Double Header: WashPo is Kaplan's Bitch and Pychology's Explanation for Top Law Schools

Aussies have been reading BIDER and the discussion of the scam blogs and the legal industry spurred this discussion.  Kudos to Donna Gordon for putting a name of the "affliction" suffered by many lemmings, as evidenced by discussion at Top Law Schools.

	elnoobocompo writes... Real problem is employers expecting some initiative (work experience or the likes for real world experience) and  graduates only offering a degree then searching for months for a job whilst the kid who had work experience  because the employer knew there's no way (unless they attended Uni earlier) the student could have any and  is thus showing initiative and willing to work hard. I'll use your statement to put across my 2c, again. Blaming individual students for not getting jobs is a bit silly. There are simply not enough jobs (as lawyers,  that people actually want when they start a law degree) to go around.
	O.P. this post was edited dzhay writes... Blaming individual students for not getting jobs is a bit silly. There are simply not enough jobs (as lawyers, that people actually want when they start a law degree) to go around. I agree. I think that some people here need to understand the meaning of "Fundamental attribution error". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or  attribution effect) describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based  explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. The fundamental attribution error is most visible when people explain the behavior of others. It does not explain interpretations of one's own behavior—where situational factors are  often taken into consideration. This discrepancy is called the actor– observer bias. As a simple example, if Alice saw Bob trip over a rock and fall, Alice might consider Bob to be  clumsy or careless (dispositional). If Alice later tripped over the same rock herself, she would  be more likely to blame the placement of the rock (situational).

Tell me that doesn't describe lemmings to a tee.  It's not us, it's the legal industry.  Stop trying to blame the "victim" and see for a second that you can be in the same situation as all of the unemployed and underemployed attorneys out there.

*****************
A reporter from Washington Post called me for an article that was published last Sunday.  What a loser article.  When the article was first published, it said that the founders of Law School Transparency were Villanova students--this mistake has since been fixed as they are in fact students at Vanderbilt.  The article is tepid at best, saying that the ABA passed a resolution requesting that the law schools be more truthful.  No mention of Villanova's recent scandal:

Villanova University School of Law “knowingly reported” inaccurate admissions information to the American Bar Association for years leading up to a new dean’s arrival in 2010, the school’s dean said Monday.

My biggest problem with the article is that she spoke to ME and didn't mention our interview or BIDER, but instead chose to cite Esq Never.  Although Esq Never was a great blog, it has been defunct since August 8, 2010--although recently updated with one post (literally explaining Esq Never's absence).  Way to go, Washington Post! I can only hypothesize, but the reporter's reluctance to tell the real story may be related to Kaplan's ownership of Washington  Post.  You don't want to trash the boss' business.  I expected a story at least as fair as Washington Post's story on Kaplan opening a law school in D.C.
Washington Post, try publishing a real story next time. Also, don't bother calling me unless you're going to quote me or one of my contemporaries.

F*ck You Gunner!

I love this video!  This is an effective use of Law School time!

These are by farrrrrrrrrrrr, the most lovable law students I've seen in forever!

Jobs at Law Schools - JDs Not Wanted

Most scam bloggers and our unemployed and underemployed readers would drop to our knees and thank the heavens if we found a full-time job with benefits in the $40k range. A job in the $40k range at a top ten university or law school? At the very least we would no longer have to hide under a rock in shame at the next family gathering. We would still be under massive stress to pay off our law school debt, but we could hold our head up high and tell our relatives that we found a job in academia or at a T14 law school. We could prove to acquaintances on a very superficial level that spending 7+ years in higher education didn't go to complete waste.

Realistically, any full-time job in this economy would be a blessing for the millions of unemployed with a BA, JD, or PhD. Over the years, Angel and I have received emails and testimonials from law students eager to flush down the last remains of their dignity to clean toilets as long as it was a 9-5 job that gave them health benefits and allowed them to put food on the table. That is the tragic reality for the victims of this economic depression. Last week, The New York Time's Paul Krugman wrote briefly on the failure of many college graduates to find employment:

Here’s the question: of college graduates with a bachelor’s degree who aren’t enrolled in further schooling, how many have full-time jobs?

In December 2007, on the eve of recession, the answer was 9083 percent.

By December 2009, it was down to 72 percent.

As of December 2010, it had recovered only slightly, to 74 percent.

To me, that’s a tale of young lives blighted, not just in the short run but perhaps permanently: failing to get a job when you get out of school colors your whole career. And it’s still happening.

Yet unemployment has virtually dropped off the political agenda.

Of the 74 percent of graduates with jobs, plenty of them - and I know a few - are out there working as bartenders, fast food workers, or waiters. People with graduate school degrees who are unemployed are even worse off as we are older and have fewer years to get back on track before we're completely cast off as old and damaged goods.

The irony of all this is that there are jobs out there, even under our noses at the same institutions we graduated from, only we are over-educated to even be considered. Take for instance these two job openings at T10 schools Columbia and NYU:

Columbia University Law School
Job Title: Development Assistant
Salary Range: $43,000-$48,000
Minimum Qualifications: High school diploma and/or its equivalent, plus three years of relevant work experience required, or the equivalent combination of education and experience. College degree strongly preferred. Strong interest in fund-raising and some fundraising experience preferred. Must have excellent verbal and written communications skills and ability to handle highly sensitive and confidential prospect information discreetly. Must be detail oriented, self-motivated, and able to work independently and manage multiple responsibilities simultaneously and meet deadlines in a high-volume environment. Must be able to work a flexible schedule including some evenings and weekends. Proficiency in, Microsoft Word/Excel required, Raiser's Edge preferred.
Quick Link: jobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=123270


New York University School of Law
Job Position: The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is seeking two full-time Research Associates for the Center’s Democracy Program. The Democracy Program seeks to change the ways in which citizens participate in their government by fixing the systems that discourage voting, hinder competition and promote the interests of the few over the rights of the many.
Salary Range: $35,000-40,000
Qualifications: Initiative, drive, and commitment; excellent research, analytic, and writing skills; computer skills; professionalism, reliability, flexibility, and attention to detail. Candidates must be willing to do administrative and clerical work. Experience with democracy issues a plus. Paralegal experience or experience in statistical analysis preferred, but not required.
This is an entry level position; lawyers and individuals with advanced degrees should not apply.

There are so many unemployed law grads out there that any job associated with the law now has to have a disclaimer warning unemployed JDs not to apply. But they will gladly consider your application if you have a GED with job experience. It is very likely your alma mater would rather employ a high school or community college graduate with work experience over you. Why? Because they know that work experience counts a hell of a lot more than someone who was duped into buying one of their worthless degrees but lacks any real world job skills.

Go to Shit Law Jobs on any given day and you will find jobs like these:

Temporary attorney job in D.C. area for recent grad

Thanks to the reader who submitted this:
We are currently seeking (2) additional recent college graduate or JD to work a contract assignment in a Legal Department in a Reston, VA organization through April. Will be reviewing/editing legal agreements. Must be proficient in Mircosoft Word. If interested and qualified please send a resume in a Word Document. Pay is 14/an hour. This is not negotiable.
Location: Reston, VA
Compensation: 14/hour
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/lgl/2207544154.html

Unpaid internship in NYC for recent law school grad

We are a new law firm in Downtown/ Financial District looking for an intern to assist in legal research, writing as well as administrative duties. This is an unpaid internship position that could lead to permanent position in the future open to law students and recent law graduates. Speaking Spanish and/or website construction knowledge is a plus.
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/2203980528.html

Again, work experience will almost always trump a useless graduate degree unless you are one of the few lucky people to get a job in academia, biglaw, Wall Street, or consulting. The great majority of graduates will be left out in the cold, either unemployed, underemployed, or in entry-level jobs they could have gotten without the degree and a lot less debt.

Here is a personal example of how work experience trumps education. I am dating someone at the moment around 5 years older. He went to a non-elite university and graduated with less than $15k in student debt. He has no plans to ever attend graduate school. He became interested in computers during high school in the 90s when he began learning on his own about web application frameworks, design, and other computer science subjects which I know nothing about. He did freelance work while he was in school and built up connections, knowledge, and experience on his own. No help from alumni services, career services, or professors. The college degree is merely dressing on his resume as almost all of the skills he acquired outside of school would have been enough for him to do well as a web developer.

He now works in web development in a management role. He has no debt, owns a house, has health benefits, vacation time, and makes a very good salary. The irony is that if the average person met us on the street, I would be considered more accomplished because of a useless JD and the academic prestige of attending a top 14 school. Even my boyfriend believes I'm the smarter one for getting into a top university. If only they knew the real fool is me for believing the hype, taking out massive loans that will take me years to pay back, and probably spending the next decade trying to match what my bf makes today.

The higher education business has successfully brainwashed the public into believing that someone with an advanced degree deserves more respect, is smarter, and automatically more accomplished. With help from their friends in Washington, they have convinced millions of Americans that spending $100k or more for a degree with no guarantee of a good job is a good investment. That the best years of your life are better spent paying a fortune to attend their school than being out in the world making money or starting a family.

As Angel said so well last week, stop listening to politicians and crooks in bed with the student loan companies, banks, and higher education industry. They tell you that education is key to the success of our country then turn around and slash Pell Grants for needy students. Follow Angel's advice. Whether you decide to go to college or graduate school or go out into the work force straight out of high school, be entrepreneurial and learn skills on your own outside of your useless liberal arts major that will help you find a job - any job - if you happen to find yourself without a good job offer. One of my friends works as a bartender in New York and makes a decent living. She has a college degree and never knew that her part-time job at a bar in her college town would someday save her from being homeless or moving back in with her parents.

Lastly, don't spend 4-8 years in school without being in the driver's seat of your own life. Don't put your future in the hands of career services and depend on your adviser to help you find a job. View higher education as dressing. The essential ingredients to finding a job depends on you being equipped with real world skills and connections outside of school. The administration is only there to take care of daily operations and take your money. Once they hand you a degree and shove you out the door, you won't be hearing from anyone other than a lemming calling you for a donation.

If I Kill the Dean of Widener with Malice Aforethought... is that Manslaughter or First Degree Murder!?

Ha.  That's exactly the type of example that Widener Law professor, Lawrence Connell, used during his Criminal Law lectures.  And for that, he is suspended indefinitely and may be fired. Allegedly, there are other issues with the professor as well:

In a letter to Connell, school administrators said the professor has a pattern of racist and sexists comments in the classroom, as well as hypothetical situations that threaten fellow professors and students. If true, the allegations made against Connell by several students may violate the school's discrimination and harassment code, it said. 

Wow.  These Widener students are super sensitive.  I might as well let it be known that I'm not a fan of Widener.  In 2000, Widener was my Cooley.  For those of you that don't read my blog often enough, I make fun of Cooley bi-weekly because it's the shittiest law school in the country.  That privilege was once reserved for Widener.  I thought regionally at the time.  I used to tutor students for the LSATs in the Philadelphia area and Widener was everyone's back-up school--before Drexel opened.  Their part-time program was infamous.  The bar passage rate was low.  And this Delaware School feeds into Pennsylvania because Delaware is too damn small to absorb them.  The Pennsylvania market is highly saturated and notoriously low paying for a big city.  I am no longer familiar with Widener, but I am sure it still sucks.  Chime in if you feel differently.  Big tangent, sorry.  Back to the story.

He is being accused of being a racist sexist pig:

According to correspondence released by Neuberger, Connell was informed on Dec. 10 that some students in his spring 2010 criminal law class had complained to administrators about offensive statements concerning women and minorities — including the murder of Ammons, a black woman. Vice Dean Patrick Kelly told Connell that he then interviewed students in his fall course. Those students "raised similar concerns without the violent scenarios of last spring." 

Ha. If the Dean is black and a woman, does that make her any less appropriate as the "victim" in a criminal law hypothetical?  Isn't she asking for it as the Dean of a shit law school?

"As a teacher, I have employed hypothetical problems involving familiar people in absurd situations, to enable students to remember the legal principles involved," Connell wrote. "It sickens me to think that after my nearly 26 years at Widener, university administrators are suddenly able to divine from the baseless claims of a couple disgruntled students that I am a bigoted racist with violent propensities."  

I don't know Prof. Connell from Adam, but I'm willing to bet that he isn't guilty as "charged."  It's pretty normal to discuss murder when you're teaching about murder.  Oh yeah, those classes often discuss rape and manslaughter as well.  I don't know how you can teach criminal law without discussing... crime.  You can only slice and dice and run over Britney Spears so many times before it gets old.  Power to Prof. Connell for evoking images that felt more real to these downtrodden students.  Leave it to a "Law" School to quash a person's freedom of speech.

Clueless Indeed.

Elizabeth G. Olson from Fortune is obviously dense, dumb and slow--as evidenced by her February 16, 2011 article entitled "Lawyers: Say farewell to that guaranteed raise." You think!?  It's articles such as these that make people hate lawyers.  Apparently, big law firms--although still starting associates at $160K--are going to base raises on merit, rather than years out of law school.  Wooptifuckingdo.  Whoa is them.  Poor little rich lawyers aren't quite as wealthy as they used to be.  The legal industry has bigger concerns.  How about the 80% of 2008 grads that were unemployed at one point?   What happened to them?

So, Ms. Olson notes the reason for the redistribution of wealth is because Big Law is under the scrutiny of their broke-ass corporate clients.  I experienced this myself while working at Big Law.  The corporate clients would audit the legal bills and make demands like "Can't Contract Attorneys (in India) do this work?"  Big Law, you're late to the pity party. Most lawyers deal with broke-ster clients that micro-manage your case because of costs.  Actually, i would venture to guess that most of legal strategy is defined by cost.   Ideally, you'd like to do the best for your clients, but they can't afford to have you pull all stops for them.  Now corporations are feeling the crunch and are similarly trying to micro-manage their legal teams.  So, bull shit story short, the legal world is changing and it's looking less stellar for the creme de la creme. What a mundane story.  It's like focusing on the gas tank leak at the corner Exxon while the BP Oil Spill is gushing in the Gulf of Mexico.  Journalists love to focus on the non-stories.  It makes the world seem like a decent place.

Thanks Tipster!  You can email me next time at angelthelawyer@gmail.com

Georgetown Will Do ANYTHING for its Grads....

As far as career advice goes, cold calling has to be the worst of the acceptable methods to find employment.  It comes after applying for open positions, networking and contacting alumni.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, when all of the above methods fail, you literally contact whomever begging for a job.  The chances of scoring a job this way have to be about those of winning at the slot machines in Atlantic City, but I suppose it's better than doing nothing.


What about cold-emailing?  Sending out emails to potential employers who probably aren't looking to hire someone.  Are you chances of getting hired worse or better when a cold-email may end up in a potential employer's spam box?


Well, desperate times calls for desperate measures and Georgetown is going to make sure that Georgetown Grads are employed, even if they have to resort to cold-emailing.


A BIDER reader forwarded me the following email with the caveat: "FYI, I did NOT go to G'town undergrad or law.  Also we are located several hundred miles from Washington DC.  This just appeared in my in-box.  How they got my name, I have no idea."


From:    "Laura Hosid" <lar9@law.georgetown.edu>
To:    DELETED
Cc:    <amp273@law.georgetown.edu>
Date:    02/07/2011 02:58 PM
Subject:    Georgetown Law - Legal Interns


I am writing from Georgetown University Law Center to inquire as to whether you will be hiring interns in your legal department this year.  We have a number of highly qualified students seeking employment for the upcoming summer.  In addition, we understand that most corporations do not hire new graduates for lawyer positions, but if you have a need or interest in considering a talented young lawyer for a post-graduate legal or non-legal position, please let us know.
 
Please feel free to get in touch with either myself or Abe Pollack, Director of Employer Outreach, if you would like to post a position for our students.  I can be reached at (202) 662-9303 or lar9@law.georgetown.edu, and Abe Pollack can be reached at (202) 661-6560 oramp273@law.georgetown.edu.  Thank you for your time and consideration.  
 
Sincerely, 
 
Laura Hosid
  
 
Laura R. Hosid, Esq.
Associate Director, Office of Career Services
Georgetown University Law Center
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW - Room 328
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 662-9303



For those that don't know (live under a rock), Georgetown is a Top Tier School.  This is what the legal job market is coming to.  What do you guys think?  Is this enough to keep the lemmings from taking the plunge?  Lord have mercy on us all.


Thanks for the tip!  

Really? Really!

Harvard #1.... and Cooley #2.  It's no fucking joke, according to Thomas M. Cooley School of Law.  Sorry if I'm late to the party, but I can't let a story about Cooley come and go without Angel's treatment. 
How the hell did that happen, you wonder.. so did I.  I'm still wondering, actually.  Cooley goes on about everything that was not considered in reaching this determination by "Judging the Law"*:

First, Judging the Law Schools eliminates the highly subjective criteria found in other well-known ranking systems from consideration. Eliminating subjectivity from the rankings means that:
•"Reputation" of the schools based on the opinions of various individuals and the quality of scholarly publications by faculty are not included; and
•No consideration is given to exclusionary admissions practices in these rankings, although the quality of incoming classes is considered.

Here's what was considered by these mental patients...

Judging's rankings are based on the following premises:
•That higher incoming credentials are better than lower;
•That lower student:teacher ratios and smaller class sizes are better than higher ratios and larger classes;
•That higher bar passage rates are better than lower;
•That bigger is better than smaller;
•That less expensive is better than more expensive; and
•That more minority enrollment is better than less.

I somehow think that Tom Cooley would rank #494, even under this newfangled and hardly recognized system. 

On that note, have a great weekend.  Don't go to Cooley unless you're a mental midget with a death wish. By the way, if you buy Tom Cooley's bullshit, you're a mental midget with a death wish and deserve everything coming to you.

*Who the hell are these idiots?

Law School is Most Definitely Losing its Mojo!

Wall Street Journal Blogs poses the question: Is Law School Losing its Mojo?  Hell, fucking yes it is.  Mizzou released news that it's applicant pool is down since last year, and down 12% nationwide.  So, these college kids are using their brains and getting a clue.  The WSJ blog ends with an appropriate question.  What else are kids to do?   After all, they can't find jobs.  So, why not go $100K+ debt and hide out from the recession for a few years, right?  Wrong.  Let's think of things that kids can do that are more productive than burying yourself under pile of debt:

• Nothing.  Sometimes, inaction is better than action.  Especially when action results in negative net worth.
• Volunteer.  It's an honorable thing to do and will be a better resume gap filler than the bullshit you make up to cover up the fact that you were in law school for 3 years, when you find yourself in the horrible position of having to drop the J.D. from your resume to find gainful employment.
• Take an entry-level job anywhere.  You may think you're too good to be an administrative assistant, but you're not.  It's in your head.  The market says your college degree is worthless.  Nothing will make you shine more than competence.  Your degree is not enough, so prove yourself.  If you're really as smart as you think you are, you'll be running the place before long.
• Explore your creative side.  If you are a writer, write.  If you're a painter, paint.  If you can build shit, do so.  This might be the only time in your life that you can focus on something that you enjoy.  I used to write poetry, and now I don't have time and I'm eternally uninspired because my life sucks.  Well, being a lawyer sucks.  Who knows?  You might end up the next Warhol or Edgar Allen Poe (hopefully you won't die a drunk in a gutter in Baltimore though).
• Become an Entrepreneur.  All of the richest people in our country are Entrepreneurs.  You're young. You're on the pulse of technology and innovation.  If you have an idea, run with it.  Ask the rents and their friends for start up money and start something.  Even if you fall flat on your face, you'll likely owe less money to more sympathetic creditors.

I understand you'd rather be earning money.  But if you go to law school, you won't be making money. You will owe money.  Trust me, it's so much worse to owe than to be broke.  As an unemployed law school grad, you can look at a homeless person and say, "I can't give you a dollar because you're wealthy compared to me."  No money is greater than $100K of debt.
At the end of the day, you're not entitled to what our parents had.  Our society is falling apart.  Our grandparents had the benefit of jobs for life with benefits and pensions.  Our parents had the benefit of relatively steady employment and health insurance and maybe a 401K.  We have nothing.  No one is going to give you a fair wage and health insurance because you're smart or good looking.  So get over yourself.  Stop drinking Obama's Kool-Aid.  Education is not a panacea.  Make your way, by yourself.  It's scary, but I have faith in you.

University of Minnesota Starts Bullshit Program

Wow.  Law Schools just don't get it.  A few schools have started programs in Islamic Law.  What a nice idea, right?  Wrong.  What in God's name, or Allah's name for that matter, will students do with a degree in a legal system that isn't used in this country?  Are the students enrolled in these programs going to become barristers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?  Will they be more or less qualified than scholars from Al-Azhar University?  Even if they were qualified, who the hell is going to hire a non-muslim over a muslim when dealing with a legal system based on religion?  Will this prepare lawyers to be better practitioners in the United States?  HELL no!  Don't get me wrong, I am sure that these programs will be interesting, perhaps even enlightening.  But it will do nothing at all to make University of Minnesota law grads more employable.  Absolutely nothing.  Let's just stop with the whole "juris doctorate" thing and call a law degree what it is: "B.A. Part II"--or perhaps B.S. as in BULL SHIT.  Interesting classes are enticing.  But, my secret to passing the New York bar on the first try wasn't Barbri--it was taking bar classes to the exclusion of anything interesting.  It wasn't a huge loss since nothing in law school is that interesting.  Anyhow, that's how you pass the bar, which may or may not make you nominally employable.  That does nothing for your lack of practical skills.  Lawyers and law firms have been on law schools for a while, for their utter failure to produce lawyers (rather than law school grads).  I think it's hard for a bunch of nitwits that were too socially inept to practice law, to teach others.  After all, those who can't do, teach--as the old adage goes.  

This type of program does nothing to fix the obvious problem with law school.

I can hardly think of anything more useless than a J.D. with a concentration in Islamic Law for all 20 positions in the government that may or may not find it useful to understand the legal systems in the Middle East.  Why don't we have programs in French Civil Code or Samurai Sword Fighting?  Somewhere in the world, there may be a need.  Will that need be in Minnesota?  If I have to answer that question for you, you're a retard and please don't read my blog anymore.

U of M administrators took this sign literally!

Let's Just Let EVERYONE Become an Attorney!

In case I didn't mention it before, the ABA is seriously, and I mean seriously, considering dropping the LSAT as a criteria for admission:

According to The Daily Pennsylvanian, the American Bar Association is currently looking at a proposal to make the oft-dreaded Law School Admission Test optional. If passed, this proposal would alter the system of law school admissions that has been in place since the first administration of the LSAT in 1948.

I'm tempted to go on a diatribe about how the ABA just doesn't fucking understand.  I think I will.  Like it or not, the LSAT is the great equalizer.  Everyone knows, or should know, that an "A" is easier to get at University of Phoenix than it is at Harvard.  But how can a law school determine who is the better candidate without some sort of equalizing criteria?  The LSAT, that's how.  The University of Phoenix Grad can perhaps usurp the Harvard grad's place with an awesome LSAT score of.... 179 or so.  I know, it's unlikely, but it can happen.

What the hell are law schools supposed to rely on, if not the LSATs?  Extra-curricular bullshit?  Maybe they will do interviews?  Charisma, charm, cleavage can be taken into account?

I can only think that the new plan is to inundate the market with flagrant idiots so that the costs of labor will be floor level and the PPP (Profits Per Partner) will be astronomical.  Let's not kid ourselves.  Anyone who has been a first year associate realizes that the work can be done by pygmy goats.  But that's not an indictment of the profession--once you get to a certain level, things are complicated.  Also, if you do real litigation in a mid-sized or small law firm, the work can be dizzying at times.  So, back to my point--they want to pay lawyers even less than Manmeat Patel in Bangladesh, so that the PPP can be astronomical.  So, part one of the plan: MORE and less competent people should go to law school.  Check!

Then, on the other side of the tunnel, à la the post about the indebted law school grad that can't pass the bar because of law school debt, they will prohibit people from passing the bar.  Then, part two of the plan.  I predict, the ABA will somehow say that bar passage is only required for attorneys that sign documents.  Ta-da!  Two class of lawyers, indentured slave servants who probably should not have gone to law school to begin with--and the Partners, the upper echelon of the legal profession.

That's my prediction.  What do you think?

The ABA can't possibly be considering the needs of lawyers as a whole when it considers dip shit moves like this one.  Since I know that they all took the LSATs and are moderately competent people, I can only assume that their goals for the legal industry are wholly divergent from ours.  The collect "ours" being that of recent, debt-laden grads who are without work or a loaf of bread upon which to spread Jiffy.  I know the LSAT sucks.  However, it's a test that you can master and you can distinguish yourself from the masses with that goddamn test.  In the article mentioned above, some  GT Hoya says:

"While I agree that the LSAT often discriminates against some students and that it may not be a fair assessment of a person's worth or talent, it is certainly the only measure we currently have to gage a student's ability to succeed in law school," Mehta said in an email. "Until a new, unbiased form of testing can be put into place, there is currently no better way to gauge a student's ability to perform in such a demanding profession."

I have to disagree with him wholeheartedly.  Once you get to a certain level, maybe 165, you're not more or less likely to do better than other students that score higher than you.  On the other hand, if you score <150, you have no business going to law school at all.  You don't have the aptitude for it... hell, maybe you had a bad day.  The point is, that law school will be bad day after bad day and you can't handle the pressure.  Stay home, cause you'll be living there after you complete law school anyway-your childhood home.  Let's end with what this idiot's quote regarding the "plus" side of eliminating the LSAT:

Evan Monod (COL '14), who is considering a career as an attorney, believes that the cost of the test itself, test preparation and the long hours of studying serve as a deterrent to students who might otherwise enter the legal profession.

"I would definitely support making it optional because I think it would increase the number of kids able to go to a good law school and participate in a profession that we desperately need bright people in," Monod said.

Exactly my point.  Lift the flood gates.  Where is Noah's ark when you need it?