there are some very smart lawyers but it's not 40 years ago. every liberal arts student at a 4-year place you stand a chance of not getting into is a potential lawyer. there are a shitload of lawschools today, many of them are available as nightschool.


if you show up to every class as an undergrad, put some level of effort into it, and pay someone at kaplan you can end up with a decent gpa and i know from teaching idiots there when i was 20 for the sat's one summer-you can get an idiot to fall pretty close to average on standardized tests. it's supposed to be a dirty-iq test but if you take it again and again in practice the scores go up pretty predictably until a percentile a little above the mean. meaning there are tons of people going from pretty ugly numbers to the 150's, but you'll rarely get someone in the 150's into the 170's.

so you can be pretty fucking average and end up sitting in a room taking the bar.

there's still an image lawyers and md's making about the same as each other and less than people in finance but being more learned that doesn't reflect the reality right now.

kids coming out of law school aren't going to live like consultants of oncologists for the vast majority, nowhere close. it's not an instant-job that makes six figures anymore.

and you didn't get into yale and you didn't make the NBA, and getting a gig at cravath where you wear a fancy suit isn't going to happen. most lawyers pay for their own gym-memberships, don't belong to country-clubs and they might never make six-figures in their lives. better chance in ny, chicago, boston, etc.


so remember kids, there may be VERY smart lawyers, but there are so fucking many of them now there are some pretty fucking stupid ones not making much money.

it's possible some of the better-written porn chicks could have gone to law school.