– Are you kidding me? You’re claiming that there “SURE ISN’T” any sign of an entitlement mentality coming from ANY of the recent JD grads?! I’m not painting with a broad brush here, but have you actually READ any of these scam-bloggers’ sites? Also, I think you may be in the minority with your background of work experience. At just about every law school I’ve checked into, the average age was usually from around 23-25. At that age, the average law student likely came into law school straight from undergrad with no real-world work experience and never having to support themselves or a family. Again, this doesn’t apply to everyone, case in point…you, but it does apply to a fair share.

To JPHM, on my not having yet gone to law school… this is such a tired argument. I’m surprised, with all of the lawyers out there reading these posts, don’t ever mention how it has no merit. Please tell me how my not yet going to law school prevents me from reasonably commenting on the entitlement attitude and victim mentality of those that did? I’ve never claimed to know what law school is like or that I’ll be able to find work when I graduate. Maybe I won’t, and if I can’t, I will be posting that on my blog. But the fact remains that most of the scam-bloggers go so far off of the deep end that they just sound like whiny little entitled maggots.

All the scam-bloggers talk about is how they didn’t learn any practical skills in law school, how they would be fined for malpractice if they tried to go solo, etc. All this article poster is saying is that if that is how you find yourself, don’t sit there and whine about it, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Nobody has to try to build their skill set by using whatever services this place offers, but damn, it HAS to be better than sitting at home commiserating anonymously over the internet with a handful of other bitter souls.

Doug
tobeajd.blogspot.com

In my comment re: “the sad sacks,” I was actually talking about those lawyers who I meet individually, say things like “That won’t work” or “I would try that but there’s already 1 million people doing it.” Many of them, in fact, are solos.

I don’t ‘sell’ solo practice as a panacea. I don’t ‘sell’ solo practice at all. You are advocating those who haven’t started law school to seriously reconsider. But there are legions are lawyers out there who have already incurred the debt and want to use their education. And there are those who specifically went to law school to open their own practices. The law schools fail them on this. The bars have done an abysmal job, too. Where do they go for help? It doesn’t help them to say, ‘just don’t be lawyers because you are going to fail.’ It’s also not true. What they are missing is affordable guidance from those who have done it and can provide the information to help them. Based upon your description of what you did in your solo practice, you did many things right and many things wrong…for today’s market. I won’t go into it in the comments section because I’m sure there is more to your story. And I do believe you are committed to cases and do them right for your client.

But I have another question for you. You went back to doc review instead of leaving the profession altogether. Is this just a paying gig until you can save enough money to do something else? Or are you still nurturing a hope to use your degree in a meaningful way? Seems to me (no sarcasm) you still have a desire to be a practicing lawyer. If I’m wrong, please let me know.

I’m not going to deny that there are some solos who are surviving. Somehow. But for me, I’ve completely capitulated; and no, I won’t say to what I’m capitulating, because the last thing I need is a thousand other lawyers following me, to saturate yet another market.

My personal opinion, based on the last two years of experience I’ve acquired, is that anyone with no experience as an actual attorney who is considering going solo, who is not an excellent salesperson, should go work for Burger King instead – you’ll make about ten times more money. And if you are an excellent salesperson, you should be selling something that people are actually willing to pay for – whether that is used cars, insurance, drugs, whatever; you’ll be more fulfilled if you can actually believe in the product you’re selling.

The advantage of being a solo is you can honestly call yourself a lawyer. The advantage of not being a solo is you have the time to get a paying job in a field somewhere other than law. It’s a no-brainer, folks. Opening your own office, for most people, is just throwing good money after bad.

Susan, it might surprise you to know that I operated a solo practice for about 14 months. I worked 80 hour weeks in doc review for almost a year to save up 10 K of seed money. I rented a nice little space in a suburban NJ office condo for only $150 a month, hung my degrees on the wall, bought about $250 of used office furniture at an auction, and was up and running as they say.

I stretched my ad dollars as much as possible. I spent $10 a week on a church bulletin, $30 a month to be in 5 condominium newsletters (to try and get RE closings when people sold and also wills/trusts for young couples having kids), and my one “big” ad, a $250 a month half-page display ad in a penny saver magazine with about 35 K circulation. I even did one of those paper “placemat ads” that was in 15 local diners/bars (it cost $250 for a run of 100 K placemats, and I thought it might be just the sort of “guerilla” marketing that might work for blue collar personal injury or DWI clients.)

Nope. Not a single case in the 6 months the placements were out there. I also spent $1200/ year on a malpractice policy. And of course those good old NJ bar dues and CLE rip-off fees.

I looked into Google Adwords but the cost for my town’s name combined w/ any decent adword was VERY high- like $7 a click. I did try it for some time but it led to no clients. (All NJ solos I’ve spoken to have had no luck with AdWords- the big firms just outspend them by too great a degree). One very nice guy I met on doc review ended up 5 K in the hold from AdWords without a single client, and he has 15 years of experience in his area.

I also joined the local bar association and tried to get court-appointed work, but it’s a real “old boys club” and they never sent me a single case (still haven’t 2 years later and I’m still on the list LOL). The local bar here is another “old boys” club and the only people my age were the younger halves of father-son team who obviously were in a much different position than me.

I got 2 nightmare DWI clients who bounced multiple retainer checks and the judge refused to let me out of the cases until I sent 3 registered letters (with copies of their files) to their last known addresses (at $25 a piece for postage). I did a real estate closing for a friend’s mom where the septic tank failed and I had to spend 40+ hours on the file for a $700 flat fee (she couldn’t pay more since she was stretched so thin w/ the septic problem). I got one good personal injury case that another lawyer stole from me b/c the client was treating at a “medical mill” that probably got a fat kickback to steer patients to the firm (filed an NJ Bar grievance on that one and of course nothing happened).

I called many older lawyers to ask for “overflow” and they laughed hysterically and said business is so slow they are thinking of retiring! Most of them advised me that going solo is a terrible idea nowadays and that law’s best days are long since past. Many of these guys were clearing 200 K just a few years ago (late 90s early 2000s) in personal injury, but now NJ has such strict tort reform with auto work that there just isn’t any $$$ in it anymore. The big mills with TV/Radio/#1 Google clicks take the few good cases out there and all that’s left for the rest of us is BS soft-tissue garbage cases that you couldn’t settle for a song.

DWI was likewise tough because VERY few clients have access to the money needed to put on a proper defense. In reality, there isn’t much of a defense for 95% of these cases, and all the lawyer can really do is just beg for the minimum suspension. People have really wised up to this fact anymore, and the majority of DWI clients just beg and grovel themselves rather than shell out 3 K for me to do it.

I worked as a realtor prior to law school in the same town I started my solo shop in. Once I had my office I went to all the Sunday open houses and passed out cards hoping to get closings etc. I also got invited to a couple Realtor office meetings where I spoke on NJ realty issues and tried to cross-sell wills and estates. Nothing came of this either. A huge real estate firm in the county hogs 90% of the closings and “butter up” the realtors with listing leads and other goodies that I couldn’t provide. Now, of course, the real estate market is all but dead anyway.

I also wrote a couple articles for a local free newspaper about personal injury cases and estate planning, etc. I got one call out of it from a woman who wanted to sue Best Buy because her washing machine leaked and ruined a hardwood floor. I guess she thought I was a plumber as well.

I did most everything recommended: kept expenses low, stretched my small ad budget to the max,
tried to get court-appointed work, networked with established lawyers, and most of all did a GREAT job for my few clients. My adversary on the real-estate closing with the septic issue was stunned when he saw me at closing, and said “wow, I thought you’d been practicing 30 years the way you handled this nightmare.” He was expecting someone with gray hair and a cane apparently!

But sadly, doing a good job doesn’t mean much when you can’t earn enough to pay your bills. With $900 a month in student loans, I couldn’t even come close to earning enough $$$ to live (or just break even). My business just wasn’t growing at all, and if anything things were getting even slower (funny story: a few local scumbag firms saw my ads in the condo/church bulletins and w/in weeks had placed their own ads 10 X the size of mine in these same publications to shout me out.) Guess they didn’t want to risk losing even one will or DWI to the new kid in town.

I guess I could’ve tried some niche area like special education law or whatever, but with cash flow so incredibly poor I couldn’t really take a chance. I think a big difference b/t today and 10 yrs ago is that back them solos could get a few bucks doing little stuff like LLC formation, wills, traffic court etc, but today LegalZoom and the internet have taken away these areas for the most part. Without at least a trickle of steady cash, you can’t really get started in obscure niche areas of law.

It’s much worse for the newbie JD’s now, many of whom owe close to 200 K and have min. payments of $1600 a month just in student loans! I’m sorry, but the chances of any of these people succeeding as solos is almost nil. No one can dig themselves out of that deep a hole with the saturation level out there and economy getting worse by the day. They won’t even have the doc review option that I did now that the ABA has outsourced this work to India.

Needless to say, after 12 months of these drips n’ drabs and my hard-earned seed money exhausted, I closed up shop. Rather than rent storage space for my furniture, I just threw everything (including my framed law and college degrees) into the parking lot’s dumpster and walked away for good. The experience left me personally, spiritually, and financially crushed. All those hours staring at the doc review screen to save that 10 K startup money (which I could’ve just put toward my loans) was now on its way to the landfill. All the hard work and “networking” and designing my ads, writing articles, trying to do a good job- all for naught.

The whole endeavor just seemed so foolish and naïve in retrospect, like a child’s pipedreams. I sat on the curb and smoked a cigarette after I loaded the dumpster and really felt like committing suicide. Remember, this is the town I grew up in, and my high school friends all laughed hysterically at how little $$$ I made and my cheesy placemat ads etc. They still kid me and call me an “ambulance chaser.” Hell, I’d laugh at me too. It’s beyond embarrassing. Most of them drive trucks and already own homes and have families, while I have nothing but loan debt and failure. In a few short weeks I was back on the 6 am bus into NYC to start another sentence in the doc review gulag for $30 an hour and no benefits. When the bus passed by my old office, I felt like throwing up.

My blog serves only to apprise people of the enormous risks involved so they don’t end up like me (a fate I truly wouldn’t wish on anyone). I really believe that its better most people give up on law altogether and get into a career that actually has a stable future. Law is just too many people fighting over too few scraps. I’m most happy about the people who avoided law school altogether thanks to my blog, and only hope that more people don’t make my same mistakes.

L4L

But you are on this blog which discusses the option of solo practice for those who want it.

What I’d like to ask L4L is this: You’ve identified what is wrong (as have countless others). You’ve got a following who agree with you. You’ve dissuaded those who don’t have a passion for the practice of law to not go to law school and identified yourself as hardworking, ethical and responsible. (None of this is said with any sarcasm. I’m just re-stating.)

With all your anger and upset at the law schools, the legal profession and the ABA in general what concrete personal steps are you taking to change your current situation? I’m not saying to get rid of your upset. I just want to know.

You see, nothing you have said is new to me. I’m not a fan of the law school machine, the way they behave, the financial aid hucksters. If you’ve ever read anything I’ve written you would know this. I’m also not a solo cheerleader. I’m a realist who understands thousands of lawyers are being churned and burned. But there are those who don’t want to be ‘victims’ of this. Those are the ones we try to encourage and help because they seek out the information provided. It’s not pollyannish. It’s not blowing smoke up anyone’s skirt. It’s not peddling a dream or untold wealth. They just want to be practicing lawyers and the old way formula towards partnership in a big firm isn’t working so they want to try it themselves. The majority have been told it’s insanity…myself included.

You don’t have to be a believer in solo practice. But half of all private practice attorneys are solo practitioners. They obviously believe it can be done.

But, again, I ask you. Do you want to use your law degree or throw it away because you are angry? When you know, really know, then let me know and we’ll take it from there.

“I contribute much of the dissatisfaction with the entitlement mentality that many recent graduates unfortunately possess. You have to realize, some of these folks, maybe even most of them, probably have never worked a 40 hour week at a “normal” job in their lives. They may not understand what it takes to get a foot in the door and to be willing to work hard, show eagerness for a chance, etc. Instead, some people expect not to look for a job, but are offended when they’re not recruited for one. It’s a sad day.”
____________________________________

Utter tripe.

As we can see from clicking on your name that links to your blog, you are a “Jd to be”. It appears that you have not even started law scool yet….yet you make sweeping generalizations which have no basis in fact.

So, frankly you are not in any position whatsover to be making critical remarks about recent law graduates.

I didn’t go to law school until I was 30, so I had worked for 8 years before law school. This was more than most but I would say that about 50% had at least 2 to 3 years of work experience.

Even those who went to law school from undergrad were hard workers. Not everyone in law school is a brilliant legal mind, but most work hard.

This is the old strawman argument, where you try and paint law school grads as whiners, who are 100% to blame for their predicament. I know a number of very bright, hard working, proactive people that were laid off and have not be able to find gainful employment. These are people who did well in law school, have passed multiple bars and speak foreign languages. These are not lazy bums waiting for Sullivan and Cromwell to call them up.

Law school has actually worked out ok for me so far, but I understand the predicament grads find themselves in.

L4L here. First off, there is an “entitlement mentality” but it sure isn’t coming from recent JD grads. Why do laughing-stock schools like Seton Hall, Brooklyn, Car-Bozo, Pace et al feel “entitled” to charge the same tuition as Harvard and Yale? Why do these schools feel “entitled” to publish blantantly false salary and employment data? Why do their deans, profs and admins feel “entitled” to earn 200-500 K a year for a do-nothing job?

For your second point, I worked 70 hour weeks in the restaurant business and helped pay my own way thru college and law school. I’ve had my arm up grease traps, cleaned grimy stove hoods, scrubbed floors, waited tables- the whole nine yards. I foolishly believed that education would be a ticket out of this low-paying grind of a lifestyle, and took out over 100 K in loans to attend a private Tier 2 lawschools. While there, I earned decent grades and even won a moot court competition. I passed NY & NJ bars the first time. My law school listed average starting salary at 96 K and stated that 80% of grads enjoyed this outcome.

In 2005 after bar results, I sent out over 700 resumes and finally took a temp job at Paul Weiss codng documents for $21 an hour. After a few months of this, I FINALLY got a permanent job at an insurance defense firm. Salary: 45 K. Mind you, I had $960/month student loan payment to contend with on this salary. Do the math. My idiot co-losers who are still there make a whopping 65 K four years later and I just heard the firm is closing down since there’s so few auto cases being litigated anymore in NY.

I am very proud of my blog and have talked over 70 people out of going to law school so far. To know that my blog rescued these folks from a lifetime of crushing debt, miserable cut n’ paste makework, abysmal salaries, psychotic bosses, doc review boiler rooms, and the farce of “solo practice” is something very worthwhile. My blog’s comments are overwhelmingly supportive and in fact Mr. Greebaum who penned the LA Times op-ed said my Big Debt, Small Law blog is what inspired him to write about this disaster. I’ve also had private emails from some very successful lawyers who agree 100% with everything written at Big Debt.

Everyone’s had their fill of the old “bootstraps” and “dust yourself off” gibberish. Law schools and the ABA are nothing but criminal cartels out to seperate suckers from wheelbarrow-loads of Stafford and Access Group cash.

I’d love to see the numbers on solo practice, but my guess is that 90% of solos fail w/in a year. As I wrote on the blog, everyone in doc review is some kind of “solo,” but none can earn enough money to actually survive. The only people with a shot at solo success are the ex-Biglaw types who can milk their former connections (many ATL posters have explicitly admitted this fact).

I firmly believe that recent law grads are victims in every sense of the word. They were told absolute, outright lies by their schools, taught nothing of value, and dumped into a market glutted beyond all comprehension. The behavior of law schools would be black-letter, textbook fraud if any other business engaged in it.

For one, the law school gets paid up front. They have no skin in the game. Compare to a normal business ….If I buy a Honda and get terrible performance, service and maintenance, I will not buy a Honda again, and may bad mouth that company to my friends and family further hurting their business. Thus once I have paid for the product they(btw I love my Honda!) still have an incentive to be responsive to the consumer for repeat business, goodwill etc…..Law schools have no such market to shape their behavior……they already have the money, their grads are not going to be “repeat customers”, they have the teat of federally backed loans, and I don’t think there is any doubt that they simply massage (at best) and/or give downright fraudulent (at worst) income and employment stats to cover up the mess they leave.

Not to mention that with my car I could probably get my money back after paying if I got a “lemon”!

Allowing more law schools to open will simply mean lawyers……but the number of jobs is finite. With outsourcing and technology advances the number of legall jobs is decreasing. A point that has been made by Attorney Elefant. For example, to give an anlagogy, a relative of mine has been in the family photography biz for decades. Up until 15 years ago they would have employed 30 people at their office. Now with digital technology it’s a one man shop!! Same applies with technology in the area. It zaps jobs. That’s a a reality and no amount of positive thinking is going to change that fact.

When anyone with a pulse can get more than $150,000 in federally backed loans, then the “market” is not a market at all. The reason law school tution has gone through the roof in the past 20 years is because an efficient market has not been allowed to happen. Furthermore, as student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, there is no incentive for the lender, whether it be fed or private to make a proper assessment of the loan.

Susan, simply put, more law schools will not lead to lower tuition while we have the current loan system in place. If that was true, then the explosion in the number of new law schools in the past 20 years would have lead to tuition reductions. In fact quite the opposite has happened! We have more law schools than ever, and staggeringly high tuition that has way outpaced inflation.

PS
There is no reason why law has to be the profession of the rich. Able students from modest or poor back grounds could and should be given grants from law schoools or the government to assist them. Law schools should also give generous loan forgiveness to students who commit to low paying but important public interest jobs. Only a few elite law schools do that right now.

To the extent that markets only work with complete information, this reality check is a welcome addition for students thinking about entering the legal profession.