Money, Lawyers and Law Schools

Lawyers praise the law for giving them a way of making a lot of loot. As the saying goes, money is the root of all wealth. But here, too, the news is not all good.

If you like to dream, you can look at Wall Street's salaries, ignore your living expenses, working hours, and risks, and simply assume that you'll eventually become a partner at a top firm and find yourself showered with wealth.


If you face reality, though, you consider a few more variables. Such as: What if I don't do so well in law school? As one of the law students put it, "The thing about a place like Columbia is that they attract 300 of the brightest people in the country each year, and then convince 250 of them that they're stupid." You're up against valedictorians from all over the place. You genuinely cannot count on being Top Gun.

Or another variable: What if you don't get that cut-ting-edge job? Maybe you're strange. Maybe your feet stink. The competition is fierce, and if you wear weird ties to your interviews, you could be history.

Or what if you finish the three years of law school and decide you don't even want that kind of big-firm job? Then you have to recalculate, using the salary structure, not of Wall Street, but of your new law job in Podunk.

Or, on the job: What if you can't stand it, and instead of staying around for the big money, you bail out after a couple of years and become a pianist? There's not usually a lot of money in pianism. Your grand plans may be washed up.

Or maybe you hang in there for eight years, and then they tell you to go fly a kite. It's not rare, you know, for that to happen, and opportunities for young lawyers to make partner are shrinking. You'll have to leave - or, if you're working for a more enlightened firm and you haven't made major enemies, maybe they'll offer you a 7-percent raise and a chance to continue, forever, in purgatory, also known as "senior associateship," which means you'll always be a mere salaried employee.

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Or even suppose you get the brass ring. You "make partner" - that is, they make you a partner. Even at this point, all kinds of strange things can happen. They may require you to invest a portion of your income back in the firm. You may not get a very big piece of the pie for years. You'll work long hours. You can be sued now, and you'll worry about that, despite your expensive malpractice insurance - not only because of the malpractice claims, but also because of the possibility of spectacular lawsuits by former partners who decide they hate you.

And this is what can happen to those who make partner at top firms! How about the many attorneys who start at salaries of less than $30,000736 How about those who make more, but whose working hours are so long that they'd have earned more, on an hourly basis, as word processing operators?

Even on Wall Street, an income of $90,000 a year, with federal, state, and local taxes of, say, 25 percent, and with 2,700 working (not billable) hours, comes out to $25 an hour, which is probably less than the income of your average New York electrician. The limo drivers who used to take me home from the office made that much. And your net hourly income figure drops way off if you don't like to think that you went through all that hard work in law school for free, and start counting those school hours and costs against your first five or 10 years' worth of income.

As a general rule, your expenses keep pace with your income, even for lawyers who earn very good money. You can hope to save a lot. But reality has a way of fouling that up. You might get married or, even more expensive, divorced. As they say, two can live as cheaply as one, for half as long. You might feel entitled to indulge yourself in expensive restaurants and vacations. You'll have high expectations from three years among your money-oriented law school classmates. You may have substantial student loans to pay back. The fact is, many other young attorneys before you have found themselves in deep debt despite nice incomes.

In short, going to law school to afford a nicer lifestyle over the long haul may make sense, especially if you marry someone who also has a decent income. Going in hopes of reaching financial security within a few years probably doesn't.

So here's a theory: If you're smart enough to get into law school, and if money is what motivates you, maybe you could have found a way of making money without law school. And if you're more motivated by your interests than by making money, you'll probably go back to fun and interesting things eventually anyway, even with your law degree, and find yourself somewhere near the level of financial security or poverty you'd have reached without law school.

Of course, you don't have a non-law-school alter ego, so there is no way of testing this theory.

In case you don't believe it, though, here's a contrary theory. According to this one, your decision to go into law really does have an impact on your chances of becoming wealthy; unfortunately, it can go either way. We all know people who would have made lousy lawyers but who've done quite well in business. And we all also know proud attorneys, trained to avoid risks, who've watched, rotting and festering in envy, while motivated youngsters without law degrees go out and start their own legitimate, successful businesses.

It's easier for those upstarts. They have nothing to lose. They haven't been taught that they must do nothing because doing almost anything means risking a lawsuit. They haven't piled up student loans that need to be paid off, and their egos have not been stroked by a prestigious law school to the point that they could never imagine themselves doing something as down-and-dirty as running a hardware store. Instead, these kids just go out and do it, and some of them make a lot of money from their little businesses, and maybe some of the law school students could have had the same kind of fortune, if only they hadn't gone into the stultifying practice of law.

There is indeed money in law. Some lawyers become very wealthy. But, generally, a lawyer is someone who works for a living. Maybe becoming wealthy from law is just like becoming wealthy from business - it takes hard work, ability, and luck.

Let's step back, now, and review. There are two sides to (a) the thought that the law is an extremely diverse profession and (b) the claim that you can make a lot of money at it. Unfortunately, that's not what happens.