The economics of the legal profession are so bad …. (How bad are they?) They’re so bad that bright students are advised to ram their heads into solid objects at high speed, repeatedly, for a chance to earn a living for a few years, rather than enroll in law school. Here’s the take of Above the Law’s Elie Mystal on the health-based decision by Ohio State University linebacker Andrew Sweat to forego a professional football career and enroll in law school:
I’d bet all the money in my pocket that Sweat has not been paying attention to the media coverage of the long-term professional and financial damage that can be done by going to law school.
Ironically, Andrew Sweat didn’t get into Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law. The schools he did get into are decent enough, but they’re not at the top of the heap. The Columbus Dispatch reports that Sweat got into law school at Pittsburgh, Duquesne, West Virginia, Florida and the University of Miami.
In other words: Better to risk further concussions and permanent brain injury (and hope for the rookie minimum salary) than to play the odds at the law school where I teach, or at almost any other law school. NFL football can’t wait; law school can.