Willy Wonka and the Law Degree Factory

The melt-down of Big Law and the implications for young people holding expensive law degrees are the subject of No Longer Their Golden Ticket by Alex Williams of the New York Times:

Lawyers who entered the field as recently as a few years ago could reasonably expect a life of comfort, security and social esteem. Many are now faced with a different landscape. Firms shed more than 4,600 lawyers last year, according to a blog that tracks the legal industry, Law Shucks. Bonuses for those who survive are shriveling, and an increasing number of firms now compensate associates based on grades for performance — shades of law school — rather than automatically advancing them on the salary scale.

Because I’m a big fan of the 1971 movie based on Roald Dahl’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I’ll continue the Golden Ticket metaphor. Those twenty-somethings lamenting the demise of $160,000 starting salaries and complaining about pay-for-performance are our equivalent of greedy Augustus Gloop and bratty Veruca Salt.

But the terrible children in Wonka’s factory weren’t entirely to blame, were they? The attitudes of the parents fostered the excesses of the children. Six-figure salaries for first-year lawyers who don’t know a Schonzwanger from a Vermicious Knid -- what were those Big Law partners thinking? (Which more and more of their clients have been asking.)

Law professors, with their Socratic riddles and cryptic comments, are our Oompah Loompas (which is a hell of a lot better than “dead fetuses in the womb of Justice” as trial lawyer Gerry Spence once called them when he spoke at my law school.).

Oompah Loompa, Doompa-dee-do, I’ve got a perfect puzzle for you: In 2010, how is it that record numbers are taking the LSAT and applying to law school while at the very same time the American Bar Association is lobbying Washington to provide student loan relief to recent law graduates who couldn’t get a job if they were dipped in chocolate?

The Law Degree Factory, our nation’s law schools, has a huge vested interest in the allure of the Golden Ticket, but the Factory is silent and unchanging, just as it looked to Charlie from behind its gates. Law schools need to be open with their students about the cost and reward of a legal education. Certainly, the Law Degree Factory, like other factories, needs to modernize and streamline factory processes in response to the changing need for, and value of, their product.

Law school was a life-changing experience for me. I wouldn’t discourage anyone who is passionate and realistic about being a lawyer from attending. Think hard about why you want to go to law school; if the best answer is to get rich, then think again. Law seems to be turning back toward its roots as a profession after a try at being a high-profit business, and that’s a good thing.

As long as there is business in America, there will be a need for business lawyers who are willing to do good work for reasonable compensation. Being a lawyer to human-owned businesses is a rewarding career for me. My income would be scoffed at in Big Law, but it’s been good for me and my family. Plus, I get to work with some of the most interesting and necessary people in our country: people who build businesses and create jobs.

But until the Law Degree Factory changes, before you walk through its gates, turn your best analytical thinking to an estimate of the debt you will incur and the time it will take you to repay that debt in an evolving market place for legal services. If law school still seems logical, then allow yourself to be illogical for a moment. Start law school, like me and many before you, with the starry-eyed dream of changing the world; that’s the real Golden Ticket.

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it