Xtranormal Takes the Higher Education Scam Mainstream

Here are several more xtranormal videos. I'd like to see more of these videos follow in the footsteps of the "So You Want to Go to Law School" video that has gone viral and received 660,000 hits in the last week. I'm glad to see unemployed graduates putting some of their free time to good use by creating these creative and humorous videos that will hopefully save someone from a similar fate. Enjoy and pass them along to a real life lemming contemplating law or graduate school. You could save a life.

55,000 Victims Took the LSAT Last Weekend...

Yes, that is 55,000 more people buying into the Ponzi Scheme that is called the American law school system. It took AOL News - not the New York Times - to reiterate everything Angel and I along with the usual folks like Professor Brian Tamanaha and Ellie Mystal have warned our readers about the pitfalls of law school for nearly two years:

You don't need a law degree to know that false advertising is against the law. So why is it that so many law schools appear to be doing just that: inflating job prospects for graduates while jacking up tuition rates?

Last weekend, about 55,000 students took the LSAT -- the standardized test for law school. That's the second highest tally ever, according to exam officials.

Most of these students are aiming for a law degree to get rich. In a 2008 Kaplan survey, 73 percent cited high income potential as a reason for attending law school.

But the legal job market, decimated by the recession, isn't the golden ticket it used to be -- and some legal scholars believe the calamity may be permanent. Law schools are releasing an army of young professionals who will start off with $150,000-plus in non-dischargeable debt and not be able to find work as attorneys and repay their loans.

"Many graduates can't get jobs," Brian Tamanaha, professor at Washington University Law School in St. Louis, told The National Jurist. "Many graduates end up as temp attorneys working for $15 to $20 an hour on two-week gigs, with no benefits. The luckier graduates land jobs in government or small firms for maybe $45,000, with limited prospects for improvement. A handful of lottery winners score big firm jobs."

The New York Daily News recently profiled one young lawyer from a good school who is cleaning toilets in Manhattan.

But don't expect to get any of this news from laws schools. They're too busy scamming applicants by advertising deceptively high rates of employment and misleading income figures, critics contend.

"This data is entirely self-reported by schools and should be treated as essentially fiction," said University of Chicago law professor Brian Leiter, a well-known expert on law school rankings. "In addition, we know nothing about the nature of the employment -- it could simply be as a research assistant, which is what Northwestern did a few years ago for its unemployed grads."

Law School Transparency, a nonprofit organization hoping to shed light on the real employment situation, asked law schools in July to provide more detailed job statistics than they now report to the American Bar Association, which regulates law schools, or U.S. News & World Report, which ranks law schools.

Their deadline for committing to cooperate passed last month and only one school out of 199 agreed to provide the information, said executive director Kyle McEntee.

"Everybody is up in arms about Goldman Sachs allegedly selling products it expected to fail," lawyer Elie Mystal wrote in popular law blog Above the Law. "How is that any different than the scam being run by some law schools where the tuition keeps going up while the job prospects disappear?"

t's time to send in auditors to examine what law schools advertise and ensure numbers are being reported accurately, so customers can make an informed decision about whether a law degree will really be a good investment of money, time and energy.

In the meantime, potential law school students need to do their research, temper their expectations and weigh the opportunity costs. Sure, law school is a smart decision for some people, especially if you can get into a top school, attend school for free or are so passionate about law that you don't care how much you earn. It's also a profession with one of the lowest job satisfaction rates and highest depression rates.

But far too many who get their JD will find themselves three years down the road with a mountain of debt, few job prospects and doubts that their law school has any idea what truth in advertising means.

If there is any good news to report, it is that the number of LSAT takers actually dropped from last October. A whopping 61,000 people took the LSAT in October 2009 as reported by the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC). That is about a 10 percent drop in people taking the LSAT. I have no idea what this means. Is it possible that more people are reading the scamblogs and discovering that going to a law school other than Yale no longer ensures a 160k biglaw job or a comfy position with the government? Who knows. Nonetheless, 55k is still too large a number. Clearly, thousands of people aren't doing their research on the law school scam. With every person who enters law school, it makes the legal job market that much more difficult for the rest of us. There doesn't seem to be an end in sight. If you are one of a handful of these test takers who are still in doubt about going to law school, do the smart thing and let go of the law school myth dream. You will only be out of the $136 LSAT fee and maybe a few hundred more for study aids and LSAT courses. That is much better than being out of $136k and unemployed or unhappy in your shitlaw job three years from now. I pray that someone out there is listening.

Thanks to reader A.S. for the tip.

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.

"Revenge of the (Alleged) Deadbeats"

A BIDER fan tipped me off to an article appearing in the New York Times about a former bloodsucker turned avenger. Mr. Katz, a former debt collector, saw the error in his ways when a creditor ruined his credit over a fraudulent bill. He sued and won.

Since then, he has spearheaded the movement cleverly called "Revenge of the (alleged) deadbeats" by opening a school in Tuscon where he lectures debtors on the fine points of fighting debt. I would take it too if it didn't cost money.


A primary focus of his education is how to capitalize on creditors' unscrupulous debt collection practices: such as cell phone harassment and water-boarding. The number of lawsuits is amazing considering how many of our fellow debtors lay down and play dead:

In fact, 8,287 federal lawsuits were filed citing violations of the act in 2009, a 60 percent rise over the previous year, according to WebRecon, a site that tracks collection-related litigation and the most litigious consumers and lawyers on behalf of debt collectors.On Wednesday, the Supreme Court made it even easier for consumers to use the courts to fight debt collectors, ruling that collectors cannot be shielded from suits by claiming they made a mistake in interpreting the law.

I am so happy that this movement is gaining speed. The fleecing of the middle, soon to be lower class, must stop. It is services such as Mr. Katz's that make Americans into educated DEBTORS and not just consumers.

A Minneapolis Attorney is conducting boot camps in conquering debt:

Peter Barry, a Minneapolis trial lawyer, is so bullish on the future of debt collection litigation that he holds several “boot camps” each year to share his secrets with other lawyers who want in on the action. If the debtor wins a court case under the act, the debt collector must pay the lawyer’s fees.The next boot camp is being held in early May in San Francisco, at a cost of $2,495 a person for two and a half days of instruction.


Once again, if only I could afford it. I do think that giving Mr. Barry $2,495 is money well spent if you can avoid a lifetime of harassment and salvage your credit score. I would venture that I am not alone in my use of credit cards after law school to float myself until I started my clerkship in September. After all, when one graduates from law school he has arrived, has he not? We all know that THIS lawyer has not arrived (as in myself). As a consequence, I still have approximately $6000 in credit card debt that I have carried since I was 24.

Actually, I would like to share a sad--but true--story with you. When I was in college, I was a victim of the classic bait and switch. A tactic employed by colleges to draw students into enrolling, wherein a great financial package is available for freshman year and discontinued the year thereafter. I read about this in the book No Sucker Left Behind, which I am going to review and offer in a giveaway soon.

So, to pay for my college education I too engaged in unscrupulous practices. In addition to working 40 hours a week at 3 different jobs, I also wrote papers for people. I know it's wrong, but I was good at it and needed the money. So, my rate was $25/page and more in rush jobs.


I have been MIA lately because I have been working on litigation involving a partnership. I filed a motion and it was 45 pages long.
Now.... stay with me. I am charging a discounted rate of $60/hour because it's a friend and when you start out a practice you are eager for the money. For writing the motion, I charged the client $870.10. I was happy because that is more money than I have seen in a while. Then I realized that my college rate for the same "paper" would have been $1125. Why did I go to law school again? Oh yah, to earn $254.90 less than I did in the nineties. This goes under the category of "sad, but true."