Since graduating in 2010, I've lived with my parents. I have about as much debt as you'd expect. I really want to be able to move on with my life, live like a grown-up, not be broke, and be able to be proud of my career. I'm just not sure how.
The question posed was whether it would be a smart move to get an MBA.
I recently ordered test prep books for the GMAT, so that I can apply to full-time MBA programs. I'm great at standardized tests, so even though business school admission isn't as numbers-based as law school (I wish), I think I might have a good chance of getting into a top MBA program.
For someone who has played by the rules and done well enough to have the proper pedigree, this must be incredibly discouraging. Isn't this what we've told young people to do, work hard in school, get the best education possible, and the success will just happen?
The writer makes the curious choice of asking a law professor for advice is somewhat telling. Who could be further reality than an academic, but since Campos has put on the mantle of honest broker amongst the unemployed and disaffected young lawyers, it's understandable. To his credit, he admits he has no advice to offer, and throws the question out there for the plethora of similarly unemployed and disaffected young lawyers. Why people who suffer from the circumstances would have useful advice to offer is a mystery.
What makes this question, whether getting yet another degree is a cure for having an expensive degree that has gotten the writer a permanent seat on the couch in mommy's basement, worth noting here is the vision the writer has of his options.
Aside from business school, I don't have many other good ideas. I've thought about starting my own firm- probably mostly criminal defense, but I'd take whatever work I could get. But the problems with that are: 1) I'm unsure whether I'm qualified, at least by my own standards; and 2) I know many small firms struggle to bring in enough business. Since my biggest priorities are 1.) not be poor; 2.) move out of bedroom; and 3.) end unemployment deferment of loans, struggling to start a firm with the hope that if I'm successful I might clear $40k after a year doesn't seem like a very good option.
When there are no options left in the law, become a criminal defense lawyer? Ouch. This says a lot about the perception of criminal defense within the legal community, or at least in the eyes of young lawyers. We're the gym teachers of the law.
To the writer's credit, he recognizes that he may not be qualified, though he qualifies that by saying at least by his own standards. Apparently, being unqualified by, say, objective standards, based on having taken a couple of classes in generic criminal law and procedure and being utterly without experience, isn't considered a general bar to being responsible for people's lives.
But the second stumbling block is that he fears that as a criminal defense lawyer, he won't make enough money to survive anyway. Presumably, if the money was better, his lack of qualifications wouldn't have stopped him. He would suffer his incompetence if it paid better.
I recently wrote about the situation for many criminal defense lawyers, the ones who actually chose to engage in this area of practice, are experienced, give a damn. They are struggling, and one of the factors that's dragging down their ability to maintain a viable practice is the influx of new lawyers who see criminal defense as the path of last resort, their final hope to be a lawyer when all else fails.
During my phone call, we spoke of the baby lawyers hanging out in the hallways trying to catch the attention of a defendant's mother with $100 in her pocket. We spoke of n00bs, barely competent if at all, taking felonies for $1500 total. He didn't blame them, knowing they had loans to pay.
Criminal defense must be perceived as either incredibly easy to do, or so pointless that anyone could grab a quick buck and screw it up as badly as the next guy. This isn't the only time in the past couple of weeks that a new lawyer figured he could make a quick buck off criminal defense.
Carolyn Elefant wrote of a would-be solo (who didn't make it) who similarly figured easy money from criminal defense would tide him over so he could practice real law.
I planned to practice criminal defense, immigration, civil rights (police and corrections misconduct), and consumer law (debt defense and FDCPA). My essential plan was to finance contingency civil rights work with revenue from flat-fee criminal, immigration, and consumer work and contingency FDCPA work.
That it was a stupid plan isn't the point. That he thought people charged with crimes existed so he could grab some quick money to finance his true legal love is why this is included here. I didn't think much of the idea at the time, and it's no better now.
While the young lawyer who sought Campos' counsel saw an MBA as an alternative to slumming the hallways of criminal court, the comments to the post were replete with the advice that it was idiotic. Loading a worthless second degree on top of a worthless first degree is like doubling down in blackjack on a pair of eights. But if not an MBA, then what?
If this young lawyer dreamed of doing criminal defense from the day he filled out his law school application, then I would warmly encourage him to toss caution to the wind and make it happen. But it strikes me as pretty clear that he wanted a Biglaw gig, plopping his top five law school butt in a library chair and cashing checks that would make a federal judge jealous. He never wanted to touch the hands of defendants. He would probably have a big bottle of disinfectant so he wouldn't catch anything from them.
There is strong possibility that the many of the incoming crew of young criminal defense lawyers, particularly the solos who were no-offered, will wind up walking the hallways of criminal courthouses because they reject the MBA option. There is a strong possibility that these poseurs, concerned only with their own need to make some easy money until a real law job comes along, will do so at the expense of those who truly want to defend the accused, are capable of doing so, and need to earn a living from criminal defense so they can continue to provide zealous representation and feed their families.
I have some advice for Campos' writer. Get your MBA. Get a Ph.D. Do anything you can other than be a criminal defense lawyer. Anything. It doesn't really matter what choice you make, because your hand is going to bust anyway. Just don't screw it up for anyone else.
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