In Texas, which only has nine, four of which are public.
(OK they're all government-subsidized via the federal loan racket, but how the heck does something like this get through the Texas state legislature? Don't they have a few dozen more prisons to build?).
And check out this charming recruiting technique by a law school with such great employment stats it's about to get sued.
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We whine; they profit.
ReplyDeleteThis just goes to show you - If words could have any influence over thieves there would be no need for armed police.
Any information on what the former judge will be paid to serve as the school's dean? I'm guess a tripling, or at least a doubling of his rate of pay. Cha-ching!
ReplyDelete"Several colleagues have asked me why I would give up a lifetime appointment to take on a start-up law school during these tough economic times, when tuition is rising and demand for lawyers is declining," Furgeson said. "But the prospect of pioneering a new law school that addresses these issues head-on was too challenging and exciting to pass up."
ReplyDelete1:32: Keep in mind he's eligible to take senior status, which means he gets to retire from the federal judiciary with full pay and benefits.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Texas has plans to deny the whole appeals process for people sentenced to capital punishment so they don't need to build any more prisons. (sarcasm)
ReplyDelete"1:32: Keep in mind he's eligible to take senior status, which means he gets to retire from the federal judiciary with full pay and benefits."
ReplyDeleteAnd boom goes the dynamite.
Is this piece of trash really called the North Texas Dallas College of "the" Law?!?! Paul, why don't you, some commenters and I purchase a couple of double-wide trailers, some bookshelves, computers, and Internet access - and open up our own law school?!
ReplyDeleteLet's make sure that we have running water, and a fax machine!
Sounds like a plan. You can be Dean of Emissions.
ReplyDeleteWe need someone here to teach Space Law, Feminist Literature and the Law, a seminar/advanced writing course on Dickensian Views of Lawyers, and another "professor" to run a Left-Handed Animal Rights Clinic.
ReplyDeletePeople sometimes wonder why I post pictures of toilets, vomit-covered Dumpters, cesspools, and feces on my blogs. I have simply provided the visual connection to TTT. Plus, those images illustrate the nature of American "legal education," i.e. fill prospective students with false hope, take the students' loan money, and then flush them down the commode.
Nando,
ReplyDeleteIn California we have the "Hastings College of THE Law" a part of, but governed seperately from (the namesake's heirs have a seat on the board) the University of California. I've always thought that the "the" in the title was rather quaint.
If you look at the Albany statistics, they make their employment figures look better than they are by having their percentages for JD required, preferred, etc add up to about 100 percent, meaning these are percentages of the employed lot. On the other hand, directly to the right they have "national averages" which add up to the employment rate, which is about 89 percent. So they look better than average this way, and then they advertise their better than average statistics on the webpage linked.
ReplyDeletePretty hilarious..
lol @ Albany's marketing gimmic of putting the applicant's name on business cards of prestigious legal jobs.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else seen the Craigslist ads from December where the firm that sued NYLS is still looking for 3 plaintiffs per school for its suits...all smoke, and no fire...
ReplyDeleteGive Albany credit for not publishing the fraudulent salary statistics (with 20% reporting) that other schools publish.
ReplyDeleteAlbany doesn't publish any salary statistics, which is better than publishing misleading ones.
This is just a breathtaking lack of foresight.
ReplyDeleteUnless they're planning on doing something radically different - say only charging $10,000/yr for tuition or something.
Only someone with a boundless ego completely untethered from reality would look at the current landscape of legal education and say to themselves, "Yep! We need another one!"
BW, The judge is going to get his full salary and benefits PLUS a huge salary as Dean. Sometimes in life you say "fuck the world" and cashout. That's what the judge is doing.
ReplyDelete3:01: It's always tricky to speculate on peoples' motives, but fwiw I think a big part of the problem is that there's an enormous amount of genuinely delusional thinking among the legal elites. My guess is that this guy has literally no idea what an absurd and counterproductive venture he's getting himself into. Of course the fact he gets to cash two giant paychecks at the same time gives him a big incentive to remain blind to present realities ("It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it" etc)
ReplyDeleteSomebody has to say it - Like I need a hole in my head.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else sense an odd parity between the arguably delusional ("it will be different for me") thinking in regards to the hopeful young 0L and folks like Judge Royal Furgeson Jr.?
ReplyDeleteBoundless optimism abounds.
Not at all Crux. What risk is judge Furgeson taking? He's not dumb. He's got his judge's salary and benefits for the rest of his life (which is a HUGE amount of money), and any money he gets from the law school is just gravy. Even if the law school fails to open because (dare we dream), lower ranked legal academia collapses, he loses nothing.
ReplyDeleteSometimes in life you say "fuck the world" and cashout.
ReplyDeleteIt is my goal in life to be in a position where I can do this.
I've got a serious question, which I will try to type out as clearly and concisely as one can while making dinner for two kids (so, it's not going to be either clear or concise):
ReplyDeleteThere is a need for the top school graduates (HYS) to do big things like Big Law. We can all agree on that. Law School is a sorting mechanism, both on the front end in what school a student is accepted to (sky is the limit, baby!), and the GPA / class rank of that student upon graduation. On the far end of the spectrum are the third tier and unranked schools (TTTT!) which admit the, ahem, lesser students (measured by UG GPA & LSAT).
OK, here is the thrust of my inquiry, I've seen mentioned on this website and others that there is a need for what I will call "less expensive" legal representation. Be it criminal matters, family law, what have you, the folks that aren't able to pay for top flight firm work. These people exist, they have legal issues, there is opportunity there. I've heard it termed both "midlaw" and "shitlaw," but I think both miss the point. If the average annual income for a family of four in the US is less than $70k (correct me, please, if necessary) it would seem a lot of people out here aren't able to pony up $30k for a legal concern unless it's a matter of life or death (or both).
So, if law school was less expensive and a person could come out into the workforce without a six figure student load debt, could this population of people be better served with legal representation? What I mean to say is, if a lawyer could cover their investment with a more modest annual income, would he? Is it all about ROI? Do people want that work? I think it's there for the taking. And, I believe the average newly minted lawyer in this country cannot afford to string together nickle & dime cases. That kid needs an income stream that will get her out from under a mountain of debt. For a lot of folks, "midlaw" ain't gonna cut it.
I think the reasons a lot of legal work is drying up is two-fold. One, a lot of it can be sent overseas and done cheaper. And, two, the requisite forms and research for a whole lot of stuff can be purchased online. If someone can do it themselves for less than $50 bucks and they can't even get an hour long initial consultation for less than $300, it should be no surprise if the average (reasonable or othewise) goes for whatever a google search for "legal forms" turns up.
That the top schools arguable fail to prepare their students adequately for the practice of law, while the lower schools inarguable to so, is a valid point, but one I've pretty much ignored in this screed/rank/inquiry/babble.
Crux,
ReplyDeleteI think it's all about the debt, if grads came out with say 30K in debt there would be more people to draft special needs trusts, help small taxpayers fight the IRS, represent parents held in contempt in support proceedings etc. etc.
I think most people who still like the law after being through law school want to do these things. I'm very lucky to be in the situation that I can do these types of matters, but 4/5th's of my graduating class cannot financially afford to do so.
"It is my goal in life to be in a position where I can do this."
ReplyDeleteDon't you tutor LSATs?
Nando and Lawprof (1:55 and 2:02 respectively):
ReplyDeleteI would not be surprised if the idea for this new Texas law school came about in a bar after two bottles of Jack Daniels.
Of all the people to have as a figurehead dean, why a (relatively) unknown district court judge? What was Kozinski's asking price? What about Garland or Luttig?
WCL,
ReplyDeleteNot LawProf or Nando, but I think it comes down to the fact that service on the District Court gets rather routine, you see the same four types of cases all the time. Where, on the other hand, Circuit Judges actually get to make new law fairly often, so I think the pull of a second job in academic administration is less interesting.
gt
ReplyDelete9:39,
ReplyDeleteI was just joking as influential CoA (and SCOTUS feeder) judges would have infinitely better things to do than to head a lowly law school.
But your comment was insightful nonetheless.
LawProf - The New Republic has an interesting article on the higher ed bubble and some possible solutions. http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/99415/college-tuition-afford-higher-education
ReplyDeleteI know what delta-V means and I've read the Outer Space Treaty. I think this, my J.D., and almost complete lack of any actual legal experience whatsoever make me eminently qualified to teach Space Law.
ReplyDeleteI have seen Star Wars 100,000 times so I think that makes me an expert in space law. Oh wait, the 100K was just my student debt.
ReplyDeleteInteresting numbers from Albany. Of course what it means is that only 71% managed to get some sort of legal job, since it would seem that Bar Passage Required = JD Preferred - it is kind'a hard to pass the bar without a 3 year law degree, e.g., a JD - though in New York it can be done with say a UK, Irish, Australian, etc. BL or a US Common Law LLM on another non-common law law degree.
ReplyDeleteEven then the numbers are not that believable for a school ranked 98th when schools ranked in the top 30 are struggling to place graduates.
lol @ 71%. I would bet money that the real number is about 1/2 of that.
ReplyDelete