Pre-law verdict: money matters

Doctors do it for love, while lawyers do it for money - at least according to a recent survey of almost 1,000 pre-law and pre-medical students.

Kaplan, the test-prep company, conducted a survey asking 914 students what role earning power played in their choice to pursue a career in either law or medicine.

The survey found that 49 percent of pre-med students responded that earning power was "very much" or "somewhat" a factor in their decision to pursue medicine.

Among pre-law students, however, 71 percent gave those responses about their future profession.

"We asked both pre-med and pre-law students the same questions, and we were intrigued by the differences," Matt Fidler, director of pre-health programs at Kaplan, said.

The survey also found that while most medical students decided to become doctors while in high school or even middle school, most law students often did not decide on a profession until well into college.

By that time, they were often disqualified from becoming physicians due to the rigorous prerequisites of medical schools, Fidler said.

He added that more than half of pre-med students said a desire to help others influenced their career choice with another 25 percent citing an "affinity for the sciences."

"Overall it's an altruistic desire that drives people to medicine," Fidler said.

Some students at Penn Law School cited "earning power" as the motivation behind their career choice, explaining why students consider money an important factor.

"Students who want to come out and do civil-service law . are scared by the debt burden," Law student Conor Lamb said.

Lamb said his choice to pursue public-interest law has decreased both his marketability and opportunities to earn a high salary.

"It's hard when you have to decide between having to pay your own salary through scarce fellowship money and making $160,000 at a firm your first year out of law school," he said.

There are still options, such as postbaccalaureate programs for those who decide they want to become doctors later in their education.

"After college I decided that I really wanted to help others, and the best way for me to do that was [to become] a doctor," postbaccalaureate student Matthew Albert said.

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