Law Schools Urge Students to go Pro in Something other than the Law

Reflecting the fact that legal jobs are becoming substantially harder to obtain, top law schools across the country have mounted an unprecedented education campaign to convince their first and second year students to go pro in a field other than the law.

"Countless students dream about the opportunity to become a professional lawyer, especially considering the lucrative salaries," stated Reggie Paltz, Dean of Cornell's law school. "It's fine to dream but young people must appreciate that, considering the current economy, turning pro cannot be one's only option."

As is chronicled on websites like lawshucks.com, being a professional lawyer is harder than ever considering that many firms are conducting large scale attorney layoffs. Certain firms have even decided to defer for 1-2 years the new lawyers they drafted during the recruiting process last fall.

Law schools are attempting to use their educational campaign to highlight the legal industry's current instability and change law student attitudes.

"The countless e-mails, lunchtime talks and flyers are all meant to convince students that law school can no longer be seen solely as a stepping stone to the professional ranks," remarked Andrew Wolfe, the head of Vanderbilt Law School's Career Services Office. "Instead, we're hoping to convey the message that law school is an opportunity to gain a broad-based education that will qualify you for countless jobs beyond those as a professional lawyer."

Wolfe underscores that the JD's flexibility means that graduates will be prepared for jobs in politics, government, business and sports athlete representation. Additionally, he points out that for 3Ls, particularly extravagant summer experiences have probably groomed these students for employment as event planners, bartenders and, depending on the quality of the firm's cooking demonstration, chefs.

Even if students are completely dissuaded from turning pro, law schools hope that expectations will be limited.

"I realize that lure of becoming a professional lawyer, no matter how minuscule the odds, can never be totally diminished," admitted Sally Longest, Dean of the Fordham University School of Law in New York. "Therefore we are trying to at least limit expectations by emphasizing the available minor league options. Smaller firms that weren't inexorably tied to Wall Street, public interest jobs, government employment: while these certainly don't pay as well nor have the same appeal as a big time law job they be the only viable choices left for those who are, for some reason, still committed to being lawyers."

As part of their campaign, law schools have commissioned a series of 30 second ads targeted at current and soon-to-be law students. Inspired by the ESPN commercials depicting student athletes who are planning careers in areas other than sports, the spots will feature students engaging in typical legal activities while simultaneously performing tasks associated with non-legal professions. For example, one ad has a student highlighting a case with his left hand while shaking on a real estate deal with his right. Another shows a student engaged in oral advocacy with half the screen depicting a moot court competition and the other half a crowd of political supporters.

Most agree that even if current law students aren't affected by the outreach, the campaign will still be successful if younger, more impressionable minds, are changed.

"This whole thing is really directed to all those kids who to grow up wishing they were wealthy professional lawyers," related Jim Lyons, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), a major supporter of the educational effort. "If we can convince even one young boy or girl to focus his or her efforts on something other than reaching the legal big leagues then we have done our jobs."