An out of work Boston College law student wrote an open letter to his college’s dean with an unusual proposition.
Miserable about his job prospects and weighed down by debt, he offered to give up his law degree if he could get his tuition money back.
“With fatherhood impending, I go to bed every night terrified of the thought of trying to provide for my child AND paying off my J.D, and resentful at the thought that I was convinced to go to law school by empty promises of a fulfilling and remunerative career,” the student wrote on the EagleiOnline blog, an independent student-run site for BC law students.
He lobbed criticism at the career services department for doing little to help him and other fellow students find work.
“I’d like to propose a solution to this problem: I am willing to leave law school, without a degree, at the end of this semester,” he wrote. “In return, I would like a full refund of the tuition I’ve paid over the last two and a half years.”
In their official response to the post, the school said “no institution of higher education can make a guarantee of a job after graduation” and recommended that anyone worried about their job prospects should contact the Career Services office.
They did not specify on whether they would be taking the student up on his offer.
Open Letter to Interim Dean Brown [EagleiOnline]
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To the law student:
Dear Dumbass,
As an attorney who has gone through exactly the problems you have (as have ALL your classmates save, perhaps, a fortunate few who have gone to Yale and the few other schools of that rarified breed), I mock your stupidity and poor judgment. By your comments, you appear to have gone into the field for money, not a calling. Guess what? Nobody is guaranteed a job, much less a good job, in any field. If you went to law school because of a passion, you would find a way to do something cool, even if the money was poor for a while. By the way, if you had done your homework you would’ve realized what a horrible job market there is for new attorneys right now. In some law schools upwards of 70% graduate without having a job for at least a year. If you are now having regrets, tough luck. You are clearly too dumb and lacking in initiative for this profession, but thanks anyway for subsidizing the education of other students who do belong in the profession.
This situation will only get worse as more legal firms outsource their back office and research jobs to India.
plus… It wasn’t too swift to father a child while still in college. I hope it works out for him.
of course he can’t get a job, he doesn’t have a degree yet
even with a JD, i don’t think he can get work….i think you need common sense to be an attorney (a soul is optional however)
students should get refunds off of fee(s) that aren’t useful
at my SUNY school, we pay a technology fee increase annually, yet there are never any new computers, and 1/4 are “down for maintenance”
Advice to others thinking about law school:
1. Only go if you can get into a Top 5 school (and I don’t think BC is top 5).
2. If you still think you can beat the odds and get the job you want despite the school you went to, go to a cheap law school, i.e., a state school in the state you live, so you don’t spend $150,000+ making the same mistake so many others have.
A friend of mine from college found out that after financial aid was taken it to account, it was cheaper to attend the University of Chicago for law school instead of going to UT Law as an in-state applicant.
He played baseball in a league that gave out trophies to everyone.
I sympathize with the guy, a little. A J.D. is not the employment and wealth guarantee your guidance counselor, or law school admissions officer, might lead you to believe. Likewise, it is a huge financial risk. The tuition bills themselves are huge, and there’s also the opportunity cost of spending another three years in school. That’s three years you could have been out using your college degree and earning a salary. Especially for people who headed into law school right after college, with no intervening work experience, I can see why they feel they have been sold a bill of goods.
Oh, and the other thing no one ever tells you about law school? There are too many lawyers. Law schools are producing more graduates than there are law jobs for. When my S.O. sat for the Bar exam it was with 800 other recent grads. By comparison, the local professional programs produced about 150 M.D.’s from medical school and maybe 35 architects.
Law schools will never shrink though. The reason being: law programs are huge cash cows for the universities that have them.
Dear [Redacted],
Thank you for your open letter to me. Your personal regard for me and the job I have to do is touching and much appreciated. I thought I would take this opportunity to respond to your concerns, also in an open letter.
First let me say I think you are indeed a lucky fellow. Given the weak reasoning you set forth in your letter, and the poor grammar that you used to deliver it, one has to wonder how it is that you successfully negotiated the admissions process at Boston College School of Law in the first place. I have had a long, direct chat with Assistant Dean Jones regarding your acceptance, and I have been assured by her that a repeat of the mistake is unlikely. You are also fortunate that I have not allowed your name to be widely publicized, because if it had been, your chances of getting a responsible job anywhere doing anything would be nil.
I am curious about your letter and the thought processes behind it. Why was it an open letter? Did you really think that the Dean of a Law School would be incented to help you after you backed him into a corner publically? What about the timing of your request? Why wait until you are a 3L to react to a bad job market? Did you miss all of the news articles in 2008 detailing massive layoffs at law firms around the country? How did your search for an internship after your 1L year go; how about 2L? What was your backup plan? There is an old expression that goes like this: “When you’re in a hole, the first consideration should be to stop diggingâ€. It is understandable (but not excusable) that you overlooked the risk of attending law school as you were admitted, but you were downright negligent in not recognizing the risks after your first term. By the way, you didn’t mention your class ranking or your GPA; how have performed thus far? I’ll have to take a look……………..
It is interesting that you say: “I was convinced to go to law school by empty promises of a fulfilling and remunerative careerâ€. Convinced? By whom? Was your attendance at Boston College School of Law the result of an unsolicited offer; or did you apply for admission to (presumably) several law schools? I have done a thorough investigation into who might have made those empty promises to you and I have found the culprit. If you want to look straight into the eye of the person who made those empty promises to you, look in the mirror.
I checked, and it is true that most of the people in the career office ignore you. It was explained to me that it because of the way you interact with them; apparently you are whiney, demanding, and unwilling to take any responsibility yourself. (Which is consistent with the immature stunt that you pulled by writing your letter). A law degree is one giant step in finding a fulfilling career, but it is far from a guarantee that you will get a position. How are your interpersonal skills? Do you have good emotional intelligence? (Evidence suggests that you don’t).
I am truly sorry about your personal circumstance. Some might question the advisability of choosing midway through law school in a doubtful economy as the best time to start a family, but given the quality of your thought processes, I am not surprised that you have made yet another un-vetted decision.
In a spirit of fairness, I propose a solution for you. Cut your losses and withdraw from Boston College School of Law immediately. We will promise never to use your name publically in connection with your letter, and you will promise never to tell anyone that you attended Boston College School of Law.
What do you think?
Sincerely,
S/George Brown
George D. Brown
Interim Dean
Boston College Law School
885 Centre Street
Newton Centre, MA 02459
Great Response!
Awesome.
THANK YOU for bringing up the fact that starting a family when you’re already in a financial hole is pretty damn stupid. I know things happen, but if you can’t afford it, the be freaking careful!
So much for law schools attracting the smartest and brightest.
He shouldn’t have dropped his big boy pants nine months ago.
There are plenty of great paying careers by firms who wish to have someone on their staff with a J.D. but not be employed to practice law because having a knowledge of law is a great asset for many companies. This guy also needs to think outside the box. Having this kind of knowledge can open up a lot of opportunities besides practicing and I wonder if he has considered the fed gov’t? I know that the agency FDIC has intern openings for those that qualify and their positions begin at well over $75k a year. One attorney internship that I researched back in ’06 had a two-year intern at $89k. The only problem was the internship was not permanent so if you wanted the job, you have to apply but hey, it’s a great career step even if he didn’t get the job. If he researches the fed websites, there are a boatload of positions out there because the old hippies are retiring in droves. I just googled “federal attorney jobs” and you should see all the links.
I got a job with the fed’s in ’03 after many years of grueling work in the auto field. Most of my new co-workers are in the mid / late 20s so the educational maturity is the highest that I have ever experienced in my life which is great.
If this guy was serious about raising a family, he’d put his family first by busting his rear and getting the career that he went to school for instead of making excuses. I mean if he’s copping out this soon, I can’t imagine what will happen when he practices being an attorney with staff having 30 years + experience.
Sadly i was in a similar situation when I graduated from design school. The worst part is that if/when the economy rebounds nearly all the skills I paid $100k to learn will be outdated and useless, meaning I’ll have to go back to school just to get an entry-level job.
Gah. Another entitled brat. Isn’t anyone responsible for the choices they make? Wah, wah, they made me choose to go to law school. Wah, wah, they made me accumulate a mountain of debt.
Oh, cry me a river.
It’s not legal to sell alcohol to someone under the age of 21, but they can borrow 60K+ in debt. Open enrollment policies at private colleges and universities ensures that many can’t even calculate the interest. A college education is one of the worst consumer goods out there. Sub prime education crisis in 3 2 1…
Colleges offer educations, not vocations. If he wanted to get an education with a better guarantee of a job at the end of the process, he should have chosen a technical school (plumbing, electrician, etc.). Going to college isn’t about getting a job, but becoming an educated person in one particular area as well as undergoing a process which will turn out a more disciplined and intellectually sophisticated person at the end. If you don’t value being educated for its own sake, don’t go to college. Go to a vocational school which will help you work in an area with high hourly wages and for which there is always decent demand.
Sounds like a few things going on:
1. Buyer’s Remorse – Realizing that there may not be a giant pot of money waiting when he graduates.
2. Child Shock – Realizing that he will now have someone depending on him to eat. This is just silliness because babies don’t need anything except a little food, and diapers. They can sleep in a box and don’t care if they wear the same thing every day for about the first 5 years. Babies are as expensive as you want them to be.
3. Student Loan Paralysis – Realizing the real dollar amount that he borrowed for this education that he no longer wants. And it is festered by the onslaught of people vocalizing how screwed they feel by the student loan debt they incurred. The sums borrowed for a JD education at BC may be staggering and seem unmanageable. No solution there. Pay the loan payments, or they will take it from you. So your best option is to use this energy spent lamenting about this education instead to lobby for work opportunities. Teach law. There… you’re a teacher again. Enjoy.
4. Name Redacted – I hope so. Or he already committed career suicide and will forever be Googled by future employers and labeled a whiner and a potentially high maintenance employee.
Does he also want cheese with that wine? Not even yet graduated, only 2 and a half years into Law School, probably hasn’t even tried yet or maybe, he’s at the bottom of his class and figures no law firm will take him? A little premature if you ask me. I think he lacks confidence, big time. I would understand if he was 2 years out of school, still unemployed or working a terrible minimum wage job with zero prospects of getting a job within a law firm, THEN I would understand his plea. Until then, I agree with what his school said.
Used to be that once you graduated college you went and got a job. You would generally expect to get an entry level position at entry level pay. During the 90′s though it became normal for newly minted college grads to make executive level salaries. Someone needs to tell this guy that those days are over.
News flash: We have too many god damn lawyers in this country. Having a law degree is like owning an ipod now a days. Want a useful degree? Study mechanical, electrical or chemical engineering. These trades are in dire need of intelligent individuals.
Sorry, you will never make $300/hr as an engineer. But at least you will make a physical product that contributes to the economy instead of sitting on your ass moping about how you might sue your law school because you can’t get a job.
This is just a cry for attention. What sucks for him is that any prospective employer who knows about this is going to think he’s an idiot and not hire him.
I’d be amused if, 2.5 years into a job, the employer offered to return all of the work he’d done in exchange for his salary.
I graduated from law school in May 2009 and the employment situation is indeed awful and discouraging for new grads. I am very lucky I have had my husband and parents to back me up and support me; trying to get by without extra help would be terrifying and impossible.
Most newish law grads have at least been able to do something to keep one foot in the field, such as volunteer work, doing a few of their own cases through a more experienced attorney’s office, or even starting their own practice. Stepping out as a solo as a new grad is possible but very difficult; you don’t even know enough to know what you don’t know yet. You have to be your own accountant, secretary, law clerk and docket clerk because you can’t afford to take on any employees yet, which is time consuming and reduces the total number of cases you can take on. You probably can’t afford office space, which means working from home (which might well be your parents’ house) and paying another lawyer to use his conference room. Any income based on practicing law this way is not reliable or predictable, so its very hard to make a budget that lets you enter a loan repayment program, plan for your own expenses and save for the future. It is very all-consuming and exhausting, with little financial reward.
I’ve been doing a combination of all of the above for a while now, plus working nights and weekends in retail to help make ends meet. It has very difficult and honestly it has made me realize I don’t love practicing law enough to go through this physical and emotional stress for such little reward. In fact, I have realized I don’t like practicing law much at all and I’m looking for non-traditional lawyer jobs and jobs in my old field. Luckily I have kept up with my contacts in the field.
Like the OP, I also have major regrets about racking up the tuition and the lost wages I could have been earning had I stayed in my old field; I had no idea how lucky I was to be making $40,000 with my undergrad degree; I won’t make half that this year from my law work. I realize, and always realized, that no one had promised me any sort of job and career. However, I never thought I would end up worse off than if I had just stayed where I was. Of course, going to law school was something I wanted to do for a very long time, and had I not done and stayed in my old career til retirement, I would have likely been plagued by a lifetime of “what ifs”. I enjoyed law school a lot and I’m glad I learned so much about our society’s laws and legal system. However, in hindsight I would not have gone unless the price was a lot cheaper.
One last thing – my recommendation to the OP and other new grads in looking for jobs is to focus on what you offer that is unique. The folks I know who have gotten full-time law or law-ish jobs all got them because of something unique in their background – speaking a second language, getting a health law policy job because of a past career in health care, getting hired by the same place they law clerked for four years, getting a job with the state board of education because they used to be a teacher, working at a domestic violence NFP because of all the volunteer work they did with DV victims, etc. If you don’t have something like that in your background, figure out what area of law you want to work in and start making contacts and getting some sort of experience in that area asap. Law schools always tell students not to specialize, but if I had to do it again I would have specialized like hell in something.
This is very well stated. Thank you for taking the time to write it. I hope that you find a great job quickly.
Thank you!
I think it’s a reasonable offer…but only if he agrees to let each of his professors whack him in the head with a shovel to remove anything he learned in their class…
that should be classes…Doh.
To do:
1. Degree
2. Job
3. Baby
Wow, I would love to be his client. “Well, I didn’t win this case, and it must be your fault. I want every penny back, including court fees.”
I wish I could transport the OP back to two years ago in my shoes as a 23 year old single mom working at Starbucks and in school full-time. I never got a penny of child support, and I was not a whining little brat. My daughter was well provided for, so I would think he could figure it out, too.
Meanwhile in America: 100,000 computer science majors are now writing to their dean for refunds, especially since their jobs have been outsourced to India, China, and Southeast Asia.
Maybe I missed hearing about the Great Lawyer Shortage of the past decade…
Actually, I’ve been reading about a lawyer glut for the past three decades. I don’t care what BS “career services” comes up with. Does no one pay attention to what’s going on to the real world outside their campus? Even the fricken basket weaving department is going to claim a great career is ahead of you. Someone coming out of law school doesn’t deserve a job unless they understand what the term “interested party” means and how much to rely on information from such.
So how come no one is publishing this loser’s name?
Career center at UMBC was pretty worthless too.
What possible incentive would the law school have to agree to this? They have his money whether he can get a job or not.
Times are tough and there are plenty of people that are bogged down by student loans and few job prospects. I’m one of them.
Last year, I started taking classes for a second Bachelor’s degree (since my first one wasn’t doing anything for me). I had a good enough job (decent money, I just hated it) that also paid a small amount of tuition reimbursement, so I was set. Unfortunately, I lost that good enough job and it’s accompanying tuition reimbursement. In the classic recession tale, I found a new job that pays significantly less and yet makes me work waaaaaaay over 40 hours. I can’t afford to take classes anymore without new loans since I lost the reimbursement, and it’s not like I have any free time anyway, so I dropped out. Of course, my loan repayments start next month and I’m still struggling to adapt to the much lower paycheck. I’m extremely worried about this extra bill.
My case isn’t unique, and neither is this guy’s. The only difference is the amount of self-entitlement. Dude, get over it. Lots of people are barely scraping by. You don’t deserve this any more than anyone else does, and you know not everyone is getting a refund.
Sounds like this guy has a future in chasing wah-mbulances.
Seriously take responsibility for yourself. “Convinced” to go to law school? Career Services didn’t hand him a job on a silver platter? YOU decided to go to law school, and it’s YOUR job to get a job. Career Services is a great asset but it’s there to help, not to hand out.
Judging by his assumption that this would work, I’d guess he’d have made a pretty bad lawyer anyway.
Ah, life’s greatest gamble: choosing a major.
Before I picked a major, I did research into current hiring trends, and total enrollment/graduation trends in my field. Hiring was way down, enrollment was on the downswing too. I figured by the time I graduated, there would be an upswing in hiring after 3-5 years of low enrollment/graduation rates.
Goddamn if that didn’t pay off.
As a current BCLS law student I can tell you that it’s not a case of buyer’s remorse but a case of being sold goods that don’t match the sales pitch. During the recruitment phase, many of us in the class of 2011 were told how BC “owned the job market in Boston” and were told stories of alumni working in biglaw and enjoying their time at BCLS. In November of 2008, when the Career Center was actually allowed to talk to 1Ls, we were told to work our assess off to get a 3.5 to get that biglaw job (you were screwed if you wanted to go into anything else). For the class of 2012, the 1Ls were not given the same speech and were essentially told to fill out applications for Starbucks while they were job searching. The school is only able to help place students when the economy is good. They don’t know how to navigate this economy and many don’t try to help students. There is only one counselor in Career Services that I know of that will actually help you find a job outside law firms. There is really no point in spending my tuition money to bring in NEW counselors to Career Services when the ones we have need better training.
The school wants to bury this. Not the interim Dean but the “higher powers” on main campus. I’d feel better if the school just admitted that former Dean Garvey drove the school into the ground and ruined the reputation the school ONCE had. I’ve even told administrators how much I disdain BCLS and regret making the choice to come here. They didn’t care. The harsh reality is many of they don’t care because they’re not the ones who have to navigate this job market or sit in classes with professors that should have been fired years ago.
Why should we be forced to pay thousands for a diploma that’s only good enough to serve as toilet paper? I’m pretty sure the class of 2011 and beyond have been served up a heavy dose of fraud.
As a current BCLS law student I can tell you that it’s not a case of buyer’s remorse but a case of being sold goods that don’t match the sales pitch. During the recruitment phase, many of us in the class of 2011 were told how BC “owned the job market in Boston” and were told stories of alumni working in biglaw and enjoying their time at BCLS. In November of 2008, when the Career Center was actually allowed to talk to 1Ls, we were told to work our assess off to get a 3.5 to get that biglaw job (you were screwed if you wanted to go into anything else). For the class of 2012, the 1Ls were not given the same speech and were essentially told to fill out applications for Starbucks while they were job searching. The school is only able to help place students when the economy is good. They don’t know how to navigate this economy and many don’t try to help students. There is only one counselor in Career Services that I know of that will actually help you find a job outside law firms. There is really no point in spending my tuition money to bring in NEW counselors to Career Services when the ones we have need better training.
The school wants to bury this. Not the interim Dean but the “higher powers” on main campus. I’d feel better if the school just admitted that former Dean Garvey drove the school into the ground and ruined the reputation the school ONCE had. I’ve even told administrators how much I disdain BCLS and regret making the choice to come here. They didn’t care. The harsh reality is many of they don’t care because they’re not the ones who have to navigate this job market or sit in classes with professors that should have been fired years ago.
Why should we be forced to pay thousands for a diploma that’s only good enough to serve as toilet paper? I’m pretty sure the class of 2011 and beyond have been served up a heavy dose of fraud.
He should sue …