"Suddenly everyone wanted to become a lawyer," Laura Kalman in RIGHT STAR RISES

Last year's record applications to law school, despite the dismal job prospects, was not unique.  In her 2010 book RIGHT STAR RISING, Laura Kalman starts with that in the 1973 period [read Watergate],

"Suddenly everyone wanted to become a lawyer. ... Yet the reputation of lawyers had never been lower."

Law is one of those fields we project fantasies on but that's possible to enter.  All we have to do is be good at taking a standardized test - the LSAT - and apply to schools we can be admitted to.  That's different from lines of work like professional sports, modeling, and even the seemingly doable but isn't so within reach publishing a best-seller.

Perhaps that's why there's such unhappiness among lawyers as well as well above average substance abuse and suicide: we get to play the game and it rarely matches the fantasy.  The only tragedy worse than that is getting to marry the perfect spouse we created in our minds, only to discover a flawed human who we don't know.