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The most common type of lawyer these days is called "an unemployed lawyer". The job market for JD's is vastly oversaturated and has been for many years. There are 10 law schools in Pennsylvania, 8 in Virginia, 6 in tiny DC, IRL each jurisdiction only needs 1 law school. The very idea that there are enough jobs for 10 entire graduating classes of law students in one state is laughable. Don't fall for The Law School Scam.
As a nurse, it’s wild to me that lawyers don’t teach new lawyers into their position. This is actually what we do in nursing. No one leaves nursing school knowing how to “nurse”, but are taught the meat and potatoes at the bedside.
That's actually a bit validating to hear! I always assumed the medical field taught the nuts and bolts of the practice in school, so I guess it's not just the legal industry that does it this way. (Minus the also not training us when we start out part. 😅)
You are describing working at a large law firm, something that the great majority of lawyers don't do. If you are considering attending law school to get into BigLaw, please understand that that at most law schools 90 percent of the class will never get so much as an interview for a summer job in a large law firm in their lives. Those firms are only interested in folks in the top 10 percent of their class, preferably also on Law Review (top 5 percent for Cravath, Skadden, and other very grade-conscious law firms).
Accurate. I was a paralegal for 15 years, the last role was at a big law firm where I was fully remote. Not only there was little direction, no one even said good morning or good night and the manager did not respond to my emails. That was my last role at a law firm, I changed careers and went into state government. That lack of attention and regard was not how I wanted to live my life, not in my forties.
After watching this, I can say, most people who really want to be lawyers should go out and be paralegals first. Shoot, file a small claims case to see what it is that trials are like.
Now, WHY don't large law firms train their new associates? Most new associates are gone in 24-48 months anyway, so there is no point in expending law firm resources to train them. What kind of work product do brand new lawyers, who are grossly inexperienced and grossly overworked, produce? Awful work product, of course. Some sophisticated clients will stipulate that "no first-years" work on their legal matters, so there is some understanding of this problem, at least. By the time an associate has enough years under his or her belt to know what he or she is doing, they usually "get Lathamed" and that is the end of their career in BigLaw. Churn-and-burn, that has long been the rule with associates in large law firms.
@@MrSterlingAce This is the problem. Dumb, gullible young people watch TV shows like Suits, see cool videos on the internet, and think I can go to law school and get a Great Job making Big Money at a prestigious law firm! Nobody tells them that these law firms are only interested in hiring folks in the top 10 percent of their class. No one tells them that at most law schools, 90 percent of the students will never get so much as one interview for a summer position with a large law firm in their lives. No one tells them that even if the beat the odds and get such a job, they will be brutally overworked and either burned out or kicked out swiftly--80 percent of first year associates no longer work at the large law firm they started at after 4Y. I am a lawyer, and I made it, and I know a lot of other lawyers who did too, but not by going to a sweatshop in BigLaw and working 70 hours a week for years on end, only to be gone in a handful of years.
@@MrSterlingAce It is reality. A lawyer who graduates at the top his class, and gets a job with a large law firm, will typically end up earning about $50 per hour, pre-tax, with now time-and-half overtime pay for his first year. 190k/70 hours a week (70 hour workweeks are common for associates in large law firms) comes to about $50 per hour. You might see $30 per hour in your take-home pay, after taxes. It's pathetic.
There is a new school in April. It’s called the ancestor clients teaching the young lawyers, how to take out their 10 and write up an order for the Interdiction Trust.
When I studied accounting, they said something similar. We studied all aspects of financial and cost accounting, but we were told that the accounting firm that hires you will treat you like you learned nothing and they will train you almost from scratch (which seemed so ridiculous). There is clearly a huge disconnect between what the schools teach and what industry expects. Hence Elon Musk and many modern firms will take a person and teach them what they want them to know and do.
Yes! The disconnect is real and not specific to law. As far as the law is concerned, if law firms don't like it, let them go back to the good old days when they had to take on apprentices who couldn't tell you what a contract was even in theory. Higher education is necessarily general. We hone our skills on the field. It's in the order of things. In other words, it's the law!
@@idontknowwhyihavesubscribers I do paralegal work and was more or less forced into it by forces beyond my control. I think I have learned far more than law school would have taught me. Also, law school doesn't tell you about all the crooked things that go on. That is a real skill. Dealing with foul play which is common and sometimes scary is really big.
@@MrSterlingAce Well, as you'll know, paralegals tend to know their work better than lawyers do (and go on to get great marks at law school when they do). It depends on so many things. I practised for 10 years in insurance and trained several junior lawyers, but I wouldn't have had the time if they hadn't been to law school. Without having been there, they would have been able to help with particularly paperwork-intensive work (e.g. corporate-secretarial work), but not so much with designing new products or structuring M&A operations.
