GPA:3.41
LSAT:149
Major: Computer Engineering
Graduation: Dec 2012
Personal Statement: been reviewed by many and received positive feedback.
LORs: Manager from internship, head of computer science department.
Activities:
-4 Years Work Exp within undergrad; 3 years work xp prior to undergrad; total of 7 years work xp.
2 Years of paid systems engineering internship at Fortune 500 company, led to lucrative job offer.
5 Years of part time sales job
-1 Year of being President of fraternity (won chapter of the year during my term)
-1 Year Treasurer of fraternity
-1 Year Judicial board fraternity
-3x Deans List
-2x Presidents List
-Over 100 hours of community service during undergrad.
So my question is where to apply? I realize my LSAT score is very low. Unfortunately I did not have time to study beyond taking a few practice tests due to obligations to family and work. I do not plan on retaking the test due to monetary constraints. My plan is to attend a lower ranked law school with the intention of transferring. From New England so prefer to stay local; but open to all suggestions.
Preferences:
-Larger schools
-Job placement high
-active student life (no commuter schools)
-school with d1 sport teams wouldn't hurt either.
Some anonymous person -- almost surely a law professor -- loves to post on this site that he doesn't believe it's his role to tell people what to do with their lives, which in theory sounds all philosophical and Marcus Aurelius-like, but which in practice is really an excuse to take
Take this guy for example. He's going to borrow $200,000 which he'll never be able to pay back to buy a worthless law degree, because he doesn't want to spend $160 in cash to retake the LSAT, even though that could give him law school attendance options better than his present ones, which consist of the economic equivalent of mailing himself a letter bomb.
Which leads me to submit the following modest proposal to The Section of Legal Education of the ABA: Nobody can go to law school without first putting down cash equivalent to one percent of the financed sticker price of the law school they are proposing to attend.
Want to go to Cooley? Awesome: you have to come up with $1,786 in cash first, and hand it over immediately. Why? Because amazing things begin to happen when people have to reach into their metaphorical pockets for real money right now, as opposed signing a bunch of documents which commit them to promising to pay back vastly larger sums of psychologically hypothetical money some day in the distant and golden future.
Oh but what about "access?" Is this proposal not horribly classist and racist and doubleplusungood? Here's another little secret they don't tell you before you sign on that dotted line: the legal system is not a meritocracy. It's not just that there's (at best) one legal job for every two ABA law school graduates. It's that you, lower middle class striver without much in the way of either literal or cultural capital, are not going to get that job, because for among other reasons you're "socially awkward." You've heard that one, right? Oh everybody at X with
You know what counts as being socially awkward? Not being the kind of person who finds it natural to use "summer" as a verb.
First.
ReplyDeleteThe down payment sounds like a good idea to me. But how long before the Administration at Cooley starts comparing it to a poll tax? As places like Cooley come under increasing attack, look for them to play the race card.
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
ReplyDeleteOne percent isn't nearly enough. I applied 4 years out of undergrad and certainly had some savings. But even if I hadn't, I worked during undergrad and would've been able to supply the school with $1500. Moreover, most people at my law school are still receiving some level of assistance from their parents (usually rent)and would be able to get the cash from Mom and Dad. Make it 10 percent if you want a legit barrier.
ReplyDeleteOne of the big reasons that our economy got into so much trouble a few years back is that ordinary people lived beyond their means. They lived beyond their means because somebody let them sign on the dotted line and walk away with a car or a house with very little down (and later sold that debt to someone who pooled the debt to sell as a security in the market). We shouldn't let students sign on the dotted line before they have put down a pound of flesh. If they realize now how hard it is to come up with $2500 or $3000, maybe that will slow the deluge of people applying to law school these days.
ReplyDeleteGrad PLUS loans should require 5 percent cash down annually to borrow the loan. If you can't earn 1 in 20 dollars of COA before enrolling or during the school year or during summers, then you may want to think your decision over again.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree. Debt is fake money. It is very easy to sign on a few sheets of paper where the future obligation is to be met with your future big bucks income. Reality sets in as soon as payments become due. Then fake money magically becomes real money.
Campos for the win, times a million.
ReplyDeleteWith the computer science degree, he could theoretically try to become a patent attorney, but I wouldn't recommend that route either. Even that field is getting oversaturated.
ReplyDeleteBeing a law grad and listening to someone tell you their plans to go to law school is like being a lung cancer patient and watching a teenager buy her first pack of cigarettes. The other day I was talking with a woman who has a decent job, but she wants to go to law school and was agonizing over whether to go to a higher ranked school (top 50) or a lower ranked school that had offered her a full scholarship. To top things off, if she goes she'll be an older student and in her forties when she graduates. So I told her about the job market, I sent her links to this blog, I mentioned that a full-tuition scholarship doesn't cover living expenses, etc. But I'm afraid she's going. After all, she just put down a $500 seat deposit and doesn't want that to go to waste.
ReplyDelete"LSAT: 149... ...I do not plan on retaking the test due to monetary constraints."
ReplyDeleteRead that one twice as the implications set in and just before the coffee jetted painfully from my nostrils onto the keypad.
(Luckily, a peripheral keypad and not directly onto my laptop.)
The 1% payment is an interesting idea, but all that's going to happen is the schools will offer to cover that expense for applicants if they decide to attend. If they're somehow prohibited from that then instead they'll just endow a separate "Cooley Foundation for Equal Opportunity in the Law" which will front the money for students.
ReplyDelete"... the following modest proposal [of] ... first putting down cash equivalent to one percent of the financed sticker price."
ReplyDeleteOne percent, heck, why not 5%, or 10%? Since housing-bubble analogies abound, and part of the issue with the housing bubble was easy, no-investment required home ownership for one and all, maybe moving higher ed toward the (pre-bubble) housing standard of requiring some "skin in the game" on the part of the players would make those players: stop.and.think.about.what.they're.doing.
For anyone interested, the TLS thread from which LawProf intro'd this post is at the link below.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=186603
I blame Hollywood. Law isn't that exciting, but it sure draws the desperate.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine this aspiring Atticus Finch counseling anyone? He has remarkably poor judgment. Law is a profession, and while anyone with a pulse can get a law degree these days, not everyone can be an effective lawyer.
This man's stubborn, willful ignorance of the consequences of his decisions and his apparent aptitude for engineering tell me he's trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Dude needs to bloom where he's planted.
One of the better responses to the original poster at TLS:
ReplyDelete"Hey guys, can anyone give me directions to the nearest 7-11. I need to buy a MegaMillions ticket so that I can put a down payment on a new house. I have a backup, which is getting a job and paying for the house the responsible way, but I don't feel like doing that. Please, no trolls, I'm not interested in the odds of winning the lottery."
Reading this post is so depressing, since this guy's making such a terrible mistake and it's plainly obvious that this blog's message is just not getting through to many people at all. How is that possible?
ReplyDeleteSaw the thread. Sadly, I doubt he's a troll. I've see that "I'm smarter than everyone" mentality among engineers. They don't understand that law school and the legal profession are illogical. Obviously, he has his mind made up. Oh well, it's his future and his bank account. For people who can't believe that someone who's smart enough to get a 3.41 GPA in engineering and yet score a 149 LSAT, I know an engineering major who scored in the 5th percentile.
ReplyDelete"I don't really like to tell people what to do either, but so often these days people insist on asking if shooting themselves in the head is a good idea, all things considered."
ReplyDeleteHahahaha so awesome.
I really like it when Campos eats an extra helping of snark for breakfast.
ReplyDeleteAnd students can’t simply evacuate colleges and universities in order to avoid taking on debt, given the existence in most industries of exclusionary, credential-based hiring practices – practices that took shape alongside the expansion of higher education in the mid-twentieth century. Students thus constitute a massive reserve of potential debtors, who have little option but to pay whatever ends up being charged for their degree – their one-way ticket, however unreliable, to the crumbling world of waged work.
ReplyDelete6:59
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is that all the newspapers are still using that bogus 85% employment rate in their reporting, they need to lead with the actual figure of 65% jobs required passing the bar and then also saying that many of those are part-time or temporary. They are doing their readers a disservice when they don't report accurately.
Well he'll always have IBR to rely on.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who scores a 149 on the LSAT and can't afford/unwilling to take it again has no business going to law school.
ReplyDeleteActually nvm anyone who scores a 149 at all has no business going to law school period.
Lawprof:
ReplyDeleteFirst, "doubleplusungood" is a delicious word. I shall feast upon it all week.
You are absolutely right about forcing people to put up some skin in the game. When I first started out, I had yet to learn the all important lesson that a lawyer can get all the free work she wants. I would represent parents whose disabled children were being screwed by the school system. They would tell me that they would do anything it took to get their child, their child mind you, an appropriate education. Finally, I wised up and figured out that what this really meant was they were willing to fight the school system down to my last drop of blood. I started telling parents that if they wanted me to force the school system to get little Johnny reading at grade level, a feat for which they claimed such a willingness to sacrifice, they needed to pay me a $5,000 retainer, then I would bill them monthly and they could hope that sometime, down the road, the federal court would order the school system to reimburse their attorney fees. Suddenly, getting Johnny an education that would help him read at grade level was not half as important as keeping their bass boat. Nothing focuses a man or woman's attention on what is important to them like forcing them to spend their own money.
On the meritocracy comment, you are so right. I live in a Southern town with three excellent, old prep schools. (I know it will shock you Yankees that down here, we have prep schools that are not started by fundamentalist Christians/racists---well, at least not by fundamentalist Christians.) If you went to one of them, you are in the club--the club will ensure you have a shot at a career. If didn't, the club won't. While going to a good private (preferably a Southern) university may help some, it isn't half as important as attending one of these three prep schools.
Rail against it all you wish---this is simply how it is in Chattanooga and the hundreds of towns like Chattanooga across America. And before any of you start attacking me for being the messenger, leave me the hell alone. I didn't create the elitist system--human nature did that.
If you are middle or lower middle class and you wish to move up, you need to become an engineer or a physician, or one of the professions where shortages of that skill blur class distinctions. You do not need to become a lawyer. Its that simple; in my humble opinion.
^idiot
ReplyDeleteget off your high fucking horse.
Doubleplusungood is from "1984." I don't know why I even expect lawyers to be literate anymore.
ReplyDeleteLawProf,
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I can agree with the pure classist theory of BIGLAW hiring. I work in the lower-paying rungs of BIGLAW (in a position nobody has heard of) at one of the top firms on the planet. While there are no shortage of high value resumes among associates and partners at the firm, you are (increasingly, these days) just as likely to find people whose academic pedigree isn't exactly steeped in privilege, even at the level of firm leadership. Of course, these people had to be extraordinarily successful on both the LSAT and in law school to have gotten these positions - and very likely had to overperform as 1L's their colleagues at HYS - and probably represent (overall) an subatomically miniscule proportion of BIGLAW lawyers. There's also no denying the fact that in these same BIGLAW classes, there's probably no shortage of elitism directed towards people who went to say, BU, Rutgers, or St. John's (to say nothing of the Howard, NY Law, and Buffalo matriculants of this cohort). But they *do* get hired, if on a mostly anecdotal basis (let's say, fewer than ten members of a BIGLAW firm's class). And it does give lie to the idea that certain signifiers of social status (like, say, the casual verbiation of the word "summer") are determinative of whether or not you get a BIGLAW offer (on the other hand, whether or not you get a Federal or SCOTUS clerkship, and, it stands to reason, a law school professorship, is a completely different story).
"Doubleplusungood" is a Newspeak term coined by George Orwell in 1984. George Orwell savored it so much he coined it, used it, and wrote an essay explaining his use of Newspeak.
ReplyDeleteI know, I know, the mantra is "undergraduate for STEM only" but then nobody will be left to understand your literary allusions, Lawprof.
7:24 -- I agree. One of the advantages of the soft majors (literature, history, classics) used to be that you had a well-rounded liberal education. Now everyone is an illiterate idiot.
ReplyDeleteHaving read the original thread, I am convinced that the engineering student is subtle and extremely effective trolling.
ReplyDeleteBut it is so effective because it is so close to the truth, certainly as I remember it hanging out on the boards several years back. I have never understood how so many people can be utterly convinced that the LSAT says nothing whatsoever about their odds in law school and therefore a score below 150 is no barrier to finishing in the top 5% at 4th tier toilet and transferring to a second tier toilet.
What these people are saying, in essence, is that law school administrators who put so much stock in the LSAT are irredeemably stupid across the board. The more logical explanation is that law school administrators who do not put much stock in LSAT scores are thieves.
Part of me can't help but think that people who are so stupid deserve to be taken advantage of, at least now that there is so much free advice out there explaining how stupid you are to go forward with a plan like the one described by the brilliant troll at the tls thread
@7:18
ReplyDeleteRead my fucking comment, again. I never said I approved of class distinctions, but you are an idiot not to recognize they do exist and they make many people's dream of becoming a practicing lawyer in a large firm very difficult in this era of two new lawyers for every job. By the way, your ad hominen attacks do little to advance your argument---what ever it is.
By the way 7:18, if you are also 7:24, who nominated you to become the "literate" police? I never read "1984" but I did learn to speak Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Old English. So what? Does doing or not doing either help me represent my clients and make me a living? No. Perchance it is you that sits upon two high a hobby horse.
I thought the conversation was about saving young people from indentured servitude and the law school scam, not a literary seminar.
Why not make the schools put down a deposit as well? As a condition of receiving federal funds, schools are required to deposit 20% of the total estimated borrowing amount of the student. Before the student goes into default or effective default (IBR) the government takes the payments out of that deposit at no cost to the student. If the student repays their loan- the school gets that money back. If Cooley can really guarantee their students gainful employment, they should put up or shut up.
ReplyDeleteOf course the schools will just jack up tuition, but that will hopefully continue to deter people from applying to law school.
boredJD:
ReplyDeleteI believe you are on to something. I also like the idea proposed earlier on this site that the school be on the hook for some or all of their students' loan.
@7:24, 7:31 (first) and 7:31 (second):
ReplyDeleteSTEM UG major here and lawyer, and I know who Eric A. Blair is.
It is funny how most of the commenters here rail against these idiot 0L lemmings because they can't be convinced not to go to law school.
ReplyDeleteMost of you forget that you understand the problems because you've already gone to law school. There's no way to know, but I'd bet that a good portion of you, if you were at the 0L stage of your life right now, would also plunk down your money for the same silly/stupid/obvious to all of us NOW reasons.
Yeah, it is frustrating to watch others make a mistake that we've already made and learned from, but that does not make them idiots, lemmings, or anything else. At least not much more than we all were.
This may be a bit off topic but this poster with a 149LSAT score reminds me of someone I attended law school with. "Chuck" has a BSEE from U. of Michigan and was working for Dupont in 1994 earning $80K a year. "Chuck" chased prestige and wanted Biglaw, which was only paying $10K more than what he was earning at the time. What did "Chuck" do? "Chuck" enrolled in law school. "Chuck" was married and lived in a nice home. Fast forward 4 years later, "Chuck" graduated in the bottom half of his class, passed the patent bar on the 5th try, got divorced, lost the house in the divorce and was working for a solo making $28K a year. "Chuck" went off the grid in 2001. I have not seen him and no one has heard from him. All I can think of is, the law school scam has "Chuck."
ReplyDelete8:12,
ReplyDeletethe venom here contradicts the empty platitudes from mom, Aunt Millie, and Professor Smith. "Tyler is so smart and so insightful. He enjoys writing and speaking and will make a great lawyer someday."
Someone has to call bullshit. It's Tyler's only chance.
"Fall" and "spring" are verbs, so why not "summer"?
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, if he did get a law degree these are the sort of credentials that would make me take a second look at the candidate even if he did not do too well in law school - because they are a not-that usual combination, though the number of STEM undergrads with JDs is increasing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if he really wants to be a lawyer, those sort of credentials would be enhanced by a couple of years post college work experience and a better law school than he can get into with his LSAT score. If he really wants to be a lawyer I would recommend that route. Realistically if he simply wants to move up the ladder - work for a couple of years and do an MBA or a JD/MBA.
The problem is that it is not clear to me why this person is planning to go to law school. Frankly, based on his credentials he would do better staying in computer science and maybe moving into management later. I also do not know what his employer is like - but I know people who have attended INSEAD for example on their employer's dime on a promise to come back for at least 2 years afterwards and a lot of the better employers will pay tuition benefits to an employee after a specified period of time.
So my advice would be - get a job - retake the LSAT and while is is at it the GMAT and think of going in 2 years time when he has had time to consider what he wants to do, maybe gets some tuition benefits and has a better post JD resumé anyway
@7:02 A.M.
ReplyDelete"And students can’t simply evacuate colleges and universities in order to avoid taking on debt, given the existence in most industries of exclusionary, credential-based hiring practices – practices that took shape alongside the expansion of higher education in the mid-twentieth century. Students thus constitute a massive reserve of potential debtors, who have little option but to pay whatever ends up being charged for their degree – their one-way ticket, however unreliable, to the crumbling world of waged work."
No! This BS has to stop. There are other options. There are many, many more options that are better than going to college, law school, med school,grad school, etc. Are they a sure bet? No. However, an average college applicant, and certainly an average LS applicant, can easily beat out the competition to become a fireman, cop,sanitation worker, tradesmen, etc. I am not saying that those jobs are easy, but those protected class jobs are infinitely better, and carry less of a consequence if you cannot break into them, then the white collar fields today.
We have to stop this BS that college is the only way. I know cops making 250k a year, I know a fireman making a 100k a year who runs a business with his EMT brother (70k a year) making an additional 150k a year. I can go on and on and on. THE REASON KIDS ARE GETTING SCAMMED IS BECAUSE THEY THINK COLLEGE IS THE EASIEST WAY TO A STABLE LIFE AND/OR GETTING RICH. IT FUCKING ISNT.
http://longisland.newsday.com/templates/simpleDB/?pid=173¤tRecord=901
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/community/ff_salary_benefits_080106.shtml
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/66_port_authority_police_offic.html
http://www.nypdrecruit.com/benefits-salary/overview
Do you know how many jobs like this exist in the United States? Imagine if all the smart kids, instead of destroying themselves, decided to go down these avenues? And say they fail, what happens? Nothing. No SL debt. No years wasted. No being prejudiced for trying, instead at worst, you get nothing, and at best, you get rewarded for being medicore.
And I have not even gone into the small business opportunities. There are plenty of 350k plumbing, pizza, electrician, construction, diner, etc. outfits in the major cities.
STOP THINKING EDUCATION IS THE ANSWER. IT ISN'T ANYMORE.
"I know people who have attended INSEAD for example on their employer's dime on a promise to come back for at least 2 years afterwards and a lot of the better employers will pay tuition benefits to an employee after a specified period of time."
ReplyDeleteYou high on crack?
Employers don't want to pay employees much less pay for employee trainig and education.
@7:24, 7:31 (first) and 7:31 (second):
ReplyDeleteSTEM undergraduate here - and I know Orwell and for that matter Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, Camus, etc. and had to speak 3 languages as a college matriculation requirement. Don't assume being a liberal arts major makes you the only literate lawyer - the rest of us can read, write and code - and we are technically literate.
9:06
ReplyDeleteDepends on the employer. It was not a US company though - and INSEAD is 1 year not 2.
You haven't spent enough time on TLS if you think that poster is a troll. There are way too many people who post about obviously stupid decisions. Part of the problem is that people who know and understand the facts about law school assume that everyone else knows what they know. So when people post about things like not understanding the importance of the LSAT on a forum full of people who know the questions types by heart, they look like trolls.
ReplyDeleteI do think it would help if more people who were struggling posted on TLS. But I don't blame struggling people for not posting, they are attacked and derided when they do. The bias on TLS is that people will succeed and if they don't they are idiots.
9:06
ReplyDeleteEspecially remedial spelling classes.
9:06 -
ReplyDeleteIt used to be the the USPTO had a problem because a lot of patent examiners went to Georgetown, George Mason and GW evening programs using their tuition benefits - but tended to leave the USPTO when they passed the bar. I seem to recall someone telling me that this was changed so that you need to work as an examiner for a minimum period now to get those benefits and there is some post graduation time too - but it still contributes to a high attrition rate amongst the better examiners. Then I had a classmate who was a Marine Captain whose tuition was being picked up in law school - or most of it - but that was 20 years ago.
Most, not all, 0Ls are only 21 or 22 years old. Can three or four years really make a difference? Probably. The NIMH study found the following differences between twenty and thirty year olds:
ReplyDeleteThirty year olds tend to be less impulsive; more patient; more likely to act on several sources of information and less likely to choose the first option that looks right (i.e., thinking fully before doing); future focused rather than present focused; consider the long-term consequences of an action over the short-term consequences; have better internalized the realization that society holds one responsible for one's actions; have an expanded sense of the passing and value of time; are less focused on their outward appearance (i.e., less need for "prestige"--although my experience is that this pretty much dogs the legal community regardless of age); more of a focus on earning money than spending it; and a greater realization of one's limitation (i.e. "I don't know it all").
While 22 year olds have more maturation than 20 year olds, I think they are still somewhat immature when it comes to decision-making. I could be mistaken, but I don't think so. If the foregoing paragraph still holds true for your typical 0L, 22-year-old "lemming", it seems quite plausible that many “lemmings” would continue on to law school regardless of the availability of information about the perils of law school. In other words---they make the perfect law school scam victim.
Where did this idea that social connections land you summer SA's at big law firms come from? Almost all of those firms have explicit rules against any kind of nepotism/cronyism, and they seem to take it more seriously than other industries do.
ReplyDeleteIf Cooley wants to call it a "poll tax" the question can be turned around: why are you not offering legal education for FREE, plus stipend to the deserving...
ReplyDeleteJune 12, 2012 9:24 says
ReplyDeleteWhere did this idea that social connections land you summer SA's at big law firms come from? Almost all of those firms have explicit rules against any kind of nepotism/cronyism, and they seem to take it more seriously than other industries do.
You must be thinking of some other industry than law. Because in law, even where there are formal rules forbidding the practice, they are routinely evaded through quid-pro-quos. You let my kid intern at your firm, I'll return the favor at some point.
With the computer science degree, he could theoretically try to become a patent attorney, but I wouldn't recommend that route either. Even that field is getting oversaturated.
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell would he want to be a patent lawyer, when he could, you know, make the shit that needs to be patented in the first place. Or at least use his skills - computer programming or whatever - to get a decent first job and work his way up that industry.
Maybe his compsci degree is phoney baloney, but it can't be any more phoney-baloney than three years of "thinking like a lawyer" that passes for legal education at $30k a year not including room/board.
I am not all in with the notion that the Biglaw market is reserved for middle and upper middle class people with lots of social capital. The challenge is that so many middle and lower middle class strivers often have little means to obtain the right kind of social context to make sound decisions.
ReplyDeleteI have posted before. I come from a poor single mother home with lots of problems. I went on to experience the law review as an editor at a T10 school with patronizing and mostly liberal elitist fellow law review members, most all of whom had loads of social capital. I really did not - being the former Teamster and UFCW union member I was - but I was fortunate enough to win an athletic scholarship at one of the few schools ranked in US News' top 10 which give athletic scholarships. Two things: 1) Being poor among all of these privileged students let me know I had very little margin for error with regard to basic life decisions, far less than my classmates. This worked out well because drinking, drugs, and irresponsible behavior with the opposite sex were just too risky for me, as much as I wanted to be like every other student and enjoy them. No regrets - I just had far less room for error. That is the price of being poor. 2) I received just enough access to the social spheres of the well off to determine their boundaries. By way of example I learned working for an investment bank required an acceptable prestige degree with a good grade point and sales skills, or working for the Big 3 firms in New York required top 10 percent at T14 firms, or that one shouldn't pay for an academic graduate school but instead should receive a tuition and a fellowship or not go, and so on. I was actually thrilled to have this social context information, because, well, if I did not meet the grade and obtain admission into a law school (or graduate school) statistically likely to justify the investment (remember, this was in the 80's, so the investment was large, but a lot less than today), well, heck, given my athletic accomplishments, there were people willing to pay me to teach and coach my sport at the high school level. It would have been fun, and enough to eat on, which was a big deal to me back in the day. I was a serious student, and this kind of thing was not what my peers in my college major at my so-called "prestige school" were doing, but given where I came from, it would have been just fine. The social context imposed on me a set of rules which made me efficient and realistic - a good thing. The key is being able to come into a contact with those with a lot of social capital - something many guys I competed against in Division 1 competitions from a large state athletic factory were not often going to obtain. An athletic recruiting decision I made at age 17 to go to a school way above my social grade made a big difference for me.
I am curious as to whether blogs like these can infuse some social context into people who would otherwise not have it. I think it can, although there are some who will always remain unrealistic. A lack realism brings with it a much steeper price today, and I hope more and more young people begin to question just how much value (and that is the important thing) higher education brings today. The value proposition in many environments just is not there.
9:12 AM
ReplyDeleteCouldn't help yourself could you???
spelln police alert
This dude/dudette got a "lucrative" job offer from a Fortune 500 company and maybe it was better to try to get into law school on a 149? Awesome decision. Just join the circus, you clown.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't really much of a help for six figure debt, but anyway:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/06/12/student-loan-debt-jobs-payoff-help/#photo-7
How does an engineer get a 149? The test is an engineer's DREAM.
ReplyDelete@10:06
ReplyDeleteLOL. From one spelln crinimal to another: I'm cheerin for ya. Give 'em hell!
Re: Student Loans and Bankruptcy:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bankruptcylawnetwork.com/student-loan-debt-will-not-be-repaid/
@10:42:
ReplyDeleteAgreed. From the article you linked:
"Maura Kastberg, executive director of services for RSC, a college prep company, suggests that college graduates need to face up to their loan problems sooner rather than later. 'When you get out of school, the first thing to do is look at your loans,' she emphasizes. 'You should ask yourself what kind you have, how much you owe, and to whom you owe it.'"
This woman has a job, I suppose because it would have been unfair to keep such a brilliant mind from standing with two feet on the gas pedal of human progress, such is her valuable contribution.
10:06-I could not. The irony was too delicious!
ReplyDelete9:04
ReplyDeleteIt is possible to be considered "too smart" for something like police work. There is a considerable body of empirical research showing that police forces, for example, tailor their hiring to those who they believe, in part, can tolerate the long periods of boredom incorporated in the job, etc. This may mean excluding those of superior intelligence from the pool.
I'm not saying your insight is not valid, just that some of the 0L applicants might actually have to hide intelligence to accomplish what you suggest.
"Here's another little secret they don't tell you before you sign on that dotted line: the legal system is not a meritocracy. It's not just that there's (at best) one legal job for every two ABA law school graduates. It's that you, lower middle class striver without much in the way of either literal or cultural capital, are not going to get that job, because for among other reasons you're "socially awkward."
ReplyDeleteIf you a lower-class white kid with no connections, you are dicked. If you attend a TTT or TTTT, then you are really screwed. And if you are paying for tuition at such a dung pit, then you are going to be financially pounded in the ass over a coffee table.
Now imagine the above scenario if you are an ethnic or racial minority. Or if you are a "non-traditional" law student. (In the latter case, you can earn high grades and no firms will take a chance on you.)
@11: 14 A.M.
ReplyDeleteYou hit it right on the fucking money. That is why it is imperative, absolutely imperative, to appear as medicore as possible. Every bum I went to high school with has a nice city job. Every single person that I know who is relatively exceptional, i.e. military with multiple technical degrees, law degree with criminal justice background, etc. has been unable to land a police (or other city) job.
Whatever their motivation for weeding those people out, people have to follow their self-interest. It makes no sense to graduate college (or more) and get punished by political hacks that hate you because you tried to improve yourself. It makes every sense to become medicore so you can partake in the insulation that the protected class received from globalization, wall street screw-ups, mass immigration (legal and illegal), and rising tuition costs.
@ 10:06, 9:12: The real irony here is that the person you called out (9:06) did not make the spelling error. The error was a copy/paste from an earlier poster at 0900...
ReplyDeleteSo, Copper, ya's gots the wrong guy, ya hear?
One can never go back, but I wish I had foregone law school and become a cop or fireman or found a city job with all the benefits.
ReplyDeleteBut come to think of it, I have met retired police officers in law school.
I don't know too much about about it, or how they paid for it, but a law degree might help them to advance in the department somehow if they choose to stay on the force.
Or else why would they go to law school?
The Engineer might be taking a big gamble, but maybe not the retired cop. And so is that an example of how a law degree can be an actual benefit to some?
11:25 man you must have a real spelling problem. The error was not in the quote. Maybe you need remedial reading as well as remedial spelling. You must be a 5L. Irony upon irony – too delicious to contemplate.
ReplyDelete11:41 - calling out spelling errors in a blog is a real pissant thing to do - like blue booking
ReplyDeleteMy school continues to e-mail my work e-mail address for donations. I never provided that address to them so why would they think it's remotely acceptable to contact me that way with mass e-mails?
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Law Prof about socially awkward meaning not having a summer house in the Hamptons. I think socially awkward means a really aspie personality; or even an extremely arrogant personality. Partners might be aspie or arrogant, but they don't want to hire associates who have those qualities if they can avoid it.
ReplyDelete"How does an engineer get a 149? The test is an engineer's DREAM."
ReplyDeletePerhaps if you don't study at all and simply take it cold?
I agree with a couple of the comments above: why not make this "deposit" 5% or 10% of the amount to be financed? Then perhaps the delusional little dears can multiply by 20 or 10 and figure out what their obligation is going to be.
ReplyDeleteNot the end of "funny money," but a start.
And to the juvenile who insists on posting "first," please stop. It's ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteThat is from Above the Law-- the "first" business.
ReplyDelete12:56: It's actually from The Entire Internet.
ReplyDeleteI'm mystified as to why some here keep suggesting that people get a job as a cop or other civil servant. Don't they follow ANY news: states & localities are slashing their budgets, and with that, their hiring. Cops, firemen, teachers, health aides -- there just AREN'T any jobs out there in the "public sector."
ReplyDeleteWhile said writers might look enviously at a cop who retired after 20 years with a fat pension, that cop was hired 20+ years ago. The situation is simply not the same now.
@12:59, I'm pretty sure that "some here" is actually one guy posting the same thing over and over.
ReplyDelete^ True. There was an article in the paper just yesterday saying that the public sector is lagging behind the private in terms of "recovery."
ReplyDelete---
Lol at this exchange below:
Anonymous said...
And to the juvenile who insists on posting "first," please stop. It's ridiculous.
June 12, 2012 12:53 PM Anonymous said...
That is from Above the Law-- the "first" business.
June 12, 2012 12:56 PM Anonymous said...
12:56: It's actually from The Entire Internet.
June 12, 2012 12:58 PM
My proposal for reform:
ReplyDeleteAllow law schools to charge whatever tuition they want, enroll as many students as they want, and report placement statistics as deceptively as they want.
But with this condition: Two years out, law graduates have an automatic one-time option to demand that the school issue a full refund for three years tuition plus any interest accrued on law school educational loans. Moreover, dropouts also get a full-tuition refund.
dybbuk
Political cartoon equates the housing bubble to the student loan bubble. A picture is worth a 1,000 words:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/06/bok_cartoon_higher_education_b.html
Re: Who's more literate: STEM majors or liberal arts majors, I don't know. All I know is that most of the lawyers I encounter are generally uneducated idiots who think in a very linear, uncreative way and have read little to nothing that wasn't "required." I don't know what they're undergrad majors were - they're all dumb! And I say that as one of them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I just proved it by writing "they're" instead of "their." Nice.
ReplyDelete1:44 You were right the first time!
ReplyDeleteYour friend,
Piss Ant
1:44,
ReplyDeleteI agree.
Update: My student loan balance is now more than quadrupled and as of today is: $325,256.65.
ReplyDeleteIt has a fixed 8.25 percent interest rate, and in the last three years the balance has increased by over one hundred and sixteen thousand dollars.
By this time next year the balance will be over $360,000.00
I am very fearful about this debt, and am sometimes a nervous wreck.
If I stay in the US, I will carry this debt to my grave.
I feel enormous shame because this debt is also a burden on the taxpaying public who is paying the 2K a month in interest, and that shame is enough to bring on very dark and self destructive thoughts.
I have had no health insurance for the last six months, and it will be a big struggle just to get the money up to get that reinstated, hopefully within the next two months.
I curse the day I ever filled out an application for a fourth tier law school, and curse my own stupidity for thinking at one time that as a lawyer I would be an asset to society, when I have now in fact become a burden.
I tried to blog about it, and I had views from the US Congress, the US House of Representatives, The Executive Office of the President, the US Comptroller of the Currency,The Congressional Oversight Committee, Homeland Security, The US Dept. of Justice, The New York State Unified Court System, NY State Legislature, Yale, Harvard, and dozens of other universities, China, Australia, and on and on and on.
I have done all I could possibly do, and none of it makes any difference. There will never be any limits on interest, and Consumer Bankruptcy protections will never be extended for student loan debt.
A wasted, indebted life and all I can do is watch the loan balance grow and I will never be able to repair my credit.
Many of the commenters here tend to lapse into cold and clinical intellectual abstractions, but if there is anyone out there with some kind of real influence that happens to read this and cares, please do something about the law school scam, and this whole crazy student lending fiasco.
I will pray for the younger kids that are coming out of school with over 100K or 150K of soul destroying debt already, for they will likely see their loan balances double or triple in a lot shorter time than it took mine.
Now, if everyone will excuse me I am going to have another look at Madonna's nipple.
How about the government only lends to schools who achieve a reasonable employment success rate?
ReplyDeleteWhat would that be? A reasonable success rate.
ReplyDeleteSome interesting, and related, analysis on Lawyers by Charles Hugh Smith:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oftwominds.com/blogjune12/consensus-failure6-12.html
American jurisprudence may also have a hand in the politics of failure. 25 out of the 43 presidents (Grover Cleveland served twice) have been lawyers, and so having a law degree (or self-educated, in the case of Andrew Jackson) does not in itself qualify or disqualify a candidate for the presidency.
But as "it depends on your definition of it" Bill Clinton proved, a law background colors one's understanding of ethics and power. What is just and right has lost all meaning in a system based on "getting the best deal possible for your client" regardless of guilt or justice. "Justice" has devolved to persuading a jury or judge that your client is blameless or justified, and "guilt" is now a PR pantomime of rationalizations slicked down with a blatantly insincere and hurried apology to the injured parties.
Indeed, we can understand President Obama's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as the perfection of the current legalist mindset: claim authority over a wide range of action and limit any legal constraints on that range of action.
Indefinite Detention, Endless Worldwide War and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (www.aclu.org)
Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 1: Our One Last Chance to Preserve the Bill of Rights (March 26, 2012)
Obama's legalist power-grab mindset is also clearly revealed in his Orwellian Executive Order National Defense Resources Preparedness.
Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 3: We had to Destroy Democracy in Order to Save It (March 28, 2012).
Once again we see the President's clear legal intent: claim unconstrained authority over the entire infrastructure and populace of the U.S. so his future "freedom of action" is unlimited by legal constraints. Read the Executive Order yourself if you doubt this: National Defense Resources Preparedness.(www.whitehouse.gov)
The politics of horse-trading power-player "consensus" fits perfectly with a legalist mindset that places a premium on "getting the best deal possible" and claiming wide authority via Executive Order. Has the legal mindset poisoned politics, or has power politics poisoned our understanding of the law, ethics and justice?
Perhaps both law and politics have drunk from the poisoned chalice, and President Obama's abysmal failure as a leader and his vast power-grabs via Executive Order are the result of gulping the poison twice: once as a lawyer, and again as a politician.
@12:53, "And to the juvenile who insists on posting "first," please stop. It's ridiculous."
ReplyDeleteEIGHTY-EIGHTH!!!! bwwuUUUAHAHAHAHAHAH!
@4:01 PM
ReplyDeleteBush wasn't a lawyer, but he did kill over 600,000 Iraqis. So . . . yeah.
Don't disagree with your assessment of Obama necessarily, but just want to keep everything all Fox N' Friends so I don't lose my citizenship.
@12:43. "How does an engineer get a 149? ...Perhaps if you don't study at all and simply take it cold?"
ReplyDeleteWell, no, that'd be how I got the 168.
I think that if schools were rated based on the jobs their grads got and had oversay a five year period, they would suddenly find a ton of resources to make sure students were employed.
ReplyDeleteI know this needs to be refined, but schools ranking and the ability of a student to borrow should be correlated to the outcome of the students.
Given the number of readers on this forum it seems to me that it should do something constructive - and since many have legal research training, I'd like to suggest a crowd source project to answer the following questions:
ReplyDeleteCrowd Source Project
1. ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct
a. Is there any basis for suggesting that law schools and their administrators have violated the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct (the “Model Rules”)?
b. What basis is there for suggesting that the Model Rules apply to the relationship between a Law School and students/prospective students?
c. What basis is there to suggest that the Model Rules apply to the conduct of a bar-admitted law school administrator and students/prospective law students?
d. Are there any precedential decisions apply the Model Rules to analogous situations?
2. State Bar Rules
a. Is there any basis for suggesting that law schools and their administrators have violated the Ethics Rules of your state bar (“[State]-Bar Rules”)?
b. What basis is there for suggesting that the [State]-Bar Rules apply to the relationship between a Law School and students/prospective students?
c. What basis is there to suggest that the [State]-Bar Rules apply to the conduct of a bar-admitted law school administrator and students/prospective law students?
d. Are there any precedential decisions apply the [State]-Bar Rules to analogous situations?
3. [Name]-School of Law Honor Code (or analogous)
a. What sort of honor code does your law school have?
b. Where can it be found (url)?
c. Does the Honor Code apply only to law students or to faculty as well?
d. Does the honor code describe itself in contractual terms – i.e., a contract between the members of an academic community?
e. Does the Honor Code prohibit dishonesty?
f. Does the honor code present false presentation of data?
g. Does the honor code prohibit misleading presentation of data?
h. Does the honor code have a broad requirement of honesty in dealings?
i. Is the honor code strict liability?
j. Are there any precedential decisions?
4. Bad Faith Lending/Fiduciary Duty
a. Does [your state and/or state where you law school is situated] recognize the legal concept of bad faith lending (i.e., a lender has a duty of candor to the borrower)?
b. Does you state treat arrangers of loans as subject to the duty of candor?
c. Is an arranger receiving loan proceeds a factor in the bad faith lending concept?
d. Does [your state and/or state where you law school is situated] regard a academic institution as having any fiduciary responsibility to students?
e. Can you supply any precedents?
Listen, Campos, you pathetic piece of shit, shut the fuck up. Such a pathetic waste of space. You're what, in your 60s, and still bleating on like an adolescent rebel.
ReplyDeleteJust die please, ok?
Is this poor person actually looking for an answer to his question? I want to suppose this is a trick, but maybe my issue-spotting skills are so excellent that only I can see the answer written in the question.
ReplyDelete"2 Years of paid systems engineering internship at Fortune 500 company, led to lucrative job offer."
TAKE THIS JOB, YOU BENIGHTED IDIOT. A good salary at a job within your training and skill set that is not physically harmful or emotionally abusive is a blessing that so many in this land of opportunity would slay you for. Accept it, send them flowers, and thank God for your good fortune. And do not even THINK about going to law school.
iLawyer? Well, there goes that document review gig I was hoping would put some food ont the table.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/ilawyer-what-happens-when-computers-replace-attorneys/258688/
Well done activities, preferences and etc. but indeed needs more improvements.
ReplyDeleteObviously good advice for anyone, but consumer advocates say it’s most important for young people who are inexperienced with financial products.
ReplyDeletehttp://businessloanfornewbusiness.com/
Sadly, job seekers who are not technologically savvy may have a hard time finding jobs due to the inability to apply for available jobs online. payroll solutions
ReplyDelete