some type of adult girl

firstgrave:

i know other people have mentioned how incredibly inaccessible the law field is to many students, but i don’t think many of you understand just how systemic the issues are.

the LSAT alone is $200. almost every law school requires it for your application. the dates available and testing sites are incredibly limited. i live in fucking new york and i had 5 testing site options, all over an hour away and one was in another state.

recommended prepping schedule for the LSAT is 20 hours a week for three months. essentially a part time job, making it almost impossible for students who are working to pay their tuition. prep classes are expensive and not widely available, and tutoring can cost hundreds of dollars. while some prep material is now online, personal prep material can cost at least $20-$30 a book.

and not only is the cost of the test a huge obstacle, the test itself is not an actual measure of your ability to reach success in law school. instead, much like the SAT, it’s more likely your score will correlate more closely with your family income than your GPA. tests like these are designed so that students from wealthier background often are more successful than students from disadvantaged backgrounds, specifically students of color.

but perhaps you score well enough that you don’t feel you need to retake the LSAT, you now have to apply for schools. most schools require you to use the CAS. this service costs $195 just to create an account. it’s an additional $45 for each school you apply to, not including that schools specific application fee (which can be $100+). you will also likely have to pay to attach your transcript to the application as well.

in your application, you will likely be asked to include a resume and a personal statement. students who had to pay their own way through college, or were unable to work for a variety of reasons will be forced to compete against students could afford unpaid/low-wage internships with law firms or in courts and have practical experience that was unavailable to them.

maybe you’re accepted. maybe you’re even given a scholarship. but did you know that in the 2016-17 school year, almost 50% of law schools had conditional scholarships? what does that mean for you?

the way conditional merit scholarships are weighed varies by school, but the general idea is this:

• students ranked in the top 40% of their class retain 100% of their scholarship
• students ranked greater than 40% and up to 50% will retain 50% of their scholarship.
• students ranked greater than 50% and up to 60% of their class will retain 25% of their scholarship.
• students ranked anything else will lose their scholarship.

for many students this means that even if they could afford to attend law school when accepted into it, they may end up in a situation in which it is completely unaffordable within just a semester.

so what can students do? take out loans. the average law student graduates with around $150,000 debt, coming out to around $200,000 when paid over time.

not only do students graduate with substantial debt, they also are not certified attorneys. they must take and pass the bar exam. bar exam prep courses cost around $3,000. the bar exam itself can cost between $300 to $3000 depending on your state and testing center fees.

once again students who have financial backing are able to gain experience with certain fellowships/use family connections to gain job opportunities. students who do not have this financial backing are now stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and no guarantee of a job.

what does this mean for the law field itself? Pro bono work and less profitable work like public defense is devalued/understaffed. those who have the desire to help and work within advocacy groups often only have that opportunity after taking a job in a more lucrative field, like private or corporate work.

many of my professors who work in the law field happily touted the stat that, for the first time, more women were attending law school than men. though many still acknowledged that racial diversity was severely lacking, with Black and Hispanic/Latine students underrepresented across the US in law schools, they also insisted that this disparity was lessening and schools were working to increase their inclusivity. but this “inclusivity” has only been an option for students who end up either very lucky or were born into financial stable situations

the ones being put in situations in which they are supposed to act as advocates to those most vulnerable to unethical legal behaviors are also either ones who have been born into privilege and do not understand that level of vulnerability/may not feel the need to avoid unethical behavior if it means more profits and benefits for themslves, or have been disadvantaged throughout their life and are now in a situation in which unethical behavior is “necessary” in order to keep themselves afloat.

the system is designed so the powerful and privileged can protect the powerful and privileged, and that those who are disadvantaged that manage to make their way into the legal field are less able to work in areas that are not profit-driven. the entire system needs to be destroyed and rebuilt.

(via misgenderisms-deactivated202010)