Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog

I just read an article in The Daily Record discussing the flood of incoming law students at Baltimore City's two law schools. There are only two law schools in Maryland, The University of Maryland School of Law ("UMD") and the University of Baltimore School of Law ("UB"), both located in Baltimore City.

The article reports that UB plans to admit 340 first-year students this fall out of 2700 applications. UMB plans to admit 317 students from 4000 applications. Combined, that is 6700 applicants competing for 657 seats. Even a liberal arts grad like me can tell that those are not good odds. These statistics show that a law degree is still in great demand.

This is curious, because the same publication also reports today on the lack of employment opportunities for recent law graduates. The article confirms what we all know- the top 10% of each graduating class generally has no trouble finding employment, whether in a prestigious law firm of through a judicial clerkship. But for the other 90% of law grads, the legal job market is tough, with many new attorneys getting by on temporary contract work (usually consisting of document review projects that are mind-numbingly boring and could be done by a reasonably intelligent high school student). They have quickly realized that the 100K in student loans may not have been the best idea. This is something law schools do poorly. They don't do a good job of preparing the overwhelming majority of students who are not in the golden 10%.

There are many successful attorneys who took career paths off of the "law review- top10%-clerkship-big firm" path. Often, personal injury lawyers in particular follow alternative career paths. In our firm we have personal injury attorneys whose careers have had stops in big law firms, insurance house counsel offices and small law firms. Some of us went to law school immediately after college. One of our attorneys spent several years in law enforcement before pursuing a career as an attorney. The fact is that I know more top-notch lawyers who weren't in the top 10% of their class than I do those in that category.

My point, if I still have one, is that there is no one set path to success. Law schools are good at supporting the top students, but not at preparing the average law graduate for the reality of the job market. And academic success is not neccessarily a predictor of success practicing law. The skill set required to be a good lawyer encompasses so much more than legal analysis. Organization, interpersonal communication, marketing, writing, personal integrity, professionalism and a desire for excellence are also required, and don't always show up in a GPA.

Most prospective law students will end up in the bottom 90% of the class (90% of them I suppose). These students should persevere- your GPA doesn't indicate your potential future success. However, law schools should do more to make sure these students know what they're getting into before they take out 100k in student loans. There's not always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.