Dear everyone: I told you so.

Giving advice to future law students is EXACTLY like this:

Best Quote:

“Yeah, law students are an awesome bunch. It’s like a distilled bunch of the biggest assholes you knew in college. Are you aware that you’ll spend three years in an environment that in no way, shape, or form even remotely prepare you for something resembling a law career? Plus you’ll likely develop a coke habit.”

Buhaha! It’s funny because it’s true.

And this happens every fall – law school applicants find this blog, email me for advice, and I try to dissuade them as much as possible without sounding like a maniac.

Then, these applicants IGNORE my advice, go to law school, and come back around the next fall with: “OH MY GOD YOU WERE RIGHT THIS IS THE LOONEY BIN! Crushing debt! Despair!”

I resist the temptation to say, “Told you so. Now suffer!” and I attempt to give some damage control advice.

I was recently interviewed by a mortgage foreclosure attorney about law school (for this post here!) and during the interview she told me a story about a condominium downtown. The buyers bought pre-construction units. The condo project went bankrupt before the units were completed, and these buyers have to pay mortgages for condos that will never be completed.

For many people, going to law school is like paying a mortgage for a non-existent condo. You have this huge debt, and not much to show for it.

And many law schools are just like these skeezy financially-shaky developers: they oversell the product to the brink of outright lying, and understate the risk.
And like that non-existent condo, your law degree is not going to provide shelter and security.
Now, this isn’t the end of the world because most of us are smart people who can work through financial handicaps. We will take entry-level jobs, live cheaply, and make small monthly payments for a very long time.

But just because the crap-mortgage won’t cripple you is not a reason to take a mortgage on a pre-construction unit, especially after reading about a slew of bankrupt developments.

And just because a law school makes (fraudulent) statements of prestige and employment opportunities is not a reason to sign up for the equivalent of a mortgage. You know better.

Sure, you might end up with a swank unit that you bought for a pre-construction price, just like you might end up with a sweet Biglaw job, but the more likely result is that all you are signing up for a shit-ton of debt for a useless degree or a low-priority lien on a half-finished construction site.

And of course me, in your ear, whispering “I told you so.”