A law professor has directed me to a document that offers a fairly comprehensive look at the current and projected budget at UC-Hastings. The document combines a fiscal overview of the school's current situation with a strategic five-year plan going forward. Hastings is in a bit of an unusual position among well-ranked schools in that it's not part of a larger university campus, so there appears to be no cross-subsidization between it and other academic departments, i.e., part of the law school's revenues aren't being spent in the English department. That aside, this is an unusual opportunity to study in detail the financial structure of a large first-tier law school public law school.
Some details:
*While total applications to the school fell by 28% between 2003 and 2011, nominal tuition revenue nearly doubled over the same period, going from $24 million to $46 million. In-state tuition has gone from $21,000 per year in 2004 to nearly $47,000 this coming fall.
*This academic year, the school nominally took in $46.5 million in tuition, but in fact only collected $33.45 million, because of cross-subsidized "scholarships." This made the mean tuition paid by students $27,107, while the median was $40,000 for in-state and $49,000 for out of state students. Here we have a stark example of the reverse Robin Hood principle at work -- by which the half of the class which are less likely to get well-paying legal jobs, or any jobs at all, subsidize the half of the class getting "merit" scholarships.
Hastings has almost no real scholarships, i.e., endowed
private money donated to offset tuition costs. In 2011 the school distributed
$361,000 in such scholarships, i.e., an average of less than $300 per
student.
*This past academic year Hastings students borrowed $23,151,000 in Stafford and Perkins federal loans, and $20,141,000 in GRADPLUS and private loans. We can be confident that the percentage of the latter figure that was made up by private loans was trivial, meaning that Hastings students borrowed around $43 million in federal loan money. This means Hastings students took out 28.6% more in federal loans than they paid in total tuition. On average, Hastings students borrowed just over $35,000 each. This suggests that something close to 100% of the $27.1K per student in tuition Hastings actually collected was federally debt financed, i.e., almost no one is laying out any cash for law school tuition.
*While the class of 2011 graduated with an average of $102,000 in law school debt, current Hastings 2Ls, taking into account interest accrued during law school and tuition increases, will graduate with an average of around $130,000 in law school debt (This is my projection rather than something in the budget).
* The school is raising tuition 15% for the coming academic year, and plans to raise it 5% per year for the next four years after that. (This will put in-state tuition at about $57,000 per year four years from now). The justification for this, fiscally speaking, is that Hastings is cutting its JD class size by 20%. These tuition increases, along with a 25-student increase in the size of the international LLM program and 12 students added by a new MSL in Health Law, will allow the school (assuming that it can continue to fill its projected classes) to increase nominal tuition revenue from $46 million to $59 million despite the decrease in the size of the JD class.
*Tuition makes up 53% of the school's operating revenue. The rest comes from state appropriations (14%), investments (13%), auxiliary enterprises ( 12%; this includes things like renting space in the school's physical plant, parking, and bookstore revenues), private gifts (5%), grants and contracts (1%) and other revenues (2%). This past academic year operating revenue exceeded expenditures by $10.5 million. Over the past eight years the school has averaged about a three million dollar per year surplus in net revenues versus expenses. (The school lost around one million dollars in 2008 and nearly nine million in 2009, apparently as a result of state appropriations cuts).
*Despite the fact that revenues exceeded expenditures by nearly 20% over the past fiscal year, the school is cutting $2.2 million in operating costs "primarily through the elimination of 20% of the non-academic staff through layoffs or elimination of vacant positions."
*59% of the school's operating expenses are taken up by salaries and benefits ($31.2 million). Utilities, supplies and services make up 17%, auxiliary expenses are 11%, depreciation is 4%, and interest on debt is 3%.
Note that there's literally not a word in this detailed 60-page strategic five year planning document regarding what an economist would call "outputs." Hastings has doubled in real terms the nominal price of what it's selling, at a time when the demand for its product is crashing. Under such circumstances, one would think that the matter of whether the school's graduates are getting a reasonable -- or indeed any -- net return on the skyrocketing cost of their investment would at least be mentioned. It isn't.
That fact alone tells us a great deal about what actually does and doesn't count inside the law school bubble.
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First! Man I always win these First post contests!
ReplyDeleteGasp. That company (law school) is going to zero.
ReplyDeleteI would short their bonds with all the juice I could get my hands on. If I could figure out how, I would quit my job, do a roadshow and raise a hedge fund.
@Terry Malloy - Do it. Like a day-trader I know says "Embrace the trend". In patenting there are already people who use patent stats to predict future performance of companies, why not do the same with Law School stats? Sure, it's niche, but niches are there to be filled.
ReplyDeleteFYI, today's Chicago Tribune has a story on the law grad job market:http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0622-chicago-law-20120622,0,2998472.column
ReplyDeleteAlarming:"DePaul, IIT Chicago-Kent, John Marshall, Northern Illinois, Loyola and the University of Illinois did not meet the national average of 55 percent full-time employment."
Wow. And thanks; I have been wondering what the breakdown would be at Hastings, since it announced it was cutting its class by 20%. I wonder what "non-academic staff" will be cut...it usually includes the staff that are most helpful to students, and keeps the deadweight that professors feel they "need" for their own nonsense.
ReplyDeleteSorry, meant "who" not "that" in the last sentence.
ReplyDeleteActually, LS statistics are much more likely to be indicative of future performance than movements in their patent portfolios since they don't require you to apply a grab-bag of arbitrary weightings, come from a relatively small collection of subjects, are are more likely directly linked to the bottom line of the subject. Plus Law Schools can't hide the ball by assigning their stats to a different entity and you don't have to go through their M&A records and previous names to know what they have.
ReplyDeletePick a list of 30-40 sure-fire losers based on the stats which LST and other sources publish and find some way of shorting the hell out of them over the next 5 years or so. Do it smartly enough and you should make a pretty penny.
This data just illustrates how badly these schools would be crushed by any change in the federal student loan programs.
ReplyDeleteWe just need to hope that congress takes at look at student loans when they are hunting for budget cuts. Budget pressures are the only thing that will make congress cut this bloated beast.
Hi-- Hastings class of 2005 grad here. When I started in 2002 it was $11,000 per year for state residents, and was truly a great value given its high rank. It is shocking that tuition has more than quadrupled in the last ten years.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I don't think I regret going. However, I would definitely not attend at today's prices. Hastings is just not worth $50,000 per year.
Problem is, I'm not a bond guy, and I don't think there is a public market for 503(c) debt.
ReplyDeleteAnd no-one is going to sell me Credit Default Swaps at the notional values that I can muster.
@Terry Malloy - Find a proxy? Are there publicly-traded companies which will be disproportionatly hit by the closure of certain law schools?
ReplyDeleteI'm having trouble accessing the document. LP - could you please save it and post it on blogger? Thanks.
ReplyDelete"[T]his is an unusual opportunity to study in detail the financial structure of a large first-tier law school public law school."
ReplyDeleteAren't you on the faculty of a large first-tier public law school? Why don't we hear of your own school's financial structure?
Whoa! Did you see those abbreviated strategic goal plans?! Impressive! Very impressive!
ReplyDeleteAlso, this: "Over the past 10 years, state operating support has decreased on average by 3.6% annually. Total JD and LLM student fee revenue (net of fee discounting) has increased
on average by 10% annually " LOL
You can come up with plenty of reasons why it's perfectly natural for you to be a selfish asshole. State appropriations, fixed costs, competition, rankings, access, nice nights out and vacations and your child's education.
47 grand for in state tuition at any school is just insane on its face. INSANE. When I enrolled at GULC only 14 years ago the total cost of attendance was around 40k, including living expenses. I didn't even pay the full amount of that because I got a need based partial scholarship. And that's a highly ranked private school. I just...it's just unbelievable how costs have skyrocketed across the board. I just can't see a way that anyone willing to pay that much for a state school is not deranged, and deranged people should be protected from the consequences of their actions at least to some extent.
ReplyDelete8:37 (Leiter):
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you address the problems rather than attacking the speaker?
Jackass.
Lazy Bones
ReplyDeleteLazy Bones!
Can't pay back those Student Loans!
Lazy Bones, you're dead in the water
and you'll never get married
or have a son, or a daughter.
You know what Lazy Bones,
I'm sick of you!
and as a matter of fact,
you stink like poo!
So go and watch a dirty flick
and deadbeat your debtor's big, thick ....
Notice how the costs - already well above inflation - skyrocketed around the time that student loan debt became non-dischargable (2003?)
ReplyDeleteDon't expect Congress to help when moneyed interests - who make profits from the loans - have them in their backpocket
I am a Democrat. But frankly the only way this is going to stop is if budget hawks get full control of the federal budget. The only way the federal student loan programs will get a serious cut is if Republican take control.
ReplyDeleteOf course, that leads to all sort of other cuts unrelated to the student loan bubble, but it would certainly pop the law school scam in the process.
There is a huge difference between publishing a whistleblowers leaked document and publishing a document that you have received in confidence. As a faculty member at a large T1 public law school I can assure you that Hastings is not a financial outlier.
ReplyDeleteWhere does the multimillion dollar surplus go every year? Is it possible that it goes to increase administrative and faculty salaries?
ReplyDelete@ 9:17:
ReplyDeleteThe presentation is on http://www.uchastings.edu/budget/docs. Law prof did not publish, he publicized public information.
I suspect one of that 20% reduction will be the guy who runs the intranet firewall.
@ 9:17 - I agree with 9:31. Whoever gave LP the link to the document is not an idiot and knew that LP would publicize it. You'd have to be living in a hole to expect giving LP a public link to a document like this would not end up being discussed.
ReplyDeleteWhile total applications to the school fell by 28% between 2003 and 2011, nominal tuition revenue nearly doubled over the same period, going from $24 million to $46 million. In-state tuition has gone from $21,000 per year in 2004 to nearly $47,000 this coming fall.
ReplyDelete. . .
The school is raising tuition 15% for the coming academic year, and plans to raise it 5% per year for the next four years after that.
. . .
59% of the school's operating expenses are taken up by salaries and benefits ($31.2 million). Utilities, supplies and services make up 17%, auxiliary expenses are 11%, depreciation is 4%, and interest on debt is 3%
----------------------------------
once again, we see that the true culprits of the law school scam are the faculty, administrators and other employees.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why those students who are going into debt in excess of $100,000 for the purpose of subsidizing more highly ranked students and increasing faculty and administrative salaries are not marching down Golden Gate Avenue carrying signs and banging drums. Occupy the Tenderloin!
ReplyDeleteIf I was a Hastings 1L I would be incensed over those tuition increases. 15% next year and another 5% 3L, without seeing a benefit from the reduced class size and better employment opps. The only benefit may be the increase # of LLMs rounding out the curve.
ReplyDeleteif i were @ hastings right now i would organize a "strike." a mass dropout. everyone, just drop out. doesn't matter where you are in your time there. just don't pay your tuition bill and never show up. hastings would either lower tuition and cut salary to keep the ship afloat, or it would sink. either way, it's a good thing.
ReplyDeletethis is positively unconscionable.
Coming from an academic but non-law person... the chart on p.21 in the Hastings document LawProf linked is really mindboggling. Tuition doubled to 43K in just the last 5 years in a worsening job market, with only around 1/2 the grads getting the kind of jobs they were aiming for. How long do they really think this trend is going to continue? And you know the future tuition figures are just a guess and can be much higher for all anyone knows.
ReplyDeleteTime for a Flash Mob.
ReplyDelete15% seems especially egregious given the fact that tuition is already 47k. That means that Hastings plans on tacking on an additional 7k to its already hefty price tag. And aren't professors "smart" enough to recognize a bubble when they see one?
ReplyDeleteThe reason that the students dont flip out is because 15% doesnt mean anything to them yet.
ReplyDeleteJust like when you sign up for the loans in the first place, money has no meaning until it has to become due.
I vividly remember my first paycheck and then looking, at the taxes that were taken out, and then applying it to my loan balance and thinking to myself, "ohmyfuckinggod this is going to take forever."
I think that it was right then - - and not a moment sooner - - that I became an adult.
50K per year for a PUBLIC law school. Smh
ReplyDeleteACtually we're missing the most importsnt document which is the balance sheet.
ReplyDelete"Professor Campus is proud to announce that he is going to put his money where his mouth is.
ReplyDeleteSome have criticized the Professor for rather blatant hypocrisy - that is, for taking advantage of the very system he now lambastes, which he claims enables professors to live high on the hog at the expense of students, care of taxpayer-funded debt. The response his supporters offer is, well, he's helped highlight a troublesome reality and society is better served by him staying where he is and continuing to use his bully pulpit than by his resigning and becoming just another unemployed scamblogger. (Why this is automatically assumed to justify impoverishing his students, as he claims law professors do, will be ignored for now.) Besides, as Professor Campos often intimates in his comments about class consciousness, he has become accustomed to a certain standard of living that would be difficult to give up.
So, Professor Campos is human, but he is not a hypocrite. To demonstrate this, he hereby pledges that he will donate 5% of his income to a fund for unemployed former Colorado Law school students. It's largely symbolic - hey, he still keeps 95% of his money and his job, from which he can't be fired, even if he doesn't produce any scholarship - but it at least lessens the hypocrisy. Furthermore, it signals to his students that he is not simply taking their money and using it for literal self-enrichment and for self-aggrandizement (e.g., by promoting himself as the whistleblower of The Law School Scam). He is going to channel 5% of his proceeds of the Scam he condemns back to them."
I'd like to see something like this. But I think Professor Campos is enjoying being a Public Intellectual Who Exposes Bad Things But Gets to Enjoy Them Too a bit too much.
Correction
ReplyDeleteActually we're missing the most important document which is the balance sheet.
"even if he doesn't produce any scholarship"
ReplyDeleteOnly a law professor would care about that shit. Thus, 1036 was written by a law prof. From hastings, perhaps?
Professor Campos' claim is that professors are paid primarily to produce scholarship - but that they don't even do that. So, it's fair to point out that he's right, they can fail to follow through on this one obligation and still collect their paychecks.
ReplyDeleteAlso, check you, ad hominem.
https://twitter.com/#!/gwunderground
ReplyDeleteThis guy has the right idea - confront deans and administrators - law students are, by and large, too afraid to do this on their own!
Man, I am obviously biased, but I honestly couldnt give two shits if Law Prof drowns a puppy each and every night before he lays his head down on that plush pillow that he can afford through his job.
ReplyDeleteHe has literally done more to help our cause single handedly than anyone else has before him. And he's done it against his own self interest and he's done it really really well.
That, friends, is enough.
10:47, Correction - the loser law students who wind up unemployed are too afraid to do this. If they had any gumption they'd be employed but they're a bunch of pussies and that's why they're both unemployed and an ideal enemy whom law schools continue to easily trounce.
ReplyDeleteDean Berman, is that you??
ReplyDeleteYes, bitches, I have come for ur blog.
ReplyDelete-Dean B.
Scholarship is indeed required. But the question remains whether scholarship and law review articles are the same thing. The law review article is typically not peer-reviewed and as many people here have said most of them are worthless. In the last 15 years the advent of computerized research has made the typical law review article a very modest undertaking. 100 hours of work is enough for a good one. I know, I have written many.
ReplyDeleteThey cut the law school class size, raised the tuition, and did some layoffs, so that their finances would balance.
ReplyDeleteThat trick will work for a while to delay the pain. However they will rapidly run out of full ticket paying students the next time.
They need a certain minimum number of students, that pay full ticket, in order to support the entire beast. If the class size shrinks much more, the tuition increases have to get much larger to maintain the current salary structure.
But if they also have to give more "scholarships" to attract studends, then very few are paying full ticket prices.
Another year or two of this trend is going to blow gaping holes in those budget projections.
10:36 is a dumbass law professor who is likely jealous of Campos being interviewed by national media on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteThe scholarship produced in this blog has about 10x more value than anything produced by 99% of the other law professors in this country.
The Hastings report was never intended to be secret--it is linked off the CFO's website (http://www.uchastings.edu/faculty-administration/cfo.html) with this description: "This presentation was first prepared March 2012 for Moody's Investor Services' periodic review of the College's debt ratings (resulting in affirmation of the College's Aa3 issuer rating)..."
ReplyDeleteI think it's fair to question the decision of the Moody's raters.
But the Hastings data is mostly interesting because it's one of the few publicly available statements of the law school revenue model, and probably fairly reflects the situation at a number of similar schools (and to be fair, many are probably in significantly worse shape). But you can only get this data from a law school whose finances aren't intertwined with a larger university, and aren't kept confidential (so you really need a public stand-alone school--and I don't know of any other than Hastings).
The huge (and fast-growing!) reliance on student loans is distressing. I wish more law faculty would ask their administrators how much of their particular school's revenue relies on federal student loans--I suspect that for most schools, that number will be surprising and disturbing.
The substance of the 5% suggestion remains unaddressed, but glad to see all this discussion of what constitutes a good law review article and how long it takes to write.
ReplyDeleteI'm a law professor at an "elite" school who has read every entry on this blog. 11:02 is right: the typical law review article takes anybody who knows what they're doing two or three weeks of fulltime work. Nobody reads it, and the only thing it's good for is to teach a bunch of law students how to blue book footnotes.
ReplyDeleteThis blog has more scholarly value than almost any law review article. And it has infinitely more practical value.
11:13: Since you're obviously a law professor why don't you go first? At least Campos does this blog. What are you doing to help your students? (taking their money doesn't count as help)
ReplyDelete@ 10:36:
ReplyDelete1. I'm guessing you are a law professor or a dean, given your long-winded style and your "concern" about LawProf's lack of legal "scholarship."
Here's something you need to know: LawProf is actually -fucking doing something- about an enormous problem. What, exactly, are you doing about the huge catastrophe that is legal education in this country? I mean, besides writing a stupid bullshit comment on this blog about how LawProf is some kind of hypocrite, or something?
2. I look forward to seeing something like this in the media in the next few years:
"Law professors, in the wake of widespread closures of many law schools and enormous reductions in incoming classes in most of the others, have found themselves on the job market. Those law professors are finding the legal job market to be fundamentally unwelcoming, given their complete lack of a client base or any actual skills that are demanded of practitioners in today's cutthroat legal industry. Moreover, these former law professors are also finding little to no traction in the non-legal market. This is particularly ironic, given that the industry [law school industrial complex] in which they worked [not going to say "toiled," for obvious reasons] for so many years was able to sustain itself based upon the myth that the JD is a 'versatile degree' with which law school graduates could 'do anything.' Out-of-work law professors are simply not finding that to be the case."
Then maybe a nice quote from a law firm insider about how the few law professors who have been able to land private practice have been overwhelmed by the long hours, demanding clients and boring work, not to mention the lack of respect they are given for their status as former law professors.
And then a blurb of some kind from a legal industry insider saying something like, "Wow, these law professors were remarkably clueless--sitting in their ivory towers while Rome burned, not seeing the writing on the wall that the whole system of legal academia was going down and getting out in the legal community and 'networking' for their next job."
3. Maybe it's just me, but I don't get the sense that LawProf is really "enjoying the attention" or whatever. I think he maybe enjoys skillfully taking down such easy and deserving targets (most recently Dean Berman, that Victoria Pynchon person, etc.), but I also get the feeling he wishes to God this whole thing was not such a disaster with so many dimensions and human tragedies.
@ 10:36:
ReplyDelete1. I'm guessing you are a law professor or a dean, given your long-winded style and your "concern" about LawProf's lack of legal "scholarship."
Here's something you need to know: LawProf is actually -fucking doing something- about an enormous problem. What, exactly, are you doing about the huge catastrophe that is legal education in this country? I mean, besides writing a stupid bullshit comment on this blog about how LawProf is some kind of hypocrite, or something?
2. I look forward to seeing something like this in the media in the next few years:
"Law professors, in the wake of widespread closures of many law schools and enormous reductions in incoming classes in most of the others, have found themselves on the job market. Those law professors are finding the legal job market to be fundamentally unwelcoming, given their complete lack of a client base or any actual skills that are demanded of practitioners in today's cutthroat legal industry. Moreover, these former law professors are also finding little to no traction in the non-legal market. This is particularly ironic, given that the industry [law school industrial complex] in which they worked [not going to say "toiled," for obvious reasons] for so many years was able to sustain itself based upon the myth that the JD is a 'versatile degree' with which law school graduates could 'do anything.' Out-of-work law professors are simply not finding that to be the case."
Then maybe a nice quote from a law firm insider about how the few law professors who have been able to land private practice have been overwhelmed by the long hours, demanding clients and boring work, not to mention the lack of respect they are given for their status as former law professors.
And then a blurb of some kind from a legal industry insider saying something like, "Wow, these law professors were remarkably clueless--sitting in their ivory towers while Rome burned, not seeing the writing on the wall that the whole system of legal academia was going down and getting out in the legal community and 'networking' for their next job."
3. Maybe it's just me, but I don't get the sense that LawProf is really "enjoying the attention" or whatever. I think he maybe enjoys skillfully taking down such easy and deserving targets (most recently Dean Berman, that Victoria Pynchon person, etc.), but I also get the feeling he wishes to God this whole thing was not such a disaster with so many dimensions and human tragedies.
Yes Mr. Leiter, you pompous nitwit. The "What are you doing to help your students?" question remains unaddressed. Let's hear from you.
ReplyDelete@10:03:
ReplyDeleteIt's even more surreal than "students . . . subsidizing more highly ranked students." We've reached the point where more highly ranked students are subsidizing lower ranked students who luck into scholarships purely on the basis of the desperation of law schools filling those last few slots.
LOUD NOISES!
ReplyDeleteI don't see why professors criticize Campos for not performing legal scholarship, whatever that is, and focusing on the issues in this blog. The issues he talks about here are a lot more relevant to the future of law than most law articles. If the law tuition bubble collapses, there are going to be ramifications throughout the profession. Not to mention the ethics of destroying the futures of a portion of the law student body to finance themselves and law students on scholarship.
ReplyDeleteBesides, tenure exists exactly so people can express unpopular views and be a professor in a different manner than is traditional. There are hundreds of people writing similar law review articles, but only a few commenting on the "law school scam" as it is popularly known.
For LawProf to give up his position and salary *unilaterally* would be a symbolic, but futile gesture. However, I suspect he would be willing to do so as part of a group compact, where all other law prof's and administrators did likewise.
ReplyDelete10:36/11:13: (((crickets)))
ReplyDelete11:25/11:43 likewise
ReplyDelete12:40,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure LP ever said he was doing this to help people. I think when this all started it was because he felt guilty so maybe this whole blog is just a way to feel better about himself. Or maybe he likes the attention or maybe he wants to land a book deal to get rich(er).
At the end of the day who cares? If you don't trust him look harder at the data he presents and press him if/when it's inaccurate.
So what I wonder is, what does it look like when the bubble bursts? Because I think it will--the current growth in, and dependence on, student loans cannot continue. I also don't think that it requires a Republican administration to decide to limit GradPlus loans--I think the unlimited lending was a bug in the system that will be shut down. I just can't see any congressperson or constitent objecting to, say, a $20,000/year limit on GradPlus lending.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't think that private lending is going to make up the difference--even if the loans are nondischargable, it seems clear that many (or most) graduates simply will not be able to repay the amount they are currently borrowing. There may be some additional private lending, but it won't be in the amounts we've seen, and I think private lenders will require co-signers and will lend only for certain schools.
Some law schools will be fine (HYS) and some will close (not necessarily the lowest-ranked ones). But the ones who are left need to think about how to deal with a 30-50% drop in revenue--revenue loss that can't be recaptured through tuition increases. I think that this is something the legal academy needs to be planning for now.
There may be lessons from the dental school closings of the 90s (Georgetown, Emory, and Northwestern closed their dental schools: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/29/us/plagued-by-falling-enrollment-dental-schools-close-or-cut-back.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm ). Eric Chiappinelli also posted on the similarities here: http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2012/01/possible-westfoundation-sale-fewer-law-students-next-fall-and-why-law-education-should-look-to-denta.html
"one would think that the matter of whether the school's graduates are getting a reasonable -- or indeed any -- net return on the skyrocketing cost of their investment would at least be mentioned."
ReplyDeleteWhy would you say this? This is a budget document and as it deals with the demand for their product, how much they will sell, and how much people will pay for it (as well as what it costs them to "manufacture" it), what the buyers do with it after they bought it is irrelevant.
Unless you think they are afraid that that would affect future demand, but it seems pretty clear that it won't, and that they aren't concerned about it (because it won't).
They'll fill their seats and they know they'll fill their seats.
I agree that Prof. Campos has done a service by bringing some of the unsavory aspects of the industry to light. But I am also saying that this should not automatically excuse him from the criticism that he is taking advantage of a system he condemns as a "scam." I see others have stepped forward to excuse him of that, either on the grounds that he deserves his salary (and his students' tuition dollars) because of the high quality of this blog or that changing his pay would be symbolic only. But honest advocacy is not cost-free. Within reason, leaders should live what they teach. He clearly views himself as a leader of a movement, and so do his fans. And they're right.
ReplyDeleteI suggest that Prof. Campos should lead not only by blogging, but lead in part by example. One person rightly noted that it would be more effective if Prof. Campos led a movement of profs and deans who take voluntary pay cuts. I think that sounds like a very good idea, better than my earlier proposal.
Prof. Campos' central charge is that law school costs too much and there aren't enough law jobs out there. No single person can lead a movement to fix the latter problem, but the former is more solvable.
Will Prof. Campos lead a movement to voluntarily reduce professor pay, in the name of enlightened self-interest if nothing else?
-10:36/11:13
2:37, no, he won't.
ReplyDeleteAn earlier poster is right that Paul started this blog because he felt guilty.
But not too guilty to continue to profit from the scam.
Trust me, he has a tear in his eye as he looks at his direct deposit stub, and he wants you to know that--and he wants you to know that that is enough.
"Just following orders, sir!"
If tenure protects Paul, it surely protects thousands of other similarly placed professors. Why don't we hear from more of them, by the way?
Instead of preaching to the choir daily, Paul, why don't you preach to the unconverted who can actually DO something about this mess?
Make Campos Dean or head of ABA then ask him to change the salary structure and the tuition. Otherwise, stfu.
ReplyDeleteHow is this not Leiter:
ReplyDeleteTaken from 10:36 today:
"It's largely symbolic - hey, he still keeps 95% of his money and his job, from which he can't be fired, even if he doesn't produce any scholarship - but it at least lessens the hypocrisy."
A piece taken from Leiter's "sleuthing" on 08/19/11 when he was not bothering to address the problems with the law school scam but rather trying to run Campos through the dirt and expose him.
"ScamProf is the failed academic who has done almost no scholarly work in the last decade, teaches the same courses and seminars year in and year out, and spends his time trying to attract public attention, sometimes under his own name, this time anonymously.
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2011/08/update-on-scamprof.html
I have only heard Leiter criticize Campos for his lack of scholarship. While it is just a small part of the rambling between this article and 10:36, notice the writing styles, they are eerily similar....
Leiter, you have been caught, fucko.
2:35
ReplyDeleteYes they will fill their seats, but with increasingly low combo scores which will in turn lower their scores on the U.S. News & World Report rankings. U.S. News & World Report drives a very high percentage of the problem. If there was only some way we could reduce their impact without antitrust implications!
2:46: I assume all those thousands of law professors, like you, have internet connections.
ReplyDelete3:11, what are you, 22?
ReplyDeleteFace to face interaction is what makes things happen.
You expect that by doing this, Paul is getting in touch with the other law profs?!
With great salary (as part of a scam, especially) comes great responsibility.
Face-to-face says the anon lawprof. What, don't have tenure yet? You might as well get back to work on that next big Bisexual Asian Riparian Due Process Rights article.
ReplyDeleteAnd what do you call the conferences and talks he's given, as well as the emails and letters? When you're willing to put your name on a post, then you can call LawProf a hypocrite.
No employer in a competitive industry, like law faculty hiring, feels it can cut salaries unilaterally. The concern is always that talent will flee to higher-paying schools.
ReplyDeleteThus, the idea of faculty across schools coordinating a salary reduction could work. There should be no antitrust problem if the employers (i.e., schools) themselves don't coordinate (and this avoids the need to get an antitrust exemption).
That's a tough one.
ReplyDeleteLawProf admits that law school and the associated cost is a huge scam.
A majority of the budget for law schools (based on Hastings) goes to salaries and benefits.
LawProf has profited to the tunes of millions of dollars from this acknowledged scam and continues to do so.
I have to disagree with the folks on here who think there is nothing wrong with him continuing to do so.
If you were part of what you thought were a legitimate company that provided insurance to seniors and found out that it was actually a semi-legal ponzi scheme and that the seniors actually had no insurance, would you continue to work there or would you just say, "Hey, this is a semi-legal ponzi scheme!" and continue to collect your paycheck?
It seems that after acknowledging that you are helping a "company" profit from fraud it takes a "special" individual to continue to do so when he is likely in a financial position where he no longer has to do so.
3:25-I may be a law professor, but I don't agree that there is a law school "scam."
ReplyDeleteTherefore, I cannot be compared to Mr. Campos, who believes 1) that there is a scam, and 2) continues to take part in it.
Big difference.
As John McEnroe once screamed in frustration, "Answer the question!! THE QUESTION, JERK!!"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j0eqZKTjpk
And the question twice posed to you above, Professor 5%, and never answered, is "What have you done to help your students/victims that gives you moral standing to carp at Campos for not doing more?"
Answer the question, jerk. Otherwise piss off.
It's not like all law schools should be shut down and all law professors should be take up a different line of work for moral reasons. Assuming we could somehow close half of the law schools to restore balance to the legal labor market, the University of Colorado's law school wouldn't be one of them. It's a public tier 1 law school.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this focus on LawProf is irrelevant ad hominem.
"Piss off" - an expression I've always thought of as wonderfully Anglo-Irish.
ReplyDelete3:31: There is a difference. You're much worse than lawprof. Law prof at least admits he's complacent. You continue to deny guilt or are so incompetent as to not even realize what is going on in your own industry or to the students you pretend to care about.
ReplyDeleteIf you are so certain you are not part of a scam, unveil yourself and tell us exactly why you think the label of scammer doesn't apply to you. What do you have to say about the substance of Lawprof's arguments?
I think that U. Colorado's LS would be one of them. It's in the interest of each state, I think, to have a publicly-funded LS.
ReplyDeleteAd hominem attacks on Campos are the only response left for Leiter et al. It's a deliberate diversionary tactic.
ReplyDeleteHaha, this blog - and its fans - frequently traffic in "irrelevant ad hominem."
ReplyDeleteLois - I have no students, but I think you are missing the point that professors' ability to get their students jobs is limited.
ReplyDeleteIsn't one popular attack on law schools that their profs are disconnected from practice? Well, if they're disconnected from practice, an employment strategy that depends on them getting their students jobs is not going to work. As Prof. Campos says, the problem right now is that there aren't enough jobs.
@ 3:31pm
ReplyDeleteEverything that LawProf has done to highlight the scam and speak out against it is still infinitely better than someone like you who silently profits from the scam or worse yet actually shills or denies and is perpetuating the scam.
That he hasn't gone "all out" quit and given away all his money to the "victims" is still lightyears better than the likes of you.
"That he hasn't gone "all out" quit and given away all his money to the "victims" is still lightyears better than the likes of you."
ReplyDeleteSeriously how old are you? One can speak out and also not profit, or profit less, from something one condemns as a scam.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@ 3:59pm
ReplyDeleteSure, you can "criticize" him for not giving up part or all of his salary or for not quitting all you want.
That is still less to criticize than the likes of you who aren't even speaking out at all or even propagating the scam by actively denying it.
Anyway the scam isn't the pay of professors per se. If law grads were actually getting the kinds of jobs they could reasonably expect which services their loans and allows a reasonable lifestyle, no one would care if profs made millions of dollars a year.
To the non-professors here (and Campos and DJM) excuse the rant - but it has been a very long week ... and for the most part US law professors' scholarship is becoming a laughing stock for its utter impracticality and lack of substance to actual legal practice from Tübingen to Keio, Oxford to Leiden, Cambridge to Salamanca, Dublin to Prague, Seoul to Louvain ... they are only nice when one of the generous fellowships are going around ... bit privately you are a giggle.... They don't have the huge publication budget, so they write stuff judges and lawyers might read....
ReplyDeleteMacK
ReplyDeleteOf course you're right. But as a long time reader of this blog and as the designated piss ant I have to say it is not necessary for you to lower yourself to the level of some of the commentators here even the use of an*does not avoid diminishing your considerable writing ability.
The Pissant, class of '65
As a law professor who finds some use in interdisciplinary schoarship, I feel compelled to recommend a article: Benoit Monin & Pamela J. Sawyer, The Rejection of Moral Rebels: Resenting Those Who Do the Right Thing, 95 J. Personality and Soc. Psychol. 76 (2008) (available at http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/95/1/76/ )("The violence of this backlash against whistle-blowers and rebels is surprising precisely because the exact same behavior draws admiration and respect from observers not directly involved in the situation—and also because this rejection does not just come from peers who stand to suffer from the rebellion, but also from peers who merely failed to report or oppose the abuse.")
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePissant - tell me, should I delete the 4:16 post?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnd early tomorrow I'll probably delete all these postings.
ReplyDeleteMacK, welcome back. I see they let you out for the weekend.
ReplyDeleteOMG, MacK is INSUFFERABLE.
ReplyDeleteMacK-
ReplyDeleteYou don't be needin' a minion. You ain't dead yet!
The Pissant
5:09 - totally agreed. What an obnoxious prick. (And I'm a practicing attorney, not a law prof.)
ReplyDeleteMacK--
ReplyDeleteIsn't your question answered by the fitness for intended use cases? I am at the beach and don't have WestLaw here. Check it out.
The Pissant
Responding to an earlier post about schools' ability to cut faculty salaries, here are a few thoughts: It's harder for law professors to flee to another school than you may think (or many faculty hope). The other school has to have a spot in the professor's specialty and be in a place where the professor is willing to live.
ReplyDeleteMost challenging, the professor must gain support from a supermajority of the faculty at the new school. That's because the faculty members, rather than the dean, control hiring and most faculties have supermajority rules for hiring. Many deans will tell you their tales of woe about the superstar they could have picked off from another school if a minority of in-house professors hadn't decided to oppose the candidate. Faculty are notoriously truculent about hiring laterally.
And then there are the other factors that make it hard for anyone to move: professionally employed spouse, kids doing well in current school, elderly parent in nursing hoome, house that won't sell in the current market... Even in boom days, it was tricky for most law faculty to run off to another school.
And by now, I think most law faculty have realized that the law school market is at least a little rocky. I think they would be hesitant to move to any lower ranking school, even for what appeared to be a better salary. If your current school is starting to experience financial hardship, the lower ranking school probably is facing worse. They may claim to be in good shape but, well, we've all learned to take law school representations with a grain of salt.
So schools could freeze or cut faculty salaries without creating massive flight. They won't, but mostly because there are other areas to cut first, as you see in the Hastings example.
As schools start feeling financial pinches, I think you'll see schools: (a) Cutting non-faculty personnel and programs. (b) Encouraging faculty to retire early and leaving those lines unfilled. With boomers starting to retire, this may be a natural way for many schools to contract. The pensions usually come out of separate state funds or private pension plans (stewarded by the faculty member him/herself) so this relieves the current budget. (c) Cutting fringe benefits like travel money, research assistance, and summer grants.
@5:39 - a practicing attorney that is not (from time to time) an obnoxious prick... really? FYVM
ReplyDeletePissant
The problem is how is "fitness for intended use" that not an implied warranty (as in fitness for purpose) and thus disclaimable?
I sort of know the answer, but a law review article that covered the issue - look long and hard.
But a pretend lawyer who is not (from time to time) an obnoxious prick - well those I can find - cf 5:39 (an actual law professor)
The people critical of Professor Campos are absolutely wrong.
ReplyDeleteAs Mr. Deeds (who went to town) might have said, and in so many words:
Some of the well set up people that comment here are just tired of rowing and are still breathing and living and doing OK.
Some are by the wayside, and in the fallout, and are very deep in the dark water and drowning in debt and every single day plunged into a frantic and panicked mental pit of psychological and emotional debt and despair.
Dear God may God watch over the USA and help this horrible situation.
Oh Dear God I am so deep in student loan debt and so depressed at times. And no way out.
No way out. It is the frightening story of my entire adult life, and I had a really bad dream last night about being thrown into a dungeon because I owe and I owe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t4xAWi90b0
Is there no corner on the earth where the USA cannot collect on student loan debt?
I think it is not disclaimable. I will ask for an instruction and let the jury decide. You OK with that or do you have number in mind?
ReplyDeleteYour ol buddy Pissant
MacK, see Timothy Davis, UCC Breach of Warranty and Contract Claims: Clarifying the Distinction, 61 Baylor L. Rev. 783, 813 (2009).
ReplyDeleteCBR thanks - criminy - Baylor L. Rev - 2009! It was useful and only 4 years old - I gotta delete some of my earlier comments (plus my former (he says) m.... is rude and tired and objects to the m...... word.
ReplyDeleteI hope this blog is not just another house organ for the expensively drunken and whatever else (hated) vainglorious elites, and will once in a while pay attention to the REAL human lives of the VIRGIN CREDIT students that have been destroyed by the law school and student loan scam.
ReplyDeleteHappy to be your backup minion, MacK! And DJM, I think a number of the changes you mention are happening now--I know of a number of schools with salary freezes (including mine--and we're also discussing increased teaching loads, which I support). I've also heard that one top-50 private school has frozen salaries for several years running, and has now "strongly recommended" that faculty donate back a percentage of their salary to the school. I do think that many schools are trying to reduce class size without raising tuition--and I think that's a good thing--but at the end of the day, probably not enough.
ReplyDeleteCBR - that is on point. The key issue is that an implied warranty disclaimer does not get the seller over the breach of contract with defective goods - the buyer is entitled to the "benefit of the bargain" notwithstanding the implied warranty disclaimer - and the benefit of the bargain is the working product contracted for. Then UCC 2-719(b) in many state-versions established that you can limit remedies down to a floor - but that floor is either "return for a refund" or "repair and/or replace" the defective goods. So you can exclude all sorts of damages and you can exclude implied warranties - but you have to deliver or face either return for a refund or the cost of repairing or replacing.
ReplyDeleteSimples
So MacK gets to get a pass for getting high or drunk or both and is a real hero on this blog for all comments while dong so.
ReplyDeleteAnd the furious debtors are so help me God absolutely fucked for the rest of thier lives.
Sounds like an impossible situation, with MacK's permission of course, for MacK seems to have taken over this blog, and will delete all non sober comments at leisure.
So MacK gets to get a pass for getting high or drunk or both and is a real hero on this blog for all comments while doing so.
ReplyDeleteAnd the furious debtors are so help me God absolutely fucked for the rest of thier lives.
Sounds like an impossible situation, with MacK's permission of course, for MacK seems to have taken over this blog, and will delete all non sober comments at leisure.
But none of us are as smart or as on top of tghe whole situation as MacK.
But none of us are as smart or as on top of the whole situation as the creepy reptile MacK that is intelligent and slithers and crawls out from under a rock to talk about how the people from 10 thousand or more miles off are doing.
ReplyDeleteForgive me. I am drowning in student loan debt and fucked for my entire life.
This is not theory. This is real.
@6:40pm
ReplyDeleteYes, I am not a debtor - and maybe I went over the top, but it is gong on 4am for me and I am still working.
And if you think I am not angry over what is being done to law students and the debt they are running up, well, maybe I should wander away.
On the other hand, I am someone for whom law school broadly worked. Apart from being still working at 4am I am reasonably well paid and get to do work I enjoy. And from that perspective I still think what law schools are doing is outrageous.
But here is the thing - no one can unfairly characterise me as a lazy bitter failure to suggest that my criticisms of the current system are driven by that failure - and believe me a lot of critics of this blog say that about its posters. Because the thing is that for maybe 25-30% of current law graduates things work out - but those who defend the system claim that you are all wastrels and that is the problem (or all JDPainterguy.)
So here is the thing - this can be just a gripe site for those who were seriously fucked over by the system and no one will take it seriously, or it can be a place where people who the system has treated relativily well can also denounce it and be taken seriously, like say Professor Campos and DJM and others. Oh and where the odd professor pretending to be a law student or practicing lawyer posts snide comments. What do you want?
It seems the answer is to sit in a self absorbed view that you can only comment because you were uniquely pissed on - a sort of variation of special snowflake syndrome - specially yellow snowflake we should call it.
Now go get pissed on some more....
DJM,
ReplyDeleteA little birdie tells me a certain Midwest private is cutting faculty (and staff) salaries for the upcoming year via furloughs. Your cost-cutting points (a)(b)(c) are also said to be in play. Word is some are grumbling, but no one's fleeing, because they've got nowhere to go.
Hastings' contraction plan is getting lots of publicity (maybe because they're public), but that same birdie also tells me of two other Midwest privates involuntarily contracting, but keeping it very quiet for fear of a admissions drop > rankings drop death spiral.
7:11 pm, thanks for the info! I agree that schools will keep any cuts as quiet as possible because any weakness will reverberate in the gossip echo chamber, leading to immediate loss of prestige, matriculation drops, ranking loss, more prestige loss...the whole spiral.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think we're far from the end of this year's admissions season news. I see on Top-Law-Schools that Harvard is still admitting people. Harvard? In late June? Same thing with other top schools. Further down the pecking order, the entering class is going to be like quicksand--shifting by the day (if that's what quicksand does).
Interesting that some of the schools making these cuts would want to keep it secret--I actually think it's a selling point when schools recognize the cost-structure problems and make sure that the effects aren't borne by tuition-paying students alone. And Hastings, I note, left room in the budget for faculty raises--given the 15% tuition increase, I think that was a mistake. Cutting the class size is a good thing, but making students and staff alone bear the cost of that decision is not so good.
ReplyDeleteDJM, do you think the gossip effect will really be so bad? That surprises me--the cost problems are pretty universal. And everyone seems to acknowledge that tuition can't continue to rise--I would expect to see cuts at the vast majority of schools.
ReplyDeleteCBR,
ReplyDeleteThese schools serve an already oversaturated market and compete for the same basic student profile. The concern is that the voluntary contraction spin won't fool anyone (or at least won't fool Schweitzer's "sophisticated consumers") so the school that can look to be in the strongest financial position will get the best qualified students of the common pool. Or at least that's what my birdie tells me.
CBR, I just don't know. I think of law schools as very image conscious--sort of like Scarlett O'Hara using the plantation drapes to make a dress for the ball during the Civil War. Even though each school rationally knows that others must be facing similarly tough times, each wants to keep looking like the belle of the ball.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear that schools are cutting tuition, but I haven't seen much of that yet. It seems that, for this year at least, schools are likely to cut tuition only in the sense of giving out more aid (or the same amount of aid for a smaller class). That allows them to target their cuts to attract the most credentialed students, while also appearing as if it's business as normal. And, as a current 2L pointed out to me, that allows schools to withhold the benefit of any "cut" from rising 2Ls and 3Ls!
But I'm intrigued to hear about these changes at other schools. Faculty and deans have scoffed for so long about there being any problem--I kept hearing that phrase "our customers are not very price sensitive" until just a month or so ago. I'm glad that some reality is finally sinking in; let's hope that schools do something constructive with that reality.
8:03 and DJM: That makes sense--I guess I can understand the reluctance to show weakness. But it's still disappointing. The "oversaturated market" issue really is a nationwide problem, and all the law schools are ultimately looking at the same pool of students (Harvard's need to go deeper into the applicant pool in June affects the applicant pool of all the schools lower down...). Trying to make it appear to be "business as usual" just makes it look like law schools are oblivious to the very real problems they face, or else look like they don't care about their students' debt problems/employment struggles/etc. The first step toward fixing the problem has to be acknowledging it.
ReplyDeleteI am almost certain HLS, with rolling admissions, had June admits back in the 1980s. Is this supposed to be something new?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, for those who have discussed the generation wars, here's a column that DCM and I both liked:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/opinion/sunday/the-generation-gap-is-back.html?_r=1&hp.
The author could have added the point made so clear by this blog--that educational loans (as opposed to grants or subsidized education) benefit the older-generation teachers more than the younger-generation students.
@6:54 Thank you MacK
ReplyDeleteI am a relative winner also. I have done fairly well in the patent business, but I know the fate of my law school class of 1993 from a T2 school. I know the fate of so many of my colleagues through the last 20 years, top tier law school graduates included. I know that law school is a scam and only a small percentage are winners. I am a winner not because of law school but because of my scientific training before law school. I would no longer be a winner if I were a recent graduate because the patent business is completely flooded and oversaturated. I post here because I am a humanitarian concerned about human beings and desirous of reducing human suffering. This blog includes a lot of winners posting in an attempt to educate and reveal the truth of the legal market and therefore save others from suffering and truly tragic outcome.
Hastings used to have such an epic reputation in SF when I started my B.A. in 2004, but now I wouldn't touch it.
ReplyDeleteUC Hastings:
ReplyDeleteT20 (2007)
T100 (2011)
Fourth Tier (2017)
Closed (2022)
@9:40 PM
ReplyDeleteDitto. But let me add a point. The only way to get reform is ultimately to get people who are definite winners in this system to recognise the problem and choose to deal with it. By winners I mean:
- Law School Deans (clearly winners)
- The ABA leadership (rarely unemployed lawyers)
- Congresspeople (frequently drawn from the pool of successful lawyers)
- State bar leadership (again rarely unemployed lawyers)
- Judges (...)
That is who the reform movement has to get on its side - the people for whom law school has not just worked out, but for whom to quote Jessi Freud, law has proved a "Golden Ticket." That will be very tough because you are fighting for those people their own cognitive dissonance, the self-interest of many and the reality that reform is going to hurt their friends - the law school deans and law professors. The big winners in the current situation, the law schools, have much more access and influence than the losers.
The more successful lawyers and the more law professors who are willing to say "hold on a minute - graduating nearly 50,000 law students a year, with average debts of over $100,000 - or charging over $50k a year for law school tuition is wrong" the faster there will be change. Board of Regents need to be persuaded that their university of college needs to close its law school ... who sits on those boards? A lot of successful lawyers.
A little history - Nixon resigned in 1974 when he found that the Republican congressmen on the House Judiciary Committee had decided that they were either going to vote to impeach or abstain. I was losing the support of his own party that did for Nixon. When the clear majority of the winners from the current legal education mess call for reform, that is when we will see it.
Well hurrah for the winners and the human being that work oh so hard.
ReplyDeleteOh thank you for being so kind and condescending as to want to "help"
What a load of bullshit.
There will be no reform.
No bankruptcy for student loans.
Only IBR and a huge tax bill at the end of IBR.
"The more successful lawyers and the more law professors who are willing to say "hold on a minute - graduating nearly 50,000 law students a year, with average debts of over $100,000 - or charging over $50k a year for law school tuition is wrong" the faster there will be change."
ReplyDeleteMacK--You sound like Tiny Tim.
Are you really that naive?
Mack, you must be really drunk and/or high, because you don't seem this stoopid:
ReplyDeleteAnd the people here think that Paul's decent into just another scamblogger in his attitude and writing, along with the craziness and immaturity of the vast majority of the commenters, are going to attract and persuade:
"By winners I mean:
- Law School Deans (clearly winners)
- The ABA leadership (rarely unemployed lawyers)
- Congresspeople (frequently drawn from the pool of successful lawyers)
- State bar leadership (again rarely unemployed lawyers)
- Judges (...)
That is who the reform movement has to get on its side"
5:28: "I have no response on the merits to anything on this blog, so Omigod the Tone!"
ReplyDeleteI know, MacK is like a naive Mr. Pickwick with a "golden ticket" to Willy Wonka's Candyland.
ReplyDeleteLaw school deans have been well aware of how they have been enabling the scam/travesty for many years now, and are not suddenly going to get a pang of conscience and see the error of their "winning" ways.
Nor are any of the other supposed winners in MacK's questionable gallery of success and virtue (ABA leadership, congress etc.)
The only people on the winners' list that stand to lose from reform are law school professors and deans that will not have retired by say 2020 - those in their 30s-50s. They form a large proportion of the trolling professors on this site because - to the extent that they do recognise the state of legal education and they are not in a top tier school, their future is very under threat. And 6:04 - I suspect that you are in that category and 5:28 very much sounds in that category.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone really think that say JD Painter Guy sends the message that the legal education system and student loans are a general problem - that law students can do everything right - work hard, get good grades and still have a 50-60% of being screwed? Do you see JD Painter guy convincing anyone to reform the system? Of course if all you want to do is engage in bitter venting and pictures of toilets - go ahead - it won't get you anywhere.
Part of the reason that Law School Transparency has proved so effective is the professional and systematic and non-polemical style in which it presents information. This site (notwithstanding the "scam" in its title similarly presents - thanks to Campos and Merritt) information and argument in a clear and well argued way. And then we have the ranters - and they persuade no-one.
In any event the idea that virtue is required is simply dumb - self interest may be much more effective.
Why does influencing the ABA matter - 6:04 AM never mentions that. It matters because congress in its wisdom has made the ABA the accrediting organisation for law schools and the ABA has effectively delegated that responsibility to a committee of legal academics currently headed by the astonishingly well paid dean of the New England School of Law, John O'Brien - who promptly took that piece of information to his board and used it to score a substantial pay increase to what was already an astonishing pay and benefits package. The ABA has in effect recruited "a fox to guard the henhouse." Reform means the ABA as an organisation rethinking accreditation and taking it out of the hands of people like O'Brien and putting in the hands of the broader bar - and imposing criteria that looks at debt and employment rates for graduates - and not for example approving:
Cooley-Ann Arbor (approved last week)
UMass-Dartmouth (two weeks ago)
University of La Verne (a month ago - provisional)
Lincoln Memorial-Duncan (Provisional -December 2011)
That is 4 schools approved in six months - three in the last month or so - all of whom will start admitting in a month or two. The ABA has to be persuaded to stop and that means getting those with influence to push the ABA.
Sounds like old MacK is a bit nettled.
ReplyDeleteHe can discredit me all he likes, but he is wrong about Nando.
Go back and read Nando's very first posts from 2009 and see how far things have come.
From the acknowledgements section of Failing Law Schools: "I thank Fernando Rodriguez for jarring me out of my usual understated style of academic discourse to write more candidly and forcefully about these issues."
ReplyDeleteMack, please take off the monocle and come back to earth for a second. Fact is that Nando and JD Painter Guy were saying everything this blog (and you) said 2-3 years ago. Where were you then? Where was Campos?
ReplyDeleteI love this blog, but let's kill the condescension a little bit, eh? You're not a single step better than anyone else who comments - including JD Painter. You don't even tell anyone who you actually are - for all we know you're a 22 year-old student who kills time in his parent's basement.
Both Nando and JD Painter have exposed themselves in the real world - when do you plan to do so as someone who cares deeply about the law school crisis?
Mack, you're exactly right (re: 8:10 and reference to toilet pictures and JD Painter and the like).
ReplyDeleteAll the more reason why Paul should take a step back and bring back the professionalism that this blog started with.
To the others, I'm not saying many of his points are not meritorious, but yes, tone does matter if you want to convince people of something. ESPECIALLY if you want to convince lawyers, judges, professors, etc.
It just does. Cry about it all you want, you can't change that fact and you're only hurting yourself with your rants.
Yeah my debt has made me half nuts at times, and in the absence of any bankruptcy or legal relief for the interest that gets piled on I want to sometimes forget about it by drinking.
ReplyDeleteThat is wrong to do but that is what I did.
But like the Lhasa Apsos (with acute senses) woke up the big dogs in the Tibetan castles, the scamblogs woke up Tamanaha and Campos for sure.
If Professor Campos doesn't mind, I would like to share the fact that on the very first day ILSS was started, Campos e-mailed me an Nando and some of the other scambloggers and told us of his new blog.
I was confused about the blog, and sore for a while because LawProf didn't have a blog list, but I got over that.
As to whether or not other academics and the ABA and/or the entire Congress will take a new interest as MacK seems to think, only time will tell.
People's lives are being ruined with non-dischargeable debt and absolutely no shot at a job. Comparing law schools to toilets is absolutely the proper discourse in this set of circumstances. Why is it that these assholes can continually ruin people's lives but the format and style in which guy's like Nando portray these scumbags is called into question?
ReplyDeleteHow about ADDRESSING the problems proposed by the scamblogs. JD Painter's blog was a valuable asset as well. Campos the same. Just different perspectives/writing styles that contribute to the overall picture.
Pepperdine: First tier bag of ass? Perfect.
And there is always the possibility of increasing work loads. When folks are on the two/one schedule, if a few schools close down, and the academic market gets that much tighter, younger entrants into the market will be willing to do just about anything to get a law professor's job.
ReplyDeleteThere will be no exodus from the professoriate to Biglaw. Even if Biglaw wanted them, (which, in the vast majority of cases, they don't--at least not in positions the profs would accept) the profs are not going to give up their cushy lifestyle to get screamed at by managing partners. Just isn't going to happen.
To the extent that there is any sort of "rehiring" in the wake of retiring profs, I think you'll see a relaxation of the ABA rules regarding adjunct profs, library staffs, etc. Maintaining a law library now is nothing near what it was thirty years ago. A lot of the older attorneys have told me they used to take trips down to the local law school library a few times a year as needed. I've practiced a decade and have never needed to darken the doors due to Westlaw and/or Lexis.
I could also see Westlaw or Lexis funding some of the reduced library staff that does remain as a deal to get access to the students of that particular school.
"Thus, the idea of faculty across schools coordinating a salary reduction could work. There should be no antitrust problem if the employers (i.e., schools) themselves don"'t coordinate (and this avoids the need to get an antitrust exemption)."
ReplyDeleteWTF you talkin bout, Willis? Ain't no antitrust considerations in any regard here, even if the schools themselves worked together to set salaries.
Sheesh.
By most standards, I am a successful lawyer. Yet I realize I attended law school at a time when it was affordable (less than $8K a year) and the kid who finished dead last in my class still had a job (incidentally, he is now the head of a well-known NGO). If I was a college graduate today, I would pass on law school given the exorbitant costs and lack of opportunities. Law school is simply a losing proposition for 99% of folks who attend today. Many people put down Nando from Third Tier Reality because, I don't know, maybe he graduated from Drake and features toilets on his site. I like that kid's style. His writing has improved since he started the blog in 2010 and he has written some excellent expose pieces on some of the scammers of this industry (look at the article he wrote on Dean Martin Belsky). The fact is, this is a filthy profession. I have more respect for plumbers that get their hands dirty with shit than I do for many lawyers who are socially detestable locusts. As for Campos, many criticize him as a hypocrite because he earns a living lambasting the industry that feeds him. Here is the rub, before Campos came on board, people would dismiss Nando and Scott Bullock as bitter failures. Then Campos, who is not a failure, jumps on the bandwagon and he is attacked as a hypocrite. It's almost as if anyone who criticizes law school is a blasphemous heathen. I respect Campos since he is a position to underthrow the system. If the law school industry crumbles, I would be the first to hire Campos as a lawyer. I would train him myself. I have a great deal of respect for this man. As for the other academic blowhards, I will enjoy watching them eke a living as a "practicing" attorney.
ReplyDelete9:41 - True, and the different perspectives are useful to attract and motivate the different groups of people.
ReplyDeleteI think the issue people here are commenting about is that Campos has allowed himself to slip into a perspective that is close to mirroring that of the "lower-class" scamblogs, thus defeating its original benefit and what set it apart to reach that other type of audience.
All of the perspectives are valuable, but it is important to maintain different perspectives.
Did not know there were "lower-class" scamblogs.
ReplyDeleteI see different perspectives but I have not ranked them by class.
Additionally, I don't think "Campos has allowed himself to slip into a perspective that is close to mirroring that of the "lower-class" scamblogs, thus defeating its original benefit and what set it apart to reach that other type of audience."
If anything, the quality of this blog has increased over time and grown more germane to the issue(s) at hand.
I think one of the real problems is the fact that too many people focus on the tone and/or style of these various blogs without addressing what they are saying. A crappy straw man argument at best.
I am sure that many academics are offended by some of these blogs. This does not surprise me. Their delicate sensibilities have always made them wimps. Anyone who has ever litigated a case in their life knows that attorneys talk to each other (whether on the same side of the v or opposite) in much the same way Nando writes his blog.
The word "fuck" is a legal term among lawyers.
Additionally, most people outside of academic circles altogether are usually very informal.
ReplyDeleteThe term vulgar is a derivative of the term vulgate.
9:12: Which of LP's later posts do you think manifest a lack of "professionalism" relative to his earlier stuff? I think if anything the tone of this blog has gotten cooler and less overtly confrontational.
ReplyDelete11:22
ReplyDeleteYou are correct. Lawyers say amazing things among themselves. That doesn't mean that we should talk the same way when we're talking to a broader audience. I am Jewish. I only tell Jewish jokes to other Jews. I am offended sometimes when a non-Jew tells a Jewish joke. It does not make them seem like they are on the inside. It makes them seem silly and perhaps prejudiced. Same way with lawyers. You were right about "fuck". I would not think twice about using that word in a conversation with the lawyer that I was involved in litigation with. I would certainly think twice about using that word in the discussion of the case with the quiet. And I certainly would never use the word in front of a judge. In other words, context counts.
11:36:
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. Even as a swearing aficionado, you always stay away from race, sexual orientation and religious swears as well. Commenting about women, if talking to opposing counsel, is usually ok. Especially if she is hot.
I would never talk that way in a courtroom, to a judge, or even to a client. Around the office or other lawyers, almost always.
The average person is going to pay more attention to a website with toilets and shit on it then a flowery-written law review article using the King's English. As an attorney, when doing research, I avoid law review articles because add nothing of value to my purpose nor are they even remotely interesting.
Oh, yes, please shield us from the actual effects that the entire scam has on people's lives and the desperate ends it drives them to! What we really want is a problem we can solve with almost no effort at all! So the more you look like this is no really big deal, well, the more likely we are to help!
ReplyDeleteGet it? Makes perfect sense to me.
I wonder if anon lawprof could enlighten us with some examples of Lawprof's statements he finds so objectionable?
ReplyDeleteDJM made 241k in 2010 (the last year for which OSU salaries are publicly available).
ReplyDelete247k in 2011. Not the right spokesperson for faculty forbearance.
ReplyDeleteISTM that a relatively untapped prime constituency for serious reform would be the vast numbers of practicing lawyers -- of all ages -- in firms that are 1-10, who are, after the indebted new grads themselves, bearing the brunt of the impact of the oversupply of lawyers.
ReplyDeleteI would think that pictures of excrement, posts running down their law schools, and general laments from folks like JDP are going to turn out to be less persuasive to such people than a simple 'if we don't do something, now, the income trajectory you've been seeing over the last 5 years is going to accelerate downwards' message, supported with facts and figures.
If you want to accomplish something political, you have to be thinking of who you can get into your coalition and how. There's nothing wrong with diverse messages aimed at different constituencies. There is, however, no value in running down other people who are willing to make common cause. I don't read the shit blog(s), but don't see any reason to condemn either its author or readership.
In simple English, anyone offended by Prof. Campos' tone is free to start their own blog, and make such arguments as he/she sees fit, in whatever tone she/he finds appropriate. This will surely do a lot more good than whining, here, about Prof. Campos. And if he/she writes a good post, with facts and figures, expect a link and a response from either the commentariat here or Prof C. himself. Go ahead, do it: you've nothing to lose but a bunch of whiny comments that are not going to achieve anything.
CC
Say what you like about me, but my debt is real, and is not going to go away.
ReplyDeleteLet us also not forget another scamblog pioneer: The Jobless Juris Doctor. A blog on which I recall even Prof. Tamanaha commented.
It was TTR and JJD that posted negatively about my old law school and made me realize for the first time that the fault was not entirely mine.
I will take blame where blame is due, and even if I am 99 percent to blame, at least the scamblogs pulled me out of a deep pit of despair and made me see the woods instead of the trees.
12:52:
ReplyDelete"I will take blame where blame is due, and even if I am 99 percent to blame, at least the scamblogs pulled me out of a deep pit of despair and made me see the woods instead of the trees."
Ditto for me as well. The Scamblogs helped me to stop drinking, to look outward re this problem, rather than inward. Most of all, it gave me a voice.
My law school HATES me because I am in their face all the time about their employment numbers, providing their NALP report, etc....
And on related topic to the original posting:
ReplyDeleteThe National Law Journal, 25 June: It's a buyers' market at law school:Suddenly in demand, prospective students wonder, "How much money can I get?"
when a student with a middling score on the Law School Admission Test sought to defer her enrollment at a second-tier law school for personal reasons.
"They offered her $25,000 a year if she would come this year. That's $75,000," said Rozinski, an assistant professor in Touro's political science department. "She was at the bottom of their range" for LSAT scores and undergraduate grade-point averages. "Quite frankly, I was surprised she got in at all."
AND
UMass Law freezes tuition for three years
The first article is more interesting, especially the discussion of Michigan whose admissions dean seems to be beginning to panic as lower ranked schools up their scholorship offers to retain students while Michigan loses students who are being pulled from the waiting list of higher ranked schools.
@ 12:57:
ReplyDelete"My law school HATES me because I am in their face all the time about their employment numbers, providing their NALP report, etc...."
That is so great. Keep up the good work! :)
You people keep saying Columbia and NYU are better than Hofstra, but if that's true then why did Hofstra get a presidential debate (Oct. 16) while those other two schools didn't get shit?
ReplyDeleteOh yeah.
2:21:
ReplyDeleteIs that debate by a couple of idiots who have no idea what they are doing gonna help the graduates of Hofstra get jobs? No......Bet it helps get more admissions though.
Many high-profile debates are held at shitty schools. It is a big advertisement to get lemmings to go there.
Wow! Presidential candidates debated here. I guess this school will give me access to any job I want.
----------Olive Branch------------
ReplyDeleteNo more F word from me, so as to be more likeable by genteel society and "persuasive."
For many years I thought it meant that the King was standing over the couple with a golden crown on his head, as in: Fornication Under the Crowned King.
But it seems that is wrong as are a lot of other theories as to how the term originated.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-f-word.htm
"We need to produce a lot fewer lawyers, at a much lower cost."
ReplyDeletePaul Campos
God Bless a brave man for speaking up.
Let no one forget that JD Painter gave up on trying to pass the bar exam 15+ years ago and is now pushing 50 years of age. He graduated when there were law jobs aplenty. He was not scammed in any way, just too stupid and shiftless to pass the bar exam. Now he wastes his life crying in his beer and trolling for sympathy while his student loan balance skyrockets. Poor baby.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else think that the issues in law school might apply to most or all of higher education? Sometimes I can't help but think that a lot of people don't understand the difference between skills or knowledge and a degree, which is a piece of paper.
ReplyDeleteThis video is from right leaning libertarian website and it attacks President Obama's position on the matter but I am hoping to hear what this blog's readers think of the larger issue regardless of ReasonTV's ideology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCecGGdELOQ
5:37
ReplyDeleteYes, of course. The problems with law schools extend, in broad strokes, to state colleges and the for-profit and online cesspools. At the end of the day, this is a phenomenon of finance, and it doesn't much matter where you originate the loans, so long as you do originate them. These places are every bit as much liars as the law schools.
@Mac k
ReplyDeleteA chicago admit today posted on TLS . She got into Harvard off the waitlist. When she tried to withdraw from Chicago - they offered her a Rubenstein scholarship. One of the most prestigious scholarships in the country .
Talk about a buyers market. At least at the top, and it trickles down to the other schools.
@7:05 link/source?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=172101&start=825#p5623902
ReplyDeleteOne issue (on which I think I disagree with DJM) is that some law schools will close soon. There are a number of factors that are driving this, but the biggest one is whether Colleges and Universities perceive falling law school enrollment as a cyclical decline or a long-term structural change. The evidence that this is a long term change is very strong, especially because graduate school and particularly law school enrolment has generally been countercyclical.
ReplyDeleteWhy does this matter. Universities and colleges have nakedly regarded their law schools as “cash cows,” to the extent that the ABA had to adopt a guideline limiting the amount of tuition that could be diverted to general funds to no more than 20% - a limit the main schools regularly evade by over-charging for overhead and services (especially shared facilities when they exist.) This activity was most recently highlighted by the resignation of Phillip J. Closius of the University of Baltimore Law School:
http://abovethelaw.com/2011/07/a-law-dean-resigns-and-spills-the-beans-on-how-his-university-has-been-taking-advantage-of-law-students/
The problem for law schools is that if they cease to be “cash cows” and become instead “money pits,” the University and college presidents will quite rapidly take the decision that the law school needs to close – and it would not be tough to close a law school and transfer the rising 2Ls and 3L to another school – there are going to be plenty with room for an extra 60-200 students for a few years.
What is much harder for law schools is cutting costs. Read a few tenure agreements and it becomes easy to understand – before a college or university can cut tenured professors the college or university must go to heroic lengths to save money elsewhere (and in some instances outside the law school). The staff have to be cut untenured-tenured-most recent-longest service (or in effect lowest paid to highest paid.) There is usually only the one loophole in these agreements – if the school closes the entire department (and even then they have to look for other departments that can take the tenured prof.)
What this means in practice is and when law schools flip from profit to loss – and no long term return to profit is on the horizon, the only intelligent thing for colleges and universities to do is to close the law school. The sort of events I just described such events seem sooner, not later. And once the first school closes, that “Rubicon is crossed,” each successive college and university will find it easier, less controversial.
@5:25PM
ReplyDeleteThat is the old argument and I will post about it again.
I feel that Touro Law school is a diploma mill with a bad reputation here in New York and did not instruct proplerly and maybe should have kicked me out after my first year grades, which were terrible.
My bar exam scores were very far from passing, and I could not pass that test and literally sat there on essay day for over two hours writing nothing and too ashamed to get up and walk out.
In the years to come I learned that a JD on the resume harmed rather than helped a job search in the non legal job market.
I never learned how to issue spot.
ReplyDeleteFor the life of me it was always a mystery.
But I will post my old law school transcript on my blog again and let people decide for themselves if I would have made a worthy member of the bar even if I did pass the exam after 10 attempts.
I remember meeting a classmate that was there in the NY Javits center taking the bar exam for the 8th time and he is now a practicing lawyer and I said to myself that there was something terribly wrong about that.
I am not the only one in history that ended up at the bottom of the class.
I remember a parter in a Long Island Law firm trying to encourage me by telling me a story about a practicing Judge that took the bar exam 4 times.
I think every practicing lawyer and judge ought to be required to disclose how many times they took the bar exam.
OK, my law school transcript is posted once more
ReplyDeletehttp://unlimitedinterest.blogspot.com
If posting it serves no other purpose,perhaps it might help a young person contemplating borrowing money to attend a very expensive lower tier law school that thinks he or she is going to work hard and make top grades and law review etc.
If I had to do it all over again I would have dropped out after the first semester or the first year.
Unlike what Dean Gormley thinks (assuming that really was Gormley that posted it) quitting would have been the wisest move, although I did not think so at the time.
Some have said the school should have kicked me out instead of continuing to take my federally backed student loan money.
I don't know.
Have a nice Sunday.
The limited measure of reducing enrollment by 20% barely makes a dent in the problem of lawyer oversupply. The law school would be better off for the public good to close altogether. The tuition hikes are not sustainable and the tuition cannot be recouped by 95% of attendees ever in their careers. From the standpoint of a top law school grad who has had to work in temporary jobs and suffer long periods of unemployment, the huge oversupply of law grads drasically affects the ability of existing lawyers to earn a living. What has happened is that the younger lawyers put the older lawyers out of business. You are seeing former top law firm alums in all sorts of menial low paying jobs. The oversupply hits the new grads because the math does not work. It also hits older grads very hard. In a market where there are a dozen people applying for every open job, you had better bet that the older you get, the harder it is going to be to hold on to your job. That is what has happened to my top law school classmates. For the good of the profession, many of these law schools should just close. Sure some people will not get to be lawyers, but at least for those who do, there would be some sort of reasonable opportunity to hold a decent job or series of jobs for one's working life. Now with the glut and the adverse press about it, good luck working as a lawyer after age 50. Once that younger person is promoted, that person will fill all the jobs with their contemporaries. There is no room for 10,000 solos in each practice area in each metropolitan area. The solo practice incubator is a false promise. There are too many solos and too little work for them. Schools like Hastings are producing 95% degrees where the cost of the education just does pay off and causes too much hardship. The trustees should close the school rather than adopt this horrific business model.
ReplyDelete2:26, the bottom line is that Columbia and NYU Law wanted the presidential debate, but Hofstra Law got it.
ReplyDeleteHad Hofstra listened to you losers they would have not even tried, accepting that they're somehow "TTTs" but they tried and they got something valuable that Columbia and NYU wanted desperately.
That's the problem with you losers. You're lazy bums who don't even try to do anything, and that's why you fail at life. Don't bring good Hofstra folks down with you losers. Hofstra pwns Columbia and NYU.
Ha ha - wait, what? On which planet does Hofs- never mind.
ReplyDeleteActually, if I was to set out my criteria for law schools likely to close Hofstra and Touro would score as very vulnerable.
ReplyDelete1. They are both part of much larger colleges
2. They are in metropolitan areas with much more highly ranked law schools
3. They are private (public schools would close more slowly)
4. They both have quite small endowments
5. The are contiguous with their parent colleges or universities which means that
6. Their physical plant could easily be repurposed
7. The are in regions with high real estate costs (so their parent colleges can see a lot of value in that repurposing - or just selling or renting the facilities out)
8. At the same time they are far away from the main legal district of their metropolitan area (i.e., Hostra and Touro are on Long Island)
9. They are quite expensive at $47k and $43k
I would see both Hofstra and Touro as potentially vulnerable to being closed, Touro in particular.
Sorry, I think we got off track yesterday.
ReplyDeleteAre we agreed that Prof. Campos has no duty to reduce, or return some of, his proceeds from what he calls a "scam"?
(Because he is contributing to the national discourse, is a saint, is a whistleblower, or whatever.)
ReplyDeleteMack you ignoramous, do you realize that MITT ROMNEY AND BARACK OBAMA WILL BE HOLDING ONE OF ONLY THREE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES AT HOFSTRA LAW?!?! LOL IDIOT!
ReplyDeleteWell, if the CEOs of banks that were bailed out can get bonuses that were double or triple the ones they were paid before the bailout, I guess it's OK for UC Hastings to double its earnings in a dying market.
ReplyDeleteFull disclosure: I've been staying up late nights, reading Macchiavelli.
Ignore the troll re: Hofstra. Trolling is the only purpose of such comments.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm trolling, and as part of said trolling I hacked into the official presidential debate website and edited it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.debates.org/index.php?page=2012-2
Wow I'm such a dedicated "troll."
Yeah it is kind of strange that there will be a debate at Hofstra.
ReplyDeleteRe: Touro
http://abovethelaw.com/2010/11/turns-out-touro-is-even-crappier-than-we-thought/
Touro is located within a federal court complex on long island which they tout as a one of a kind setup and highly advantageous for the legal training of the students.
But I never understood why Touro didn't move up a tier or two as a result of the move.
All the debates are located at non-elite schools. Big deal.
ReplyDeleteLet's say I work for a buffet restaurant that advertises that if you eat at their buffet you will be rich and successful.
ReplyDeleteI just scoop out your mashed potatoes--part of the buffet meal that must be eaten.
I used to believe that it was true that if you ate at the buffet you would be rich and successful as a result.
I now know that it is a lie and the customers are ending up permanently sick as a result of eating the food, plus they are not getting rich or successful as a result.
I get paid minimum wage.
I have a blog where I tell people that the buffet claims are a lie and that you will get sick from eating there, and you won't get rich or famous.
Should I still serve you your mashed potatoes?
Would you?
What are you talking about?
ReplyDeleteHave you heard of the concept of whistle blowers... That is what you should be at your mashed potato stand.
10:31
ReplyDeleteAthens hosted the Olympics in 2004 -
Spitzer was the most popular Democrat before....
You have heard of the "curse of Business Week"
You have heard of Parkinson's "Edifice Complex"
That Hofstra is hosting the debate has no meaning in principle for the schools long run viability - but as a practical matter that sort of publicity seeking is not usually a sign that the school is actually in good shape - it may indeed be a desperate search for attention...
Think about it.
As to the comments on Campos, I don't think this is a problem related to the lower classes of the law school hierarchy. The problem of systemic unemployment and underemployment rages through grads of the very top law schools and top grads of lesser ranked law schools. The data is much worse 25 years out of law school than 9 months out. Law schools are exempt from producing the type of data they now have to produce for 9 months out for more experienced grads. The data for the older grads of top schools is very, very bad. We just don't have it, and it gives everyone the sense of complacency that once you have a 9 month job, you are set. That is so far from the reality, it is not even a good joke. Let's get the placement data farther out, and start closing many of those law schools when people see they are not even buying a long enough career to pay off their debts for 85% of all law school grads.
ReplyDeleteMy pbservation is that the job market turned against lawyers about a decade ago. When the midsized firms still existed, over 10 years ago, lawyers could get relatively good jobs. There was some mobility, and was surely slack given to lawyers who lost their jobs for some reason. Very few lawyers were long-term unemployed then.
ReplyDeleteFast forward to now, there are so many people out of work, it is hard to keep count. Having a job, no matter what the job, evem if it is partnership in a good firm, does not mean that you have any future prospects of good employment.
This has become a profession of the drowning, at least career-wise.
@8:08, 1:32 and 1:47 You are all correct. There is tremendous systemic unemployment and underemployment of lawyers at all levels, even from top schools. The 25 year out data is absolutely worse than the 9 month out data has historically been. I agree also that when more midsized law firms existed, it was easier to move or find a new position. The consolidation that has occurred into BigLaw has changed a lot of the old rules. The BigLaw pyramid scheme with no tolerance for those who don't meet productivity thresholds, i.e. bring in business, has driven a lot of former midsized law firm and boutique law firm attorneys out. I see what has happened to so many of my former colleagues, and I know that my own future is insecure. You are correct that the older you get, the harder it is going to be to hold on to your job, at least in law firms.
ReplyDeleteThat Hofstra is hosting the debate has no meaning in principle for the schools long run viability - but as a practical matter that sort of publicity seeking is not usually a sign that the school is actually in good shape - it may indeed be a desperate search for attention...
ReplyDelete--------------
anyone else laughing their ass off at Mack's jealousy? has a president ever even set foot onto your law school?
MacK says he went to Georgetown - so I think the answer is many presidents, pretty often
ReplyDelete@ 4:02
ReplyDeleteNo. I am laughing at you.
Dear Mr. Potato Head,
ReplyDeleteI know this is hard for you to understand. The people who should be punished for the law school scam are the people who perpetuate it. The deans and admins should be forced to accept less pay. The people who are fighting to change the system should be rewarded.
Perhaps you don't understand the value of having a law school professor talking about the data here. The jobless students get easily discounted because they are thought to be failures. Even at a school like Columbia, the school expects prestige to be enough for you to land a job. Failure to get a job is a personal issue with the student, not a systemic problem.
Or perhaps you do understand how effective Lawprof has been. So you are trying to sabotage him.
Either way you seem to be an insider who is trying to protect their ass and doesn't give a damn about the fate of your graduates.
~rose/
" The deans and admins should be forced to accept less pay. "
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that.
At the end of the day if demand for law school continues to plummet so will the salaries of deans and admins.
ReplyDeleteIn some cases pay reductions might be "voluntary" to save the school. But the current model is clearly unsustainable; the only question is how this thing is going to crash.
"At the end of the day if demand for law school continues to plummet"
ReplyDeleteGood luck with pushing down the demand for three year taxpayer funded vacations.
"the only question is how this thing is going to crash."
ReplyDeleteI think you mean when, not how, 6:01? :)
Keep fucking that chicken, 6:07 P.M.
ReplyDeleteWow! Front page of the WSJ:
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304458604577486623469958142.html?mod=WSJ_hpsMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
So much negativity from so many different voices on this and related scamblogs.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the entire field of law is toxic, like Chernobyl after the nuclear accident, and all who are not currently in the legal profession should stay away until the toxic enviornment recovers.
Doesn't it all boil down to that?
To the person that says that the employment numbers are bad for lawyers 20 to 25 years out:
What does one do then? Start a practice? Go back to school? Go into another field? Retire? Work at Home Depot?
Reading through the postings here it is pretty clear that several of the posters attacking Campos, Merritt, Tamahama et al are law professors - most fairly young, say 30s to early 40s.
ReplyDeleteTo this (and to Leiter) there is only one sensible reaction - if Campos and Merritt are wrong when the current economic cycle goes into an upturn that will be proven. So why are you so frantically trolling and sock-puppeting here? Is it concern that they are right?
Lets go for 200 comments! This is #197:
ReplyDeleteI think it is safe to say that there is a law school scam.
#198
ReplyDeleteMacK is OK
#199
ReplyDeleteIf Professors are trolling that looks pretty bad for them!
#200
ReplyDeleteHave you read the scamblogs today?