Being a lawyer is not highly lucrative unless you are both extremely skilled and extremely lucky. The job market is supersaturated, and new graduates are DESPERATE to earn positions at firms. I recall reading this article stating that a major firm offered an entry level job for $10k a year and received several applications.
That's true, but I don't think its the cause for lawyer salaries in particular being so low. Instead, it is simple supply and demand. There aren't thousands of H1B lawyers because you'd have to get an education in our system in order to qualify. Instead, I believe it is due to (in this specific context) a combination of a growing quantity of available law programs/schools, a general lowering of standards to accept students into those schools, and an increasing number of students who want to "be a lawyer," because the cultural assumption is that a lawyer will be successful and have status/wealth. The available supply of lawyers greatly surpasses the demand, so the value of their work is now less than it once was. We think of "lawyers and doctors" as some of the most successful individuals in our society, but as being a lawyer becomes a more attainable goal for more people, that status it once held is eroded.
If H1B and similar programs caused lawyers to be replaced at the rate tech and healthcare workers are being replaced, it would have ended a long time ago.
They really are trying to completely undermine the IT industry for Americans as a whole
Being a lawyer is not highly lucrative unless you are both extremely skilled and extremely lucky. The job market is supersaturated, and new graduates are DESPERATE to earn positions at firms. I recall reading this article stating that a major firm offered an entry level job for $10k a year and received several applications.
That's true, but I don't think its the cause for lawyer salaries in particular being so low. Instead, it is simple supply and demand. There aren't thousands of H1B lawyers because you'd have to get an education in our system in order to qualify. Instead, I believe it is due to (in this specific context) a combination of a growing quantity of available law programs/schools, a general lowering of standards to accept students into those schools, and an increasing number of students who want to "be a lawyer," because the cultural assumption is that a lawyer will be successful and have status/wealth. The available supply of lawyers greatly surpasses the demand, so the value of their work is now less than it once was. We think of "lawyers and doctors" as some of the most successful individuals in our society, but as being a lawyer becomes a more attainable goal for more people, that status it once held is eroded.
If H1B and similar programs caused lawyers to be replaced at the rate tech and healthcare workers are being replaced, it would have ended a long time ago.