
Ask HN: 200k student debt, degrees not very useful. What to do? - throwawaylaw
Situation:<p>About to graduate top 10 law school.<p>Top 10 undergrad, BA in random dumb social sciences junk I regret studying (high GPA).<p>roughly 200k student loans by the time I graduate.<p>Performed mediocrely in law school (put in serious effort, but, it's tough, at least for me. Lots of other excellent students here. Did well in some classes, but not most.)<p>As a result, didn't get one of the big law firm jobs I was expecting to justify the investment<p>Best current law job prospects pay 50k and stay pretty flat (public interest). I've applied to just about every legal position, clerkship, fellowship etc. out there. I've got a gig right for right after I graduate but that's pretty short-term, and I want to think about the future here.<p>Not that into law. Its not as interesting as i thought. Also the opportunities suck -- its status/prestige-obsessed if you want to make good money doing something besides personal injury and hoping to get lucky, and I failed in that competition, top 10 JD aside. Oh well.<p>I am around 30.<p>Wishing i'd studied a serious subject. i was scared about getting a low GPA, but having useful knowledge would have been way better.<p>I think i have the aptitude to learn stuff and do well in some career, but not sure what to do.<p>More school seems pointless and financially infeasible besides, plus i am burned out on academia. plus i'll be working full time to support myself -- can't take out any more student loans, especially for a second bachelor's.<p>Interested possibly in programming, comp sci, electrical engineering, but don't know enough about those fields to know whether i like them or just the idea of knowing a "hard subject". Also while I know you can self-teach programming and have friends who've done so, not sure how you'd go about self-teaching say engineering.<p>I don't really want to find something "safe" and ride it out till I retire. I want to figure out a way I can make a real contribution and do something interesting while making good money. Maybe that sounds weird for someone who went to law school, but I had something of a perspective shift mid-law school. So advice along the lines of "most work sucks, just learn to deal with it" isn't really helping me solve my problem.<p>What should I do HN?<p>Also as far as legal career options, before anyone asks:<p>1) Yes I've applied to government law jobs. Those are really hard to get, some even way harder than private sector firm jobs, which i failed to swing.<p>2) i have nothing against public interest law. i may even do it for a while to pay the bills. but having some experience in it already through law school stuff, it just wasn't something I could see myself doing indefinitely and enjoying very much. Plus the pay is really quite terrible.<p>3) working in-house at big companies is a route that's pretty much closed unless you're lateraling over from BIGLAW (a route now closed to me due to the way legal hiring works) or have some kinda nepotistic connection (which I don't have).<p>4) I'm not too much of an outlier in my situation. Lots of people in my class that I talk to privately are looking for work. The school tries to put a smiley face on the situation, but privately they'll tell you in your second year that if you miss the boat getting a job at on campus interview with a big firm, your short term private sector prospects are in the $20/hr range, which wouldn't be bad if you were coming straight out of college, but, with law school debt, it's pretty awful. It's bad out there, even near the top of the law school pyramid.
======
staunch
1\. What about entering a military JAG program? I believe they'll pay back a
large part of your loans at some point. I honestly don't know much about this
option, just throwing it out there.

2\. If you're interested in startups there's very serious demand for people
that _really_ know how to do startup marketing. Things like this:
[http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-
pir...](http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-
version)

There are 100 great programmers for every great marketer. If it's something
that resonates with you you could certainly build a lucrative career out of
it, either highly paid consulting for startups or to your own benefit as a
founder.

3\. If those too-many-years in school have made you good at writing you might
try your hand at blogging. Arrington was a somewhat middling lawyer if I have
my history right, but he had the perfect personality to cover startups
effectively.

You can make real money if you have the right set of networking and writing
skills.

~~~
throwawaylaw
2 and 3 are interesting, thanks.

As to 1 (JAG) I've looked into it extensively. Every branch except Army is
insanely competitive and Army is just super-competitive. I might have a decent
shot at Army though, but decided that it wasn't for me.

------
steventruong
Don't worry about self-teaching engineering right now. You're planning too far
ahead like you did with all the years spent in college pursuing law only to
find out you don't like it (something you could have learned in a
significantly shorter amount of time had you just interviewed, volunteered,
and intern for a couple weeks/months prior to studying for it).

Point being, same thing here. Find something interesting but relatively simple
you may want to code out. Ask your friends for some help, if needed, but work
through it. Read books and websites where applicable and get a feel for
whether you even like it or not. If not, you'll save yourself a lot of time
rather than worry about all the other junk and move onto the next thing. Same
thing with hardware. If it all works out, you can figure it out step by step
once you're pass the basics.

~~~
throwawaylaw
yeah this is a good point, thanks.

------
chris_dcosta
Here's the truth, you never end up doing what you studied. Not these days
anyway.

The working world is changing and although you are disilluioned with Law,
everything you learnt is valuable, but you don't have to be what you studied
to be. If there's a message in the start-up world - that's it.

Reading between the lines:

You have a huge debt that you want to clear asap

Startups can make loads of cash

You hate law - but feel obligated to it because of your qualification

You want to be around startups (hence HN membership)

Sounds like a perfect candidate for a VC.

~~~
throwawaylaw
So how do I do this?

------
mindcrime
_More school seems pointless and financially infeasible besides, plus i am
burned out on academia. plus i'll be working full time to support myself --
can't take out any more student loans, especially for a second bachelor's._

Just to throw an idea out there... maybe you could attend a community college
part-time and get a degree in something unrelated to law. Since CC's are much
less expensive, you could probably swing it without taking out any more loans
or anything. And you could take night classes while working at whatever job
you have.

Yeah, yeah, I know, but here me out... first, there is _nothing_ wrong with
attending a community college. Forget any elitist dogma bullshit you may have
been taught growing up, this is about making the best of things, and doing
what you have to do. Next, consider this... you _have_ a degree from a
prestigious law school... that looks good on your resume _no matter what_.
Even if you don't pursue a law job, you'll get more interviews and find more
doors open to you just because you went to $TOPTENLAW.

So... go get a 2 year degree in business administration, or marketing, or
computer programming or something that interests you, and you will undoubtedly
be able to transition into some other field. Yeah, you might not start out
making big bucks from day 1... sorry, but life isn't always fair. But,
cynicism aside, the world we live in (at least in the US) is actually
moderately meritocratic. If you're good at something, you can work your way to
a nice living. Just accept that nothing is going to be handed to you, and that
you'll (probably) have to work your ass off. But if you really want to
achieve, you can.

Another possibility is to learn to code (as you said, you can teach yourself)
and eventually jump into a tech startup.

~~~
kls
I think this is actually a good idea. Your "Degree" is always your highest
degree. So lets say you went to Harvard, you are always going to be a Harvard
grad, the community college degree is not going to affect that. But if you
take say a CS path at the community college you would be a Harvard grad with
an IT focus. I think there is some merit to this. What I don't believe that
you need to do though is now go to MIT to get a CS degree, it's just too much
debt for what you can realistically command in salary.

You will have to forgive me but I don't know much about the Law profession
from an employment perspective. Is their not a way to join a top law firm at
an entry level. Below where the good GPA candidates enter and work your way
up. It is a foreign concept to me because in the development industry you
ascend the ladder by proving yourself. If you are good people will notice in
my industry.

As well, what about organizations like the EFF or the ACLU do they have
programs where if you join them they help with the debt. I would like to think
that they do, but again I don't know much about law employment.

~~~
throwawaylaw
Thanks for your comments. I'll comment on joining the legal profession at the
entry level and on public interest law.

How legal hiring works at big law schools is this: you go through your first
year and get your grades. At the beginning of your second year, you interview
with big firms. You hopefully get an offer to work at one summer of your
second year. You do well that summer and hopefully get an offer.

This is the primary hiring pipeline for all big firms. A much smaller pipeline
is lateraling over from another big firm after you've worked there a few
years, but still, you need get through this pipeline at some firm.

If you miss this window, you're basically finished in terms of prospects at a
big firm. A couple of people manage to pick up a job their third year but its
pretty hard (I tried but failed).

It's a really weird system I know. But yeah, there's no way for me to go to a
big firm and say "I'll work for free if you give me a shot."

I _could_ do that with much smaller firms but then instead of 160k market
salary + high-level, interesting legal work being the end game its more like
40k and much less interesting work.

As to public interest orgs like EFF, if I work at some place like that, then
between the federal government program and my school's program I can get some
assistance and, after 10 years, get my debt forgiven. I'm looking into this
seriously and this is my "backup" plan. 10 years is a long haul for something
I'm not too excited about (see post) and at a very low salary, though.

~~~
kls
_10 years is a long haul for something I'm not too excited about (see post)
and at a very low salary, though_

Right which is why, if I where in your shoes I would start down that course
and build up experience. Look for problems in the legal profession and think
of solutions of how to fix them. Maybe learn some code or find someone that
does code that is interested in the legal market. Then build something to fix
a problem in that market. You contacts in the industry by the time the 10
years is up will be the key that a developer that is just interested in Law
will not have. Look at the 10 years as a plan to utilize your education and by
then experience to solve problems in the form of productized solutions. If you
hit before the 10 years is up, all the better, you walk from the job and pay
the debt with the proceeds from hitting it off. I would imagine that there are
not a lot of lawyers turned solution providers, I may be wrong but it seems
like after investing that much education most would be looking to directly
work in the field.

~~~
throwawaylaw
This is a good way of approaching the situation. Thanks.

------
pilom
It isn't exactly the most popular option for a lot of reasons, but one
possibility is going on an income based repayment plan for as much of the debt
as you can. The debt sticks around for 25 years but it allows you not to worry
about not having enough money. Also, what are your interest rates? If they are
in the 3-4% range, you may be able to do better taking your extra money and
saving with it rather than paying off the loan.

~~~
throwawaylaw
Yeah I'm going to be on IBR no matter what, it's the only way I won't go into
default.

My loans are all mixed but a good chunk of them are at the GradPLUS rate which
is 8.5%.

------
pmiller2
The best I can do is advise you a little on dealing with that $200k in student
loans. The rest of this comment applies to just federal loans. For private
education loans, you'll need to contact your lenders for details.

With that amount of loans, I'm assuming you maxed out your federal loans
(which happens around $120k -- maybe a little north of that because of
capitalized interest) and the remainder is in private loans. I don't know a
whole lot about private loans, but, as far as federal loans, if you're making
$50k with $120k in loans, you're certainly going to qualify for reduced
payments, which will at least ease the monthly burden on you. You'll need to
talk to your loan servicer, but, since the payments on income-based plans are
based on a strict percentage of income (IIRC, 15% of your gross income is the
max), based on the info you've provided, I don't see any problem whatsoever
with you qualifying.

With your debt and income numbers, if you take a reduced payment schedule, you
might end up with a payment less than the interest on the loan, which means
you essentially never make progress toward paying it off. However, if you have
this type of financial hardship for the next 25 years, your federal loans will
be forgiven.

Now, if you work in a public interest-type job, there's the possibility you
can qualify to have these federal loans forgiven in 10 years instead of 25 on
the income-based plans. You'll need to contact your loan servicer for details
on that.

Finally, because interest rates are essentially as low as they can get on
federal student loans, you're going to be well-served by obtaining a federal
student loan consolidation. Contact either your loan servicer or the William
D. Ford Direct Loan program (<http://www.loanconsolidation.ed.gov/>) for
details on consolidation.

This information came from three years experience at a company that
consolidated federal student loans. I can also recommend the site finaid.org
if you have any questions I haven't answered. I haven't read every word of
every page there, but what I have read seems spot on. Specifically, you might
find the following page to be of interest to you:
<http://www.finaid.org/loans/publicservice.phtml> .

I hope this helped a little. Believe me, I understand the psychological and
financial burden these types of loans can put on someone.

~~~
throwawaylaw
Thanks for your comments.

Overwhelmingly majority of my loans are either federal, or a type of loan
(GradPLUS) which you can consolidate with federal and get debt forgiveness on.

So yeah I've factored IBR into my plans, and might do public interest for the
debt forgiveness (and because I don't have a lot else going on at the moment
anyways).

Even 10 years is a long haul though!

------
reason
If it's of any consolation, I'm in medical school, hating every second of it,
and will likely be in your position very soon. I regret not getting into
engineering almost every day of my life. Not much help, I know, but know there
are others who can empathize. Good luck.

~~~
AznHisoka
What is the worst thing you hate about medical school?

~~~
reason
That I'm wasting my 20's on a profession that offers no room to innovate,
whose training is no more difficult than learning how to drive a tractor,
where the work is not stimulating and involves seeing the same patients with
the same diseases day-in and day-out, and that will soon be uprooted by
technology.

The career is hardly meaningful, despite what others romanticizing the
profession might have you believe.

~~~
AznHisoka
wow really? I thought being a doctor is as stimulating as it gets... trying to
find out causes for diseases, evaluating worst case scenarios, etc.

Have you thought about partnering with someone with an IT background to pursue
something with mobile health, EHR, or something that's in the crossroads
between the 2? There's a lot of innovation there.

------
eaurouge
Listening to NPR while browsing HN, this story came up just as I clicked on
your link:

[http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145179563/do-law-schools-
cook-...](http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145179563/do-law-schools-cook-their-
employment-numbers)

------
teyc
Patent law is becoming a serious issue in I.T.

Don't worry about low paying jobs initially, as long as it is in the right
area.

The debt is already going to kill you, so don't sweat it anymore. It is
irrelevant to the discussion. Just don't take on further debt.

~~~
throwawaylaw
I have lots of friends going into patent law.

But most of them have PhDs in the hard sciences and if you look at job
listings they tend to want that.

Oh and don't worry about more debt, I don't think that's _possible_ at this
point :)

~~~
teyc
While PhD may sound like a qualifying area, I don't think you should
necessarily give up.

The reason is a PhD in, say, Chemical Engineering, doesn't really help with
electronic patents do they?

Read up on Groklaw the issues at hand and see if you can mount any interesting
arguments / twists. If you have enough knack, then at the very least you'll
sound like a qualified candidate.

Otherwise, try for a side entry via some kind of pro-bono work for the EFF.

------
arn
I found your story very interesting. Some might question how you made it so
far without a plan, but I get it.

So, what would you do if you had no debt, and no obligations? What do you do
on weekends? Any hidden career desires?

~~~
throwawaylaw
Oh I had a plan it just hit the skids when I didn't get any offers from law
firms...I think it was a bad plan from the get-go though.

I'm not sure what I would do.

I have an idea or two for an app but I need to develop the coding skills.

I game to relax. Steam for the win!

------
GB_001
I don't know much about law school, so bare with me if this sounds far-
fetched.

Have you considered trying to offer legal consulting as a service, especially
for start-ups?

I mean it cant hurt as a side job to pay the bills.

