This one hits close to home.

I'm going to apologize, in advance to friends, colleagues and fellow AoF editors for this one. I'm going apologize in particular to friends who are currently in law school and those considering joining the prestigious legal profession. I'm sorry. While it may be unclear as to why I am apologizing, I'll preface this post with all AoF editors are lawyers in some capacity, for better or most likely worse.

That said I'll start with a bit of good news. The "luster" associated with being a lawyer is fading. While it may have been the hot trend 3 or 4 years ago when I decided to being my pursuit to join the ranks of the over worked and underpaid, which at the time was a situation that I think most people were largely unaware of, college grads who want to make "moolah" are passing on law and medicine, two of what used to be considered the "nobler professions" (I'd say it's probably just doctors who are considered noble now...) for a career at a hedge fund or private equity firm. Volume of applications to law school have been steadily dropping, more than 10% over the last two years alone. Why is this good news? Less lawyers, means more jobs, means (theoretically) higher salaries. Applications are down, but enrollment is not, at least not yet. Law schools have become money-making machines, focusing on getting more students in, making more money, not really caring about the education (at least from and administration perspective) and churning out lawyers who subsequently suffer with six figure debt, and mediocre 5 figure salaries.

I tend to make a lot of references to Chris Rock's comedy routine. I'm probably over generalizing how widespread his comedy routines are and I'm sure 90% of people who seek them haven't committed them to memory. Rock speaks of a "stripper myth". The myth being "I'm stripping to pay my way through school." The then goes on to deconstruct the myth. Law school is much like this stripper myth. "I'm taking on an absurd amount of debt, because when I graduate I'll be able to pay it with my high paying job at a prestigious firm." The high paying job is the "stripping to pay for school" and law school is the stripper. Except in my example, it's the law student who's losing his/her shirt.

Everyone likes to feel good, which is why the New York Times can report, happily, that Big Firm New York starting salaries are ballooning from $140,000 when I was a 1L (first year law student) to $160,000 now, and upwards of $180,000. Truth of the matter is though, almost all of those jobs go to graduates of the top 5-10 law schools or the top 5% of their class, and the rest of us are stuck with salaries 60% less than that. Here's a list of the top and bottom 25 salaries coming out of law school. I am happy to say that my school was not on the bottom 25 list. Probably due to the fact that no one reports their salaries to the school post-graduation.

To be fair, I'm not saying I dislike being a lawyer. But I am a little disgusted at the salary deception that attracts people to law like moths to a bug zapper. The profession and the learning that takes place may be noble but I think many of the intelligent people who go to law school would have been intelligent enough to decide on another career path had they known it would mean huge loan payments that basically handcuff you with debt because the starting salaries are significantly lower than what you would have expected. I work for one of the largest franchises in the world, and I'm still looking for more money. How does that make any sense?