Peter at the Gates: "Think again"

The Wall Street Journal interviews K&L Gates chairman Peter Kalis on his firm’s strategy of recession-be-damned growth.  (The full interview is behind a subscriber wall, but it's excerpted at the WSJ Law Blog.)  Kalis has some sobering words for aspiring law students:

In addition to layoffs, law firms have dramatically cut their hiring of law school graduates. Do you think many college graduates today should think twice before they head off to law school?

Yes. The business model of the U.S. law school doesn’t quite make sense to me. Law schools will bring you in from college and educate you, but they will encumber you with six-figure indebtedness at a tender age.

The assumption was that there was no problem, because law firms like K&L Gates would pay that off for you. And that is where the wheels are falling off.

                                            -posted by brian