Big bucks? Not so much.

OK, I’ll be the first to say it. My beloved employer may have encouraged a starry-eyed student or two to apply to law school. With all of the articles we’ve published about firms jacking up first-year associates salaries to $160,000 a year, I thought about applying to law school myself. But you know what? There is no way in hell I’d graduate in the top 10 percent of any Texas law school --- which is a requirement to work at Big Bucks Law Firm L.L.P. And then I’d be another one of 70,000 Texas lawyers with $120,000 in law school debt, struggling to find clients in a legal market that’s been hammered by tort reform. The Wall Street Journal has a front page article about the legal market today that is news to no Texas lawyer -- it’s tough out there. And they interviewed Matthew Fox Curl, a 2004 graduate of the University of Houston Law Center, who made a whopping $32,000 in his first year as a solo personal injury lawyer and is thinking about moving back into his parents' house. “I didn't think three years out I'd be uninsured, thinking it's a great day when a crackhead brings me $500,” Curl told the Journal. Here’s a big hug from me to you, Matthew.
-- John Council