

Young, Gen-X lawyers in their third to fifth year in the business are walking away from their $200,000-a-year positions in record numbers -- at times without another job in view.

The reason? They are unhappy with their Blackberry lifestyle - being tethered to the job 24/7 and having to rush back to the office at a moment's notice when e-mail orders pop up on the ubiquitous PDA.

The exodus of law firm associates is unprecedented, according to the National Association of Law Placement, or NALP, which found that 37 percent of associates leave large firms within the first three years.

A whopping 77 percent of associates leave within five years, according to NALP's latest survey.

Ponder that for a second. Over a third of associates leave within the first three years, before a good number of them will have paid off their law school loans.  And close to four fifths leave before they come up for partner, meaning they bail after putting in five years of grunt work but before making the really big bucks. That's quite a measure of how miserable they are. Been there, done that -- I've been part of that exodus, so it's not news to me, but apparently the ranks have swelled. (I recall whispers about a honeymoon being canceled for some deal. Because that's what you'll remember on your deathbed: that deal you worked on back in 199X.)

The article also quotes an anonymous law firm partner who fears for his business model:

It's the mid-levels, the third through fifth years that are leaving, so you're losing people you've spent lots of money on training, and just as they start to run things, they leave, and firms become less profitable.

So I wonder, what does that exodus mean for the law firm business model? That model is a pyramid structure, where the folks at the top make money by billing out the hours of young associates while paying them more or less a fixed salary. More hours per associate means more money per partner and diminishing hourly incomes for those associates. (A lawyer I know once calculated that his yearly bonus — the carrot firms dangle in front of associates to encourage more billing — amounted to something like $20 for each hour he worked above the yearly minimum. Big whoop.) Does that model fall apart without a self-replenishing pool of law school graduates eager to take a heap of abuse in exchange for a shot at the brass ring of partnership? It's a big topic, one that deserves a longer post.

I asked a consultant (and former lawyer) who advises in-house counsel at big corporations (the really big ones, the kind that hire fancypants New York law firms). He tracks law firm business models, HR practices, and law firm value propositions very carefully and had some interesting observations to share. I found them very persuasive, so rather than paraphrase, I'll let his words speak for themselves.

Is Gen X/Y a real threat to the business model? Nope.

Empirically, the big law firms have made more money per partner every year, year over year, for the last decade. The increases have been dramatically greater than CPI, inflation, or any other metric of cost increase. The claim that the law firm model is in any way in jeopardy is so disconnected from their financial performance that it has no real weight. As long as the money continues to flow as intensely as it does to the top 100 or 200 law firms, there's just no basis for them to change.

Is associate attrition bad for law firms? Nope.

The business model depends on winnowing out the vast majority of those people and not making them partner, because new partners dilute the profits of current partners. If associates don't quit on their own, you have to tell them to go or not make them partner. It's better for the firm to keep them as long as possible — senior associates are very profitable — and then not make them partner, but the pain and inconvenience of that probably makes the self-initiated departure of 77% of them almost as good.

Are law school loans traps? Yes.

The oversupply of law students with substantial loans has, as you know, prevented any exodus from being a real problem — firms have a massive pool to choose from.

Is Gen X/Y really so special? Nope.

My firm does a huge amount of empirical work on employee preferences, and one thing the studies have shown time and time again is that all generations behave the same where money is concerned. Money is money is money, and Gen X, Gen Y, Baby Boomers, etc. behave the same with respect to it. Some percentage of every generation is willing to do nearly anything for money, and the breakdown of the generations just doesn't vary that much. Managers like to bitch about Gen X or Gen Y. Whatever. I can tell you that they are "cosmetically" different, but they are not different in the hard money choices they make. And that's backed up by the fact that, in this context, law firms are making more money every year than in every prior year.

Are in-house legal jobs the holy grail that law firm associates assume they are? Nope.

General counsel are always going on about the problem of talent management, needing to create a compelling career path for lawyers, needing to retain them, fearing they will leave, talking about the new generation, etc. Here's the fact of the matter. Unlike law firms, in-house legal departments — however surly their lawyers might be — have incredibly low turnover. The lawyers stay; they stay at much higher rates than employees in other parts of the company. In-house lawyers are unhappy, yes. They are bitching. They are working as many hours as they did at their firms. But they are not leaving because they have nowhere to go, which means that talent management/career advancement/retention efforts at companies that may be targeted at in-house lawyers have exceedingly low return on investment, since there is not a retention problem to begin with. In-house lawyers won't even take other jobs within the same company because it invariably involves a very serious pay cut.

His bottom line: "Lawyers: Your lives suck. And you're still making money."

I also received interesting feedback from a very astute acquaintance who recently graduated from a top law school and bypassed the big-firm track entirely to work in public service. (One summer at a big firm during law school was enough to make him head for the hills.) His take:

I think the doomsday scenario offered by a lot of people is over-stated. Law firms don't want 80% retention because they don't want to be considering 8 out of every 10 associates for partnership later on (at least the "big" law firms).  Using 85% of the associates for "grunt work" will continue to make tons of cash for the law firms, and will allow a "natural" culling of the ranks in anticipation of partnership consideration.

Even more sadistic: I think many partners view the dramatic drop-off as part of the "testing" of associates.  By their logic, if you can survive the years of misery when 8 out of 10 of your friends are fleeing like the building is on fire, then you are the sort of person fit for partnership at the firm.  They would never admit this, of course, but I think that's the thought process for some of the worst partners.

In that way, I consider the big law firm to be like a stereotypical fraternity from a huge public school.  They have thousands of students to choose from during rush period, and they ask a very small percentage of those students to pledge.  What are they offering? Hazing and status.  That's it.  Status is the right to say you're in "the frat," to walk into the frat house during parties like you're a member and brag to other undergraduates that you belong there (i.e. "I work for Cravath..."). The hazing? The most foul, degrading stuff you can imagine being done to other humans short of actual criminal behavior.  Examples? I'd happily fill you in about the friend of mine who was asked to keep his Crackberry on him and respond to discovery problems while his wife was in labor, and the phone call he received from his partner/boss during his son's circumcision asking him to get back to the office to look something over (and yes, his boss knew exactly what was going on with his personal life at the time). [Reality at Big Firms is so easy to parody -- see Anonymous Lawyer's contribution here. - Anna]

The reason it's like a fraternity is that each new entering class comes into the house and says, "This hazing sucks, I can't believe I'm doing this, I will never do this to people if I'm in charge."  Sure enough, 2 years later as seniors, they're running the hazing just like their predecessors.  So while the HUGE percentage of first year associates that experience law firm life end up leaving in droves, they never made it into the fraternity.  But by the time the next hiring/recruiting cycle ends, a brand-spanking new 8th year associate turned junior partner is in charge of assignments or work schedules, and he has just suffered through a divorce, a receding hairline, an ulcer, and way too many vacations interrupted by phone calls and texts.  [I remember a partner's retina detaching, and he wasn't doing anything about it because of some deal. Yuck. - Anna] You think he's going to let up? No way--so he continues the cycle of miserable treatment of associates, even though he was once in their shoes.

That's the firm/partner end of things.  From the student/associate perspective, the law firm model will also be able to survive because no matter how badly you are treated at these places, there are always at least a few of your friends, classmates, and colleagues willing to persevere through all the hazing to climb the ranks to that coveted junior partner position.

As for the grunt work, so long as student loans are a part of the education process, there will be fresh meat to build widgets at the enormous law firms.  As you pointed out, the associates may be leaving before all of their loans are completely paid off, and that does demonstrate how unbearable the law firm life can be.  But if you have $100,000 in loans and can throw $25,000 a year toward those loans for 3 years by working for "Big Firm," it's a lot easier to "go public service" in year four.  $25,000 in loans is manageable when you're in public service, especially if you have a solid job after Big Firm (because of the status that entry on your resume can offer).

Bottom line is this: the traditional pool of associates may shift over the next 10-20 years, and you may actually see more 2nd and 3rd tier students being courted by top firms, but the overall power dynamic and business model of the law firm will survive.  The changes in the law firm labor pool are not going to be dramatic enough to threaten the pyramid.  As much as I wish it weren't the case, the "Big Firm" is going to survive, I think, because there are enough jackasses graduating law school to fill the partner ranks each year (the "gunners"), and a healthy supply of students who will still need to take a bite out of their loans before moving on to greener pastures.

Whew.

When I counsel prospective law school applicants and give talks at colleges around the country, I talk to a lot of people who

•    are certain they want to work at big law firms without having spent a single day experiencing one  (kudos to the paralegals and case clerks -- at least they know what they're getting themselves into when they apply) or
•    think it's easy to go into public interest work right out of law school or
•    think nothing of spending five years at Big Firm before going off to do what they really want to do, when they have no earthly idea what that might be, or whether it even requires law school + firm experience to get there.

I do my best to give them a sense of what they're in for, and in response I encounter various levels of resistance and faces that say, "This is too much cognitive dissonance, so I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." Not always, but often. Maybe the message will sink in eventually, but a lot of people have to learn the truth the hard way, after three years of law school and another three to five years at a firm that they will likely want to flee. And mind you, most law school graduates aren't even in the running for those top firms; those are considered the plum firm jobs. At least those associates get paid well.

The fact is that most of these folks have no idea what law school is like, what legal practice is like, whether it's something they'll enjoy, whether BigLaw is a good move for them, or what they want to do after their time "inside." Those are an awful lot of unknowns, and yet thousands and thousands of people go jumping on that very expensive, very time-consuming bandwagon year after year, usually because they lack the courage or are too lazy to think hard about other options or are being pushed into it by their parents. It's not a mistake for everyone, but there's a reason there are so many miserable lawyers out there. (On that subject, see the last paragraph of my other post here.)

Vault and BusinessWeek have teamed up to offer a career fair in New York City on March 20, 2007 for business professionals with at least five years of experience. Participating employers include Citigroup, Accenture, Boston Consulting, UBS, Mercer, BearingPoint, Deloitte, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Meanwhile, the Forté Foundation hosts its next round of Career Lab workshops for undergraduate women who want to explore careers in business. The schedule:

February 5, 2007 -- The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA February 6, 2007 -- The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NCFebruary 8, 2007 -- The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CAFebruary 13, 2007 -- The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

It's that time of year when 1Ls are either celebrating or cursing their first set of law school grades. Because it's also a time of profound mystification and earnest reading of the tea leaves, let me share with you the only guide to law school grading that makes sense to me.

Stanford business school recently released its 2006 employment report, and only 16% of the class of 2006 were business majors in college. A majority (52%) were humanities/social sciences majors, and 32% were engineering/math/natural sciences majors. I've always encouraged liberal arts majors to consider MBAs, even though they suspect that they are at a disadvantage as applicants because of their lack of undergraduate business education. This report suggests otherwise.