The National Jurist Calls Law Students Greedy for Wanting High Paying Jobs, Takes Aim at “Disenchanted” Bloggers

The editor-in-chief of the pro-industry legal magazine, The National Jurist, chose to use his soapbox to wag his tiny finger at greedy, wealth-seeking law students rather than hold accountable the greedy and really wealthy deans and student loan industry. Quelle surprise!

For too long, many of the students who entered law school were seeking the high paying salaries that law schools were too happy to advertise. It was a rush to greed. And many of these wealth-seekers were sorely disappointed when they failed to land the $160,000 job.

Most never even had a chance, as only 20 percent of all graduates were landing jobs with salaries greater than $100,000. But, to be fair, some even failed to land the $40,000 job and now have $100,000 in debt breathing down their necks.

But the larger point is that law schools became filled with too many students who were more focused on a good return on their investment. We now have several blogs feeding this disenchantment. But buyer’s remorse does not get us very far.

Shame on those students for getting accepted into law school and wanting a job after spending over $100,000 and three years of their lives on a legal education! This is as far as The National Jurist is willing to go to explain why the legal industry is coming apart at the seams. Why? Because abusers would rather place blame on their victims than look in the mirror. It’s those greedy students who are causing the oversaturation in the legal market, say the abusers. They did this to themselves. Never mind the ABA who continues to accredit schools. Forget about examining the law schools and deans who charge insane tuition rates to pay themselves upwards of $500,000 each year. Don’t even bother being critical of the biglaw sweatshops, the shitlaw outsourcing, or the private student loan industry. The magazine would lose advertising if they went after the real criminals in this sad story; so they took the easy route and took aim instead at the unemployed graduates and law school scam bloggers who are only guilty of providing an outlet for unemployed lawyers and to warn prospective law students of the side of legal work that rarely gets reported by the mainstream media. L4L lays down the cold, hard truth for the editor-in-chief of The National Jurist in his latest post, Good Times. Go check it out now.

Newsflash: as cliché as it sounds, some of us went to law school to make a difference working in public interest or the government. Some of us were truly interested in learning the law and maybe we foolishly thought going to law school would teach us how to be lawyers. Some of us want a decent paying job simply to pay off our six-figure student debt and make a life for ourselves since most of us are unemployable outside of the legal industry. Our frequent commenter Jadz explains how the current legal market has affected lawyers in all areas from biglaw to public interest work:

Another interesting aspect of this problem (that is hitting like a ton of bricks at the TT school where I work, which historically places a plurality of its grads in gov't or public interest) is that the Biglaw deferral stipends are causing mass unemployment among new grads who actually intended to pursue public interest work as their career, rather than as "something to do" while they waited for their seats at Biglaw. I wonder what is going to happen to those folks? I think we are looking at a lost generation in every sector of what's left of the legal economy.

Gasp! How dare Jadz place blame on biglaw rather than those naive public interest students who thought they could get a job in the public sector right after graduation? During a time when many T14 graduates can't even find jobs, why is The National Jurist blaming students for being greedy? Law graduates are making as little as $10/hour with "Craigslist firms" and $20 an hour in NYC doing doc review. Many of our readers have stated that they would be happy with a $30,000 secretarial job. If that's greed then what do you call the deans and professors who make six-figures working eight hour weeks knowing that the students they teach will graduate with life destroying debt and no job prospects? Business as usual? What really hit me about The National Jurist article was its sheer lack of humanity, not an iota of sympathy for students who just had the bad fortune of graduating at the worst possible time. Students are paying for the greed and bad investments made by law schools, the ABA, biglaw, and the business class. They have every right to be disenchanted with a system that has destroyed their futures and probably those of their children as well.

I'd like to conclude with a comment I found on Big Debt, Small Law:

When a devil who controls lawland and greatly profits from it at the expense of the masses in society and in lawland has the nerve to chastise anyone who wants a good return on their foolish law school investment….well…..that just goes way, way beyond the pale…..even for a devil. How dare such a money grubbing and money thieving snake criticize law students for wanting profitable return on their investment. How dare a devil who profits from the scam known as the billable hour scam wax poetic about morals or anything else for that matter.


Know this lawland lemmings: To the devils who control lawland, most of you are useless mud people not worthy of even semi-humane treatment or payment. Cut your losses and leave law now. Leave it to the devils and watch the scam that is law imploded upon them.