Reddit reviews Don’t Go To Law School (Unless): A Law Professor’s Inside Guide to Maximizing Opportunity and Minimizing Risk

Where to even begin?

Paul Campos' Don't Go To Law School (Unless) should be required reading for any prospective law student.

But holy shit, the LIES.

So for decades now, law schools have been churning out twice as many lawyers as there are available jobs; obviously, you can't do this forever, but boy do they try.

• At first, they didn't need to release post-BAR employment statistics
  
  
• Then, they made them as misleading as possible (if you were a barista with a law degree, LSAC and ABA considered you employed)
  
  
• If you worked part-time as a cart-pusher, the ABA, for a while, considered you employed
  
  
• 50% of graduated lawyers ended up in a job that didn't require a law degree. LAW SCHOOLS MARKETED THIS AS THE VERSATILITY OF A LAW DEGREE, when in reality grads were just taking gasping for air and taking anything--AND ENDED UP IN JOBS THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN WITHOUT THE DEGREE!
  
  Scholarships aren't what you think they are
  
  
• You have two applying students, A and B
  
  
• A is a genius with really high scores, B would be lucky to get into your institution
  
  
• As the dean, or admissions, indeed your only real job is to increase the ranking of your school ( ^ ranking = ^ prestige = ^ money), or at least not let it flounder. How do you do that? Getting smarter kids to go to your school. Now, 'A' won't go to your school if he can help it--he's got the goods for a Top 14. But you really want him, so you offer him a generous scholarship package.
  
  
• That scholarship doesn't come out of thin air. There is no "Scholarship Vault" in the back of the Dean's office. What they do is make the lower test-score kids pay higher tuition in order to subsidize the smarter kids' tuition and, ultimately, the school's ranking. They're able to do this because a) the federal government will back students' idiotic loan amounts, 2) Student A is getting a bargain, 3) Student B thinks he's getting a bargain when in reality he's just cattle who won't see a worthwhile Return on Investment
  
  Thought grad school, in general, was a "big, cold, system"? Law school is an industrial sized grinder where the only output is marginally better rankings and jobless grads with $250,000 in debt.
  
  Law schools are thirsty whores for any type of validation, which means "rankings" news. Who is the "great decider" of rankings? Mostly US News World Report. Think about that for a second. How much validity do you think the rankings system has when one media organization runs a monopoly on the whole thing? Go try to figure out why one school is #60 while the other is #70. Seriously, go try. Meanwhile, people are reading these rankings like they're scripture.
  
  The Great Usefulness Lie
  
  One of the more recent, and clever, ploys by law schools is to sell law degrees as versatile
  
  > You don't see too many practicing attorneys because law is versatile, they're out doing a million different things, not just practicing law!
  
  No. The chances of you getting that environmental advocacy position is nill. You're not going to practice space law. Want to work for the public good and help the downtrodden? Great. Fantastic. Don't forget about your $250,000 in debt which will begin accruing absurd interest very, very soon. You'll be paying that debt off for half your life... unless you sell your soul and go work for a big firm for 80 hours a week (you'd better hope you graduated from a really good school at the top of your class).
  
  Mental Health
  
  Lawyers are, relatively, quite suicidal. Relatively, they suffer from depression and chronic alcoholism often. They self-report as miserable quite often.
  
  One (of many) white papers
  
  It's not spoken about much but, as someone with a history of depression and alcohol abuse already, I'm not going through this shit. For what? To slave for a firm for 80 hours a week?
  
  
  
  
  

If you want to be more critical about $ and law school options, just read Don't Go to Law School (Unless). It's written by an actual law professor who shows you how to analyze the choice to go to law school and where best to go.

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https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Law-School-Unless-Opportunity-ebook/dp/B009D13IA6

after you finish law school, do not start living like a rich lawyer.
continue to live like a broke person and aggressively pay down your college debt. don't buy a BMW or move to an upscale part of town. keep your expenses low until you pay off the debt. afterwards, you'll potentially be earning a $100k+ income and have no debt ... that's a very strong position to be in.

if you haven't read Paul Campos's book Don't Go To Law School (Unless), I urge you to read it. It's one of the most balanced and realistic examinations of the costs and benefits of law school. I know several people who went to law school and regretted it because they didn't have all the facts and had naive expectations. https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Law-School-Unless-Opportunity-ebook/dp/B009D13IA6

I would look at Law School Transparency. That website will allow you to get an in-depth look at the employment outcomes at each school, as well as the cost of attendance. Outside of the top 20-ish schools, every school is a regional school, and so location, employment outcomes and cost of attendance are more important than ranking.

In my opinion, you should totally ignore US News rankings outside of the top 20. Schools can do things that harm their students in order to boost their ranking. For example, a big part of the reason that Wake Forest is ranked above UNC is that Wake Forest charges higher tuition. This means that their expenditures-per-student are higher, which boosts their ranking.

I found this book to be really helpful. Just be aware that the job market situation is not nearly as dire today as it was when it was published, and so there are now more law schools that are worth attending.

Have you seriously not heard about the abysmal legal employment market? And yes, that includes for grads of top 20 schools.

What did you major in? Computer science, STEM, etc. are where it's at if you want to make a good living. My best friend from high school did computer science and he's killing it while I live below the poverty line with my top 20 law degree.

Edit: if you still unbelievably want to think about law school, read this: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Law-School-Unless-Opportunity-ebook/dp/B009D13IA6

Law school is just a VERY VERY risky proposition and if you don't do ALL of the right things, there is no safety net on which to land. I speak from my own shit life experience.

Don't Go To Law School (Unless)

This might sound mean, but I'd recommend Paul Campos' book "Don't Go To Law School (Unless)". It really made me think about the decision I was making, why I wanted to go to back to school, etc - it's so easy to lose sight of that in the slog of the admissions process and in sifting through schools' various sales pitches.

More people should read this book before even taking the LSAT. Would save a lot of heartache to a lot of people.

What you're talking about is a really huge decision. I would recommend thinking about your motivation for going to law school and if its worth taking on all the potential debt. Give this book (https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Law-School-Unless-Opportunity-ebook/dp/B009D13IA6) a read before quitting your full time job and moving away from your serious gf.

Take a diagnostic test under timed conditions and figure out where you're starting from. If you have to apply this cycle and want to get into the top law schools--I would say, yes, quit your job and study full time if your goal is 170+.

On this point, I highly recommend Don't Go To Law School (Unless). It's not a fun read for those planning on law school, but I think reading it with an open mind is important.

Don't go to law school (Unless) by Paul Campos.

Your friend should definitely read this book

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Law-School-Unless-Opportunity-ebook/dp/B009D13IA6