Tough Job Market Means Law School Grads are Seeking NonLegal Work!

While searching the internet for information on the legal job market I came across a story from U.S. News and World Report, the entity that ranks law schools (and other universities).  While I would like to go off on this ranking system, which I find largely arbitrary and somewhat asinine, I wanted to focus on this very simplistic article. 

In Tough Job Market, Law Grads Use J.D.s for Nonlegal Work

"Typically, 10 percent of Yale Law School alumni work in a business setting five years after graduating, according to a 64-page Lawyers in Business guide the school publishes. And, jobs in management consulting, investment banking, and venture capital can earn young associates annuals salaries of $100,000 to $300,000, the guide states."

First, I realize that the article is talking about Yale Law School, which is in a different league than most of the schools most of us go to or went to.  However, it is the second part of the paragraph that made me chuckle.  The article acts like this kind of salary is the norm.  No wonder people are so duped into going to law school.  Studies have shown that people believe what they want to believe.  Seeing that even if you don't get a job in law, you can still go out and make up to $300,000 a year as a consultant or banker makes people think "well, law school is a no lose game". 

According to employment statistics on Drake University's School of Law website, 16 percent of the Des Moines, Iowa, school's alumni work in business fields nine months after graduation, and the website of the Boston University School of Law says 17 percent of its 2009 graduates working in law and business began their careers in academia and while 6 percent worked in business.

This paragraph fails to state the realty that 17 percent of Drake's class of 2009 graduates are not working in $100,000 to $300,000 consulting positions.  Many may be working at their father's trucking company washing trucks, others may be employed at Starbucks or Barnes & Noble.  Later on the article does state, about yet another school (Albany Law School), that:

"Other recent graduates are pursuing accounting firms, legislative positions, investor services, publishing houses, compliance and claims jobs, and court analyst roles," Mans says. "Salaries at these positions range from $43,000 to $105,000."

Again, this is not the norm.  One can not expect to go from a lower ranked law school to a $105,000/year job.  Of course, the article states "Salaries for these positions range..." which does not mean that those are the salaries that law graduates can expect to make.  However, many of the law school lemmings at top-law-schools will eat this stuff up and proclaim: even if I don't land a job in biglaw, I can expect to make big money!  Articles like these are the reason why the educational system is seen as a gateway to riches, and why our grandmothers are telling us "just stay in school, it will be worth it in the end."