So I'm a lawyer and you should take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I think you've misread the market.
There has been an oversupply of legal gradutes for decades now. Today, half of law graduates don't get a job, and 90% can't get a job at a big firm. Yet, big firms are still paying $160k+bonus to people fresh out of school, because that's what they have to pay to get kids out of the top 15-20 schools or the tippy-top kids from the lower-ranked schools. Why do they continue to do this when lowering their standards for pedigree could cut their costs massively?
You can say that it's because law firms are stupid and invested in the status quo, but corporate clients surely aren't. Why do firms persist in putting so much stock in hiring Harvard/Yale/etc graduates, and why do clients keep hiring such firms? If there was really an opening in the market you could drive a truck through, what has stopped anyone from taking advantage of it thus far?
There has been an oversupply of legal gradutes for decades now. Today, half of law graduates don't get a job, and 90% can't get a job at a big firm. Yet, big firms are still paying $160k+bonus to people fresh out of school, because that's what they have to pay to get kids out of the top 15-20 schools or the tippy-top kids from the lower-ranked schools. Why do they continue to do this when lowering their standards for pedigree could cut their costs massively?
You can say that it's because law firms are stupid and invested in the status quo, but corporate clients surely aren't. Why do firms persist in putting so much stock in hiring Harvard/Yale/etc graduates, and why do clients keep hiring such firms? If there was really an opening in the market you could drive a truck through, what has stopped anyone from taking advantage of it thus far?