Wednesday, November 5, 2014

New York Times: Possible Lawyer Shortage Looming

For those of you who did not like my rambling, too-genius-for-public observations about Thomas Jefferson School of Law, I give you the New York Times via Prof. Steven Solomon.  For those of you who have short attention spans and the inability to read prestigious publications appropriately, I will give you the two main take-away points:
  • Law schools are incredibly resistant to the normal forces of the business cycle that may cause some to close if they were in other industries.  ("A troubled law school is like Dracula: hard to kill." [After all, there's no blueprint anywhere on how to kill a vampire - ed.])
  • There is a coming lawyer shortage.  To wit: 
    Markets tend to overshoot on the way up, and down.

    Thus, the decline in enrollment could lead to a shortage of lawyers five years from now.... And let’s face it, Dodd-Frank and other regulations are also creating more need for lawyers.
    And there you have it.  Future shortage means now's the time to go.  New York Times, people.  New York Times.

3 comments:

  1. From the NY Times article:

    " It all means that there will still be many law schools, just fewer newly minted lawyers."

    The reason that there will be fewer minted lawyers is because when law schools dig way down in the LSAT for admissions, fewer of their students can pass a bar exam.

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  2. Oh God, where can I sign up for $250,000 worth of non-dischargeable debt!

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  3. The law schools have produced (and still producing) 25 000 more lawyers than jobs a year for the past 10 years and there is a shortage of lawyers! Did the NYT writer skipped elementary math class.

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