The Wall Street Journal blog interviewed Kirsten Wolf, what they describe as a law-school “naysayer.”

They asked her how she liked law school, and although she liked the intellectual aspects of it, she disliked the competition for jobs.

They also inquired about the much obsessed over grades. Despite being a B+ student, she didn’t get the jobs she wanted and reconsidered everything. She finished the degree so that she would at least have something in return for her debt.

But her situation didn’t improve drastically over time,

Right now I owe $87,000 on my student loans. I work in a business now that’s not lucrative, so I’m on a 30-year repayment plan. But I’ve decided doing something I care about is worth financial sacrifice.

She explains how she got into this situation,

…the jobs that you think are going to be there won’t necessarily be there at all. Most people I know that are practicing attorneys don’t make the kind of money they think lawyers make. They’re making $40,000 a year, not $160,000. Plus, you’re going to be struggling to do something you might not even enjoy. A few people have a calling to be a lawyer, but most don’t.

They ask if she regrets doing law, and if it’s useful in her current line of job,

Yes. I do get value out of it. It helps in the work that I do as there is legal component to being an agent. It makes my clients feel better. But is that worth paying student loans until five years before my social security kicks in?

Jordan Furlong of the Law21 blog said in response,

I can’t conceive of graduating from school $87,000 in debt, even though this is reality for many new US lawyers and a growing number of Canadian ones… my eight years of post-secondary education ran me, at most, $20,000. Some students now burn through that in a year.

But there are some important differences that we’ve pointed out before.

Canada does not have an elite law school system (despite what Maclean’s might think); all of our schools are considered equal in merit and content, and the market usually treats them as such.

But the Wall Street Journal has pointed out some other trends in the U.S. that could be more pertinent to Canada.

An article early in this school year stated,

A law degree isn’t necessarily a license to print money these days.

They cite a survey in John Heinz’s Urban Lawyers: The New Social Structure of the Bar, which found that incomes for private and sole practitioner lawyers have dropped drastically.

Larger firms were relatively insulated by these changes.

One similarity in these findings that could be applicable to Canada is the stiffer competition in bigger cities.

Although salaries are higher in places like Toronto, Edmonton, and Calgary, there are also fewer spaces. Living expenses also often limit salary increases found in major urban firms.

Despite all of this, prospects for lawyers in Canada is still considered strong for the near future.

Perhaps one of the best ways to find fulfillment as a lawyer is to look beyond salaries alone, and keep in mind the immense opportunities for public interest work that can be done on the side.

As advocates for social justice and integral players of the workings of society, practicing attorneys just don’t need to make that kind of money.

Once those loans are paid off, that is.