The U.S. legal industry does a lot of things well. At its best, it allows people access to justice through a fair and open process. It also allows individuals to take on the largest corporations, uncover and correct injustices, and challenge those in positions of power in ways that would be unthinkable in many countries.

The legal industry, however, has baked-in disadvantages. Lawyers have been trained to think backwards in solving new problems. What is the law governing a new IoT device? Let's see how courts looked at somewhat analogous situations 20 years ago. Though this way of thinking creates a type of grounding that is important to make the law stable, it comes with blinders. This is the problem facing legal recruitment. Thirty years ago, law students at top schools were ceremoniously ushered into the world of Big Law. On-campus interviewing was the norm for "top" firms. If you wanted another job—which meant government work, public interest or academia—you had to hustle.

Law school recruitment offices made it clear that Big Law jobs were easy to get and were the safest choice. The argument was simple: Big Law is stable; you will make tons of money; you will get the best training; and your options to do something later in your career will be preserved. All of that may have been true at the time. Countless students who went to law school to fight for the little guy or make a difference in the world found their ways to large firms that were created to serve the interests of the elite. The trade-off wasn't horrible and the amount of money offered was real.