University of Miami Law School Pays Unemployed Grads $2500 Each Month to Work at ShitLaw Firms

Several days ago, Angel wrote about Georgetown Law manipulating its employment statistics by providing $4,000 stipends to unemployed graduates to participate in law-related volunteer programs. TTT schools such as University of Miami are also getting into the act to boost its employment numbers. Firms and courts will get free labor in the form of unemployed UM grads who in return will receive a $2500 monthly stipend from UM.

Is UM Law doing this out of the goodness of their heart or is it another way of boosting employment stats to match Cooley Law's 100% employment rate? You decide. After all, a few hundred thousand dollars spent on temporary employment for doomed graduates is a small investment for fake employment statistics that will surely fool thousands more into taking the LSAT and borrowing $150k for a useless degree. The article also mentions fellow law school scam blog Shilling Me Softly and the now defunct Big Debt, Small Law written by Seton Hall graduate Scott Bullock:

A righteous anger has been seething from the most unlikely and urbane of American institutions. Inside ivy-shaded law schools from Columbia to Berkeley, students facing six-figure debts and zero job prospects are howling that JDs aren't much more than university-approved scams.

Dozens of blogs such as Shilling Me Softly have stirred the wrath, and last month a Boston College student earned headlines by begging his chancellor to give him back his tuition. "It's really just a Ponzi scheme," a Seton Hall law student and blogger named Scott Bullock told the New Jersey Star-Ledger this summer.

The latest sign of law grads' dire straits comes from Coral Gables, where the University of Miami is trying to bolster the grim market for the 350 new lawyers set to graduate next spring by offering their services — for free.

The program, called the Legal Corps, will place graduating students without job offers at public interest organizations or judicial chambers. The firms and courts will pay nada, while UM will pick up a $2,500 monthly stipend.

"It's great to know that we've got this as a fallback option," says Irma Khoja, a 26-year-old South Florida native who will graduate next spring.

UM's program has earned accolades for its realistic approach. In 2009, the school asked incoming students to consider deferring enrollment for a year and asked would-be lawyers to check their motivations before committing.

Now, UM is perhaps the first school in the nation to offer its new grads' talents for free to public service-minded firms. The pragmatic message might be tough to stomach, but most law students appreciate it, Khoja says.

"What's great about UM is they're very practical and realistic compared to other schools who see this as just an opportunity to get more applications and more revenue," she says.

Like the vast majority of her classmates, Khoja doesn't have any offers lined up. She won't apply to the Legal Corps unless nothing else materializes — but at least it's there, forestalling any urge to join the ranks of enraged law school bloggers.

"I'm just trying to stay as positive as I can," she says, "because it's the only way to get through the semester."

Isn't it sad to see this UM student believe her school is starting this program because they actually care about her job prospects after graduation, not because they want more applications and revenue? Our colleges and universities have become corporations that only care about making a profit at any and all costs. I hope more students begin to realize this so they can stop depending on their schools and career services to find them jobs.

L4L's Reasons for Shutting Down Big Debt, Small Law

Many of you wanted to know why Big Debt, Small Law was permanently deleted the same day the New Jersey Star-Ledger article on the law school scam featuring Scott/L4L was published. I received the following from L4L last night with his permission to publish the letter explaining his reasons for shutting down his popular blog. We are working with L4L to get all of his posts from Big Debt, Small Law archived and accessible to readers for future reference. Thank you to L4L for his contributions to the law scam movement and good luck to him in all his future endeavors.

First off, it's been a pleasure meeting all of you on this scamblogger group, and I've enjoyed "fighting the good fight" as much as anyone. BDSL was both a passion and a pleasure to write, and I've appreciated and enjoyed all of your support, encouragement and comments over the past 12 months.

However, on the eve of the Sunday article in the Star-Ledger, I voluntarily chose to take down BDSL for good. As the article states, I do have a side-practice with a partner, and it wasn't really fair to force her to "answer" (so to speak) for the often-inflammatory contents of the blog. My editorial style often made it appear that BDSL was a "group" effort (which it was not, I wrote every single word ever published there aside from quoted, italicized text from other articles). I blogged in this style merely to avoid the repetitive boredom of constantly saying "I think" and "I believe" and so on. C'mon, would you rather read "I noticed" as opposed to "It came to our attention here at Big Debt headquarters," etc. I personally think the style suited the message quite well.

At any rate, it was impossible to maintain the quality level that BDSL had in the early days, so posts had of late become fewer and farther between. I'm working on a novel right now (as well as some stand-up comedy), and prefer to spend the precious spare time I have available on those side project(s) as opposed to scamblogging.

Make no mistake: "outing" yourself like I did back in the Sept. 2007 WSJ article will curse any chance you'll ever have of working at a law firm. Period. Employers (esp. legal employers) are not looking for "boat rockers" and "malcontents." I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, only that you should always be well aware of the consequences. You'll have to answer for this shit for the rest of your natural life, thanks to the Internet. Not that you'll be missing out on anything.

At the time I "came out" I'd already logged 2+ years in the most miserable, dead-end, dysfunctional boiler room you could ever imagine ( a notorious NYC pi firm called Mirman, Markovits & Landau) and simply lost all ability to even give a fuck at that point. I pray that none of you will ever endure an experience as miserable, degrading, and suicide-inducing as the one I had at MM&L. If given the choice between spending eternity in Hell or returning to that gulag, I wouldn't hesitate to prefer the former. Take the worst job you've ever had and multiply it by a factor of 10,000, and you'll have a vague idea of the type of workplace this gutter truly was, and still is.

Now I've "done it again," bashing my alma mater in it's own hometown paper (the Star-Ledger offices are in Newark NJ right down the street from SH). I feel like I landed some real "haymakers" right in the Valvoline Dean's jaw, and am eternally grateful to my business partner (and fellow SH alum Justine) for having the cojones to do this interview with me. We both took supreme pleasure in shoving some of the Valvoline Dean's bullshit back up his ass (and; tellingly, the coward didn't have the balls to respond). Another profile in courage from the ABA lawschool scam machine.

But at this point I've simply had enough. I was trying to pen a special "Big Debt" post to coincide with the Star-Ledger article, and halfway thru just decided to throw in the towel. My heart just ain't in it anymore. I feel kind of like Marty McFly from Back to the Future: we all know damn well what awaits these lemmings, but none of them will believe it. Like a sci-fi time travel flick, the kids will just have to find out what the future holds on their own. Their incredulity will be their downfall.

I've seen some comments that implied we '"feared" a lawsuit from SH and that's why the blog disappeared. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike the thugs at SH, Justine and myself have both actually conducted civil jury trials on our own (she's also paid her dues in small-firm hell), and neither of us give two shits about the noise and smoke SH might throw our way. Bottom line is that we hold all the cards anyway. A case like that would be David vs. Goliath, and the bad PR and media attention a law school vs. alum case would entail makes it simple common sense that no school would risk the hit.

I made the decision that the blog had run it's course and what's done is done. I'm moving on and trying desperately to recoup some of my lawschool "investment," and BDSL (if seen by clients) would materially hurt those goals. Hence it's demise.

I still have all the old blog posts saved in MS Word, and if anyone is interested in running a "Big Debt" archive I'd be happy to fwd. them to you to run again (kind of like "syndication" for an old TV show.) Let me know if you're interested.

I wish those of you who keep blogging the best of luck, and feel free to call me anytime to BS or if you have any questions about starting a side practice (there is some easy money in law if you know how to find it). It's been fun & I wish you all the best,

Scott Bullock aka L4L

An Annual Ritual: Minnesota Lawyer Interviews Unemployed TTT Grads Before the Bar Exam

Earlier this year, I wrote several posts based on the 2009 Minnesota Lawyer interview with Minnesota TTT grads who were planning to take the bar exam.



This is what I had to say about the 2009 interview in April of this year:

None of the graduates in the video seemed to have a job lined up at the time of the bar exam. I hope the guy who failed the bar exam twice passed the third time around if only to save himself from wasting more money on test prep courses. But Ms. Guertin from William Mitchell School of Law nails it when she says at 1:02 that passing the bar exam doesn't necessarily mean you're guaranteed a job.

The bar exam will not guarantee anyone a job right now. The only thing that will be easier is finding doc review work and you can make more money than a law graduate who isn't admitted to the bar. That's it. I hear and read about law school graduates who think passing the bar is the golden key to a great legal job. It isn't. Wiser graduates like Mike at Barely Legal (btw, he started blogging again last month after a long hiatus. Welcome back!) decided to save his money and not take the exam.

People will have different opinions on this but I think the bar exam in this economy is a waste of money and time, especially for third tier graduates who never had a chance at finding a good job in a recession. If you end up finding a great law firm job, let them pay for the exam instead. Don't take out another loan from Sallie Mae or Access Group to take the exam. If you fail, consider it a blessing or buy used Barbri books off of Craigslist if you decide to take it again. You have to ask yourself whether more torture and money down the drain is worth it if you're in a state that has a high unemployment rate and little opportunity to find a good paying legal job. I'm curious to know if any of the graduates in the video found jobs after passing the bar.

What I said in April about last year's bar exam takers remains true today for this year's bar exam takers. Here are some important additional thoughts and statistics provided by Scammed Hard who first reported on the 2010 Minnesota Lawyer's "special report" covering the Minnesota bar exam:

Given that the four law schools in this small market spew out 1,000 new grads every year, things must be especially tough for TTT grads trying to find work. Despite its relatively small population, Minnesota boasts the 12th highest lawyer per capita ratio in the Union, with 11.2 lawyers for every 10,000 people. When even your local T-25, the University of Minnesota, graduates more than half of its Class of 2010 without jobs, one can only imagine how much more awful thing must be down in the TTTs, or especially at the local TTTT, Hambone University School of Law.

How long are these people going to allow themselves to be scammed? After suffering through three years and tens of thousands of dollars' worth of hell, just to end up unemployed, it must feel great to be plunking down for bar review and the exam without having the slightest idea about where you will eventually find work. These folks from the lower tiers are, sadly, especially likely to never find work as lawyers. Nando has already given us a trio of excellent exposés about the dismal employment prospects offered by these law school puppy mills. I must grudgingly admire the irrational optimism that these grads display in continuing on the road toward lawyerdom, but as a scamblogger, I know what awaits them. We've had a smattering of commenters from these schools show up on the scamblogs in the past few months, and none of them paints a rosy picture of their class' employment. In fact, they all agree that most of their former classmates are unemployed, indebted, and desperate. Yet the charlatans and book-cookers who run these institutions are still busy tallying the seat deposits and packing the next 1L class in time for the fall semester.

Yes, how long will thousands of students in over-saturated legal markets allow themselves to be scammed out of thousands of dollars for nothing more than the illusion of prestige of having a JD and passing the bar exam? And why aren't mainstream legal news publications like the Minnesota Lawyer asking serious questions about the employment rates of these recent graduates instead of vapid questions like what they had for breakfast or what time they went to bed the night before? What?!? The real question everyone is dying to know is, have you found a job yet? And, how much money in student loans did you borrow on top of the $150k you borrowed for three years of law school to take the BARBRI course?!? If Minnesota Lawyer actually did their job, maybe more 0Ls and law students would think twice before plopping down another $5,000 for no good reason whatsoever. Or they would start asking their law schools questions as to why three years and $150k still isn't enough to prepare students for the bar exam.

Expose Seton Hall's SecreTTTs

A business reporter from The Star-Ledger, New Jersey's largest newspaper, is looking for disgruntled NJ law school graduaTTTes for an upcoming article. Here is your chance to speak with a journalist looking to expose the law school scam in New Jersey. What do you have to lose, TTT Jersey grads?

Hi --

I'm a business reporter for The Star-Ledger (New Jersey's largest newspaper) and I'm looking into a story about disgruntled law school grads. I think it's a story that needs to be told -- about how aspiring young lawyers pay tons of money to go to school, only to come out the other end with few job prospects, if any.

Here in New Jersey, we've got a few law schools including Seton Hall University Law School, which has apparently sparked some resentment among grads (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Seton_Hall_University_School_of_Law&oldid=306264248)

I'm guessing you'd prefer to remain anonymous (please let me know if you feel otherwise). But seeing as your blog as become such a hit, do you know of any New Jersey law school grads who might be willing to be featured in my story?

Any help you can give would be much appreciated.

Best,

Leslie

Leslie Kwoh

Business Reporter

The Star-Ledger

(973) 392-4147

nj.com/business

Twitter: @LedgerBiz

Another Toilet to Add to Nando's Collection: Phoenix School of Law

Another month, another ABA accreditation. Let's face it: law school no longer has any value now that anyone with the money to invest in a building and a law library to entice a few hundred lemmings from the local for-profit school can call itself ABA accredited. The Phoenix School of Law was just accredited on June 11th:

The Phoenix School of Law has announced today that it has received full accreditation from the American Bar Association (ABA). The Law School, which received ABA provisional accreditation in June 2007, is only the fourth for-profit law school in the country to be granted full accreditation and in the shortest time frame possible – less than six years.

The press release goes on to name the other two accredited toilet schools that Phoenix School of Law will join in Arizona:

There are only three fully accredited law schools in Arizona: Phoenix School of Law, the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. PSL is Arizona’s only stand-alone law school – not affiliated with a university.

How did PSL become accredited? One reason, according to PSL propaganda, is the school has the highest Bar Exam passage rates in Arizona. I checked online and apparently PSL's bar passage rate for first timers is 83.3%.

The Phoenix School of Law demonstrated high benchmarks to win the approval of the ABA’s Accreditation Council, including achieving the highest Bar Exam passage rates in the State for February’s exam; a career placement rate of 97% within nine months of graduation; and receiving the Law School Admissions Council’s “2010 Diversity Matters Award” for its efforts to attract students from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in the legal profession.

However, in this Phoenix School of Law Official ABA Data document (PDF File), the numbers are even more far-fetched. The document states that 96.88% of Phoenix graduates pass the bar on the first try and that 88.2% find employment after 9 months -- 60% with law firms!

How much does this newly accredited law school cost?

Fall 10 - Spring 11 academic year, the ESTIMATED COA for Financial Aid purposes ONLY is as follows:

Full Time (13-16 credit hours each semester) Fall and Spring total

• Tuition: $34,396
• General Fee: $1,570
• SBA Dues: $70
• Books: $2,184
• Room and Board: $12,316
• Transportation: $4,116
• Personal/Misc: $7,664
• TOTAL: $62,316

Part Time (7-12 credit hours each semester) Fall and Spring total

• Tuition: $27,516
• General Fee: $1,570
• SBA Dues: $70
• Books: $1,300
• Room and Board: $12,316
• Transportation: $4,116
• Personal/Misc: $7,664
• TOTAL: $54,552

Anyone gullible enough to believe the official ABA data will also believe that attending Phoenix is worth spending a grand total of $186,948. Luckily, if you are reading this and other scam bloggers on a regular basis, you are smart enough to realize that the ABA data and The Phoenix School of Law statistics are make-believe and that taking out $190,000 in student loans to attend ANY law school right now is absolute self-destruction. Putting an ABA accreditation on a toilet is like putting lipstick on a pig -- it's still a pig --and Phoenix is still a toilet.

Man Drives 5 Hours Daily To and From Third Tier Law School

I give this man kudos for taking care of his disabled wife and elderly parents while driving 294 miles everyday to attend Florida International University in Miami. Do I think it was worth it? No. For someone in this situation, I think being a nurse or physical therapist would've been a more lucrative choice with a better work-life balance, and it would've been helpful in taking care of family members than practicing shitlaw. I hope a law firm in the area sees his story on the news and gives him a job just for his perseverance and character alone. Because we all know a JD from Florida International University likely won't get most of their grads anywhere right now.

He commuted 294 miles every day to attend Florida International University in Miami... and he did it all while taking care of his disabled wife and elderly parents.

His Honda Civic had 99,000 miles on it when Steve Spence bought it for the sole purpose of driving it to law school - 294 miles round trip - every day, five days a week.

"There was no law school that as close, so driving was the only way to get there. The big problem was the loss of study time. That's what was really hard because you're losing five hours and you had to be prepared for the next day and I was determined that I could not go to class and not be prepared."

While Spence worked on getting his degree, he also had things at home to take care of. His wife, Julie, is disabled and in a wheelchair.

"I call him superman because of all the things that he does. He does so much for me that I can't do anymore."

He also takes care of his parents. His dad has Alzheimer's and his mom had several strokes, but still, he never gave up.

"If you want something bad enough, it's never too late and your never too old to do it."

"Now Spence is preparing for the bar exam he'll take at the end of July. Then, he hopes to be a criminal or immigration lawyer.

Spence said his son talked him into going back to school to get his undergrad in 2003. So, he went to Hodges University in Fort Myers and that is when he fell in love with law.

I assume that Spence has not found a job yet or else they would've mentioned that in the article. This was supposed to be a feel good story, so I doubt the news station will check up on Spence a year from now to see if he's passed the bar and found a full-time legal job. You can watch the interview with Steve Spence and his wife at the Wink News website.

CLEO Pre-Law Institute for Minorities is a Cooley Law Ploy

I see unemployment in your future

Cooley Law School and the ABA have developed a pre-law program called CLEO that brainwashes and swindles disadvantaged minority and low-income college students into believing that their future will be brighter with a degree from the laughingstock of all law schools, Cooley Law, or at another third tier institution. The Cooley and ABA pr machine have made this disgraceful ploy look like a gift to the African-American and Hispanic communities when it is really just another way to oil the billion dollar law school machine.

CLEO’s six-week summer institute is for college graduates attending law school in the fall. The program is $2,000 and covers room, board, and instructional materials. Classes in classical philosophy, contracts, civil procedure, professional responsibility, legal writing, and appellate advocacy are also taught by Cooley faculty members. In other words, it's a $2,000, six-week crash course of your high school civics class.

Another of their programs is the Sophomore Summer Institute (SSI), a four-week pre-law program “designed to prepare students to become more competitive law school applicants”. The SSI is free and the students in the program receive a $750 stipend to cover travel expenses to Detroit and lost income from potential summer employment. Students are eligible for two academic credits. Twenty-five seats in the program are available to Oakland University students, also the site where the institute is held.

Though students have no obligation to apply or attend Cooley Law School, who really believes that Cooley isn’t trying to recruit these kids? The institute is held in Michigan and targets demographics that make up a large percentage of Cooley’s student body: college students who attend lower tier local colleges such as Oakland University as well as low-income and minority students from the Detroit area.

If the ABA wanted to help these students, they would place them in judicial clerkships or paid internships with local law firms. Low-income and other disadvantaged students with little chance of attending a T14 school should not waste their summer at a pre-law summer camp. They’d be better off making money in an internship that could help them make connections, gain real world skills, or help them land a job after graduation. Or better yet, they shouldn’t go to law school in this recession if it isn’t Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. Unfortunately, law school was always meant for the rich and the few prestigious jobs that are left in this country are meant for the rich and well connected too. Attending a summer program sponsored by Cooley won't change those sad facts of life.

Cooley Associate Dean John Nussbaumer had this to say about the CLEO summer program, which he has taken a sabbatical to direct with the assistance of E. Christopher Johnson, Jr., Cooley professor and director of Cooley's Corporate Law and Finance LL.M. program (feel free to laugh out loud at the fact that Cooley has a LL.M program):

At a time when nearly two-thirds of all African American and half of all Hispanic and Mexican American applicants to law school are being totally shut-out from every law school they apply to for admission, programs like this one provide reason for hope that one day the legal profession will reflect the diversity of the clients we serve.

Oh, please. Stop lying and pretending that this institute is about helping poor minorities and not about lining your pockets with their money and luring them into getting a useless JD from your sorry excuse for a law school. Minority unemployment is a serious problem, but having more minorities attend Cooley Law School will only make the unemployment numbers worse. "A Law School Victim" at Life's Mockery, is an African-American law scam blogger who has documented the high unemployment statistics in the legal field as well as the unemployment crisis in the African-American community which has reached a 25-year high. Please stop by and check out Life's Mockery's long list of articles that discuss the plight of the African-American community in this recession. The statistics are frightening. It's a disgrace that Nussbaumer uses the educational inequality in low-income communities to his advantage to spread the law school scam. The CLEO program is just a means for Cooley to recruit unsuspecting students, many of whom are likely first generation college students. First generation college students are the easiest to con into believing that a law degree, even from Cooley, will open doors to better job opportunities.

The students who attend CLEO have overcome so much adversity to get a college education. I sincerely hope that they don't ruin their lives and go into debt to attend any law school outside of the T14 (not that a T14 degree guarantees a job anymore either), but especially not Cooley Law School or their $2,000 sham pre-law institute.

Video Credit: JD Underdog

Quotes of the Day (Updated)

The generation before me came to the conclusion I was worth the investment. Maybe my generation is a little too selfish.

- Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Paul H. Anderson who graduated in 1968 with no debt and a 1965 Mustang.

The more urgent question is: What do you tell people who are thinking about going to law school? I don't recommend it to people looking to make a lot of money. ... If you're not interested in helping people in some way or providing service to your clients, it's not for you.

- From the same Star Tribune article, law school shill Niels Schaumann, vice dean for faculty at third tier toilet William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.

How about not recommending William Mitchell College of Law to anyone who wants to find a full-time job after spending $52,000 yearly tuition? That way, shills like Schaumann would no longer make an average of $104,832 yearly blaming unemployed graduates for being too greedy.

- HardKnocks from But I Did Everything Right! in response to Niels Schaumman's dishonest and shameful comment in the Star Tribune.


Update, May 30th: A William Mitchell College of Law graduate stopped by with the following comment below. Are you listening Schaumman and WMCL shills? This is one of your many graduates drowning in debt and working for $11 an hour doing temp work. What are you doing about it besides blaming them for being greedy or not hustling enough? How can you sleep at night knowing you make six-figures off the backs of your unemployed graduates and still have the audacity to ask them for contributions?? Thank you to the WMCL grad for stopping by and sharing your tragic story and pointing out that the job shortage is nothing new. It's just that the media is jumping on this story now that the top tier grads are suffering too.

Hope all of our readers are having a relaxing Memorial Day weekend. I'm back to helping out with the backyard BBQ.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this article, Hardknocks. I am a WMCL grad - although I have pretty much severed all ties to that place after the Dean sent me a letter begging for MORE money AFTER I had already made a contribution and stated in his letter, "[Insert my name here], would you really be as far as you are today if not for your law degree?" As you can imagine, this irritated me to no end and I decided to never give one cent to that place again.

As for the gentleman featured in the story, I actually know him. Ironically, right after I graduated from WMCL with HONORS, I was working as a TEMP for $11/hour at the same place where he was working for the summer doing some humiliating clerical type of work. This was back in the early 2000's. He was going off to Korea to be with his girlfriend. Anyway, the reason I mention this is because there was a legal job shortage even back then, but nobody believed it. This is NOT new, people, so I don't understand why everybody acts like this all happened it the last 2 years. I have been out of school for almost 7 years, and a majority of my classmates are drowning in debt and working piddle a$$ jobs just to make ends meet and pay their student loans. It annoys me that suddenly now this is "news" - why wasn't it news seven years ago? Maybe some of these people wouldn't be in the shape they are in, if the media had listened or cared back then!

Jerry O'Connell, TTT Student and C-List Actor, Will Play a Lawyer on TV This Fall

Here goes another "comedic drama" about lawyers living it up in the big city,this time starring Jerry O'Connell and Jim Belushi. The show is called The Defenders and it will air on CBS this fall. I'll give this show a chance, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up in the television graveyard along with The Deep End by the end of the year.

In case you didn't know, O'Connell just finished his first year at Southwestern Law School. Nando recently profiled the TTT, which costs $74,050 for the 2010-2011 school year. It makes sense for someone like O'Connell who is wealthy and has nothing else to do between television pilots to earn the bragging rights of having a useless law degree. He's just following in the footsteps of other celebrities such as James Franco who slept his way through Columbia University and Tiger Wood's estranged wife Elin Nordegren who is a student at Rollins College. Unlike normal people, none of these celebrities need their degree to survive, find another job, and pay their bills.

For those of us who don't make millions of dollars each year from acting or a philandering billionaire husband, wasting $74,000 each year on a useless degree at a place like Southwestern Law School will likely be a life destroying decision. Just like the character O'Connell will portray, having an exciting legal career as a defender, meeting beautiful women, and living in a fancy apartment with a TTT degree is a fantasy. Enjoy it as entertainment but don't believe this in any way reflects reality.

Fourth Tier Dean Explains Why You Should Attend His Law School

I hope the admitted applicant did due diligence before turning in his deposit to Hamline and found the law scam blogs in time to save him from his demise. The applicant sure as heck won't get the truth by asking Hamline admissions why the school is ranked in the fourth tier and the actual number of Hamline graduates who find jobs that will pay off their $33,022/year tuition.

In March, I wrote a post entitled, Why Are You Taking the Bar Exam?, and included an interview featuring students from Hamline Law and other third and fourth tier Minnesota law schools who had not secured a job after graduation. One Hamline Law grad even admitted that he was contemplating going back to school to get an accounting degree. You know, something that will actually help him find a job. Here is the video again:

The Hamline dean is correct in one respect when he tells the admitted applicant that "unless you're considering an elite law school within the top 20, your success as a student and professional will not depend on the pedigree of your law diploma". It won't matter because most students outside of the top 20 will never find a lucrative career in the law. People who graduated from top 20 law schools can't even find jobs anymore. Second tier, third tier, fourth tier - they are all toilet schools. Not only are these schools a bad investment but they can actually destroy your chances of getting a lucrative job in another field. Hopefully this admitted applicant and others will come to this realization before they send in their tuition check this summer.

Attend Drexel Law for Free

Ten law school lemmings in the top 5 percent of their 1L class can transfer to TTTT school Drexel Law totally free for their second and third years. Right, like anyone in the top 5 percent of their 1L class would want to transfer to Drexel rather than to a tier 1 or even tier 2 institution. The guy in the video sounds more like a used car salesman than the assistant vice president of advancement at a law school. Drexel isn't even worth attending for free because you'll still be wasting your time when you could make more dropping out after your first year at a TTTT and getting a job that pays more than document review or shitlaw, the only two jobs you'll get (if you're lucky) after graduating from Drexel Law.

Read more about Drexel and their stats at Nando's place, Third Tier Reality.

Some People Still Don't Get It

Links that were sent to me over the weekend indicate that America's youth continue to hold out hope that the economy will recover by the time they graduate and that internships still lead to full-time jobs when spending $120k and three years in law school isn't good enough anymore. Does anyone take news like this seriously anymore or do they think they will beat the odds?

An example of this is William & Mary. The school saw an increase in applications across the board at all of their schools this year. Looks like we'll be getting more visitors and followers to our blog in the next few years if this is the forecast for what is happening at most schools. There is no way in hell the economy will improve in three years to give the millions of us out of work now and the thousands planning to graduate in the next three years a full-time job. Not gonna happen.

The William & Mary Law School saw a 26-percent increase in applications to the J.D. program, receiving nearly 6,300 applications for slightly more than 200 seats in the Class of 2013. The Law School joins the Office of Undergraduate Admissions as well as other graduate and professional programs at the College in reporting significant increases in applications for next year's incoming classes.

The School of Education is reporting an increase of more than 20 percent in graduate applications. Admissions officials in graduate programs in Arts & Sciences also report an increase of eight percent compared to last year. At William & Mary's Mason School of Business, applications to the MBA program are up 12 percent compared to the same time frame from last year.

"Whether its graduate and professional programs or undergraduate studies, we're delighted that so many people want to join us at William & Mary," said President Taylor Reveley.

This news from the graduate programs comes a few months after admissions officials reported that undergraduate applications topped 12,500, a record number for the fifth year in a row.

I don't know where William & Mary is ranked in USNWR and I really don't care. I think it's a T1 institution and it looks like a lovely place to spend a few years, but that's besides the point. All anyone needs to know for the next ten years is that any institution outside of the T14 probably isn't worth the gamble. When T14 graduates are graduating without any job offers, one can make an educated guess that the majority of graduates outside of the T14 will not get a good return on their three year investment, meaning they will not find a biglaw or government job to pay off their six figure debt. The only exception to this are students who have connections to get a job or rich parents paying their tuition.

Then I came across this story at WalletPop about a 36-year-old husband, father, and business graduate who left his lucrative and intellectually stimulating investment banking job to attend Cardozo Law in 2007. Now he is graduating with no job offer other than an internship which he thinks will lead to a fulfilling long-term career in the law. Good luck with that.

When I got a job at an investment bank right out business school, I was brought in to analyze the impact of Napster on the music industry," recalls the 36-year-old. "That was a fascinating topic. The discourse going around this -- how is culture made, disseminated and controlled -- fascinated me."

By 2007, he started at Benjamin N. Cardoza School of Law in Manhattan at a cost of $40,000 a year. While he remains as enamored of the field as before, finding a balance between being a fulltime student, a husband of eight years and a dad of now three kids has been tough. From morning until night, "it's always a balance act that I usually fail but I try to hold up my end as much as possible," he said.

It's become even harder since 2009. To the surprise of many, the legal profession has been hit hard by the economic meltdown. Law school graduates have had to scramble to find jobs. To improve his chances, Abramowitz, president of the Intellectual Property Society from 2008-09, held an internship last fall and is working in another this spring.

"A lot of firms are not hiring straight out of school," he explains. "[With internships] they want to build a certain amount of trust in you and they want you to be more familiar with their operations and systems so if they do take you on full time, you're ready to hit the ground running. And they don't have to extend time paying you and training you at the same time."

Set to graduate in June, Abramowitz remains optimistic that all his planning will provide a solid foundation for his family. "The goal is to build something for the long haul, for 30, 40, 50 years -- something that is fulfilling for me and something that is sustainable and supportive of my family," he said. "If one or two years or three years are a little rocky, OK. Hopefully you end on the plus side of the ledger."

Good Idea or Another Ploy to Get College Students to Attend a TTT?

I hadn't realized until recently that Massachusetts was home to so many non-accredited law schools. I blogged last month about the opening of The University of Massachusetts School of Law at Dartmouth. Now I've come across an article about a new program with the American College of History and Legal Studies and the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover:

So you're a community college student working full time and looking for a path to law school.

A college designed for you is close to opening, pending approval by Gov. John Lynch of a bill that cleared the House on Wednesday. The American College of History and Legal Studies would enroll students for their final two years of college and award bachelor's degrees in one field: history and legal studies. Classes would meet in Salem three nights a week, and the $10,000 tuition - modest for any baccalaureate institution - would be cut in half for students awarded a scholarship.

The college guarantees students with high grades admission to the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, and it allows high achievers to shave a year from their studies by combining their final year of college with their first year of law school. It wasn't a difficult arrangement to make. The dean of the independent law school, Lawrence Velvel, is the founder and dean of the new college.

Velvel began work on ACHLS after seeing bright students shut out of the legal profession because of a modest economic background or youthful inattention to their studies.

"A lot of people think that they cannot go to law school, that there is no way they will be admitted," Velvel said. "It gives a chance to people who otherwise academically wouldn't have the chance."

Actually sounds like a pretty good plan at first glance, doesn't it? Lower tuition rates and the ability to finish law school in two years instead of three. What the article doesn't mention is that the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is a non-ABA accredited school. Essentially anyone can get into this school if they want to attend. Since it is non-accredited, LSAT is not required as part of the school's admissions criteria.

I'm not accusing Velvel of not having good intentions for this low cost college and I'm no fan of the LSAT, the ABA, or its accreditation standards. But I can't support the idea of anyone wasting money on a non-accredited law school when the legal industry is imploding and jobs continue to be outsourced. Despite that most academics were high achieving students who attended elite universities, for some reason they believe they are doing low achieving students a favor by allowing them to attend low ranked schools when perhaps they'd be better suited at learning a trade instead. Learning history is important, but most people aren't meant to get a JD or a Ph.D in history. High achievers from lower income families will get the financial aid and scholarships to attend state schools for around the same amount ACHLS charges for tuition. For those who did not excel in school, getting a certificate from a fourth tier school in a subject like history will not help them find a job in the real world.

Attending a third-tier ABA accredited law school is bad enough but if your grades and LSAT scores are so low that you have to attend a non-accredited school, it's probably best for you to abandon the idea of becoming a lawyer. The best place to educate yourself and learn about history and the law is the library. You have thousands of books at your disposal for free. You'll learn more in a year reading a book a week at your local library than a year in any law school classroom. Don't waste even $10,000 towards a degree that won't help you find a job. All I can say to anyone about to attend a non-accredited law school is to run the other way while you still can.

UPDATE: I was curious as to how much Velvel makes for running an unaccredited law school. According to a Boston Business Journal article from 2006, Velvel made $268,985. Nice work if you can get it.

Nando on the Radio!

You may love him or hate him, but it's undeniable that he has something to say... and Nando of Third Tier Reality said it loud and clear on a Toledo Radio Station called "The Nookular Opton."  You can listen to his radio interview here--I think it starts at about 18:00.  He makes some really good points and covers everything from document review to NYLS to the ABA's outsourcing opinion.  Give it a listen when you get a chance!

The Holidays are Around the Corner!

Nothing gets me more in the mood than The Christmas Carol... the ghosts... Scrooge and Tiny Tim. EsqNever (a fellow blogger) has made the story relevant to lawyers in his creation of Law School Carol. Hilarious, kids. Make sure to watch parts #2 to #5 as well and the epilogue.