Counterpoint: Go to Law School (if...)

Just watched the Eddy/Frieds WSO lounge episode. A few points/counterpoints/clarifications:

1. Lose the fucking goatees, both of you. It's not 1990 and you aren't 23.

2. Dunno if it's your voice/accent, the topic, or something else, but Frieds you sound like a whiny bitch. You sound like you're practically crying when you say "And I did pretty damn well on my LSAT". WTF dude, get over it. If you got medianpwned and dropped out, say it how it is.

3. Frieds' buddy who went to a crap school for "Environmental Law" is as screwed over as any other TTT grad. Law school "Specialty rankings" are crap, and no "environmental law" job (as if such a thing existed) pays enough to justify anywhere near 200k of debt.

4. A 160 LSAT is crap. The equivalent gmat score is a 650, which most people here would tell you to retake. And lol, just lol, at the idea that Freids was even remotely competitive for Columbia Law, where the 25th percentile is a 170, and that includes URMs. Get real dude.

5. Frieds keeps saying "you get pigeonholed for years...working as a lawyer..." as if this should be a terrible surprise; yeah dude, wtf did you think you would be doing after fucking law school? Did you think Goldman Sachs would roll over and beg you to lead them with your TTT JD? As if bankers weren't "pigeonholed" in Groups/Sectors/Market Cap etc. as well...

So, now that I've debunked some of the myths being propagated by a delusional law school dropout, let me spit the troof of the matter:

Law school is not for everyone. In fact, if you have been reading the WSJ/NYT lately, you will know that it is for very few, assuming you want to be employed. To keep it extremely simple, you should CONSIDER going to law school immediately after college ONLY if you fulfill ALL of the following conditions:

1. You get into a T14 school. Outside the T13 (T14 minus GTown), ability to obtain a market-paying job scales down very quickly. There are a few exceptions to this rule (and no, not fucking environmental law in New Hampshire...jesus...), including in-state tuition at a strong regional where you have ties, but the T14 rule stands 90+% of the time. If you don't get into a T14, retake the LSAT and try again. If it's your GPA keeping you out, then get a ~172+, ED to UVA/Northwestern, and pray. Solutions exist, but they aren't easy.

2. You want to be a fucking lawyer. Not sure what confuses people about this, it's called Law School for a reason. See #4 for more on this.

3. You have a liberal arts degree that is useless. If you have a degree elsewhere (Econ/Business/Engineering etc.), law may still be for you, but work for a few years to make sure.

4. You know what exactly lawyers do. If the extent of that knowledge has come from Law and Order, you need to reevaluate. Go follow a lawyer or two for a week, or intern at a firm.

5. Be ready to work. It isn't Business School: grades matter, and the tests aren't easy by any stretch. Again, unless all of your knowledge of law schools comes from Legally Blonde, this should not be surprising. In this economy, everybody hustles, and it shouldn't be news that getting a 160k job at age 25 requires serious effort.

If you fill all of these conditions, congratulations: you may possibly be someone who should consider law school. It's quite a bit more complicated than this, and there is room for disagreement (some would say that any school below T6, or even T3, isn't worth it at full cost), but my main point here is to debunk some of the pure and utter bullshit that I heard in that video and clarify that law school is the right choice for a select (but certainly existent) few.