A Few Must Reads....

The Journal Record discussing the debt that Law School Graduates are facing these days.  29% reporting that they owe more than $120K.  Woah.

The Editor of famous Above the Law discussing his Harvard Legacy--a huge debt.  Although not a huge critic of law school, he decided he wanted to warn the lemmings against making a similarly huge, $150K mistake.  As always, the comments that follow the article are enlightening.

A creative law student parlays his $30K student loan into $300K and a 39 month Jail Term.  Well, it may have seemed like a good idea.  Oh yah, his inside trading buddy killed himself before taking a plea deal. Heavy stuff.

Minorities getting a one up on Whites. It seems that less Blacks and Hispanics are attending law school although they are scoring beTTTTer on the LSATTTT than ever before. I say, Bravo!  That's one way to get ahead.

Ha! Now, Attorneys that MAY have Retired are Volunteering!!

Great!  As you may know, I'm not keen on attorneys taking on free work, when it cost $120K to become an attorney. I can't get any of my dentist friends to fill my cavities for free... although I dispense free legal advice all the time.  But, if newbies are going to be forced to hang out a shingle, then I suppose they need some experience.  And now that is being given to old attorneys. FABULOUS.  Experience that newbies would love to get in on is going to Baby Boomers that aren't ready to retire.  And I'm sure some middle-aged solo attorneys are burning over this as well.  As I said before, where there's a will--there's a way.  If you need an attorney and an attorney costs money, you will find a way to pay that attorney.   Or you will find an attorney who will do it for very little.  And I bet those few pennies mean so much to a solo in this economy, or a newbie for that matter.

BTW--as a side note.  Tenants don't need attorneys in Landlord/Tenant Court.  They never did before, so I don't think they need it now.  But hey, let's take advantage of attorneys old and young who don't have shit to do.  Make them feel more relevant.  Volunteer!  Uncle Sam needs you!

Courts Seek More Lawyers to Help the Poor by William Glaberson (New York Times)
The recession has swelled the number of people showing up in New York State courts who cannot afford lawyers to 2.1 million annually, often turning eviction, foreclosure, debt collection and other civil cases into lopsided battles that raise questions about the fairness of the legal system.
In response, the state court system is beginning an unusual new program this week to try to fill the gap with volunteer retired lawyers, hoping partly to attract Baby Boomer lawyers who may be ready to slow down but are not keen on full-time golf.

New York’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, said in an interview that officials changed the state’s rules this week to add a new category of lawyer, attorney emeritus, that will free lawyers of some burdens of full-time practice, like paying for malpractice insurance, while channeling them to dozens of legal programs around the state that represent low-income people without charge. Until now, lawyers were required to register with the state as either active or retired.

Judge Lippman said that the program could sharply increase the number of lawyers volunteering for such public interest work, after decades of efforts that have not come close to meeting the demand. “This is putting a gold star on their chest, saying, ‘You are doing something important,’ ” Judge Lippman said.

Although such work is often described as an ethical obligation of law practice, some studies have shown that more than half of the state’s 250,000 lawyers provide no free services.

In interviews, judges described the growing ranks of people who say they cannot afford lawyers as a crisis in the courts. They said that unrepresented people sometimes blundered into errors that could lead to destitution and homelessness. Court officials said the number of people who say they cannot afford lawyers statewide has grown by 300,000 since 2005, to 2.1 million annually by 2009.

Nationally, court officials and bar associations have begun to talk about the potential for volunteer work from some 400,000 of the country’s 1.1 million lawyers in the Baby Boom generation who are moving toward retirement.

In the New York program, lawyers over 55 who register in the attorney emeritus category will be trained and supervised in the work for low-income clients. Steven Banks, the attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society in New York City, said the program could be a breakthrough in efforts to draw more volunteer lawyers. “It is an innovative idea to tap into untapped resources,” Mr. Banks said.

He said that because of limited resources, the society was turning away eight of every nine people who come to it seeking legal help in civil cases.

Bar associations and other groups around the country have worked for decades to increase lawyers’ volunteer efforts. Court officials said that at least six states, including Florida, Illinois and Nevada, have attorney emeritus programs like the one New York is adopting.

At many large corporate law firms there is now an established culture of regularly handling public-interest cases without charging fees.

But there has also been resistance to participation in volunteer programs by some lawyers. A statewide study in 2002 said only about a quarter of all lawyers worked more than 20 hours a year on such voluntary efforts.

Many of the organizations that provide free legal services in the state are facing their own fund-raising and other financial challenges because of the economy, at a time when more people need lawyers, said Fern Schair, the chairwoman of the board of the Feerick Center for Social Justice at Fordham Law School, which works to expand representation for people who cannot afford lawyers.

Judge Lippman said that Ms. Schair proposed the attorney emeritus program to him last summer as a way that New York might try to cope with the challenge of the growing number of unrepresented people in the courts.

“I immediately said to her, ‘We’re going to do it,’ ” Judge Lippman said on Wednesday. “This struck me as a unique opportunity to kind of seize the day.”

Finally, Colleges are Trying to Prepare Student for REAL LIFE!!!! It's about Fucking Time!

Although I think that most colleges that charge over $10K a year are toilet bowls, I have to give credit where credit is due.  Colleges have started to see that most liberal arts degree prepare you for nothing aside from a life of being a parents' basement dweller who smokes pot and philosophizes.  A tipster, Maria, pointed me to an article about how colleges are trying to become more relevant.  Ha. Thomas College, in Maine, is allowing students to come back after six months of unemployment "...to take classes free, or have the college pay their student loans for a year."  Love it!!!   A college that is, on its own accord, making it their business to get you a job!  That is the least they can do for $28,850 a year. University of Louisiana and Michigan State are doing away with worthless majors like Philosophy and American Studies.    Bravo!!!  English Majors at University of Texas are learning how to write RESUMES, of all things!?  As a reader of my blog, you should know that I have been hoping that this would happen.  I'm pleasantly surprised that colleges are taking initiative to make an education relevant to the workplace. I'm SHOCKED that they are doing it without the financial pressure of student loans that are dischargeable in bankruptcy. Previously, I was pretty sure that it would take a change in the bankruptcy code to make this happen. I thought they would have to feel the pinch of students being unable to pay for their education because loans would be harder to come by.  I STILL think that an education is way more expensive than it should be, considering it often does not prepare students for employment.


In any case, this is a major step in the right direction.

Make Way for the New Blood!

I was riding a bus with a neighbor today.  I was telling him that the law industry is done because there are too many attorneys.  Until the glut is gone (circa 2020, if we're lucky), there's no place for more attorneys and certainly no place for laid off attorneys like myself. I want out.  He asked a simple and innocent question:
"But won't there eventually be a need for lawyers?  What happens when the current lawyers retire?"

Case in point.  Robert Morgenthau.
Oh, you don't know who he is?  He is the previous District Attorney of Manhattan.  After thirty-five years of service, Mr. Morgenthau retired at the ripe old age of 89.  Yep.  He is ready to enjoy the rest of his life, free of the confounds of a legal career.  Do people even live that long?  There was lots of pressure on him to retire.  Otherwise, I doubt he would have.  Someone probably sat him down and said, "Sir, your slur is becoming a problem."



Yah, he's got no slur.  He's sharp as a whip.  Just like all attorneys without Alzheimers.

So, my answer to my neighbor was, "Lawyers don't retire.  They die.  And they don't die young, either."

I worked at a firm where the head partner died of a heart attack on the bus on the way to work.  He too was 89.

At the big firm that I worked at, there was a skeleton of an old man that I would see on occasion. I'm sure he was a partner at that point. He must have been 105.  He would go to the firm cafeteria every day for lunch and get a sliver of an apple and piece of lettuce to chow down on.  As most people should know by now, the secret to longevity is to barely eat. I'm sure he's aiming to retire any day now.  Yah, right.

So, without a large amount of lawyers retiring at 65--there will continue to be a glut of attorneys until law schools stop pumping new lawyers out.  Why would attorneys retire?  They don't have a fatty pension to look forward too.  I'm convinced that the old bags I've worked with and opposed to don't have the money to slow down.  They leave their young 3rd wives destitute and penniless.

What is the payrate?????

Need Several reviewers to work on a project in Northern NJ. Ideal candidate would be someone who currently resides in NJ and can easily commute. 20 minute drive from Newark NJ. Must be admitted in U.S. If you have any pharmaceutical review experience, please indicate that when you submit your resume, although not required.


Payrate yet to be determined.

Please email resumes to me: skim@yorkson.com

Best Regards,
Sara Kim
Sr. Dir. of Legal Recruiting
Tel: (212) 265-1400 x206
Fax: (212) 265-1441
skim@yorkson.com
Yorkson Legal, Inc.
Legal Staffing & Recruiting
136 East 57th Street
Suite 1201 (12th floor)
New York, NY 10022
http://www.yorkson.com/

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/yorksonlegal

This was brought to my attention by a reader who points out an interesting trend, "Payrate yet to be determined."  Determined when?  If you want me to send my resume and commit to a project, shouldn't you commit to a payrate?  I don't get it.  When you see that a rate is tba, is that necessarily bad news?  Why would you want people to contact you that will bail when they hear the rate?  Total disclosure is needed on these sort of things.  It sounds like a bait & switch.  What do you think? 

I Love It When Indian Sex Scandals Break Into Music....

Completely unrelated to the law. But I like to be well-rounded.  I heard about this governor of a Northern Indian State that had an affair with a few women... or let us say a "menage a trois" or a "menage a 4."  Yes, he had three hot women at once.  But, the real story is that he's 86! Lucky bastard.  And as you can see from this news clip, he makes love like a corpse. He basically lays there and lets the chicks do the work.  How thrilling for those girls.  But this video is a must see because the news clip breaks into song at the most fabulous places on the clip.  So Bollywood!  Got to love it! 

Undue Hardship? What Does that Mean??? Where Can I sign up???

Jerry, a reader of this blog, suggested that read this article. Man, it was dense as hell. In order to give it real justice, I need to print it out and study it. However, I felt that I needed to address the issue now. I've had more than a few readers express extreme desperation stemming from defaulting on their student loans so I wanted to put the article out there for people in that situation to STUDY in detail and, perhaps, devise a plan to discharge their student loans. I have to preface this post by saying that there's an ice cube's chance in hell that discharge is possible under the current laws. But it's possible. Let's say there's a 1% chance. I previously mentioned a bill that was put before Congress by Senator Durbin and I was unsure as to the result of the bill. This article gave the answer I was looking for:  

"... Politicians did not go far enough in their efforts... One need only look to congressional inaction on a little-heralded, yet extremely significant, bill that Senator Richard Durbin introduced on June 7, 2007 (the “Durbin bill”): an amendment to the Bankruptcy Code that would allow debtors in bankruptcy to discharge privately issued student loans. Enactment of the legislation would have constituted a unique push-back against the lender lobby, the kind that would have robustly championed the plight of student-loan borrowers. The leak of a document outlining the lobbying strategy of Sallie Mae, the nation’s leading provider of student loans, suggests that Congress may have failed to act on this front due to interest-group capture: Among other things, Sallie Mae’s tactics call for “substantial penetration of ‘first tier’ congressional offices for initial contacts,” hiring a Democratic lobbyist, and “arm[ing] Congressional Republicans and [the] Administration to combat irresponsible proposals.” " 

So, because of lobbyists, it died. Unfortunately, debtors don't have the money to lobby Congress and our failure led to a predictable result. 

"Tragically, Congress disregarded empirical evidence from a General Accounting Office study which found that less than one percent of all federally insured and guaranteed student loans were discharged in bankruptcy."  


When I said 1%, I was not kidding. It's nearly impossible to discharge the debt, and even more impossible to figure out how because of the lose or nonexistent standards. As I have stated before, the laws tightened up in 2005, when Congress fiddled with the bankruptcy code further. 

"By virtue of that legislation, for-profit lenders have been extended the special treatment that had been traditionally reserved for educational and nonprofit institutions."  

That's right. Prior to 2005, it may have been possible to discharge private loans. But now, they have the same protection as federal loans. I knew I hated George Bush for many reasons. I blame him for the War(s) and the Economy and his general idiocy.  

Now, I have one more thing to add to the list: "In February 2008, as the House of Representatives considered a bill to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, it struck down a proposed amendment to the bill that would have made private student loans once again dischargeable in bankruptcy. Shortly thereafter, President Bush signed legislation in May 2008 that, in its current form, authorizes the Education Department through July 1, 2010 to buy certain federally guaranteed student loans that lenders cannot sell as securitized debt."  

I mean, really? Are you serious? Is that necessary? Is everything to big to fail? The article focuses on the 9th Circuit (West Coast?), but it's still telling of how courts view discharging of bankruptcy. 

They use the Brunner Test "which requires the debtor to establish that, on the basis of current income and expenses, repayment of the educational debt will preclude the debtor from maintaining a minimal standard of living. Put another way, the debtor must establish a current inability to repay his or her student loans by reference to a certain threshold quality of life—namely, a minimal standard of living. The U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Ninth Circuit (the Ninth Circuit BAP) has framed this inquiry as a function of whether requiring of the debtor an income increase or expense reduction would be unconscionable."  

I guess being a lawyer is like football. On any given sunday, a lawyer can score big and get a huge award in court or meet the right person and get a fatty job. But is it likely? I doubt that any court would give a lawyer the benefit of the doubt in this respect.  

And what is a minimal standard of living???? Well, the 9th Circuit kinda sorta answers that question: "While the Ninth Circuit BAP and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington (the Western District of Washington) have refused to interpret the concept of a minimal standard of living as requiring a debtor to live at or below poverty, the Ninth Circuit BAP has made it clear that discharge will not be granted solely because the debtor may have to undertake “major personal and financial sacrifices,” including abandoning a middle-class standard of living.""  

Well, abandoning a middle-class standard of living SOUNDS LIKE poverty level. $10830, Folks. Yep. That's what they are expecting of you.  

This all seems so wishy washy. Why can't there be a hard and fast rule? Instead, the 9th Circuit has a list of factors that they consider: "Well aware that crystal-ball gazing may inherently be undisciplined, the Ninth Circuit has attempted to impart some measure of consistency in the future inability inquiry by setting forth a list of nonexhaustive “objective factors” that it assumes will be good predictors of such inability. Such factors include: (1) serious mental or physical disability of the debtor or the debtor’s dependents; (2) the debtor’s obligation to care for dependents; (3) lack of or severely limited education; (4) poor quality of education; (5) lack of usable or marketable job skills; (6) underemployment;  


So, I'm presuming that a 4th Tier may qualify you. But if you pass the bar, then how can any court say that you did not receive a quality education? So, maybe the answer is that one can discharge their debt if they meet the above factors and never passed the bar. As for marketable skills, everyone knows that law school gives you NONE. All of our skills are learned on the job. Maybe being suicidal will help as well.  

But wait, there's more: "(7) maximized income potential in the debtor’s chosen educational field and no other lucrative job skills; (8) a limited number of years remaining in the debtor’s work life to allow repayment; (9) age or other factors that prevent retraining or relocation that would facilitate repayment; (10) lack of assets to repay the loans (whether exempt or not); (11) potentially increasing expenses that outweigh potential appreciation in the value of the debtor’s assets and/or likely increases in the debtor’s income; and (12) the lack of better financial options elsewhere."  


So, what this tells me is that you're really not likely to have your student loans discharged if you're a young person. The courts want you to fuck up your whole life before they give you a chance to start fresh. Why would age and "limited number of years remaining in debtor's work life" be a factor. If you have a limited amount of time to work, then just stop paying and die. That will be an automatic discharge of the debt. The article went into all sorts of studies with different variable and the various success rates. I really don't have time to get into that here, but please do read it if you are going to attempt to have your student loan discharged.  


But the author also goes into factors that SHOULD be considered, but are not: "We would expect that the following financial characteristics—mea- sured as of or after the date that the adversary proceeding was filed—would be... significant predictors of a debtor’s current inability to repay his or her student loans: (1) the debtor’s monthly household income;142 (2) the debtor’s monthly household expenses;143 (3) the debtor’s monthly dispos- able household income; (4) the poverty ratio;145 and (5) the debt-to-income ratio."  

They also go on to say that "...none of these characteristics is statistically signifi- cantly associated with the extent of discharge obtained by the debtor."  

Of course, the article ends with the truth that we all know: "If we are to restore the higher education finance system to a harmonious state, congressional reform efforts need to begin by giving student-loan debtors in bankruptcy unfettered access to a fresh start."  

Exactly!!!