As one of many who is enrolled in an undergraduate program at an accredited collegiate center, I’m already thinking about what I’m going to do in graduate school, and the idea of law school weighs heavily on my mind.

However, there’s the saddening fact that things are changing; the success and guaranteed incomes that used to be associated with the law are shrinking somewhat, or at least being modified. For instance, there’s a recent Wall Street Journal article that was e-mailed out to pre-law students via the Binghamton Listserv, explaining that although the cream-of-the-crop students in law are just as desired as ever, many students leaving law school are having trouble finding jobs that can help them pay off the often extreme debts they have post-graduation.

I think that the article is wrong, and I’ll tell you why: What is happening is that there is so little movement at the top of law firms that there’s no ability for a younger generation of lawyers to move up. It takes years to earn your way into becoming a partner at an established law firm, and once you’re there, you want to stay for as long as possible and milk every dollar you can from the position.

Across the United States there are these incredibly OLD (albeit, occasionally competent) lawyers who simply don’t have to retire. As a result, perfectly well-educated young lawyers are being dismissed as part of ‘a slack in demand’ when they are simply the victims of a system in which there’s no longer any mobility or potential for career advancement unless you’re: a. off-the-wall brilliant, b. politically connected or c. lucky.

More importantly, the legal profession is missing out on the ideas of a younger generation, one that will eventually in some way be shaping policy and affecting the legal world we live in. When you have a big firm’s senior partner who is pushing 60 and raking in millions a year, is there really a reason he shouldn’t retire?

I would find it doubtful at best that many of these older partners stay in their firms because they are so deeply passionate about the issues at stake in their work; I think it’s about taking every dollar you can while you still have the opportunity. And I’m complaining because I’m scared that when I someday (hopefully) have successfully navigated law school, I’ll come upon a job market in which, unless I have an Ivy League education, I will be simply another fish in a stale, overcrowded pond.

I can’t help but wonder how long will it take for enough people in the legal profession to realize how much this mistake is costing the American legal system.