Prof. Tamanaha and My Place in the Higher Education Scam Movement

Much has been said throughout the law blogosphere about Professor Brian Tamanaha's thoughts on the law school model and the "vulgar" law scam bloggers. I recommend taking the time to read all of the responses from Jobless Juris Doctor, Exposing the Law School Scam, Outside Lies Magic, and Shilling Me Softly under our blogroll. I especially recommend reading Jobless Juris Doctor's very powerful post, "Student's Pay So Professors Can Play", in response to Professor Tamanaha's admission that he is perfectly fine earning as much as he can with lots of time for research and conferences, even if those costs come from charging students with little job prospects hundreds of thousands of dollars. No mention of actual teaching said students, but never mind that. We all know a passion for teaching is not the main reason why law professors do what they do.

In doing so, Tamanaha recognizes himself and his colleagues on the side of the ruling class who have little to no concern about the masses that struggle to survive in order to make sure that they remain well fed. These accommodationists know they are part of an unjust system and, to his credit, Tamanaha is the first to acknowledge his role in it. The condescension dripping from his admission came at no surprise. This feeling is common for the elites when they are forced to admit that their riches come at the expense of destroying (or being part of a system that destroys) thousands of lives, both literally and figuratively.

Like the BP executives and their chairman who "wants his life back", they care enough about the "small people" to acknowledge that we exist, that they make lots and lots of money off of our existence, but that our lives aren't important enough for them to make any significant changes that could jeopardize putting even a dent into their wealth and fine living. Do I expect much to come from Tamanaha's admission? Not really. But it's a step in the right direction if we get more of the "serious people" talking about the problem, if only to give our blogs more traffic and make more people aware that we exist as a source of support and awareness for prospective law school students as well as unemployed graduates and attorneys.

This is why Angel and I continue BIDER. We aren't "vulgar" and we aren't "angry, unemployed graduates and bloggers trying to write their way out of debtor’s prison". Elie Mystal of all people should know this. He wrote a post in January admitting that he graduated from Harvard Law School with $150k in student debt:

I graduated law school in 2003, owing Harvard University just under $150,000. At the time, I had no idea what starting my professional career $150K in the hole would do to my life. I figured I’d work hard, make money, and pay my loans out of my general non-disposable income funds — kind of like my cable bill.

Seven years, two careers, numerous deferments and defaults, and one global economic meltdown later, I still owe a ton of money. Now, however, I pay it to various debt collection agencies and lawyers. When prospective landlords run a pro forma credit check on my application, they come back looking at me like I’ve been convicted of multiple war crimes. Every raise I’ll ever get will be eaten up by the collection agencies until sweet death allows me one everlasting and satisfying default. And, oh yeah, I don’t even want to practice law anymore — I quit my Biglaw job because, despite the debt, I really wanted to have a job that I enjoyed. So I essentially purchased a $150,000 disposable good. My time working in Biglaw was kind of like a very expensive vacation that I debt financed.

I mention all this because I am the cautionary tale prospective law students never want to think about. I mention all this because it is noble to crush false hope. I mention all this because there are way too many people poised to follow in my financially ruinous steps.

And isn't that what the scam bloggers have been doing all along for little or no compensation? Warning people each and everyday that law school and taking out $100K+ in student loans is a really bad idea, especially in a jobless era? So, it's only cool to leave the law profession entirely with $150k in debt if you attended a top law school. But if a similar fate befalls others, either willingly or unwillingly, we are angry bloggers trying to write our way out of debtor's prison? Sure, whatever.

Here is a little recap. Our regular readers know that I attended a T14 law school and Angel attended a top 30 law school. We have both interned or worked at NYC law firms. Angel was laid off from Biglaw. Maybe I wasn't smart enough to decide against law school, but I was smart enough to have most of my college education paid for with scholarships and financial aid. I owe less than $50k in private loans with low interest rates. I have been underemployed for most of 2009 and 2010 and have a non-law related, full-time job offer that starts in several months. Plenty of my friends and classmates from law school who graduated from both the bottom and top of their class are unemployed. In the end, it didn't matter that they went to Harvard undergrad or graduated magna cum laude from a prestigious T14, because they are still in the same horrible position as the rest of us. Go figure.

So sorry to disappoint the law school cartel and ATL who like to generalize all of the scam bloggers as bitter TTT losers, but a lot of us are quite accomplished, at least on paper. Which goes to show our readers that unemployment, underemployment, and life destroying debt can happen to anyone regardless of law school rank. Debt is debt regardless of who you are or where you went to school. It doesn't matter if you go to Harvard Law or Cooley Law, $150k in student debt will destroy your life unless you are one of the few graduates today who will go on to make Biglaw partner or become part of the law school scam. Don't want to hate your life at the expense of making a Biglaw salary? Then don't go to law school, even if it's a T14. You will never be able to pay off your debt otherwise.

This is why Angel and I continue to blog and maintain a place for the unemployed to vent their frustrations. Get used to us because we are making a positive difference and we expect to blog for a very long time considering that the economy is not expected to get back on track until at least 2015. There will be thousands more joining us in the coming years. At least we know we're on the right side of the fight.

Every Elite Group Needs a Bit of Propaganda to Entice the Masses.

The National Law Journal is a bloody rag, but I read it from time to time to keep up with the propaganda machine, aka The Legal Industrial Complex.


So, I was combing through it on-line and I came upon this disgusting article--most likely written to pump up the egos of everyone in the Good Ole Boy's club and to snag OLs into the machine.  Oh yah, a third purpose is to make lawyers who haven't made it, such as myself, feel like shit.  My comments are in purple below, and they are mostly addressed to the Venable Associate that wrote this dirty diaper of an article.


"Oh no!" My wife and I were just beginning a two-week vacation when she remembered the juror questionnaire. She had recently received the notice and, naturally, the deadline to respond fell right in the middle of our vacation. Intending to submit the questionnaire before leaving, she had taken the forms to her office, but forgotten to complete and mail them.

"Call your people and have them take care of it," I said.

"My people?" she replied.

This got me about one of the benefits of working in a big firm that I had been taking for granted. After several years of practice, there are a few dozen attorneys that I know well enough to call friends. They are the kind of friends that I would trust with my assets and the well-being of my family, the kind of people I would trust to sign my name with all the attendant repercussions. 


What about the associates that will step on you on their way up the the partnership totem pole?  Yes, there are those that you can trust, but unless your wife is a solo, I don't see how your esteemed associates at Venable are any more trustworthy--especially when they are constantly looking for ways to distinguish themselves from the crowd.  In all likelihood, if they were to do something for you, it's because you are never assigned to a case by your lonesome.  Instead, every case is given a  team of attorneys--all equally responsible to make sure things are done correctly. And if things are not done correctly, i.e. one attorney forgets to file the juror questionnaire, all of you will feel the wrath of the senior partner on the case.  Stop kidding yourself.  They are all operating in CYA (cover your ass) mode.  This is not a quality that is unique to big law or successful attorneys.  People are people, wherever they end up in life. 


I started to think through the people in my firm that I know and trust. As I thought through the list, I realized that I had not known some of them for long. It was not the length of the friendships that made them reliable. It was that they were attorneys with three common qualities: they were meticulously honest, generous, and responsible.

Obviously, honesty is a trait expected of everyone, attorneys and non-attorneys alike. But for attorneys, honesty is more than a virtue; it is a professional qualification. There are professional rules of conduct addressing honesty, and all of the oaths of admission that I have taken have addressed it in one way or another. Perhaps then it is no surprise that the people I work with are meticulously honest. 


Oh yah, sure... attorneys are more honest than most.  That's why Mark Drier, founder of Drier LLP, and probably a millionaire several times over, created a Ponzi scheme that would have been the main news if Bernie Madoff didn't create a bigger one.  I'm not going to say that lawyers are more likely to be crooks than other people--but to say that you and your associates in BigLaw are MORE honest than most because of oaths and bullshit is just that, BULLSHIT.  I'm wondering if you're trying to fix our BAD reputation, or trying to distinguish the Good Ole Boys from the shyster solos.  Why would you even write this nonsense down and publish it, like it's fact. It's not.  BigLaw attorneys are just as conniving and greedy as the soloshit lawyers.  They just have the resources to not get caught.

So what about generosity?

Law firms are among the largest contributors to various charitable causes, and pro bono work is only one way in which attorneys are generous to society at large. Within the firm, there is also a wealth of generosity on an interpersonal level. Hardly a week goes by where one coworker or another does not offer to buy me lunch, or vice versa. Even more compelling is the overarching generosity with time. Despite high billing requirements and the pressures of large firm life, I have rarely been turned away when seeking help or advice from another. 


Haven't you heard of tax breaks based on charitable contribution?  Are you seriously trying to say that BigLaw gives out of the goodness of their hearts.  BULLSHIT.  Also, if you seek out advice and it is freely given, it's because all of the attorneys at the firm are responsible for getting this right.  If the firm doesn't, it won't get paid.

Which brings me to responsibility.

Naturally, it takes a certain level of responsibility to make it through college and law school with the level of performance required to get a job in a large firm. Meeting the demands of large firm clients requires even more responsibility – with time, money, and deadlines – if an attorney is simply to survive. This makes a big firm attorney the perfect friend to have when you need to be confident that something will get done – such as a fax response to a juror questionnaire.

Twice in the last week I have forgotten an important document related to personal business outside the office. Each time, I have been relieved to know that I had people I could trust to go through my personal documents, whom I knew would take the time to do it simply because I had asked them to, and whom I could rely on to send it to me quickly, just as they had promised. 


I think this little nugget was put in here to make all of the lemming think that those who don't succeed in law school are irresponsible people.  That's not true.  Most, if not all, of law students were always responsible good students and they falsely assume that this trend will continue in law school.  And the flunkies of law school don't change once they get there.  They are still responsible.  They are still attending class.  They are still doing the the assignments.  They are still studying.  However, they fail despite all of that.  It's a crap shoot.  I would argue, at least in my law school, that the best students weren't more responsible than the others.  Sometimes, they were more underhanded.  Books would be missing from the Library Shelf when you needed them for the ONE MEMO that you draft first semester.  These same Law School superstars would lie and say things like, "I haven't even opened a book yet" to throw off the others and make them think it's too early to be studying for finals.  I had an awful experience once where this BITCH frenemy called me and said she wanted to study with me at Borders. I told her that's fine, but I am studying Property and I'm not prepared to talk to her about Constitutional Law.  So, she could sit there and study ConLaw, but don't distract me by talking about it.  What did she do?  She sat there and quizzed me for hours on ConLaw to make herself feel better about all that she studied and to distract me from studying for my intended subject.  Is that responsible, or is that strategic??

It's easy to take something for granted when we have never known it to be any other way. For my part, I'm glad that my wife's comment prompted me to stop and take the time to appreciate how fortunate I am to be surrounded not only by professional colleagues, but also by trusted friends. 


Life must be great on top, huh?  My point is, after reading this article, don't think that you belong in big law if you are honest, generous and responsible.  It means nothing.  I am all of those things and I'm unemployed.