jtech45,
i think jackdaw gives some really good advice about avoiding a "grass is greener" mentality. when i first read your initial post at the start of this thread my first concern wasn't the $150K price tag, but rather your job satisfaction after spending $150k of your credit and three years of your life. ip law is a lot of long hours and hard work. i've seen quite a few people burn out on it in short order. since you can make $150k doing retail pharmacy, you have the luxury of being able to fall back on your prior career path to pay back your student loans. if i were you, i wouldn't be too concerned about what jobs are available and what they pay. instead i'd focus on figuring out if ip law would give you the job satisfaction you're looking for. what do you like about law that makes you think you'd find more satisfaction in legal work?
good luck.
Personally I want to do law, because I get face time with clients (as opposed to the faceless representations that plague me now) and get to see the latest and greatest (and not so great) inventions before they go (or not...up to me!) to market. I come from a BSME background and definitely do not like to be constantly carted off to some random location to do hardware install when I could more eloquently be presenting myself through the written form.
I will even go out on a limb and say that if you yourself spending your free (and not so free) time on forums or just prefer writing your thoughts down and reading the thoughts of others through blogs and the like then you are on the right career path. You can further extrapolate from what I just wrote and say that everybody who has a decent post count and/or has been a member of this site for awhile who isn't already working in law damn well should be!