Law schools: BYU 41, Utah 45
 

Univ. of Washington 30.

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsa...ankings/page+2

UW's draw for certain law-bound individuals is the fact that it's the top-ranked law library program in the country.

BYU I think moved up a couple of spots in the rankings this year.

UW is not all that more expensive than BYU and the same as Utah (for out of state). But I am guessing the cost of living in Seattle is quite a bit higher.

Law is a waste of time anyway, IMO.

Hear, hear.

If you don't value lawyers you're no self-respecting civil libertarian.

I noticed that among medical schools Baylor is in free fall. No. 17 in both research (what really counts) and primary care. What's up with that? By the way, UW is no. 6 in research and no. 1 in primary care.

Waters, your medical school and your college are both plummeting in the rankings. That can't possibly be mere conincidence.

So what's the argument? Diminishing chronological proximity to Waters has a negative effect on one's intellectual prowess?

at least I only paid $6500 in tuition my entire time in med school.

so PHBBBBTTTTT!!!!!!!!!

Most lawyers I've met hate their work. And no they aren't fighting for any "liberties" or "fighting the man" or "helping the oppressed" or anything like that.

They are doing drudgery for the man and they hate it and hate themselves.

My dad retires from there and the rankings improve? That can't be good.

I love being a lawyer.

Most doctors I've met despise lawyers.

I have one friend, in particular, who as a lawyer seems to like his work. But he is far different than the average lawyer--he started out as an assistant DA, and then quit to start his own practice with another established lawyer, and is a kind of jack-of-all-trades.

Most of the lawyers I know are young LDS guys who work for the big firms, and have to log billable hours.

What do I care if you are miserable? It's not like you didn't know what you were getting yourself into. Some people likely deserve misery--and many of those are lawyers.

I imagine that the typical NYU law graduate ends up with a hefty bill at the end of their education, given the tuition and cost of living. I'm not sure what the average debt load is, but I am guessing substantial.

This leads to substantial pressure to take high-paying jobs. And of course, these are often the jobs that lead to soul-sucking unhappiness. All of that "good" stuff that lawyers do, that SU talks about, none of that pays.

Typical job trajectory--first year associate at big firm, log x number billable hours. Wash, rinse, repeat for a few years, maybe switching to another big firm. After about 5 years of this, leave the big city and return to Utah firm, at less pay, less billable hours, but same kind of work, in general. Live out end of life, the end.

Very hefty cost, yes. There is the loan repayment assistance program if you want to get a job that's better for the soul than the pocketbook, though. The financial incentive is still to go with the high paying job, but at least the "noble" stuff is not financially impossible, should one be so inclined.

Different strokes for different folks, Mike. There are people who would be miserable wearing a white coat that love the field of law. There are people who wouldn't be able to stand soul-sucking legal work that find satisfaction sticking needles in people. Luckily, there are openings in both fields.

The President, though being a lawyer himself, acknowledged the need for more engineers and fewer lawyers.

He got his JD from Chicago, and its program incorporates economic analysis into every class. He understands full well that lawyers just transfer wealth, and don't create it. Engineers, on the other hand, multiply wealth.

and doctors keep engineers healthy.

And lawyers help create and maintain a society wherein Doctors and engineers can practice their craft.

There's nothing wrong with the concept of interdependence.

And didn't Obama get his JD from Harvard?

my bad, he taught at Chicago. So nevermind what I just said. But he still understands his economics well.

Obama was law review editor, famously, at Harvard. He was later a professor of sorts at U. of Chicago (I say "of sorts" because it is not clear to me that he was actually an academic who contributed to his field, other than teaching and writing autobiographies).

No one is saying there shouldn't be lawyers. We are saying there are too many. And that they are overvalued.

A doctor saying there are too many lawyers is like a fly saying there are too many spiders.

How does one determine that there are too many lawyers? Or that they are overvalued? Typically, these are factors determined by simple supply and demand. Has the market let us down?

Production of lawyers (and doctors for that matter) is NOT governed by supply and demand.

You have a lot to learn.

Of course I do. But at least I realize that.

So, being unlearned as I am, I am anxious to hear why lawyers (and doctors, for that matter) enter their fields if not for the profits they anticipate earning, or how many would stay in their fields if those profits were removed. And since I am under the quite possibly mistaken impression that profits dictate how many people will enter into a certain line of work, I look forward to learning what dictates what kinds of profits one might expect, since supply and demand are apparently not the forces at work. I'd also appreciate it if somebody could explain to me why the most common means of compensating for hyper-saturation in a line of business, insufficient profits, does not apply to lawyers.

lawyers can create their own demand. get creative in finding ways to sue.

Sure, and they can be disbarred for frivolous lawsuits.

But the act of suing somebody in and of itself isn't going to net long term profits, either. Ultimately, the only way you can make money by suing somebody is to have a judge or jury affirm somebody's legal rights.

Lawyers create their own markets.

Look at medico-legal. In some countries, medico-legal is huge business (USA). In other countries, it is almost non-existant.

In Texas, medico-legal cratered with the passage of tort reform. Lawyers had to literally get out of the business of medical malpractice (both prosec. and defense).

So what are lawyers working on now? Getting the law changed to create business.

do you have to win to get paid?

Boy are you naive.

Grow up, boy, there is a big, bad world out there.

A lawsuit is a threat--it is the announcement of "I am here for your money." "We can fight over this for years, and you will be ruined, or you can pay a little now, and I will go away."

Show me this list of lawyers disbarred for frivolous suits, and then tell me what % of lawyers in the USA can expect to be disbarred for frivolous suits.

And you maintain that this alone entirely accounts for the hyper-inflated number of lawyers and their outrageously excessive salaries? What of the appreciable number of lawyers who have nothing to do with the litigation proccess at all?

A lawyer does not necessarily have to win to get paid, no, but a client has to win, or settle, to get paid. And if the odds are stacked against him winning or settling, he's not likely to hire a lawyer in the first place.

what r u gonna do grad school in?

I don't have the patience to explain it to you. Nor am I an expert in it.

You are kind of like me, I suspect. I didn't know very much at all about the profession of medicine before I jumped in. It sounds like you are in the same position regarding law.

It's okay to be idealistic, it really is. Talk to me in 4-5 years, and tell me if I was wrong. About any of this.

What society needs and what lawyers need are not necessarily the same thing.

I concede on both counts, particularly the latter.

So far, the only positions you've taken is that there are too many lawyers, that they are overvalued, and that I am a naive imbecile. I may not care to seek you out in 4-5 year.s

No kidding. Is there a profession about which this statement would NOT be true?

You think an invisible hand is choosing the number of lawyers and their reimbursement.

You think me calling you naive is insulting. So I'm not sure how to respond other than to say, you are wrong and naive.

I certainly don't believe that an invisible hand is doing the same for doctors.

Another thing, which is a qualitative statement of opinion, is that there are a lot of dumb people going to bad law schools (and good schools as well). Lawyers complain that there are too many lawyers.

A trap that exists for both doctors and lawyers is this: I went to an expensive, good school, I got good grades, so a higher paying job is available to me. I have to take it, because there are many other people that would kill (they are lawyers for chrissakes) to have this opportunity. Then they embark on a journey that is motivated by what they perceive as the preferred values of others, and not by an inner compass.

There was a kid in my ward that was Harvard Law grad. Corporate/big firm job. Freaking guy was trying to talk his wife into letting him go to med school. That doesn't strike me as someone happy with his job/career. He's changed jobs/firms, no doubt, hoping that the new place will do for him what his law career has failed to do, so far.

Mike, lawyers go into law because there is money in law. The less money there is in law, the less lawyers would be willing to go into law. That's law of supply. There's money in law because there is demand for the services lawyers provide. This is as "invisible hand" as it gets.

This is Econ 101 stuff, Mike. If this isn't what's happening, I'm open to hear alternative explanations. As it is, you've given one highly self-serving example of the medico-legal industry, and when asked to substantiate your claim, refused to do so because you "don't have the patience to explain it" and you're "not expert in it."

So if you're too lazy to do anything but call me naive, let's move on.

I know a guy who did just what you describe. He went to Harvard, got a law degree, and then went to Georgetown for medical degree. He's now a board member of a pharmaceutical corporation worth more than Chrysler, earning millions and millions of dollars. Things seem to have worked out for him.

Do people fall in that trap? Absolutely. And for others, the "trap" is the beginning of a long, happy, and successful career.

A lawyer can convince him that he has a chance, and because the lawyer a lot more knowledgable than the dude, he can take advantage of what we call in economics "asymmetric information."

So you are going to grad school in basketweaving?

Luckily, law is the only field where somebody takes advantage of another.

I'm going to NYU law.

Dude, you are going to get exactly what you deserve. I don't think we need to discuss this further.

awesome. My sister went to Columbia law. She went in hoping to do feminist stuff, but came out working for Baker & McKenzie.

I really should have never said anything. AA is excited about this journey he is going on, and really, that's the thing about life--it's like a stage. Actors come on stage left, and they leave stage right. The actors leaving the stage can shout to the actors entering the stage--but it is useless. They have to learn the play, do the play, live the play themselves, and then one day, they will be leaving stage right, and they will be tempted to yell to stage left, "do this" or "do that".

And it's then they understand, at least, the motivation of the old fogey who shouted out to them long ago, at the beginning, when all was new.

I don't mean it as something terrible, or something wrong. I'm not saying it is bad or evil. I'm not saying it won't be good and wonderful. I'm saying, it will be what you deserve. And that's really as good as we can hope for, any of us. Exactly what we deserve, no more, no less. Not everyone gets that. It would be an unfortunate life, where the lessons learned were not commensurate with the efforts made. The sun rises on all of us, the good book says, and such is true.

"Weren't psychiatrists supposed to be wise, deep-voiced, fatherly sorts of people? Then how could you feel anything but soiled in the presence of a red-eyed, nail-biting little man who used adhesive tape to hold his glasses together and a piece of Woolworth jewelry to keep his tie clamped flat against his white-on-white shirt -- who had to thumb moistly through a dozen manila folders before he could remember which of his patients you had come to see him about, and who then said, 'Yes; oh yes; and, what was your question?"

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates, p. 162

"I don't think any home visits would be wise at this time," the psychiatrist had said last month, hideously cracking his ink-stained knuckles, one after another, on his desk blotter."

Id., at 168-69.

AA, don't trust a psychiatrist; his job is to place labels and to explain something that defies labels and explanation. The psychiatrist is in the business of diagnosing, just like a pooper-scooper is in the business of picking up shit. It's what they do.

Life is too complicated for Waters to try to condemn you to an unhappy, hellish existence. And understand that the diagnosis he imparts always has a piece of himself in it.

Enjoy New York. Enjoy law school -- a fulfilling, stimulating, and wonderful experience. Being a lawyer can be tough, but it can be wonderful. There are peaks and valleys like any profession; the good and the bad. But it can be an honorable profession -- and it is for the very great majority.

Don't let the cracked-up psychiatrist place doubts in your mind or puncture your optimism and excitement about your future. You've got plenty of reasons to be optimistic and excited.