Law School

[Aang]

I know a lot of pre-meds who are planning on applying to law school and many others who went to law school. Is this a backup anyone here has considered? The requirements to get into an Ontario law school, although competitive, is far easier than med school. After all, there is no interview process.

 

So who here is thinking about law and if so, which schools are you considering?

[Falling]

I always figured the legal profession took a big hit, but apparently the market isn't that bad.

[makingfetchhappen]

I think the placement rate for articling positions is around 60% right now. It's so bad that the Law Society has been forced to implement an experimental licensing program. You cannot be a lawyer if you don't article or do this new program. Even then, you would probably need to hang out your own shingle if you do the new program or if the firm that you article at does not hire you back (which is very common).

Hanging out your own shingle is really tough. You have a lot of overhead and it's not like medicine where anyone asks you to join their practice without giving them 70% of your billings (medicine you can usually join and pay 30% of your billings to them for overhead such as rent and support staff, and perhaps a small profit goes to the owner(s) of the practice).

The placement rate for articling was more like 97% up until 2008. The classes of 2009 and 2010 had it the roughest because the stock market crashed in the fall of 2008. Nothing anyone in charge could do about that. But then, Ottawa increased enrollment by about 100 I think, and then Queen's by about 60. Then they opened a new law school at Lakehead.

Now the market is FLOODED. It's not so bad for people who are a few years out. For newer grads the market is hell. There are lots of lawyers out there with 3-8 years experience who can hit the ground running who are either looking to go into a firm or looking to get into a better one.

That said, there are lots of lawyers out there who are happy and lots of new grads do get jobs despite the bad statistics.

What type of lawyer would you want to be?

Here is a good book to check out: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Law-School-Unless-Opportunity/dp/1480163686

You can find the main points from the book by searching articles the author has written promoting it.

Personally I think a better back up plan is the physician assistant program. You will be still be doing the things that doctors do, and the employment prospects are really good. There are about a dozen of them on the sunshine list in Ontario and the program is fairly new. Under OHIP their minimum starting salary is $70K (I believe, would need to double check). Don't go to law school unless you are comfortable making $60K a year or less for the next 15 years and $100K a year if you are lucky after that. This is for the rest of your life. Also, only government lawyers get pensions or paid parental leave. The lawyers who are raking in tonnes of money are huge outliers who throw the stats way off.

Also, do you like writing? As in writing 30 page research papers and having one due every week for about 45 weeks a year? That is what most lawyers do.

Physician Assistants spend their time interacted with patients and solving problems. It's much more like being a doctor.

[Aang]

I genuinely can't conceptualize being the kind of person who would love both medicine and law.

They are such incredibly, wildly different skill sets and lifestyles. A lot of my friends are lawyers, I can't for a second imagine doing their jobs. My skills are almost completely non-transferable.

 

The only thing I have in common with them is being good at studying, being good at memorizing, and graduating with a lot of debt.

 

Btw, my high school drop out ex who works in a mall selling cell phones makes more money than most of my lawyer friends, and works a lot less hours.

 

Interesting, which law schools did your friends go to?

 

From what I understand, while Ottawa had 40% of their class fail to get articling positions last years, Osgoode, Toronto, Queens and Western in Ontario had strong placements. There's also been a drop in law school applicants and Lsat test-takers. From the people I know who just started working out of law school, their avg salary is around 85k. As long as you dont go to schools like Manitoba, TRU, Windsor and Lakehead, then you should be fine.

[aaronjw]

I genuinely can't conceptualize being the kind of person who would love both medicine and law.

Think its being in love with the potential money and prestige more than either discipline. There's commonality in that

[makingfetchhappen]

Where do they work?

$85K is the starting salary at a Bay Street boutique, $100K is the starting at Big Law and that is the maximum salary for a first year. Crown's start around $60K, criminal around $50K.

$85K is not average, it's quite high. I know people who are nearly ten years out and working Bay Street non-big law who are making $100K or a little less with no bonus.

Ten years out = 3 years law school, 1 year articling, and 10 years on Bay Street = 14 years from the time you get accepted into law. You could be a surgeon by then. Most of the people I know went to the schools you listed. It's not that hard to get into law school. Just get A's and a 160 or higher LSAT, and you would make it into any of the ones listed. A little higher for U of T.

Also $85K doesn't go that far in Toronto, which is where all the jobs are. It's about $4K a month net. Take away $1K in bank loans (that's the minimum repayment), $1.5K if you want to live alone and in the city, $500 for other bills, and you are left $1K for food and other necessities as well as all of your spending money. Plus you are expected to wear nice suits to work which really adds up. Trust me, half of those kids popping bottles on King West every Thursday are putting it on that brand new credit card the bank gives them when they become a lawyer. Yay! More debt!

Edit:

"As long as you dont go to schools like Manitoba, TRU, Windsor and Lakehead, then you should be fine."

I have never met a person who went to any of those schools other than Windsor. I had to Google TRU to figure out what you were talking about. If you want to be working in Ontario, you don't leave Ontario to go anywhere but Dal or UBC. Windsor is not great for job prospects either, the only people I have met from Windsor were gold and silver medalists (i.e. they literally had the best or second best marks in their entire class). I have worked downtown Toronto for several years and 50% of lawyers in the country work in Toronto I have heard, not sure it it's true. The point is, I have met hundreds if not thousands of lawyers so you can decide how big a grain of salt you would like to take this with. 

To be clear, my point in this edit is to explain that my experience and opinions are based on people who went to what are considered the "best" law schools.

Feel free to PM me if you are interested in picking my brain at all. There may be a niche of law that does make sense for you too pursue, even as a "back up plan" and even if the market is not great.

[Karma]

To answer the OP question, I personally know several people who went to law school and then switched to med school or got their degree in law or even worked as lawyers before applying to med school. Yes, it's doable. You can PM me if you have more questions.

[cleanup]

Where you go to law school is hugely important. If you want to make it big, getting into a top law school in the States ought to be your goal. Doing that requires a much more concerted effort that you may be able to muster as a pre-med who is also contemplating med school.

[Harvey Specter]

Pffft I've already graduated from Harvard Law. 

[makingfetchhappen]

Where you go to law school is hugely important. If you want to make it big, getting into a top law school in the States ought to be your goal. Doing that requires a much more concerted effort that you may be able to muster as a pre-med who is also contemplating med school.

I don't get it. I guess when you say "make it big" you mean get into Big Law in the U.S.? There are other ways of making it big in law, it really depends what you want to do. Much like medicine, it is extremely diverse.

 

But, if you do think making it big is Big Law in the U.S. (i.e. big NYC firms), I would venture that going to a good Canadian school is the better option. The last time I checked, the big NY firms were recruiting from U of T, Osgoode, Western, and Queens quite regularly. U of T the most (I do not know the number) and a handful per year from the others.

 

If you went to an American school, you would come back with a tonne of debt and probably no job if you are not in the top 10%, at a top 30 school. Their legal market is much worse than Canada's, owing to a number of factors.

 

At least if you were in Canada you can build up your resume during law school and learn the market, etc. Firms are more interested in Canadian students than Americans unless they clearly stand out. Remember that, unlike medicine, law is jurisdictional. An American law degree has trained you to think like a lawyer, but they have very different laws and a very different system.

 

The point is that you cannot go to law school assuming that you will finish in the top 10% of your class, which is where you need to be for Big Law in the U.S. In Canada, you can go that route in the top 30% of one of the more reputable schools IF you have the personality. If you didn't grow up at the country club, you will need to have a high EQ on top of your IQ.

 

Also OP can check out lawstudents.ca for more info

 

Edit: My definition of "making it big" in law is working at the Hague, not at White & Case, just imho.

 

Also, don't go to law school assuming you will finish in the top 30% either. I did it, but looking back I realize it's not something to roll the dice on. Watch the movie "the Paper Chase" (from the 70s). If you think it makes it look hard/unpleasant, don't go. If you think it makes it look kind of fun, go. (Well I mean, don't go unless you think you can get a career out of it that you will like or you are from a monied family where you can do that kind of thing for fun).