Kaplan: LSAT Prep is Not Enough...

Kaplan School of Law?  Really?  Kaplan is shopping for space in Southeast D.C. ... for a law school because Catholic, American, Georgetown, GW, GMU.... UDC... Howard are not equipped to pump more grads into the already saturated Nation's Capital.
Stop the madness!
Of course, there's nearly nothing in the article about whether there's actually room in the market for another law school.  It's mostly about real estate value and what a bunch of students spending loan money can do for the area.  There is this statement:

Kaplan's backers argue that it offers important opportunities for low-income students. Washington is already home to law schools run by American University, Catholic University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia.

Unless they are charging a buck for law school--I find this to be a lie, a farce, a major misrepresentation.
There was a link in that blurb... "argue" which I hoped would direct me to the website where the costs for attending KSL would be spelled out.  NOPE.   Instead, it directs you to an article about how Obama is trying to tighten the supply of federal monies to schools opened by companies and their major lobbying efforts against this type of legislation.  Not helpful.  They need that money to line their pockets with the over inflated tuition, I'm sure.

Anybody who decides to attend this new school is an idiot.  There are plenty of options in that area and no reason in the world to sink so low--unless you want a one-stop shop.  I'm joking of course... there is no benefit to a one stop shop in the law.  I hope Kaplan goes under.

Please Vote for Us! Don't Make Me Beg!

Just got this in my email today...


Dear Blawgger, 

As an author of one of the more than 3,000 blawgs in the ABA Journal's online directory, we thought you'd want to know that our annual Blawg 100 list was published today. 

Now the real fun begins. We've invited our readers to vote for their favorite blogs from among the top 100 in each of 12 categories. Voting ends at close of business Dec. 30. Winners will be announced in January.

Each year, our favorites list sparks debate about the state of the blawgosphere, legal blogs that didn't make the list, and how lawyers can benefit from writing and reading news and analysis being produced online every day by their colleagues worldwide. 

So we invite you to point your readers to the Blawg 100 and continue contributing to that conversation.

Thank you for the news and analysis you provide the legal community on your blog.

--Ed
________________________________
Edward A. Adams
Editor and Publisher
ABA Journal
ABAJournal.com 

Class of '11: Things are Looking Up!

I put up a poll (to the right) recently.  I neglected to include a couple of categories.  Maybe I'll do it again and include an option for "Legal Employment-JD not required" and "Part-time" and "Government."  Sorry I left y'all out.  But feel free to comment here and tell me what you're doing.
So, with a little over a week left on the poll, I've noticed that most of my readers are unemployed--still looking for a job and hopeless.  That's a whopping 30%!  The next biggest category is Employed in a field unrelated to the law with 25%.  I can't believe that over 50% of my readers aren't currently employed as attorneys.

Well, I was forwarded this article.... entitled "Class of '11 will see slightly better jobs outlook."  Promising, right?  Well most of the article discusses undergrads.  For BIDER readers, there is no good news:

...Interest in graduates with associate, master's and professional degrees like medical, law or veterinary is expected to fall, with the exception of Ph.D.- and MBA-level students.

How can it fall any lower?  Well, with 45,000 new law grads on the market in May 2011, it's not really a surprise.
And I don't buy that things will get better for college grads either.  I have a good friend who has an undergraduate degree in.. I'm not sure.  She's nearly 40, so at this point her degree is meaningless.  But she has experience as an office manager of a law firm and a PR firm.  She's versatile, I suppose.  When she combs the Internet for admin level positions in New York and New Jersey--she finds plenty o'jobs.  Problem is that most of them pay $10/hour.  How is anyone to survive on that?  What about rent?   What about transportation.  This is New York Shitty!

Unfortunately, the fodder for this blog is never ending.  I don't see an end to this recession.  Do you?

Apparently ANYBODY Can Teach a Class at Marquette School of Law: GO BUD!

In case you haven't heard of it, it's in Wisconsin.  Yah, I haven't either.  All besides the point.
What does it take to be a Law School Professor?  One might think... a law degree?  NOPE.  Bud Selig, the Commissioner of Baseball is now a distinguished professor of Sports Law at Marquette.  I have a feeling he may have had in house counsel to handle the sports law stuff, but.. I guess I could be wrong.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig has been named to the adjunct faculty at Marquette University Law School as distinguished lecturer in sports law and policy.

“Bud Selig is, without question, one of the most skilled and accomplished professionals in the sports industry today,” said Joseph D. Kearney, dean of Marquette Law School. “We are truly honored that he would commit his time to our students and grateful that he’s chosen our classrooms as a place to pass down his significant wisdom to the next generation of leaders.”

It never occurred to me that someone other than a lawyer or a judge could teach the law.  I could understand if he taught in a business school, but are they serious about this?  In my humble opinion, this is a new low. Why doesn't Jay Z start teaching Entertainment Law at Brooklyn School of law?  What about Linda Tripp teaching a class about Privacy and the Law to AU students?  This type of appointment makes a law school education seem even more inadequate.  Most all of my professors were Harvard and Yale Law School Grads and I loathed and despised them for their inability to tell me about the actual practice of the law.  After all, most brilliant professors are failed practitioners.  This is one step below the inexperience of lawyers that are too brilliant to practice.  Are Marquette Law Students happy about this?  Drop a line if you have an opinion about this dude?  Is he truly brilliant?  I don't do baseball so I would love to hear a little bit about him.

Pro Bono Attorneys: Necessary and Problematic

Practicing law can be rewarding.  It's fascinating to use the law as an instrument to help your client.  Sometimes a client walks into your office that has a "golden" case.  For example, a caring a doting mother that is seeking sole legal custody of her daughter because her ex-husband is a violent, druggie psycho.  That's a case I'd jump on any day.  There are a million and one tools that will enable you to achieve the desired result.  The only thing that throws a wrench in it, is that the husband walks into court with a pro-bono attorney.  The other attorney is green and eager to learn.  The husband has all the time in the world because he's unemployed, and none of the costs associated with protracted litigation, and will torture your client until she yields.  She can't keep up with the costs.  So, in the end, despite your advice and because of your mounting legal fees--she is forced to settle.

This scenario plays out every day.  It's not fair to your client, but there's little that you can do other than stop the clock.  Legal fees are such a huge factor in what a client does, and it has nothing to do with the law and justice or what's right.  It breaks my heart, but if your client can't afford to keep fighting the good fight--you must settle.

In divorce cases, you're actually forced to exchange retainer agreements.  I imagine that this came into practice so the Court can make sure that the parties are fighting on even ground.  Unfortunately, this has become a formality and means nothing.  However, you can bet the spouse that is paying $100/hour will go farther than the spouse that is paying $400/hour.  And it has nothing to do with the merits of the case.

In debt collection court, there is an army of volunteer attorneys.  These volunteer attorneys won't put in an appearance, but they advise the debtors of their "rights," thereby strong arming the creditor's attorney into settling for pennies on the dollar.  I don't have much sympathy for creditors, of course, but I can see where the costs of collection is transferred to other debtors.  Kind of like the costs of stolen merchandise forces a store to increase the prices on all the merchandise to account for the loss.  If you owe it, you owe it.  Unless you declare bankruptcy, why should you be allowed to settle for pennies on the dollar?

This is obviously one of my pet peeves about the practice of the law.  Much of the motivation to cease moving forward comes from the amount that must be paid to the attorney to do so.  I wish I knew how to even the playing field.  My feeling is that attorneys and politicians should be eating from cans and working because of their passion.  However, with the cost of becoming an attorney today--it's become hard to take on a case for a reasonable rate because you "believe" in it.  Attorneys have fallen into two camps--those that charge an exorbitant rate to survive and those who charge nearly nothing for the experience and the hope that they will one day be able to charge an exorbitant rate.  Should we all be doing this for less?  Or are attorneys' fees the leverage that all parties need to settle?

Any thoughts?

Law School Transparency: Discussions with Kyle

Earlier this week I pitched an idea to Kyle McEntee, the founder of Law School Transparency. For those of you that don't know, LST is a non-profit watchdog organization that was established with the hopes of getting the law schools to spill the truth on their employment statistics.  As Kimber covered in Shilling Me Softly, LST released the law schools' answers to their initial request for information.  Most of them, except for Ave Maria School of Law, declined citing reasons such as "compliance costs would be to great" or "privacy issues."  I admire what LST is doing, but I'm not surprised.  Even with the ABA's recent consideration of a proposal requiring that Law Schools provide accurate data to incoming students, the law schools are still resistant.
Well, back to my conversation with Kyle.  Here's was the idea that I pitched to him:

Why don't we go over the law schools' heads?  Why do we have to wait for them to comply with LST's requests?  With the scam bloggers' assistance, we can post a survey or a link to a survey on LST's website and ask the "people" what they are doing after grad school.  We can even open it up to graduates who, like me, are years out and now finding themselves living below the poverty level.  I realize that it would be nearly impossible to get 100% percent to report.  However, if we got 10 of 100 graduates from TTToilet school of law to answer the survey claiming that they are unemployed--that information would debunk the statistics of that same school which claim 95% employed 9 months after graduating.

Well, he had concerns.  One of the concerns he cited was verification.  For example, a spiteful law school grad could fill out the survey from several different ISPs claiming that he is unemployed to screw up the statistics for his school.  I, for one, would never lie on a survey like that.  I guess I feel like the truth is probably bad enough, why lie?  Plus, I really want to know the truth.  I'm curious.  But today, two comments on Hardknock's post earlier today made Kyle's concern very real to me:

EvrenSeven said...

It's a certainty that any student who participates in this program won't receive an employment survey from the school after 9 months, because they will already be considered "employed" and won't even have a chance to answer.

When I get mine, I'll be answering as "unemployed and searching" to make up for at least one person who hasn't responded to a survey in shame.

NOVEMBER 16, 2010 12:55 PM  

Anonymous said... 

Even though I was working, I made sure to put myself down as unemployed and searching when mine came.

NOVEMBER 16, 2010 2:41 PM  

Oops. I guess I don't understand the mindset of new grads.  His point came through loud and clear.

He had other concerns as well.  He doesn't want to discredit his organization by providing false statistics.  I guess the scam bloggers have been discredited.  I know that we're referred to as whiners, etc.  People want us to do something.  I think that my idea is the "something" that needs to be done.  I, unfortunately, have no idea how to go about doing it.
LST seems to have lots of faith in the ABA coming through with higher standards for law school.  Of course, I don't.  At the end of the day, I feel that the ABA (made up of Biglaw Partners) has an interest in keeping labor cheap.  I'm sure the organization would decrease tuition if it were in their power, so that the cheap labor wouldn't be so cash strapped.  If that is their real intent, then any proposal that would affect the number of law students that attend law school and slow down the flow of cheap labor as a result is not likely to be a priority of the ABA.  We differ on that point.
In any event, I'm fully behind LST in its efforts.  I hope that the ABA brings the hammer down on the law schools for defrauding students every year.  In the meantime, I feel the weight of 45,000 students on my shoulders every May and the pain that many of them must feel when their expectations are dashed.  I hope that I'm not considered a whiner.  My goal is to put the information out there for those that are open to it, and help steer some students correctly.  I know that everything we post is skewed by our opinions, but we're we aren't dishonest. We stand to gain nothing by telling people information we wish we knew before attending law school.  That is the God's honest truth.
So, what do you think of my idea?  Do you think its something I should approach LST with in the future (after the ABA doesn't deliver)?  If so, do you know how to do it?  Maybe we can talk.

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.