There’s wealth and then there’s wealth.

One of the most common criticisms of a lot (not all!) of the so-called “economic” analysis that has dominated the political and legal minds of the last 30 years is its inability to account for value that cannot be reduced to monetary terms. The criticism, while duly noted, tends to be immediately forgotten. As a result, we’ve had an entire generation that’s felt compelled to justify its decisions on purely economic terms. The economic crisis may be affecting this tendency as much as its affecting other ways of viewing the world. Last year, some big law firms that were getting less work from their clients gave graduating law students to whom they’d given offers of permanent employment an offer that sounded to good to be true: go get another job — let it be low paying and “public interest” — and we’ll pay you a part of your salary in the expectation you’ll come work for us permanently next year. But now, according to Georgetown Law Grad Russ Ferguson, those firms are finding out, to their surprise, that the students who took advantage of the offer like their alternative jobs too much. Most importantly, they’re realizing that they’re wealthier in real terms in their lower paying jobs:

These new lawyers have found that their new jobs are more fulfilling and more interesting, and — more importantly — they’ve seen that they can live on a smaller salary. As one of my classmates put it, “Add up the hours I worked this week and add up the hours my friends at law firms worked. Divide our salaries by the amount of hours and you’ll see — I’m rich.”

(hat tip to the ABA Law Journal)