Thursday, July 26, 2012

California court refuses to grant defendants' motions to dismiss in suits against Golden Gate and USF law schools

Orders here and here.

Cases will proceed to formal discovery.

127 comments:

  1. first comment wahooo!!!!

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  2. The law schools are in Barney Rubble Trouble.

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  3. Which New York trial court case did the defendants try to rely on, I wonder ...

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  4. Fanfuckingtastic!!

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  5. The NY case will also be reversed by the Appellate Division based on recent Court of Appeals precedent. This is good, good news.

    Step 2, find unemployed Cooley grads from Cali and sue in Cali Court.

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  6. This non-Californian asks:

    What is a demurrer, and how is it different from a motion to dismiss?

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  8. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=demurrer

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  9. Imagine, allowing a jury to decide questions of fact instead of a judge. What a novel concept!

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  10. Demurrer attacks "defects" in a complaint. A motion, is well...a motion. The MTD in this case is litigation-speak indirectly implying to the P that their case is crappy. Most MTDs are like this.

    The judge's ruling shows that these cases are not crappy.

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  11. It just dawned on me that higher ed in general and law school. in particular needs a formal advocate/ombudsmen. Thanks to Law Prof for assuming this role (and getting results based on the Rutgers mess). This needs to be an official, independent watchdog who will represent the students as it has become clear that the schools only look out for themselves. Discovery in these cases will probably only make this clearer.

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  12. 2:03:

    It was supposed to be the DOE (they even have an ombudsmen) but we have seen, like the ABA for this fucked up profession, that they don't do their job.

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  13. It looks like only 22% of GGU's class of 2011 being employed in long-term legal jobs has led GGU to putting in place a new Dean. She should have good luck turning that around.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/professor-rachel-van-cleave-takes-the-helm-at-golden-gate-university-school-of-law-2012-07-26

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  14. 1:33 -- not quite to a jury yet; I assume there will be summary judgment motions and class action certification motions decided by a judge.

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  15. 2:16, it sez Dean Van Cleave teaches a seminar in Disaster Law. How appropriate!

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  16. Makes the NY trial court's ruling granting a motion to dismiss seem even more absurd.

    A motion to dismiss rarely gets granted in civil litigation unless there is some slam dunk like 1) there is no such cause of action 2) immunity in certain circumstances 3) or some pro se pig's ear complaint that is so lacking in facts it is FUBAR.....

    basically this is only important in that surviving the MTD opens the gates of discovery.

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  18. Why are the orders exactly the same in both cases? Did both defendants use the same demurrer?

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  19. JD Painter Guy,

    You are not a victim. Please stop giving interviews. Your situation is atypical and is hurting the cause.

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  20. ^^^ Oops. I meant 2:35.

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  21. Leiter wept. --dybbuk

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  22. @3:00pm - Agreed! I listened to that interview today on my way home, and here's what I got out of it: A guy who sounds truly mentally ill and immature spending twenty minutes avoiding pertinent and important questions, misunderstanding issues, being selfish, recounting a series of extremely bad (and largely avoidable) decisions, dodging blame, ignoring sensible solutions, reading poems (yeah, that's right, his poems) that would make a lovesick teenager cringe, and generally making everyone with student loan problems look utterly ridiculous. It was like you self-promoting an audio version of your blog posts, just like you’re continuing to self-promote across the scamblogs right now. The interviewer sounded truly embarrassed that he opened up that can of crazy on his otherwise sensible show.

    So THANKS, Painter, for doing yet one more stupid thing that hurts everyone's credibility in this fight. I'd post this at your own blog but you have a habit of deleting anything even remotely critical!

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  23. "Cases will proceed to formal discovery."

    This will be enlightening.

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  24. Anonymous said...

    The law schools are in Barney Rubble Trouble.
    July 26, 2012 1:20 PM

    The most intelligent thing I have read in a long time.

    The World Traveling Law Student | 17.765556%

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  25. Let's get it on!

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  26. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  27. So, conceivably, in discovery we could get correspondence from the ABA to each of these schools (that might also have been sent to all ABA schools) regarding employment statistics reporting practices?

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  28. Discovery should be interesting. I wonder if there will be defendant's motion to seal some or all of the discovery? I'm pretty sure GG will not want some of this info to be widely disseminated.

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  29. Discovery = subpoenas + requests for production... any file you want, any person you want to depose.. ah, this is going to be fun!

    and it would be very fitting if any of these attorneys have some TTT law students working as clerks or assistants - i'm sure they would find it very entertaining to sit in on their own dean's deposition!

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  30. Awesome! This is going to be a good counterweight to the New York dismissal, so more empathetic judges will have this decision to cite.

    Also, does anyone have info on this:

    "The NY case will also be reversed by the Appellate Division based on recent Court of Appeals precedent. This is good, good news."

    Made by anonymous earlier.

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  31. The schools will try and settle with a confidential agreement. Even if the public hates law students, they don't want to be the ones responsible for putting out info on the pattern that every other school most likely follows.

    I wonder which will matter more to plaintiffs, money or exposing the scam?

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  32. GGU grad here, (Dean Van Cleave was my Property Prof, I found her to be personally warm, but her teaching style somewhat impersonal.) I'm very curious to see what comes out in discovery, but suspect the case will ultimately go down on Summary Judgement (but hopefully the public shaming - the only real point of these suits) will have worked by then. One of the named plaintiff's I know fairly well, and I wish them all the best of luck!

    BTW, former Dean Ramey did a lot for the school, and she's personally very gracious, but I think she knows only what the alumni that have "made it" tell her.

    I also found it annoying that no GGU is counsel or co-counsel on this suit.

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  33. As immortalized by the late, great Paul Newman, in his role as Doc Hudson, "The Hudson Hornet" :

    "Hot snot, we are back in business!"

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  34. JDP at 4:38:

    I'm so conservative I'm still not comfortable with the idea of mankind using fire, and I'm quite politically literate, and I truly wish you'd shut yer pie hole.

    At least, please, please stop giving interviews to gullible news herd folk who think you represent any kind of norm. When you post here, you're just irritating and tiresome. When you give whack job interviews, you make people think that the average college or grad student struggling with unpayable loans is also a whack job.

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  35. 4:44 asks, "So, conceivably, in discovery we could get correspondence from the ABA to each of these schools (that might also have been sent to all ABA schools) regarding employment statistics reporting practices?"

    Possibly, but it's also not unlikely that either the schools or the ABA may seek to seal a lot of the production as confidential to one or both of them. Note particularly that judges tend to be more deferential to non-party requests, based on the idea that they've been dragged in sideways and use of their materials is more prejudicial.

    On the other hand, judges are extremely loathe to clear courtrooms. So if you find yourself at loose ends, attendance at trial (or even at MSJ stage) will usually get you access to the juiciest tidbits as they are brought forth during testimony.

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  36. Agree about NY Law. That trial court judge did not apply NY Law correctly. Even sophisticated clients, if one bought his argument, aren't held the standard he was pushing in his opinion. I think what you had there was a judge not wanting to be held responsible for his ruling so he punted to the appeals courts.

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  37. A question for the legal beagels: in discovery, would it be significant if it were found that the schools purposely avoided soliciting salary data from graduates that they knew, from their job descriptions, probably did not have a high income?

    If a school's survey was set up in a way that only replies of salary were requested from those working as attorneys or law clerks and the law school had a disporpotionately high number of graduates who were working in retail, would this be something that plaintiffs' counsel working on these cases would want to know? Could this show later on in the proceedings that rather than merely following ABA customary protocol, a school actually took proactive steps to minimize having to report lower salaries by purposely excluding lower-earning graduates from the salary query while later making the accurate observation that they did not receive salary data from such individuals?

    I am asking because some schools report that they do not receive data from a percentage of graduates. What if it was known that the school was purposely not soliciting this data from graduates who, by their job descriptions, indicated that they may have had lower salaries?

    I would appreciate an answer to this question. I do not want to get into details, but I will say that I received a graduate survey not too long ago that could have, in some individuals' opinions, appeared to have been proactively avoiding collecting salary data of lower-earning graduates and I would like to know if this would be something that counsel for plaintiffs on some of these cases would be interested in.

    Thanks for any info. you all would like to offer.

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  38. 641

    Any evidence that tends towards proving that there was an intent to commit fraud would be usefully. What you are describing sounds like evidence of intent, which may be one of the elements of showing fraud, depending on the state. It would also provide evidence of awareness.

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  39. Yes, it sounds like it would be useful. A smoking gun would be emails etc. that expressly hoped for the disparate impact but you can infer awareness or intent through other means.

    Please send it along to counsel.

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  40. 6:38, "I think what you had there was a judge not wanting to be held responsible for his ruling so he punted to the appeals courts."

    Think you called this one right. I had one case where the federal DC judge called us back for two additional MTD hearing dates (I mean, we had 3 separate MTD hearings), requesting additional briefing in each instance.

    He was an incredibly sharp guy, former DOJ who had handled a lot of False Claims Act cases (in some ways procedurally relevant to what we were pushing for), asked great questions and what not.

    After the 3rd MTD hearing, which was scheduled for 2 hours and went 4 because of his extensive questioning, I was positive he was going to go out on that limb and rule for us.

    I was wrong - he ended up ruling against us (from the bench, that day, after we all got to take a late break for lunch). But in doing so, he said essentially, look, I'm extremely sympathetic to the legal position and arguments that you've put forth, but I'm a district court judge and it's not my job to make new law.

    We won on the subsequent MSJ so never got to directly test our ideas on appeal. (But we did get them reviewed at the appellate level sort of sideways via amicus briefing. The panel mentioned it in their opinion, stating that we raised interesting theories that they would like someday to explore further, but declined to do so then because no party had raised same. Oh well.)

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  41. Thanks for the replies, 6:46 and 7:02. I unfortunately no longer have the salary query, but it was a standard one sent to all of the graduates of the school during one particular year (and possibly during other years as well -I don't know.) All I would have to do is let counsel know during discovery that they should request the employment survey sent to graduates in XXXX year.

    It always bothered me on that survey that it did not request my salary or the salary of the numerous graduates working in non-legal positions (especially since most of us were working in low-paying retail positions) and only allowed those working as attorneys and judicial law clerks to answer the salary question. Since I was aware that so many of us were working in low-wage positions, I knew that excluding our salary data would result in the reporting of inaccurate and skewed salary info. Not too mention the slight of your school not wanting to acknowledge or avoid letting others know of the difficult economic situation that all of its grads were finding ourselves in.

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  42. god love you, judge kahn.

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  43. Great development. I am hoping the law schools have to ante up more employment data in the future. I am also hoping they are on the hook for those tuition dollars based on misleading data. The best outcome would be for them to have a duty to disclose detailed employment data for all of their grads or at least a reasonable group of grads that reflects the outcomes for all of their grads.

    People on this blog are talking about a baby boomer conspiracy here. The truth is that without detailed data and with the huge lawyer surplus, many people who stay in the legal profession are up for years of hard times. Only a requiment of full disclosure of employment outcomes and the law schools being on the hook for misleading information will shut down so many of the lower tier law schools and force even top law schools to draStically cut class size.

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  44. Now what is needed is a mole from the staff of the respective schools.

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  45. All the negative comments and hatred towards Baby Boomers is misplaced. Most of the never earned enough money during their careers to retire. It's not greed; it's necessity -- that's why they still work.

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  46. 9:31

    They went to school cheap.
    They got the best jobs.
    If they didn't go to school, there were still plenty of high-paying options.
    They run the government.

    We see what they have brought upon us.

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  47. Antiro, very well put.

    Given what they were given and how easily it was given to them, most boomers should be living in comfortable retirement. But they took jobs that were handed out like candy, convinced themselves that they earned those jobs through hard work and intelligence, and lived like it would all never end. Now it has ended, so they can't retire, out of "necessity."

    These spoiled fuckers have destroyed this world. And what really kills me is that they love to point out how "whiney" our generation is about being indentured to a government that they run and which now essentially exists only to serve them, when 1) they are the whiniest generation in modern history and 2) they raised us and encouraged us to seek education, but now they suddenly wash their hands of all of that.

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  48. "All the negative comments and hatred towards Baby Boomers is misplaced."

    Every generation in American history had it better than the previous one until Gen X. Every. Single. One.

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  49. Boomers created the mess we have now. You are just beginning to see the hatred towards you. You are probably shocked at the level of hate, you may be shocked that the hatred even exists. All I can say is get used to it, because it isn't going away.

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  50. @9:31
    Why don't you see that we have necessity to work too? And our need for work is just as urgent as, or even more urgent than, the boomers who pissed away their money. We need to pay loans at astronomical levels of debt, we need places to live, we need to be able to have families some day.

    You already had your turn. Now move out of the way.

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  51. Anonymous said...
    god love you, judge kahn.

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  52. The Thomas Jefferson case has already been in formal discovery but I have not heard any juicy tidbits from that one.

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  53. Just LOOK at what the boomers have done to our country. Just LOOK at our national debt.

    To echo a previous commenter: EVERY. SINGLE. GENERATION has had it better than the last. We have it worse.

    WTF?

    You ran the financial system, you ran the government...you ran it all. And YOUR sense of entitlement--NOT OURS--has caused our great debt and hideous bubbles.

    I don't care if you can't retire. Just do it. Your time is over. Collect social security and like it.

    To Boomers, I say: You are NOT your father's generation. Your father would never had done to our country what you have. Your fathers were upstanding MEN who took responsibility, "put God and country" before themselves, saw honor in abstention, would literally give up their lives for what was right, provided for families and knew how to grow up.

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  54. Will the lawsuit against NYLS be able to be revived?

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  55. does anyone else think that the millennials could turn out to be the lite-beer version of the greatest generation?

    both generations suffered/are suffering from the excesses of previous generations. both had/have had to make sacrifices unlike the previous generation. both generations' economic and social movement experienced/are experiencing stunting.

    i wasn't around way back then to know if there was this kind of resentment against the previous generation that seriously screwed over the cohort that came of age during the depression, but i'm sure it must have existed in some form.

    don't worry, boomers. we'll take it from here. we won't even punish you. your punishment will be in being known as a pathetic generation whom your children completely upstaged.

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  56. I really don't understand the hatred against the boomers. At the time they graduated from law school and got their jobs, the current crop of law students had not even been born. They did exactly what the Generation X's are trying to do: get a decent job and try to make a living. For most of us boomers, finding work an d getting paying clients has been a lifelong struggle.

    One thing we boomers can say is our decision to attend law school 30 plus years ago was not totally irrational. But even 30 years ago, the job market was tough.

    However, anyone who entered law school after 1990 was fucking out of their mind! One had to be a total moron to incur high levels of student loan debt in the face the real shitty job market in the legal profession -- which has existed for THE PAST GENERATION. As early as 1985, a quick perusal of government job numbers would have told you the legal market was seriously glutted. Most practicing lawyers would have warned you of the lousy jobs out there.

    The only reason this is even being discussed is because the HYS grads can't find jobs. Everyone else has been struggling for decades. Everyone, including the boomers, have been hurting for years.

    And the law schools keep on pouring more lawyers into an seriously glutted job market. The whole purpose of law schools is to serve as a barrier to entry so this situation would not arise. One certainly does not learn anything of value in law school, let alone how to practice law. The $40,000 a year you are paying in tuition is not to acquire skills, but to lock others out of the profession.

    But whoever thunk there would be thousands upon thousands of idiots who would incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a worthless degree with no job prospects?

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  57. Boomer @ 4:49 AM:

    "I really don't understand the hatred against the boomers.

    . . .

    However, anyone who entered law school after 1990 was fucking out of their mind! One had to be a total moron to incur high levels of student loan debt in the face the real shitty job market in the legal profession -- which has existed for THE PAST GENERATION."

    Yeah, I don't understand it either.

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  58. Don't blame others for your own half assed decision making. Don' blythly blame others because you refused to take off the blinders, and blew a bundle on a worthless degree.

    Another thing you young morons need to consider is you are not in the same job market as the boomers. Someone a couple of years out of law school simply is not competent to do the work they do.

    For example, how many of you could do a cash collateral hearing? How many of you even know what I am talking about?

    How many of you have tried a case to a jury? Or a judge for that matter? And I am not talking about some bullshit legal clinic case, but a real case with real consequences?

    How many of you have handled a felony? Or even a seriou misdemeanor? How many of you have handled a seriously contested divorce? Or how about real estate fraud? Or a contract dispute? Or tried to collect money?

    Because if you have not handled any of these basic garden variety legal matters, you are of no earthly good to anyone. And you certainly are not entitled to be paid more than a judge who practice for 20 years before sitting on the bench for 10.

    And you certainly are not qualified to do the jobs that most of the boomers are doing.

    Since law school is a complete waste of time and money, you are dependent upon those boomer lawyers to give you a job and teach you the ropes. Bad mouthing them is the fastest way of getting shit canned I can think of. this is especially true in a crappy job market where there are a thousand people who would love to have you job.

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  59. LOL. They are so clueless they wont understand why that quote is perfection.

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  60. 4:49 and 4:54

    We described it already. You had it easy. Your parents won the war and set you up for success.

    And, like vampires, you sucked this country dry to the point that we are over $16 trillion in debt, and our country's economy is in tatters, and the spending over the past years has gotten us nowhere.

    You are unhealthy, you haven't saved, and you will expect taxes to be raised on those working and spending on the younger generation to be slashed after you retire.

    I am truly worried for my generation and the younger crowd. We did what you told us, we did what worked for you, and what we see is $1 trillion in our educational debt, $16 trillion in federal debt, and a laughable economy where you still rule the roost.

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  61. @5:17

    Why so defensive boomers? Can't face the mess you've created of our profession and our economy?

    How much more can you whine about us?

    You have a typical boomer response: blame us, call us names and then threaten us.

    You are so mad because you can't face reality of what you have done.

    You can keep putting your fingers in your ears and saying"la-la-la" but you can't avoid the world you created because you are living it.

    boomer hater

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  62. Generations are phony constructs popularized by Howe and Strauss to sell their faux-sociology divide and conquer nonsense to the unsuspecting masses.

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  64. @5:38 I'm sure that academic exercise lets you sleep at night.
    I have no problem dividing the boomers from the millenials.

    boomer hater

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  65. Those Boomer's "who don't understand the hatred against them" prove the points being made about themselves. Nearly the whole generation is so self-absorbed that they don't realize their own negative impact on prior generations.

    Remember ya Boomer assholes, we were the little kids who watched the nasty custody battles because your marriage was just too hard. We watched as you saved nothing for retirement but still bought expensive clothes, homes, and cars. Now, with all this debt, we have watched your kind (20 years of Baby Boomer Presidents) in office start wars, mess with educational programs, health SCARE, social security, etc... all in an attempt to keep the system rigged in YOUR favor. The Baby Boomers only care about themselves. The pattern has persisted for decades but it is coming to an end.

    When the Xers and Yers get into power, I think some significant changes will be made. Many of the changes will not be to the Boomers' liking.

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  66. In 1990 law school was still about 2-3 times cheaper in terms of real, inflation adjusted dollars, than it is today. Even if you didn't get a good legal job or good work your debt was still manageable.

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  67. future generations, fuck.

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  68. JDPainter

    ""anyone who entered law school after 1990 was fucking out of their mind!"

    That statement is just another 20-20 hindsight version of the personal responsibility argument.

    But still, I wish someone had told me that back then. But there was no internet or blogs. In fact, computers were still being made with vacuum tubes."

    High School teacher told me back then that there wasn't a need for more lawyers. Plus personal computers were being made with ICs since the 1970's. Internet existed as first the ARPAnet in the 1960's and contrary to what the idiots at the Wall Street journal think, was a government project.

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  69. JDPainter

    PS. Writing love poems to Ann Coulter makes you sound like a stalker.

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  70. Paul Campos is a boomer. So is DJM.

    Hate them, boomer hater, hate them.

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  71. True, but they are Boomers who get it. It is the 95% of Boomers that give the rest a bad name.

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  72. I think this was mentioned on another thread--the current birth rates in the US are the lowest in 25 years. Due of course to the shitty economy, and the fact that large numbers of young adults are un/underemployed, have massive student loan debt, and are otherwise unable to afford to marry and start families(as well as buy homes, save for retirement, etc.). This is not a good trend for either the short or long term. It is bad in the short term because the economy depends on consumer demand to grow, and when so many people are broke there is no growth. It is bad in the long term because Social Security and Medicare are income transfer programs, and fewer young people means less money in the long run to support beneficiaries of these programs.

    Im a lot better at talking about problems than solutions. But the resolution to these problems is not going to be easy. I'll repeat myself--government needs to get out of the student loan business, and student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy after a period of time, if it is obvious the borrower will not be able to repay them.

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  73. Hatred toward boomers is not misplaced. History will not be kind to that generation.

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  74. 95 percent? That's all? I would have guessed that at least 97% of all American citizens born between 1946 and 1964 would have had exactly the same life experiences resulting in exactly the same political, social, and economic views.

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  75. JDP @ 5:38:

    "Oh, and I thought I heard a fly buzzing around here.... Ah yes! It was July 26th, 6:30PM w...Talk about uncreativity and resorting to street level cliches like "Pie hole" ... And you went to law school? Are you sure you did? Can't you come up with a better insult than that?"

    JDP - thanks for offering me a more humorous and courteous reply than I gave to you. I apologize for the insult. And to answer your question, yeah I went to LS in the `90s.

    So, without any further insult (uncreative or otherwise), please consider the following.

    You are one case of a guy who has been horrendously damaged by school debt. But the media seem to treat you as an archetype, even though you are not such.

    So please listen to yourself on the NPR episode, as if you don't know the guy speaking. Listen as an ignorant layperson audience member.

    Does that guy you're listening to help the LSScam cause, in the perception of that ignorant layperson?

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  76. Hatred toward boomers is not misplaced. History will not be kind to that generation.

    Funny, that's what the Hippies and Yippies said about their parents' and grandparents' "generations." And look how they turned out.

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  77. See, you guys, this is where we have a failure to communicate.
    You keep taking generational complaints which are undeniable and applying them to individual people. I'm not going to look up lawprof's and DJM's ages, because it isn't relevant to me.

    In fact I am proud of lawprof and DJM. Here we have two people who are benefitting mightily from the law school scam, yet they have stuck their necks out to help out the next generation.

    Do you see the difference yet? Shall I spell it out for you?

    See, they are part of the generation that created the culture of requiring higher education, allowed educational costs to far exceed inflation, while at the same time making it impossible to discharge educational loans in bankruptcy. I can hate the generation for setting up that system and teaching me to believe and trust in that system because the system benefitted that generation, not mine.

    But I can admire people who as individuals are willing to stand up and try to fight corruption and fraud within the legal educational system.

    The reality is, boomer, instead of being on the side of fixing wrongs your generation inflicted on this nation and this profession, you prefer to blame the young generation. You prefer to come up with petty insults and pointless statements instead of confronting your culpability.

    And you get really mad if anyone calls you out on you failures.

    boomer hater

    PS. My Mom had a good laugh at the post from yesterday saying that the millenials who complained weren't loved enough as children. She facebooked it to my large, supportive family. We plan to have more fun with it at my cousin's large 30th birthday party this weekend.

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  78. @6:31
    Their generation didn't rob their children. Also they defeated the Nazi's, overcame the depression and left the country in good shape.

    Are you seriously comparing the Hippies to the soldiers who defeated Hitler? Yes, I'm sure their legacy will be treated the same by history.

    In fact, millenials hate boomers for spitting in the face of the soldiers who returned from Vietnam. Shame, shame on you for that. You will not be forgiven. Bet you didn't know that one was out there.

    ~boomer hater

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  79. 10:50 p.m. writes, "Every generation in American history had it better than the previous one until Gen X. Every. Single. One."

    Might have to moderate that a bit. I know many people born in the 20s** (who came of age in the 30s) who would say that their parents' generation wrecked the world for them, while blithely partying on as if the party would never come to an end.

    ** And yes, most of them are dead now.

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  80. Seems someone just wrote that they hate boomers for spitting in boomer's faces?

    You do realize that many, many of those who were spit upon had the tools to become successful in society, as measured by boomer society, and so contributed to what you condemn?

    Just askin'.

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  81. Goddamn I love all this boomer hate. Keep it up, commenters, keep it up. This message needs to gain steam and our generation needs to be loud about it.

    - born in '82

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  82. Boomer Hater,

    I am a Gen X/Y guy. Small historical bone to pick, the hippies spitting on soldiers thing is a myth, or at least almost entirely a myth. See "The Spitting Image" by Jerry Lembcke discussed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image and http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/06/why-is-obama-pushing-myths-about-vietnam-veterans.

    It's a small thing but the kind of inaccuracies that lower the quality of debate.

    Regards,
    Templar

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  83. Are you seriously comparing the Hippies to the soldiers who defeated Hitler

    Uh, no. I'm saying that your generational nonsense is not unlike the generational nonsense voiced by the Hippies and Yippies. And the generational nonsense of every group of twenty-somethings before them.

    Again, neatly demarcated chronological constructs are just ways to divide and conquer on the basis of age. Mark Zuckerburg has more in common with Warren Buffet than he does with you our I. And for the record I was born in December of 1964. So am I a "boomer" or a "gen X-er"? Answer: it's meaningless either way.

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  84. "Again, neatly demarcated chronological constructs are just ways to divide and conquer on the basis of age."

    Bullshit. This quote may be relevant for any other generation at any other time, but not relevant towards the Boomers.

    The Boomers care only about themselves and they have made that readily clear over the years. Don't try to use the "age" defense as a basis for divide and conquer strategies. In this context, it is VERY relevant because again, the Boomers have taxed the young in order to continue their selfish party. AGE has everything to do with that. As an aside, I find it interesting that the Social Security system will have enough money in it for the oldest Boomers until they are 90. In turn, it will run out on the Xer's when they reach their sixties. Tell me how the Boomers have not created a "divide and conquer" strategy based on age?

    Cutting the Boomers out is the only way to survive. I would ally with any other generation except them.

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  85. Yes, that sharecroppers son, born in Jim Crow Mississippi in 1948, drafted into Vietnam in 1968 and living on poverty wages paid by Tyson chicken in 2008 sure has a lot of power over you white, college-educated scions of the middle class. I mean he's a boomer after all, and they all have power over you.

    And FYI, the tax rates were much higher during the 1950-1970s when the boomers were young than they are now, dipshit.

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  86. Spare me 7:52.

    I guess it is ok, to use the poorest most disadvantaged as an example for all. It is typical of how the Baby Boomers think. They are too self-absorbed to realize that an INDIVIDUAL experience may not be the norm of the larger group experience. You know, such larger group experiences like low educational loans, a job market with multiple job offers, viable social security, parents who spoiled them and bought them cars and other material items....an out from Vietnam with the same low-cost student loans.

    Even though you found it ok to inject race into the matter by referring to us "white college-educated scions of the middle class" I will be sure not to make a racial issue out of the matter since Boomers will find a way to stifle that conversation by saying I am a bigot. Your double-standard on the race issue does not go unnoticed, asshole.

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  87. "I guess it is ok, to use the poorest most disadvantaged as an example for all. It is typical of how the Baby Boomers think."

    Wow, nice pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/pot/kettle/black/

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  88. "tax rates were much higher during the 1950-1970s."

    Everything is relative, jackass. People had pensions and healthcare paid for by their employers, wages were not stagnant and homes were dirt cheap-even accounting for inflation.

    At least tell the whole story and not one little part, fucko.

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  89. This little debate about spitting is funny because I saw a movie about the construction of the Vietnam War Memorial. A soldier said that people spit on him at the airport when he arrived home in his uniform. He testified at hearing regarding the construction of the monument. He felt that he deserved more than just a wall, that the wall would be just another way of minimizing what he went through. It was recorded at the time of the making of the wall. He was one of the soldiers who advocated successfully that they wanted a statue as part of the memorial.

    Sorry if you are offended that I take his work over yours, but I will.

    You can call this "generational nonsense", typical of boomers to not want to listen to anything that paints them in a bad light.

    You are mistaken if you think this generational hatred is the same discontent the selfish hippies and yippies who wanted to "tune in, turn on and drop out" had against their parents. They had jobs, easy ways to travel, cheap gas, no worries.

    We are fighting for our lives and our futures. We aren't going to carry you on our backs forever.

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  90. This is the film if you care to watch it and see what the soldier says happened to him on his return to Vietnam:

    Maya Lin: A Clear Strong Vision

    http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=990CE3DC113BF93AA15753C1A963958260

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  91. Sorry I mean "return to America from Vietnam."

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  92. (hippie drove Volkswagen bus from New York to San Francisco in the '60s dropping acid)
    (requires drug tests of all workers now)

    (hippie protested for peace by sitting down)
    (votes for Bush twice)

    (hippie marched for civil rights)
    (opposes AA if it hurts their white kid, supports legacy admissions)
    (gets mad at immigrants if they don't speak English)

    (hippie sit-ins)
    (deride all aspects of the Occupy Movement)

    (hippies burn flag to protest Vietnam War)
    (try to get anti-flag burning amendment added to the Constitution)

    (hippies got everything they wanted)
    (still don't care who pays the price as long as it isn't them)

    Oh man, I could go on all day.

    ~ boomer hater ( Note: anti-flag burning amendment meme was on TLS)

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  93. "(gets mad at immigrants if they don't speak English)"

    Not to try to deflect you gals from your entertaining little cat fight, but this reminds me of the funny exchange in "12 Angry Men".

    Juror # X - (Angry WASP Male, discussing the defendant): "He don't even speak good English!"

    Juror # XI - (Hispanic immigrant and naturalized citizen, gently): "You mean he doesn't even speak good English?"

    This concludes the cat-fight interruption.

    Scratch on.

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  94. "And for the record I was born in December of 1964."

    No you were born in 1963. Wikipedia told me so.

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  95. Boy has this comment section gone to shit.

    Funny... a case makes it to discovery so you all think victory is in hand and are now turning all of your wrath to "boomers."

    Young, immature, self-entitled little stupid shits.

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  96. Re the spitting in the face of returning soldiers:

    1. It doesn't have to be literal spitting, though the soldier in the film claims it was so. Watch that film and you will feel the heartbreak of those soldiers who were outcasts when they returned home. Millennials can't understand why you did that to them. It is unfathomable.

    2. The comment about boomers spitting in the face of soldiers came up in response to a preceding comment. That comment claimed millennial hate of boomers was the same as the hippie and yippie hate of the Greatest Generation. My point is that history will not value boomers as anything close to what their parents created. We think the boomers will be known as the Worst Generation.

    3. Yes, we do understand that Vietnam vets are boomers too. (though I would argue with your claim that they had the same tools as those hippies and yippies who didn't serve, these Veterans were damaged. Instead of getting help they were maligned.) We can still hate boomers for the way they turned their backs on their own brothers.

    This is your legacy to us and to history, boomers: you think you, like Victoria Pynchon, are due admiration for ending a war more than 30 years ago; instead, you are due our contempt for the way you treated those soldiers.

    History isn't going to pick and choose here. You are going to be remembered as people who cruelly treated returning veterans. Be proud boomers, you have done so much.

    And again, I bet that no boomer here had any idea how millennials feel about Vietnam. Boomers see Vietnam as a point of pride. The list of things you don't know about us is long.


    ~boomer hater :)

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  97. ^^^^^^^ So many logical phallusies, so little time.

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  98. Many of us boomers are horrified at what is happening to law school grads. They are scammed because there is a huge amount of misinformation. The law schools hurt the current generation by overexpanding and jacking up prices. The law schools also hurt boomers terribly and took away many boomer legal jobs from overexpansion.

    I fhink for some people there is an element of this is someone else's fault. Yes, if you are in the top third of a top 25 law school, or had a good summer gig, there is a big element of injustice in not finding a legal job. On the other hand, if you are middle of the class at a lower ranked school and had a middling undergraduate record, did you really do all the diligence that you should have? Should you be surprised that your employment opportunities are not great. Then there is the factor of not having a summer job in the legal profession- didn't you notice something was wrong when you went back to your camp counselor job the summer after your 2L year?

    People who say on this blog that long term employment statistics are for an AARP blog, not this one, have their head in the sand the same way that a guy in the middle of the class at a lower ranked school with a middling undergrad record who was a camp counselor after his 2L summer does. This middling guy should not be outraged and surprised that he did not get a legal job after graduation.

    The value of the law degree depends upon earning potential of the grad over a lifetime, not only 9 months after graduation. Any valuation expert will tell you this is the case. The expected lifetime earnings from the degree should be a major factor in a student's decision to invest three years and in most cases hundreds of thousands of dollars in the degree. Sorry 9-month trolls, but you are doing a disservice to yourselves and those that follow you to limit this blog to 9-month from graduation outcomes.

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  99. 2:47:

    I think you are confused about the facts. Your thinking is typical of a Boomer.

    1. A person with middling credentials at a non-top 50 school is probably delusional if they think they are gonna get a job at 160K starting. HOWEVER most of us just want a job...any job...30K job... Most of us knew going in that unless we got into an ivy league school, those jobs were out of reach. HOWEVER, when schools tout 90-plus employment, many of us thought SOMETHING in the range of 30-40K would be reasonable. You know, get in and move up, like our parents....

    2. 9 Month troll: Ummm 9 months is a SHITTY marker for determining a career. Law schools know that if legal employment is not attained by a law graduate within 9 months of graduation, then it will probably never happen. This is why they fight so much to keep it only to nine months. Most my classmates ten years out are not practicing law at all. I would love to see the long-term career goals five and ten years out. The numbers suggest they are dismal. The law schools state that the entire career of a law graduate cannot be measured in nine months yet make no effort to contact graduates outside that window. They provide no data after nine months either. All signs point to a bloodbath after about five years in this profession yet law schools refuse to acknowledge that fact.

    3. I wonder what it is with you fucking Boomers. Just because people complain that they do not have a job, it does not immediately mean that they are only complaining about not having a 160K-a-year job. I know so many people who would kill for a 30K-a-year job.

    Your comment suggests that you are ill-informed and clueless on this subject. Try educating yourself on the matter before judging. If this is too hard for ya, then please read your AARP magazine and STFU.

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  100. I bet that no boomer here had any idea how millennials feel about Vietnam

    Thankfully you're a spokesperson for your entire "generation" and can tell us how all 80 million Americans born between 1982-2000 collectively feel about our misadventures in Indochina. Then maybe you can tell us how all Virgos feel about it. Although to be fair, astrologers don't present their arbitrary chronological irrationalities under the guise of (pseudo)sociological truths.

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  101. Antiro:

    4:54 AM here. I don't think you quite got the sarcasm in my comment?

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  102. There are surely plenty of things you can try for outside of a legal job that may not materialize and working in retail if you live in a large urban area. Everything from real estate, human resources, trying to get a job in a service or manufacturing business or a bank or insurance company. In this economy, these jobs do not happen overnight. These jobs should all pay $40,000 or so in a large urban area. The problem is you have to look and look and look - for months and months and months - to get something.

    It has never been true that middling students from middling law schools had good job prospects or could practice law at all. When I worked several years ago at a large firm, a very competent guy who presented himself well but graduated from a law school well below the top and above the very bottom was a legal assistant. My impression is that even before the law school bubble, many people who graduated law school could not get legal jobs.

    In fact, what I am saying, is that if there is a bloodbath after 5 or 10 years, you are better off holding for that job in human resources or real estate or whatever. This website gives the impression that JD required jobs are superior. That is not the case in this imbalanced supply-demand situation where Biglaw is belching out 4,000 20/30 somethings with top academic credentials each year into a legal job market that is just not absorbing all of these people possibly in the short run and very clearly in the long run.

    For those of us boomers who are not clueless, and honestly trying to be helpful, law school may be a somewhat sunk cost. If you can get that bank/insurance company/real estate/human resources/ private equity company or whatever job where there is not a pyramidal employment structure, not thousands of top experienced people belched out into the job market each year, you may be better off than with a JD required job.

    If you live in the middle of a non-urban area, you need to look at businesses that might do well for the area and learn one from the bottom. Learn to work at a gas station, and try to buy one with a partner if you can.

    The law game may not be your best bet, and by continuing to bark up only that tree you are only going to continue to frustrate yourself. When and if you get that legal job, it may or may not last.

    Open up your job search to one more area and stick with it until you get either the legal job or a job in that other area. A JD is useful for example if you are a financial adviser doing estate planning and wealth building, areas I did not mention above, or in any of the above areas.

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  103. 7:47:

    You truly are a clueless Baby Boomer along the likes of Victoria Pynchon.

    You understand that most companies will not hire a JD in a non-JD position, right? It is a black mark on the resume. Read the scamblogs, they all say the same thing re this topic.

    How do you advise I start a business with the debt? Who will loan the money with that huge debt?

    I could go on but your arguments are so worn out and over-used that it is not worth it. Educate yourself on this matter and then come back here.

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  104. I think people who went to a really good law school like GW or Fordham, and were not in the bottom of the class and ended up with law school funded jobs were scammed, as was the 11% of Columbia's class in law school funded jobs.

    Some of us went to law school before the days of the internet, and did not even bother to ask what the employment statistics were. My T6 law school never disclosed their employment statistics until the last year or two. Yes, there are many people in law school funded jobs today from my law school, the class size is a little less than twice the size of my class, and yes I am very very pissed at what the Dean is doing- bulking up staff and then class size to pay the tab.

    But if I had gone to one of the lower ranked law schools, as I considered at one point as part of a move, I knew that I might not get a job. I knew that T20 school would hurt my chances at a job, and did not make that move partly for that reason. That was many years ago long before the law school bubble. I always knew that going to a school that was not local, even if it was Yale, and especially if it was Stanford, would not be a great help in getting a BigLaw job in the Northeast corridor (between Boston and Washington). Local always did and still does make a big difference in landing a legal job.

    The bottom line - do not trust anyone, be cautious, do your own diligence before making any important decision.

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  105. A JD is useful if you are working in any number of areas. If you focus on one non legal area, network and tell people you wanted the JD because it is useful, but did not want to practice law, they will believe you.

    People start businesses and get money from outside sources. Have you ever gone to a venture capital website where people are searching for investors for their ideas? The investment is based on the business and not on someone's law school debt.

    Some people raise money from relatives, others find equity investors or partners. You can always work for a little while and then try to get your business started based on your expertise.

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  106. 8:29:

    You have an answer for everything, clueless Baby Boomer. I am sure so many people have money to loan to their indebted relatives.

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  107. New companies get funding from wherever they can. Equity is not a loan. If you have expertise and a good idea, you may be able to get equity investors. The structures of startups vary. Look up venture capital. Have you ever heard of it? I am not making it up. It is an industry that helps penniless people with good ideas and expertise get funding. The business is on the hook for obligations of the company and founders often do not have to use their personal credit.

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  108. Once you have credentials in an area - one or two industRy groups you belong to and show up at, the JD will not be toxic in a job search.

    People can say the legal profession is troubled and that they decided opportunities are better in the other area.

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  109. We should raise taxes on anyone making $250,000 a year -- mostly baby boomers, all law school professors and administrators, etc -- and cut by 80% the military and the elderly entitlement programs that will continue to suck the economy into a permanent black hole. If any boomers have failed to save enough for 30 years of retirement, oh well, caveat emptor.

    We should shift most of that money to pay for education and a hopeful future for our children. Oh, and we should allow the discharging of student debt in bankruptcy, including those students with current debt, regardless of the tissy fit that the college and bank lobby will throw.

    Last month, the New York Times reported on a perfect metaphor for the coming storm. According to the story, the population of Florida in the next decade will be one half retirees, which is destroying the economy. The college graduates flee the state after graduation because no jobs exist and the retirees vote only for themselves by killing all taxes despite Florida having the least funded public schools (which is dysfunctional even by southern standards). Regardless of having grandchildren, languishing in poverty in housing-areas-turned-ghost-towns after the real estate scam, they vote for no help and for hire state-sponsored medical programs for themselves only, not for medicaid or anything else.

    But, the one ray of hope for the future generations: people do eventually die. Unfortunately, pain makes people act irrationally, and I hope our betrayed generation does not try to take over the role of the societal parasite and suck off our children. One might think, why not? They did it to us, isn't that the circle of life? Isn't that the American way? I have mine already, and you want to do what I did and get what I have, go fuck yourself!

    In our future, I hope we return to some of the altruism (or at least maturity) of past generations.

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  110. @ JULY 27, 2012 8:20 PM

    not that it makes any significant difference, but the columbia fellowship is 38/445=.085 or approximately 8.5%.

    also, one of the comments said "Something you didn't mention - most of the people w fellowships chose a public interest career path and either didn't participate in eip or rejected their private practice offers."


    thanks for posting the comment though. I've always wondered what the bottom of T14 graduates end up doing and why they got there (besides low grades).

    http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/columbia-law-school-employment-troubles.html

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  111. I think a lot of people on this site are very discouraged. The truth is that they should be discouraged from seeking JD required jobs because the market is so awful for JDs. The silver lining is that once you say to yourself this is a scam, your law degree is useful for what you plan to do, and you are going to try to actively do something else, the pain is numbed. The economics may not work if you took on a lot of debt, but within a year or two you actually may be starting on a decent long-term career path. It is crazy to mourn over the inavailability of legal jobs. Get yourself enthused about another career path that is hopefully JD very useful.

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  112. AdamB writes, "We should raise taxes on anyone making $250,000 a year"

    See the taxprof's blog. These folks are already paying over 90% of the federal tax.

    Grow up, get a brain, edjamakate yersef.

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  113. "Get yourself enthused about another career path that is hopefully JD very useful."
    What kind of drugs are you on? There are no career paths, only dead end jobs in the service sector. A JD won't help you stock shelves at Home Depot or work the cash register at Starbucks.

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  114. Okay, if you really think that. There are other openings besides Home Depot or Starbucks in larger urban areas. They are hard to get. So are law jobs. Then there also are more menial jobs that lead to a decent career path. You cannot become a cop, a plumber, an assistant building superintendent, for example? Or go to a smaller store in retail where you at least learn the business they are in?

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  115. Just to clarify, the JD may or may not be a sunk cost if are in the 45% that cannot get legal jobs at the outset. It may turn out to be very useful for example if you are running a business or portion of a business later on. For example, you can start at Target, move to an eyeglass store, open your owneyeglass store and then a few of them later in life. Probably make more money with less pressure and a longer career if you own all or part of three eyeglass stores than as a lawyer. Once you are running one or more stores, the law degree has to be quite helpful.

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  116. 8:27:

    Gee, at 100K of debt, I hope the JD "might" be helpful. Of course the more prudent course is to skip law school altogether.....

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  117. I find the lack of tongue-in-cheek humor or self-awareness with the defensive "trolls" very telling.

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  118. There us nothing you can do about having incurred a lot of debt for a law degree unless the courts or Congress give you relief.

    In terms of trying to plan your future that may be ouside the legal profession, you can take proactive steps.

    Do not think you are alone in being injured by the scam. It impacts many lawyers young and old because of the huge oversupply of lawyers, the law schools having economic incentives to maximize the oversupply, the lack of reliable information about employment outcomes and the ongoing BigLaw Belch of thousands of highly credentialled and mostly young lawyers onto the job market. Essentially the market is flooded with lawyers at all levels competing for few jobs.

    If you are young and just starting out, there are other options. Just look systematically and decide what you are going to do. Will not be easy, but at least you are not banging your head against a wall.

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  119. 5:58PM

    "See the taxprof's blog. These folks are already paying over 90% of the federal tax."

    You're fucking pathetic. Stop crying in your beer.

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  120. The law school scam movement has already demonstrated a lot about the nature of boomers. Take for example Brian Leiter and Jack Marshall, both boomers, and two of the most notorious law school apologists and prolific anti-scamblogger trolls. Neither actually works. One of them gets paid to write law review articles that no one reads and teach classes that do nothing to prepare law students to practice law, while the other rants on about ethics on a blog that appears to have been created in 1997 and gets paid by bar associations to teach ethics to licensed attorneys (even though he clearly knows nothing about ethics), which these attorneys fork over money to attend in order to remain in good standing with the bar associations.

    I understand that these two morons aren't representative of all boomers. But I don't think it's a coincidence that many older attorneys who do in fact work for a living tend to sympathize with the scambloggers rather than the “philosophers” and “ethics gurus.” There are, after all, a good number of boomers who had to earn their current positions, and they deserve respect.

    That due respect aside, it's boomers like like Assclown and Jackass that our generation is truly up against. They love this system (which is different from “the system” that their generation always complained about but could never really identify; this is a system that is turning our generation into indentured servants for the explicit benefit of boomers) because they benefit from this system, so they will go to ridiculous lengths to defend it. When simple facts are thrown in their face, they won't look at them because they “know how it is.” When young people voice concern about unethical behavior, deceit or fraud, they label those people as “whiney” and “entitled” and tell them to shut their mouths. Perhaps worst, they will completely make things up and convince themselves that they are right, without question, if it benefits them to do so.

    This is how fucked up these boomers are. They detest anything that challenges this system - a system that they built by leaching off of the greatest generation, convincing themselves that they earned and deserved everything that they were handed or stole, and entirely screwing over subsequent generations. Fortunately, we have facts and they have their lies, slander and mindless rants. It won't be too much longer until these boomers are run out of their positions of power and forced to wither away on what's left of Social Security.

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  121. This informative guideline denotes a great deal a person like me and a whole lot more to my colleagues. Best wishes;from all of us.

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  122. I think we need to about all FAQ before getting admission in law school.

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