First! TT's rock!

This week's discussion make clear firms compete for top-tier talent. Top tier talent is attracted to substantive work experience, prestige, and money. Government jobs that offer this kind of experience-prestige-cashmoney trifecta are limited (i.e., DOJ, SEC, etc...). Granted, the loan subsidy program helps with one factor. However, the spots available are limited by agency budgets and other reasons. Resultantly, given the 'totality of the circumstances,' demand for firm jobs among top-tier talent won't be dropping anywhere near the substantial amount that is required to trigger an increase in salaries. Firms attracting mid-tier talent and attorneys more highly prioritizing lifestyle might feel the pinch. In this respect, he is right that the losers include "partners at non top-tier firms."

Law schools will continue to raise tuitions so long as kids who barely break the 80th percentile on standardized tests think they are good enough to compete. A few make it, but the anecdotal evidence will keep inspiring the masses, and raising law school tuitions accordingly.

I bet the bill has nothing for people with over $100,000 in loans who work in private practice for $50,000 a year.

This program will help us avoid having to move back home, it will help us eat more than Ramen, it will help us afford the weekly luxury of Starbucks or the monthly night out.

Ted Frank, avarice and gluttony are deadly sins. My life isn't another hot dog on his overfilled plate. It has value, and congress won't let you inhale it like you do so many things in your grotesque lifestyle.

This program will help us avoid having to move back home, it will help us eat more than Ramen, it will help us afford the weekly luxury of Starbucks or the monthly night out.

Ted Frank, avarice and gluttony are deadly sins. My life isn't another hot dog on your overfilled plate. It has value, and congress won't let you inhale it like you do so many things in your grotesque lifestyle.

" . . . private-sector law firms need to offer substantially higher pay to encourage attorneys to work there."

I'd work in biglaw for half of what they pay.

Tier 4 RULES!!!

God I hate sentences that start with "Too,"

This idea is totally off: law firms don't extract pay raises only from clients. They extract it from the person earning the higher pay in the form of more billables. Give me a break.

@10:35 - if the trifecta is prestige, experience, and money, NO government agency comes CLOSE on the money. A big firm 1st year associate makes more than a federal judge!

This is all well and good for public service types (or those in private practice making little enough). But it does nothing for everybody else, from those making $60-90k (which I would venture is a large share of lawyers - especially those being discussed on ATL this week), to those making the biglaw market rate.

Some concerned law professor or, for that matter, the deans of all law schools...heck, the heads of all institutions of higher learning, should prevail upon Congress to:

1) Allow for pre-tax payment of student loan obligations from an employee's salary (much the way costs for insurance, flex spending, or transportation benefits are deducted from one's gross pay)

2) Allow a tax deduction for ALL interest that is paid on student loans - regardless of income

"Top tier talent is attracted to substantive work experience, prestige, and money."

I question the "substantive work experience" part, esp since most BIGLAW lawyers leave so quickly. No first or 2nd year at my firm is doing anything that substantive. We're doing doc review, legal research and (if we're lucky) some first drafts of some small sections of briefs.

We're all here for the same reason, and that's money. Its not even prestige. I know I would go to a lower DC firm over Alston or someone like that in Atlanta over $, even if the ATL firm is more "prestigious."

Its all about money.

What Congress needs to focus on is getting rid of the AMT for goodness sake. I'm going to get raped next year.

I agree with 11:16.

The real problem is that (and, as a Dem., it pains me to say this) as long as student loans are freely available to cover any amount of student debt, the market will not force law schools to halt the tuition hikes. Tuition hikes have gotten completely out of control. I can remember my law school dean saying that our increase was in line with Harvard's and Yale's (that's right, I didn't get in to either). I was like, "so what?" (I hadn't taken antitrust at that point, or I may have threatened a class action on the spot.)

Law schools--now there's a market with inelastic demand if I ever saw one. (Cf. L2L.)

No more subsidies for law professors and people who want to use an expensive education on a job that doesn't pay well enough to justify it. Better to improve the market mechanisms that could keep these expenses in check.

Schools (of all types) should be forced to publish and disseminate accurate data on what happens to graduates. Here I agree with L2L.

Also should apply to (i) undergrad institutions, (ii) other professional schools (iv) Devry and the "banner ad" schools and (v) graduate schools. (On the last one, yes, people who do grad school in the philosophy of critical women's cultural comparative american literary studies probably know they aren't going to get good jobs, but do they know that 62% of people who start the program drop out and go to second tier law schools? They should.)

7:08 - Isn't your second point redundant? A pre-tax payment functions as deduction (better actually because a) pre-tax items are not addbacks for AMT and b) a non-itemizer gets the benefit).

this bill is ridiculous. it will only serve to encourage ever more people to go to law school. more lawyers. that's all america needs. idiots.

I agree with 09:12 AM.

Demand for a (top tier) legal education is relatively inelastic. Subsidized student loans just encourage students to borrow more (and schools to hike their tuition more).

I've long thought that the govt should make any school that did not cap tuition increases at the rate of inflation ineligibile for subsidized student loans.

9:57 is an excellent idea. Let the market work and force the schools to be honest. The only reason tuitions are so high to begin with is because the easy availability of student loans means law schools can charge whatever they want. Get rid of student loans and the price of law school and college will plummet.

Why does everybody assume l2l is who he or she claims to be? cf. UTR.

I think the only winners in this ponzi scheme are the law schools/universities and the BigLaw partners.

BigLaw partners make absurd PPP (and yes, you poor, poor Top 20-Top 50 AmLaw partners who "only" have PPP of $1.25-$1.75 million, this means you, too). Year over year, PPP ALWAYS increases. How often does that occur elsewhere in business? It happens because they always find a way to push more off on associates and clients. Even when market forces (availability of the top-tier students they want to recruit) cause salary increases, they don't take a hit to PPP. Billable hours requirements and billable rates just go up.

Law schools are able to charge the absurd tuition they charge by perpetuating the myth that it will all be worth it when a grad gets that BigLaw job and is able to pay off debt. This game is made infinitely easier by the fact that the government backs up the insane loans students take out, making naive applicants think it really must be a good investment, since the government and the federal and private loan providers are willing to take some risk in financing the project.

Legislation like this helps practicing lawyers in debt, but hurts future generations by making it easier for schools to raise tuition. It will make things more bleak for Loyola-Pre-Law when he gets his JD in four or five years.

9:57 and 10:15 -if you really want to see a free market at work, the government should cut funding for post-graduate degrees (or at least law schools, since I don't see a goverment interest in oversaturating the market further--though we may need more geologists or oceanographers or something). Then TTTs will shut their doors and the remaining schools will have to start charging something more in line with the earning power of the average graduate.

It's either that or bring down BigLaw to end the cycle, but I think the BigLaw partners are doing that just fine on their own through short-sightedness and greed.

Lat - You're dropping the ball, buddy. I'm not hearing jack-monkey-pudding about layoffs. As for pay raises, BigLaw is having major hiring problems and Sullivan anounced more $$ for seniors and said it will be considering what changes to make to salaries (if any) at a later date.

Maybe there aren't a lot of recent 190k emails in your inbox, but that doesn't mean there's no story.

I think this bill is the best thing our government has done in a while - and it sure as hell wouldn't have happened in a Republican congress.

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/news/documents/forgiveness.pdf

I totally disagree that this bill will have any effect on law firm salaries. The best law schools already have their own low income repayment plans (our plan at HLS forgave all loans for anyone making 40k or less (or something), and I believe forgave at least some part of loans to anyone making less than around 75k). Thus, the top students' incentive structures are not changed a lick by this potential legislation, and the law firms who drive associate pay changes (i.e., the ones who can most afford it, and also the ones who hire the most top-tier grads) thus will not have to change anything in order to "compete" with low-paying government and non-profit employers.

I disagree that this will effect the top law firms. The recent graduates toiling in state prosecutor/public defender offices or in state agencies or for various non-profits aren't the lawyers that BigLaw is looking for. Those lawyers tend to go to midsize or small firms that thrive on getting the BigLaw refugees and the poor, huddled public service masses. Those firms will be the ones who need to raise their pay or find some other way to lure these people from those jobs.

I have a question and I thought this might be a good thread for it.

I'm a 2L at a mid-ranked, mid-western school. I did well last year and managed to get lots of offers. My options range from local 'super-regional' firms (think Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Columbus) that pay about $100K to BigLaw options in Boston, New York and Chicago that pay $160K.

Being that I'm at a relatively average school, I'm surrounded by people who insist it's better to get paid less and work at one of the 'local' firms because you'll have a "better quality of life."

So the question is, if I got a BigLaw job should I take it? Are the hours really going to be worse in Chicago at 160K than in Indianapolis at 100K? The advancement opportunities? The quality of work?

I realize it's a broad question, but any advice would be great - thanks.

KJM, the hours at a big national firm will be worse, the advancement opportunities will be *much* worse, and the quality of work (ironically held up by ignorant law students as a reason to go to the highest-ranked Vault firm possible) will be worse (i.e., you won't get stuck being the 30th associate writing memos, prepping more senior people to take depos, and trolling through multi-million page document products). People: as a junior associate, the bigger the case, the worse it is to work on. Seriously.

The money will obviously be "less," but $100k in Indianapolis, when cost-adjusted, has to be at least twice as much as $160k in NYC. That said, "Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Columbus" would be a deal-killer for me; but you seem far more comfortable than I would be in the midwest (you're in law school there).

"I disagree that this will effect the top law firms." --Buddy, 2:15

Oh, God. On so many levels.

/wrists

"This program will help us avoid having to move back home, it will help us eat more than Ramen, it will help us afford the weekly luxury of Starbucks or the monthly night out.

Ted Frank, avarice and gluttony are deadly sins. My life isn't another hot dog on your overfilled plate. It has value, and congress won't let you inhale it like you do so many things in your grotesque lifestyle."

Um, I'm not sure you followed Mr. Frank's argument. Hope those ad hominems work out for you at your top-850 firm, L2L.