Wall of Shame: Getting Paid to Herd Lemmings Into Law Schools

There are a few things I would never do: (1) accept money for sex, (2) kick a dog and (3) join the legal industrial complex. Ann Levine feels differently.  She has made a career of grooming pre-law lemmings students for admissions to law school.  Here's a video post from her blog:

How can she sleep at night?  
Well, I kind of lied.  Before the shit hit the fan, I taught the LSATs to lemmings.  This was in the early 2000s.  Even then, I felt dirty and filled with shame.  Most of my students weren't "law school" material and were leaving decent jobs upon their admission to law school.  I guess I felt like a prostitute.  But, I taught them as best I could--but insisted that they should go to a Tier 1 school (1 to 50 back then) or give up on the dream.  Lemmings have tunnel vision, so most of them went to law school.  Law school is like love, there's someone for everyone.  
I'm happy I didn't keep in touch. I wonder how many of them are unemployed now.  How many of them lost their spouses because of the stress and the debt?  I only taught for a year and I feel bad for having done it.  
I combed Ann's site, looking for some sort of guarantee of admissions into a T14 or something that would justify this sort of service.  Instead I found this:

Direction for answering application questions about writing experience, why you want to attend a certain school, and how to explain away issues including a leave of absence, a prior poor LSAT performance, low GPA, and character questions.

That is just one of the "services" offered as part of a package called "The Works"--which costs a mere $3,495.00.
I've said it before and I'll say it again--if you have a poor LSAT performance or a low GPA--you probably have no business going to law school.  You will not be the next Matlock or a dude from The Practice.  Ms. Levine may be able to get you in the door, she boasts of assisting 1500+ law students through the process, but she can't insure that you'll be successful at the end of the day.  There must be better things to do with $3,495.00, right?
It's hard to keep up this blog with so much evidence that the lemmings don't get it.  There have been several stories in the last few days about the oversupply of attorneys, yet law students are hiding out from the Recession in law school.  They know full well the debt load and the lack of prospects for lawyers post graduation.  

Still, the harsh realities of being a young lawyer have not stopped thousands from enrolling in law school during the recession. Veritas Prep, a graduate school admissions consulting firm, found in a recent survey that four in five prospective applicants still plan to apply to law school even if "a significant number of law school graduates were unable to find jobs in their desired fields." Only 4 percent were dissuaded.

No wonder lawyers are an unsympathetic bunch.


If the infamous slimy Dean of NYLS had this to say:

Students simply "cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur," wrote Richard Matasar, the dean of New York Law School, in 2005. "Even those making the highest salaries find that the debt that they have accumulated while in school may tax them for years."

What business does anyone have going to law school?
However, we are going to keep reaching out to potential law students to dissuade them.  It's a sad fact that some of the BIDER readers will click on the link for Ann Levine's services and hire her.  However, I am sure that the brighter ones heed our advice and not pursue the dream of becoming an attorney any further.  
It's going to take a life time to take down the legal industry's good reputation.  I won't quit until people hang their heads in pity when I tell them I'm an attorney.  It hasn't happened yet.  I still dissuade 3 people on average a week--in person.  Just this week, it was a paralegal at my law firm, a classmate from middle school, a hood rat single mother at Family Court in Manhattan and a client.  
I guess we're in it for the long haul.