How does someone combine public relations with a law degree?

I%26#039;m an undergraduate studying political science and communications with a concentration in public relations. I%26#039;ve got loans to pay off and I%26#039;ve always wanted to go to law school but I really love what I%26#039;m doing with public relations and think that I would be good at it. For someone who graduates with degrees in political science and communications and then goes to law school (but works in between to pay off undergrad loans), are there any lucrative or specialized jobs that could utilize a traditional law degree AND public relations expertise?

Or am I better off just picking and choosing between one or the other? I%26#039;m kind of confused and I%26#039;m trying to plan my future so that my education will let me accomplish my goals of getting a good job. Thanks to anyone in advance for helping me with my question.

How does someone combine public relations with a law degree?

You could specialize in libel and slander suits, I suppose.

How does someone combine public relations with a law degree?

Lawyers are a dime a dozen. Heck their is a shortage of pharmacists and their median wage is $98,000K well above lawyers. Dentists 180,000K median and their is a shortage.

From US News, Poor careers for 2006

Attorney. If starting over, 75 percent of lawyers would choose to do something else. A similar percentage would advise their children not to become lawyers. The work is often contentious, and there%26#039;s pressure to be unethical. And despite the drama portrayed on TV, real lawyers spend much of their time on painstakingly detailed research. In addition, those fat-salaried law jobs go to only the top few percent of an already high-powered lot.

Many people go to law school hoping to do so-called public-interest law. (In fact, much work not officially labeled as such does serve the public interest.) What they don%26#039;t teach in law school is that the competition for those jobs is intense. I know one graduate of a Top Three law school, for instance, who also edited a law journal. She applied for a low-paying job at the National Abortion Rights Action League and, despite interviewing very well, didn%26#039;t get the job.

From the Associated Press, MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A lawmaker who persuaded the Assembly to eliminate all state funding for the University of Wisconsin law school says his reasoning is simple: There%26#039;s too many lawyers in Wisconsin.

From an ABA study about malpractice claims, More Sole Practicioners: There appears to be an increasing trend toward sole practicioners, due partly to a lack of jobs for new lawyers, but also due to increasing dissatisfaction among experienced lawyers with traditional firms; leading to some claims which could have been avoided with better mentoring.

New Lawyers: Most insurers have noticed that many young lawyers cannot find jobs with established firms, and so are starting their own practices without supervision or mentoring. This is likely to cause an increase in malpractice claims, although the claims may be relatively small in size due to the limited nature of a new lawyers

閳ユ窔n a survey conducted back in 1972 by the American Bar Association, seventy percent of Americans not only didn閳ユ獩 have a lawyer, they didn閳ユ獩 know how to find one. That閳ユ獨 right, thirty years ago the vast majority of people didn閳ユ獩 have a clue on how to find a lawyer. Now it閳ユ獨 almost impossible not to see lawyers everywhere you turn.%26quot;

Growth of Legal Sector

Lags Broader Economy; Law Schools Proliferate

For graduates of elite law schools, prospects have never been better. Big law firms this year boosted their starting salaries to as high as $160,000. But the majority of law-school graduates are suffering from a supply-and-demand imbalance that%26#039;s suppressing pay and job growth. The result: Graduates who don%26#039;t score at the top of their class are struggling to find well-paying jobs to make payments on law-school debts that can exceed $100,000. Some are taking temporary contract work, reviewing documents for as little as $20 an hour, without benefits. And many are blaming their law schools for failing to warn them about the dark side of the job market.

The law degree that Scott Bullock gained in 2005 from Seton Hall University -- where he says he ranked in the top third of his class -- is a %26quot;waste,%26quot; he says. Some former high-school friends are earning considerably more as plumbers and electricians than the $50,000-a-year Mr. Bullock is making as a personal-injury attorney in Manhattan. To boot, he is paying off $118,000 in law-school debt.

A slack in demand appears to be part of the problem. The legal sector, after more than tripling in inflation-adjusted growth between 1970 and 1987, has grown at an average annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.2% since 1988, or less than half as fast as the broader economy, according to Commerce Department data.

On the supply end, more lawyers are entering the work force, thanks in part to the accreditation of new law schools and an influx of applicants after the dot-com implosion earlier this decade. In the 2005-06 academic year, 43,883 Juris Doctor degrees were awarded, up from 37,909 for 2001-02, according to the American Bar Association. Universities are starting up more law schools in part for prestige but also because they are money makers. Costs are low compared with other graduate schools and classrooms can be large. Since 1995, the number of ABA-accredited schools increased by 11%, to 196.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the inflation-adjusted average income of sole practitioners has been flat since the mid-1980s. A recent survey showed that out of nearly 600 lawyers at firms of 10 lawyers or fewer in Indiana, wages for the majority only kept pace with inflation or dropped in real terms over the past five years.

Many students %26quot;simply cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur,%26quot; wrote Richard Matasar, dean of New York Law School, in 2005, concluding that, %26quot;We may be reaching the end of a golden era for law schools.%26quot;

Now, debate is intensifying among law-school academics over the integrity of law schools%26#039; marketing campaigns.

David Burcham, dean of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, considered second-tier, says the school makes no guarantees to students that they will obtain jobs.

OK, I have to interject right here. Did a dean of a law school basically say you could go through all the nonsense of getting into law school, law school, ethics exam, bar exam and you should not expect some sort of gainful employment after you are through? You might as well go to Las Vegas and put your tuition money on the rouelette table and let it ride, you may have better odds of making money than going to his school and getting a decent paying law job. This guy is a jerk.

Yet economic data suggest that prospects have grown bleaker for all but the top students, and now a number of law-school professors are calling for the distribution of more-accurate employment information. Incoming students are %26quot;mesmerized by what%26#039;s happening in big firms, but clueless about what%26#039;s going on in the bottom half of the profession,%26quot; says Richard Sander, a law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who has studied the legal job market.

But in law schools%26#039; self-published employment data, %26quot;private practice%26quot; doesn%26#039;t necessarily mean jobs that improve long-term career prospects, for that category can include lawyers working under contract without benefits, such as Israel Meth. A 2005 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, he earns about $30 an hour as a contract attorney reviewing legal documents for big firms. He says he uses 60% of his paycheck to pay off student loans -- $100,000 for law school on top of $100,000 for the bachelor%26#039;s degree he received from Columbia University. %26quot;Most people graduating from law school,%26quot; he says, %26quot;are not going to be earning big salaries.%26quot;

Adding to the burden for young lawyers: Tuition growth at law schools has almost tripled the rate of inflation over the past 20 years, leading to higher debt for students and making starting salaries for most graduates less manageable, especially in expensive cities. Graduates in 2006 of public and private law schools had borrowed an average of $54,509 and $83,181, up 17% and 18.6%, respectively, from the amount borrowed by 2002 graduates, according to the American Bar Association.

But just as common -- and much less publicized -- are experiences such as that of Sue Clark, who this year received her degree from second-tier Chicago-Kent College of Law, one of six law schools in the Chicago area. Despite graduating near the top half of her class, she has been unable to find a job and is doing temp work %26quot;essentially as a paralegal,%26quot; she says. %26quot;A lot of people, including myself, feel frustrated about the lack of jobs,%26quot; she says.

The market is particularly tough in big cities that boast numerous law schools. Mike Altmann, 29, a graduate of New York University who went to Brooklyn Law School, says he accumulated $130,000 in student-loan debt and graduated in 2002 with no meaningful employment opportunities -- one offer was a $33,000 job with no benefits. So Mr. Altmann became a contract attorney, reviewing electronic documents for big firms for around $20 to $30 an hour, and hasn%26#039;t been able to find higher-paying work since.

Some new lawyers try to hang their own shingle. Matthew Fox Curl graduated in 2004 from second-tier University of Houston in the bottom quarter of his class. After months of job hunting, he took his first job working for a sole practitioner focused on personal injury in the Houston area and made $32,000 in his first year. He quickly found that tort-reform legislation has been %26quot;brutal%26quot; to Texas plaintiffs%26#039; lawyers and last year left the firm to open up his own criminal-defense private practice.

He%26#039;s making less money than at his last job and has thought about moving back to his parents%26#039; house. %26quot;I didn%26#039;t think three years out I%26#039;d be uninsured, thinking it%26#039;s a great day when a crackhead brings me $500.%26quot;

Here is an example ad in Massachusetts for an experienced attorney, that mentions salary, it was posted this week. Most jobs don%26#039;t state salary in the ad cause the pay is pretty low.

Office of the District Attorney, criminal attorney, for the Bristol County District seeks staff attorney for the Appellate Division. Excellent writing skills and a passion for appellate advocacy are a must. Salary $37,500. Preference given to candidates who live in or will relocate to Bristol County.

LOL, secretaries with no college can make more. What is even more sad is there will probably be like 50-100 lawyers that send in their resume for this ad.

Here is another attorney ad. They pay 35K-40K, yet they want someone with experie