Is it even worth it to go to law school? The thought came before law school, and it wriggles into those moments when all that work and stress and money pile up. It could come any time: at 4 AM when you are trying to finish that last chapter; out for drinks with friends in the workforce who blithely pay for happy hour drinks without wincing at thoughts of crushing student loans; or when you discover that you didn’t get your first pick for a ‘big law’ summer associate position. Myths and misconceptions have swirled amongst the legal community and the general public, as law professors, students, and others question the value of a law degree, leading in part to plummeting application numbers for law schools around the country.
On Thursday, September 12, 2013, Berkeley Law hosted Seton Hall University business law Professor Michael Simkovic in the first event in a lunchtime series sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy and the Berkeley Business Law Journal. Mr. Simkovic was previously an attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York concentrating in bankruptcy litigation as well as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in legal, regulatory and business issues affecting financial services companies. Professor Simkovic persuasively presents a different (and thankfully more positive) outlook for those considering whether to pursue a law degree.
At the outset, Professor Simkovic tackled empirical claims that law school offers a poor return on investment. He pointed out serious flaws in data sets being presented by those who claim that investing in a law degree is a low-value investment proposition. For example, earnings in early years are not necessarily strong predictors of subsequent earnings because law degree holders—as opposed to those holding a bachelor’s degree—see steep growth in salary over a short period of time during their first few years of work. It is also important not to conflate the recent dip in the general market with a dip solely in law. In other words, while things may look worse in the legal market than they did ten years ago, it is important contextualize with broader market conditions.
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