Lawyers aren't all rich

Hey, going to law school is a good investment. Law school graduates come out with a tremendous education that makes them more valuable in the workforce than many of those who don't have a law degree. But they also come out with a lot of debt. And they don't all run out and get six figure jobs, either.

This misperception is something that often irks my wife, a lawyer. Getting out of law school, she was looking down the barrell of ten years of loan payments! And since she didn't want to work the 60-70 hours a week required when you take one of those six figure jobs, the modest home we bought isn't on Easy St.

So when you think about Obama and his wife--Harvard Law grads, both--remember that he worked as a community organizer before he ran for state office (no big bucks there, either). And remember that John McCain followed the John Kerry plan. McCain's second and current wife is heiress to a fortune earned by her father, the largest beer distributor in the west.

Even Fox news reported on the trouble people have paying off those law school loans:

HARRISBURG, N.C. — It wasn’t until Barack Obama wrote a pair of best-selling books that he and his wife escaped their student loan debt, an experience Michelle Obama said Tuesday helps the couple understand everyday challenges better than policymakers in Washington.

“We are not so far away from life that we don’t understand and get it,” said Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential candidate.

Obama told the crowd that when she and her husband left law school, the monthly payments on their school loan debt was more than their monthly mortgage payment. She said they only got out of that debt when Barack Obama wrote his two books, “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams from My Father.”

I'm not asking you to feel sorry for the poor lawyers by any means. Just don't assume a million dollars comes with the diploma from law school.