>You can't say that prices are high for corporate legal services because supply is restricted
I'm not saying that. I agree with you that there is a surplus of corporate lawyers, and so deregulation wouldn't really reduce the price in that sector.
Even if there were cheap lawyers who learned through apprenticeship instead of law school, large companies still wouldn't hire them.
I'm talking about prices being driven up in other areas, where law school grads with insane debt don't want to work.
I know several law school grads who couldn't find the kind of high paying job they were looking for. However, since they had so much debt they ended up taking non legal jobs (one is a project manager, the other an entrepreneur), instead of moving into another lower paid area of the law.
Because of high education costs (and the requirement that lawyers posses a graduate degree, which means most of them are going to be at least 25 by the time they can start practicing, plus the psychological factors involved in having spent 7 years in school), there is a minimum price below which most lawyers will not work, and will seek other opportunities.
I'm not saying that. I agree with you that there is a surplus of corporate lawyers, and so deregulation wouldn't really reduce the price in that sector.
Even if there were cheap lawyers who learned through apprenticeship instead of law school, large companies still wouldn't hire them.
I'm talking about prices being driven up in other areas, where law school grads with insane debt don't want to work.
I know several law school grads who couldn't find the kind of high paying job they were looking for. However, since they had so much debt they ended up taking non legal jobs (one is a project manager, the other an entrepreneur), instead of moving into another lower paid area of the law.
Because of high education costs (and the requirement that lawyers posses a graduate degree, which means most of them are going to be at least 25 by the time they can start practicing, plus the psychological factors involved in having spent 7 years in school), there is a minimum price below which most lawyers will not work, and will seek other opportunities.