Given its growing prestige and national reputation, WCL has outgrown its current facility at 4801 Massachusetts Ave. NW, where it has been since 1996 (in 195,000 square feet). The instructional spaces are undersized, library areas inadequate, faculty and administrative offices inferior, and student areas undersized and over utilized. Needing more space to accommodate current programs, the law school has been renting space (16,000 square feet) in three additional locations in the adjacent commercial and retail area.This text is a year old, so it's possible that in the interim somebody in the university or governmental hierarchy has noticed that two thirds of the school's graduates aren't getting legal jobs, and that the large majority of those who do get such jobs aren't acquiring employment which comes close to paying enough to justify the school's current, and rapidly rising, $70,000 per year cost of attendance (A debt financed law degree from AU will produce a $250,000 loan balance for current students. "And from there it will go up," as Virgil Sollonzo would say). Update: A commenter points out that as of May the building project was moving into the design phase, with construction expected to begin next summer. There's a curious lack of publicity regarding all this on the school's current web site.
To fulfill its needs, the proposal seeks approval of a fully integrated law school facility with some 310,000 square feet and parking for approximately 450 vehicles (including 400 below ground). The project has been designed and configured to support a possible student population of 2,000 and supporting resources for 500 faculty and staff. Currently, the law school enrolls approximately 1,770 students.
Note that AU's "growing prestige and national reputation" is likely to be affected negatively by the administration's decision this past admissions season to toss existing admissions standards out the window in order to fill the school's coffers with another $20 million in 1L tuition revenue (the entering class's median LSAT fell from the 86th to the 77th percentile).
Note also the transparent weakness of the justifications for expanding the school's physical plant by more than 50%, while increasing the size of its already far-too large student body:
"Instructional spaces are undersized." I bet everybody has a chair, and in any case your classrooms would have one third as many students in them if they only featured people who were going to get a job.
"Library areas are inadequate." Empires rise and fall, continents merge and separate, the great globe itself spins inexorably toward thermodynamic dissolution, but one thing in legal academia never changes: library areas are always inadequate, at least according to law library directors, who are remarkably adept at not noticing that no licensed attorney in the United States has consulted an actual legal book since November 17, 2004.
"Faculty and administrative offices [are] inferior." For some reason this reminds me of the passage in Anna Karenina where Oblonsky goes on a trip to Moscow to perform what Tolstoy describes as "the most important task a government official can undertake, that is, to remind his superiors of his existence."
"Student areas undersized and over utilized." It's costing these soon to be unemployed people $50K per year to enjoy these areas. How much will more luxurious accommodations cost them? This is a classic example of how absurdly negative sum -- for students and their families, of course, for faculty and administrators it's working out great -- the amenities arms race in higher education has become.
Paul Caron links to his own two-page summation of the problem in legal education here, of which AU's preposterous expansion proposal is a perfect illustration. (Caron's post also includes a link to a useful list of news stories and blog posts on the law school crisis).
Law prof, in your experience are most law faculty evil opportunists, frightened cogs, or just clueless navel gazers? If I had to venture a guess, I'd say:
ReplyDelete1. Evil Opportunists: approximately 20%, mostly at the administration level.
2. Frightened Cogs: approximately 10%, these are the faculty who recognize the problem but don't want to rock the boat too much.
3. Clueless Navel Gazers: approximately 98%, I know this double counts, but it approximates my experience in law school.
This is a very good question which deserves its own post.
DeleteWhen everyone comes from HYS, then the view is necessarily myopic.
DeleteThere are also people who are rocking the boat, but alas, not enough.
DeleteOn faculty insistence, our administration turned in a zero-percent increase in the budget to the provost, who refused it and forced us to increase tuition to be in lockstep with the university.
But believe it or not, I think that you're missing the biggest percentage of faculty members: People who believe earnestly that there is a huge problem and that something must be done and that someone must make a sacrifice--and earnestly, really, truly believe that that someone is everyone other than themselves.
I recently read through the TLS OCI threads from various t14 schools. At schools where a noticeable portion of students are striking out at OCIs, there is a pretty high dose of bitterness about law school, law professors, the grading system, etc. Reading the TLS comments, it is clear to me that faculty have a growing PR problem vis-a-vis their students, and the fact that they often refuse to take simple, low-cost steps that would communicate their concern and care to students suggests to me that they don't realize they have a problem.
DeleteI do agree that when the bulk of professors come from HYS, where unemployment concerns are negligible and where most have not experienced the true consequences of practices like the grading curve or failure to grade in a timely manner, there is a large disconnect between faculty and student views on the state of law school and what a student should be able to expect from a professor. People who attend HYS are far more likely to have enjoyed their school experience and been more satisfied with their career outcomes in the new economy.
There is also a large disconnect in what students and faculty consider as being "qualified" to be a law professor. My observation is that students overwhelmingly want people with extensive experience in practice or just really smart people, and are pretty jaded by the focus on hiring PhDs, etc. Far more people seem to enroll in the courses taught by practitioners. Yet students are largely not consulted about their preferences and have little influence on hiring.
Finally, I think students also are made to feel that the faculty thinks they are second-rate because they are not attending YHS. No one wants to be taught by a club that they can't join, especially one that is exploiting them.
One more comment: When faculty at non-HYS schools do interact with their students, they are also probably more likely to interact with the successful students--those who are on law review, talk in class, are not bitter, are employed, etc--because those students are probably more likely to seek them out and are more comfortable for professors to surround themselves with. This has to distort their impressions of how students as a whole are faring.
DeleteThe post on this question should be titled "The Banality of the Law School Scam."
DeleteDidn't lawprof write a post about this several months ago?
DeleteThe *only* problem is jobs. All these other complaints-what kind of degrees profs have, how many are from YHS, etc. *did not exist* (other than by your occasional curmudgeon) during the boom. "Fixing" them will not assuage student anger. The only solution is some combo of more jobs and fewer students. Cut the non-T-14 schools off from federally g'teed loans. Now.
DeleteSTB--I think you are right. The job market has created a host of educational problems that did not exist before. The only fix is producing fewer lawyers.
DeleteThe original question, however, was why profs don't understand the situation their students are in. I think the fact that they mostly attended schools where unemployment is not an issue during better economic times does, however, shed light on that question.
To be more accurate, the question, as I took it, was whether profs understand. I think it is more charitable to assume they are being slow rather than being evil :)
DeleteRight. maybe profs don't care bc there are so many administraors these days. my t6 alma mater has a massive career svs's office. probably a good idea but icould imagine it makes generic prof. feel less connected to student job placement.
DeleteSTB--that's an interesting point. In other fields, professors are often more involved in their students' job searches. An English prof, for example, knows the market is bad. But have career service offices removed law faculty from connection with the law firm hiring market?
DeleteTo expand, not only does an English prof know the market is bad, but students pick to work with faculty with any eye to how well they place students. So individual faculty members feel the market.
DeleteThe problem when most law faculty come from HYS is beyond just their experience in the job market. They might as well have lived on an entirely different planet.
DeleteFor instance, the employment problems at most non-elite schools predates the recession by quite a long time. But very few law profs would believe that no matter how many alumni tell them that is indeed the case.
When I graduated from a T1 school in 2000, many students had a really hard time getting a real lawyer job. Some never found one.
4:14--Good point about the unemployment problem existing at non-elite schools for some time.
DeleteIt used to be that t4-14 resembled HYS in employment outcomes more than t15 and down. As t4-14 come to resemble HYS less and non-elite schools more in their outcomes, I suppose it is predictable that student gripes at the t4-14 begin to resemble those common at non-elite schools.
I'm sure it helps increase denial when applicants v. those admitted is still averaging 10-1. An average prof. probably wouldn't look in to the situation too closely when demand is still so high, no matter the applicants quality.
DeletePlausible deniability or ignorance is the newest, greatest defense for the upper crust - academia, finance, government. So easy to be forgiven when there is no ill intent. So easy to skirt the law when intent is a main component.
second!
ReplyDeleteAs if Campos can speak for all law faculty...how about at least narrowing the question to faculty at where he "teaches"
ReplyDeleteWell, we know that you're either Number 1 or Number 3.
Delete7:29- spoken like a true law professor. Only a douchey law professor would talk about "narrowing the question" in this forum.
ReplyDelete"How dare he engage in hasty generalizations!" He can because they are apt.
You are pathetic and will likely be unemployed soon, by the way. Cheers.
But surely this law professor will be in great demand in the legal market if his law school closes/shrinks! LOL.
DeleteSo does the library just need a few more computers? I thought nobody even used books anymore.
ReplyDeleteGet rid of mandatory attendance and the law school will have more than enough space, in fact it probably won't have to rent the building across the street!
Dear L-one if you're reading this blog and comments let me enlighten you on one of your classes.
ReplyDeleteThe key to conceptualizing contracts is knowing when to one has to use UCC vs. Common Law. Until you can figure that out, (i.e. the big picture) you are waiting your time reading and outlining.
Once you figure it out you should be mad as hell that you were not told in the first 5 minutes of class! Especially since you're paying the equivalent of purchasing a family home for your legal education.
"empires rise and fall, continents merge and separate, the great globe itself spins inexorably toward thermodynamic dissolution, but one thing in legal academia never changes: library areas are always inadequate . . ."
ReplyDeleteThermodynamic dissolution!!??
Best sentence ever.
... fluffer...
Deletejust abolish all subsidies and goverment guaranteed loans and the problem is solved and let students discharge their debt in bankruptcy. That's all it takes to fix the problem. ALl of a sudden no one can afford to go law school, schools are looking at Empty classroooms.. what do they do to get students in again? They MUST lower the prices dramatically!
ReplyDeleteExactly! There should be no surprise that the cost of law school has risen to be many times what it is worth, now that that government is paying for it. Why should the price of law school act differently than the price of anything else that government buys? Insulate a good or service from economic pressures, and of course its cost will bear no relation to its value.
DeleteThe people with the power to set the law school tuition have an interest in raising it to as extortionate a figure as possible because there is little risk in doing so. After all, the ultimate footer-of-the-bill (government) has shown itself indifferent to the cost. In the end, the money is easily raised through tuition or printing.
-- Porsenna
I disagree. Those who borrowed the money and blew it on a law degree have to pay back the cash...or they can choose not to and endure the consequences.
DeleteThe bankruptcy law will not be changed...not while the Repubs control the house of reps...so good luck with that.
"no licensed attorney in the United States has consulted an actual legal book since November 17, 2004."
ReplyDeleteCurious, what is special about that date?
Actually the date should read 'November 22, 1963'.
Delete"and let students discharge their debt in bankruptcy."
ReplyDeletethis will just encourage more kids to go to law school. its important to let them know that this anchor will weight them down for a long time if they make a stupid decision or screw up
Even if it did, the lenders would back off. If law school is a bad bankruptcy risk, they won't make the loans.
DeleteAnd if they stop making loans to everyone, the minority communities will howl about being denied access to the professions.
DeleteThe plan to relocate and add move students is moving full steam ahead.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theeagleonline.com/news/story/d.c.-approves-wcl-move-to-tenley-campus/
Washington DC law schools comprise Georgetown, GW, CUA, AU, Howard, UDC, effectively George Mason (it is in a DC suburb) and pretty well effectively UVa (DC is the largest metro market near UVa), University of Maryland, Baltimore (Baltimore is not a DC suburb but it is ½ hour away and it is a weak metro market) and one could argue a few more of the Virginia law schools are partly in the DC pond. On top of that Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford all sell graduates to the DC market.
ReplyDeleteThat means that AU is in a market where there are effectively seven local law schools and another nine to ten seeking to send a large proportion of their graduates – it is a market with effectively 13-14 law school equivalents trying to place students in it of which at least 7-8 are regarded as better schools than AU. In this market AU is ranked below Georgetown, UVa and GW and perhaps on a par with George Mason and Catholic (ignore USNWR) – all sizeable schools as well as the T6 that sell into DC. I therefore fail to see the room for AU to grow and a lot of likelihood that it will shrink – in fact the only two schools that may (and by no means are certain to) stay at around their present size in the DC market are UVa and Georgetown.
It seems to me to therefore approach lunacy for any DC school to be talking about expanding class sizes or spending a huge amount of money on plant – but of all the schools it seems particularly crazy for AU. Where do they expect to get the students? Where do they expect to get the tuition? Now would be a good time to “pull in their horns” not extend them.
Larger class sizes means that administrators can get paid more because they have to work harder.
DeleteIt makes perfect sense.
The internal logic is flawless.
AU is going NESL on the scam...get as much cash as they can until there are no more lemmings.
DeleteLaw schools will always be in business as long as lemmings get a free spin at the wheel (i.e., a 3 year subsidized vacation backed by non-dischargeable student loans) of "fortune."
ReplyDelete"library areas are always inadequate, at least according to law library directors, who are remarkably adept at not noticing that no licensed attorney in the United States has consulted an actual legal book since November 17, 2004."
ReplyDeleteI know you live to exaggerate, but from the point of view of a librarian at a circulating law library serving the largest legal markets in the country, and looking at our circulation statistics...I kind of call bullshit.
Agreed, there are plenty of attorneys who use law books in various contexts. But that's not even that relevant to law school's libraries anyway. What matters is whether the law STUDENTS are using the books, not whether practicing attorneys are.
DeleteI read the comment as applying to study space within the library which I definitely did while in law school.
DeleteWho uses an actual legal book? I mean, I have three books I use, the rest of which are all on computer. So to the "librarian" whose career depends on not seeing the obvious - which is to say, all of this can be fit on an iPad - I call bullshit.
Delete3/4 of a million dollars in debt, 2/3 of graduates not getting legal jobs and please tell me why anyone would apply, let alone attend.
ReplyDeleteMaths are hard
Delete29th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DeletePeople are free to do foolish things.
Deletelaw libraries can get a lot more room if they just get rid of the materials that are available to their students free through westlaw, lexis and other internet sources.
ReplyDeleteif the libraries are saying practicing attorneys are using their facilities, then charge them or send them elsewhere.
+1 on the Tolstoy plug
ReplyDeleteThere is a huge oversupply of lawyers, and enough lawyers to meet the nation's needs for at least 20 years even if there were no new graduates for those 20 years. So why should the government continue to subsidize law schools, when law school is good for neither nation nor, overall, for the individuals going to law school? Shouldn't there be a moratorium on federal subsidies for law schools, meaning subsidies funneled through loans on the lives of young Americans?
ReplyDeleteGreat idea - thanks for taking care of the difficult part.
DeleteNow if someone will just get both houses of congress to agree and the president to sign the bill...
To clarify, the current number and scale of subsidized law schools are not good for the nation.
ReplyDeleteA Dean at a T1 law school is publicly saying too many people are going to law school. It's times like these I know this blog has made a difference.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-h-wu/shrinking-law-schools_b_1934539.html
Since when is that institution a "T1" law school? I recently discussed this: "T1" here apparently means the top fifty, but that's a total absurdity. From the perspective of a student seeking employment, this place is in the fourth tier.
DeleteOctober 3, 2012 5:56 PM
Deletethat can be said of all schools outside the T14.
Yep, it's because of this blog.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I didn't see much reflection about the blog in the letter or in its content.
DeleteMaybe the author didn't get the memo that Campos is the reason for everything?
Please, send him an email and enlighten him.
Bitter much, Brian?
DeleteThe school doesn't give a damn what happens to its students upon graduation. As long as they can keep them for the full three years, then the pigs are happy.
ReplyDeleteNando,
DeleteMy school demonstrates is care for me by calling and asking for donations every few months. I have probably received 10-15 phone calls requesting donations since I graduated law school in '09. Not once have I received a call inquiring if I passed a bar exam, my employment situation, or my ability to repay my student loans. Oink, Oink!
Nando, you Painteresque fucking antique, please fuck the hell off and stop making us all look like cunts.
DeleteSigned,
Everyone
The saddest part about this post is that we just went through one of the nastiest building bubbles in history, and yet it seems we've learned nothing. Look at Ireland. There are tens of thousands of built but empty (and now decaying) houses, and tens of thousands of built but empty (and now decaying) square feet of office parks, shopping malls, and other commercial buildings, all created because of cheap debt financing that led self-interested "rational" real estate developers to collectively act in an utterly insane fashion. The same is true in lots of American States, where you can see empty houses built on debt-fueled speculation and/or commercial space that has been sitting empty since 2008/09. In all of these cases, smart people did the math and proved to themselves that they were going to make a killing. The debt financing was so cheap and plentiful that you suddenly COULD build a massive office park in Ireland or Idaho or wherever, because the money was available. And demand would keep going up, right? Why shouldn't it? As long as your Excel spreadsheet's assumptions show demand increasing, you can end up with a really nice return on your development (or new law school building).
ReplyDeleteAt least in theory.
At least until reality suddenly reminds you that demand does not always increase just because cheap debt is available to build supply.
When that happens, people end up in a situation that seemed IMPOSSIBLE just months, weeks, days before: nice, big, new houses, fully equipped and available for purchase, sitting empty; shopping malls abandoned; office space mildewing from lack of use.
Or the unthinkable: new, 300,000+ sq foot law buildings, full of promise but no new students.
The administrators of AU should really do a tour of what's happened in real estate around the world ... so that they realize that their rosy projections may just be fantasy.
Only 48 comments so far?
ReplyDeleteI guess I will have to get things going again.
Sigh! Why does it all depend on me?
I was wondering, and in a highly eruuditeed way, why the US never converted to the metric syestem?
In the words of Lord Byron:
"Ours is not to reason why
ours is to have some pizza pie!"
BTW, if and when I do post as Anon I am pretty hard to spot hey?
Oh my god you fucking cunt. Please please please GO AWAY!
DeleteWhat will it take to get you to understand that this is not an ego trip, not a game, not fun?
You have nothing in common with us. SO FUCK OFF!
And I think that everyone has called you on your "Anon" posts.
DeleteYour writing is distinctly shit.
JD PainterguyOctober 3, 2012 2:54 PM
DeleteOnly 48 comments so far?
I guess I will have to get things going again.
Sigh! Why does it all depend on me?
I was wondering, and in a highly eruuditeed way, why the US never converted to the metric syestem?
In the words of Lord Byron:
"Ours is not to reason why
ours is to have some pizza pie!"
BTW, if and when I do post as Anon I am pretty hard to spot hey?
Er, I think that when you post, the post count rises because people are telling YOU to fuck off.
DeleteThe discussion about the issues (which you recently lamented the decline of on your blog) ceases when you appear.
So you have a choice. (1) Leave and let the discussion progress meaningfully, or (2) Stay and stop the discussion.
Up to you.
If you leave, I'll respect your dedication to the issues. If you stay, you're nothing more than an attention-seeking clown who is happy to divert us from the real issues.
Your call.
I already know, from past experience, that you've chosen option 2.
Honestly just ignore him and maybe he'll go away. He is just doing it for attention.
DeleteThis video might really shock a lot of people, so I feel I have to warn ahead of time.
ReplyDeleteI bought a pack of Lucky Strikes today and got a free matchbook, and saw an ad for a law school on it!
How low can things sink by now. And how cheap, and how sleazy!
But I guess if that easy sugar teat government money keeps flowing in, anything is possible?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwBgl0rCLxw
BTW, I made the whole thing up :) No matchbook ad for a law school :)
Which is not to say such things won't happen soon?
This is obviously you, Painter!
DeleteAnonymousOctober 3, 2012 3:02 PM
This video might really shock a lot of people, so I feel I have to warn ahead of time.
I bought a pack of Lucky Strikes today and got a free matchbook, and saw an ad for a law school on it!
How low can things sink by now. And how cheap, and how sleazy!
But I guess if that easy sugar teat government money keeps flowing in, anything is possible?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwBgl0rCLxw
BTW, I made the whole thing up :) No matchbook ad for a law school :)
Which is not to say such things won't happen soon?
The Bad Machines:
ReplyDeleteThe factories that give out the student loans place all of the bad machines that cannot pay them back in a very bad and dark and despairing place, where the bad machines circle and circle in anguish for the rest of their lives, and maybe even after death, in a kind of indebted hell, and for all eternity.
The soul of a deep debtor is a very bad and defective soul, and deserves no sympathy from the factory and from the rest of society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW9DxqYtvmU
For a debtor is a bad machine, and only deserves to be served with more debt, and more.
You again, Painter!
DeleteAnonymousOctober 3, 2012 3:26 PM
The Bad Machines:
The factories that give out the student loans place all of the bad machines that cannot pay them back in a very bad and dark and despairing place, where the bad machines circle and circle in anguish for the rest of their lives, and maybe even after death, in a kind of indebted hell, and for all eternity.
The soul of a deep debtor is a very bad and defective soul, and deserves no sympathy from the factory and from the rest of society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW9DxqYtvmU
For a debtor is a bad machine, and only deserves to be served with more debt, and more.
I agree with the Law Prof's crack about law libraries. There are plenty of truly beautiful and spacious law school libraries and reading rooms, but they belong to the pre-digital age, and it is ridiculous to expand them.
ReplyDeleteIn my office, they boxed up and carted away the huge reporter volumes several years ago. All caselaw is available on Westlaw. The same holds for statutes, public acts, ALRs, jury instructions, legislative history, law review articles (on the exceedingly rare occasions you might want to glance at one), court rules, ect ect. There may be some books that have not yet been digitized, but a year or two more should take care of that.
If law schools really want to build big spacious new law libraries in 2012, they should build them as additions to local prisons. Unlike law students and the practicing bar, prisoners do not have access to electronic research tools, and, therefore, still do hardback research. And, given their harsh surroundings, they would probably really appreciate the space, vaulted ceilings, natural light, oak wainscotting, cork floors, and all the other pretty features of a tastefully designed multi-million dollar library. For prisoners, a spacious law libary would be functional. For law students, however, it is just a scam's pretty facade.
dybbuk
"a scam's pretty facade."
Deletesounds like marriage to a trophy wife.
Or marriage to a hot guy with a tiny penis.
DeleteI don't know. It is sometimes very hard to be a very good looking man.
ReplyDeletePeople seem to get jealous, and I try to explain that being good looking is something that one is born with, and that all the education and money in the world cannot change that, as Oscar Wilde said in so many words.
I suspect that @4:41 PM is a woman by now, and I guess I can accept that.
She feels spurned by me somehow, and has a bee in her bonnet.
But gosh darn it! I didn't mean to place a bee in her bonnet!
And now, her feelings and my feelings are.....................are....
well.......hurt!
Does anyone around here feel that we can perhaps kiss and make up?
Everybody just ignore him and maybe he'll go away. He is only doing it for attention. He has so little in his life that this is the best he can hope for.
DeleteToo bad no one gets JD Painter.
DeleteI think we are all dumber for having read his comments. Let's agree to just skip over them from now on.
DeleteLet's also agree to skip over the law professor comments from now on.
DeleteCALICOCAT.COM!!
No, 2:58AM. Fuck you, the Battlestar Galactica tards, and the non-existant cat.
Delete"If law schools really want to build big spacious new law libraries in 2012, they should build them as additions to local prisons."
ReplyDeleteThis is a quite stunningly brilliant idea, if I may say so.
The increase in law school tuition due to unchecked government laons is exactly like the traditional indemnity health insurance where everything was covered at any price. The health care costs exploded.
ReplyDeleteIf the law schools don't want to be subject to a government change like HMOs being swept into health care, they better tame themselves and make cuts NOW.
I guess watcing the presidential debate was worthwhile tonight (unlike that worthless DePaul Certificate in Health Law)
ChicagoDePaul
side question: has campos announced what to do with the ebook proceeds?
ReplyDeleteTroll. LawProf deserves what he gets from this and more. He put himself out on a limb, and he deserves something for it. Just look back at how he was unfairly vilified when he first called bs on the scam.
DeleteNo, Campos was fairly vilified by many of Prof. Leiter's anonymous colleagues who sent Leiter messages that, for some reason, all read like something Leiter wrote himself:
Deletehttp://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2011/08/update-on-scamprof.html
Meanwhile Campos is raking it in with those ebook proceeds.
lol
Deleteyes $5 is really raking it in.
I hope he sells a million copies, but it seems more like he will sell a few thousand at best.
maybe he can make a few car payments. Or take a vacation.
Yeah, like his $200,000+ salary for teaching one class per semester can't pay the vacation bills...
DeleteHuckster.
@SmallTownBoy
Deleteway to lodge insults at me. u do realize we are on the same side right? (except i'm not affected by the LS scam.) good luck with your lawyering.
"u do realize we are on the same side right?"
Deletelol right.
None of your business. He can spend the money on hookers and blow for all I care.
ReplyDeleteThese attempts to delegitimize Prof. Campos instead of challenging his arguments are pathetic.
What is pathetic is for you to be so blind to a small-time con when it occurred right in front of you... from the initial planning right up to the cash-in, and you defend it even then!
DeleteNo wonder you can't find work.
Why are you so angry? You never explain that.
DeleteDo you really think this whole blog was a con by Lawprof?
I dont think lawprof had any idea how deep the law school scam hole was when he started. And now people have asked for a book to show their parents or friends who are about to make terrible decisions.
How is it a con to sell a book that is going to help people? How would it have been any different if he just wrote the book and published it instead of the blog here?
Do you really think lawprof and DJM would expose themselves to all the pushback they are getting and personal attacks just for a con to make a little money?
If you think that,you have a serious attitude problem and you should just stop reading this blog. Why stick around when you think you are being taken?
And, by the way, I have a biglaw job. I keep telling you not everyone who posts here in unemployed.
This is just one more pathetic attempt by law professors to discredit LP in any way that they can. Law school is destroying peoples' lives? Who cares, LP wrote an ebook that will make $5,000!
DeleteTroll,
ReplyDeleteI recommend you read the book The Last Intellectuals by Russell Jacoby.
Jacoby's argument is that public debate in the US has declined since the 1960s because many people who could, in earlier decades, make a living by writing for the public instead became career academics.
And the problem with that, he argues, is that publishing-for-the-sake-of-publishing in academic journals is a massive time suck. And, meanwhile, academia is intensely political. So many profs just shut up, write for an audience of 12, and don't add to public debate.
LawProf is adding to public debate.
What does Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, have to say about this issue? His portfolio includes student loan policy, right? Student loan interest and repayment plans are of course important, but shouldn't he be thinking about the larger question of whether new loans for law students are good public policy?
ReplyDeleteThat is one of the saddest things when you are going in school. Some people cannot already afford to study because of high tuition fees and prefer to work. Every year the tuition fee increases and the population of students decreases. I wonder why governments are not trying to put something in action in order to solve this issue.
ReplyDeleteSo, as a AU 3L with small prospects for employment next year (seeing as I don't have a fat offer presently sitting in my lap) - I feel entitled to weigh in.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand, I really truly object to the $5K raise in tuition. I also object to the idiocy of the 1L class over all. But, I understand that GPA / LSAT means are down nationally - not just at American.
As for the need for a larger facility, the goal is a larger university goal (not just a law school one). It's part of an over-all campus plan that's been in the works since 2005. AU, once they move WCL over to the rebuilt Tenley campus, wants to move the Business Grad Program over to this building. This may or may not be a good idea, or a timely one. I know it was supposed to be contingent on gaining more foreign LLM students - which we failed to recruit.
Additionally, the library space they speak of is specifically study space: tables, carrells, and meeting rooms
The student common space they're talking about expanding is for publications. One of the schools 5 journals (all of our law reviews and journals are competitive through write on) basically has its office in two large closets, lacking sufficient space to properly run a publication.
The issue with classroom space isn't that there aren't enough chairs- it's that we lack enough larger sized classrooms for allowing sufficient space in classes offered only only once or twice a year. Additionally, it makes scheduling finals particularly hard. They're also trying to build an auditorium of sorts for panels, lectures, guest speakers, and competitions.
The underground space is specifically for parking.
So, all said - they want to use the space well. But they really shouldn't be looking to expand the class size as it's already too large.
Hello, just ωаnted to mention, І liked
ReplyDeletethis blog post. It was funny. Keep οn posting!
My site ... bad credit payday loans