Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Cautionary tales

Don't Go to Law School (Unless), which was published as an e-book last month, is now available as a physical book, for those who prefer that medium. 

October LSAT scores will be released in the next day or so, and in addition to reading DGTLSU, prospective law students should consider things such as this message:

Professor Campos,

My school does not officially rank, and to the extent they pigeonhole students it is by top 5%, 10%, 15%, top third, etc breakdowns.  Students talk, of course, and as best I can gather I finished second overall in my 1L class.  At the very least I was well above the top 5% threshold.  (We have a shade under 300 students in the first year program).  Roughly 10% of the class in 2011 and 2010 landed jobs at firms with 100 or more attorneys.  Another 2 or 3% of these classes landed Article III or State Supreme Court or Chancery Court clerkships, and it is reasonable to assume they had offers at those kind of firms or will be in position to get one at the end of their clerkship [Ed note: I wouldn't be so sure about that. This was true five years ago, but seems much less so today].  So looking at these numbers one should be pretty comfortable finishing in the top 5-10% of the class.  This year's reality says not so much.

BigLaw OCI just wrapped up at our school.  One or two offers might still be dangling out there, but for all intents and purposes people either know where they will be next summer or know they have to figure out a plan B on the fly.  My school is a T2 in a major population center (top 10 in population city).  I don't know what I was expecting in retrospect, but OCI wound up being a white knuckle affair.  I got callbacks with 15% of the firms I did "screener" interviews.  Thankfully I had a large enough sample where a 15% success rate meant not just a callback but an offer, too.  Still, I came way to close to striking out.

Other people in the top 5% did strike out.  These are folks on Law Review and/or moot court.  They are outstanding, personable, sensible men and women who have a lot to offer a firm.  But the firms don't have anything to offer them.  What was really disappointing were the number of screeners to callbacks to positions available ratio.  I don't think your readers (especially the ones thinking of going to school) understand this.  For instance one NLJ 250 firm came to my school to screen 20 candidates.  According to NALP they do OCI at 9 schools.  7 of them are in the geographic area of my school, so it is fair to assume all 7 schools were interviewing for the same office.  Total positions they were looking to fill for next summer:  3.  The anecdotal evidence suggests this firm was hardly an outlier but rather representative of the hiring ratios most firms were using.  In short, many of the firms who came to my school to interview 20+ people did so with one or two callbacks in mind to produce 2, 1 or 0 offers to my classmates.  When you are dealing with these kinds of yields, GPA distinctions such as 3.95 or 3.80 or 3.72 matter as much as what color tie you are wearing that day.  All 20 people who interviewed at the above referenced firm had tremendous measureables.  All that got you is the chance to be the amongst the one or two they called back.  Multiply that by 7 schools, and you are looking at 14 people for three jobs out of a group of roughly 140 who can all say they are 5-10%ers with law review and other tremendous markers.  When you think about it that way it is surprising that more people in the top 5% didn't strike out. 

I sat down with a classmate recently to go over a few items from class this current semester.  During our conversation we discussed briefly the year in OCI (we both have summer jobs lined up at V100 firms), and we both agreed that only a fool (ourselves included) would take a chance with law school. 

I mention this not to brag, as no doubt most people would love to do well enough to participate in OCI and get a job offer at the end of it.  I mention this to put a real story on what the whole process, from the first day of 1L to the end of OCI actually looks like.  Enroll at a school where the median LSAT is around the 80th percentile.  So already you are "smarter" than 4 out of 5 people going to schools across the country.  Work your ass off first semester.  Skip Thanksgiving with the family cause you are outlining.  Spend half your weekends with your study group, the other half reviewing your notes on your own.  Look around you and realize that forty other people in your section have done the same.  You need to finish better than all but two of these folks to make top 5%.  And what do you know, you do.  Congrats.  Now do it all over again in the second semester.  If you are fortunate enough to ace things again in the second semester then all you have done is earn a chance to be the person to score the one or two callbacks at xyz firm available for the 20 people just like yourself during OCI.  And if you do, now you have to ace the process again when the odds are still in many cases better than 50-50 against you.  That's what it takes for the vast majority of people (at the non T-14 schools) to land the kind of job that one had in mind at the start of the law school process.  Proceed at your own risk.

94 comments:

  1. It looks like the Michigan Bar has taken it upon itself to cull the herd. Only a 55% passing rate on the July bar exam:

    http://bitly.com/TSmQDf

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    1. I was wondering why the number of people passing the bar was so low. Only 80% of UM grads passed the bar. WTF

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    2. Good. Most states' bar exams should be like 20 times more difficult than they are today.

      Delete
  2. I graduated in 2008 and passed the bar first time.

    I went to law school as an experienced patent agent with a Computer Science degree. Finished 3/235 out of 1L and finished 13/205 out of 3L. Magna cum laude.

    Never even got an interview.

    So I went solo. After the first year I grossed about 12K.
    In the second year I rented an office near a corner of a very busy intersection in my very very large metropolitan area. The traffic at that corner was over 60K cars a day. Put my name and number and family law and criminal law on two signs that came with the office on that busy corner.

    In 8 months I got two calls and zero clients from the signs.

    Grossed 15K that year.
    But that time I was out of savings.

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    1. P.S. I also spent money on google ads and other internet ads, and took what few crim def and family law appointments were available for inexperienced lawyers, and I took credit card cases and also wandered the halls of the crim court at docket call.

      All for naught.

      The law school scam will go down. I will make sure of that.

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    2. P.P.S: my school was 4th tier and I paid no tuition. Still a huge waste and time and nearly bankrupted me. I had to borrow money from family.

      Die, law school scam, die.

      Delete
    3. Perhaps you should have taken a 100 Level Business because clearly you have no clue about how to generate business.

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    4. You could be me. Same story. Top of class, struck out in OCI, left on scrapheap, tried to go solo and it is a fucking wasteland out there.

      Lost money on the "business". Gave up.

      Now also dedicated to bringing this piece of shit scam down, and punishing those who fucked me. Yes, professors and admissions staff and career staff, I'm looking right at you!

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    5. How is your failure anyone else's fault?

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    6. I am so glad to read this only because when I graduated and could not find a job, I thought there was something wrong with me. I took a hit to my self esteem. Like many, I have debt that I can't pay, and my jobs have not been regular positions. And, the debt has been horrible. I wish I would of listened when people told me not to go to law school. But, since I have the degree and bar membership, I have no choice but to make the best of it.

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  3. I am at a school in DC that isn't GW or GULC. I got *ONE* job offer for a summer associate position after 40-50 "screener" interviews (2% success rate). OCI was horribly draining. I was lucky. Many were not.

    Also, I looked into it and found that there were 1000 or MORE applications submitted for the 4-8 spots available for summer 2013. One Half of ONE Percent (.5 %) of applicants were accepted for a summer associate position that HOPEFULLY turns into full-time employment post-graduation... Think about that...

    The reality is pretty dismal.

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  4. I sent out scores of applications but got very few seventeen-minute screening interviews—and not a single callback.

    I'm one of the top few in the class (no rank is published, but I'm far above the 10% threshold for the honor list). I'm an editor of the flagship law review, a teaching assistant for a first-year course, an intern at an appellate court. I'm proficient in half a dozen languages and have experience in both business and engineering.

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    1. I'd give myself away if I named it. Let's just say that it attracts the biggest white-shoe firms in New York.

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    2. damn that's terrifying...

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    3. Are you focusing on IP?

      You could give a range of schools - T14? T20? I don't think so. Please let me know if I am wrong.

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    4. Dude @ 758/814 - if "top of class, editor of flagship LR, TA of 1Ls, intern @ appellate court, and 6-tongue polyglot" don't serve to give you away already, you're un-knowable.

      Just cough it up, ya tease.

      Delete
    5. Indeed, I've given plenty away. The name of the school doesn't matter. I'll share it soon with Prof. Campos.

      I'm not focusing on IP, no. I'd prefer litigation but have not closed the door to anything.

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    6. If it isn't T-14, it doesn't even matter to us.

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    7. I don't care what matters to you: I'm not going to publish that information here.

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  5. You are all wrong. Cooley Law School commissioned a study that concluded law jobs are growing and there's plenty of demand for JDs. Case settled.

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  6. too bad only 42% of cooley grads are passing the MI bar. Brutal.

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    1. That's pretty good, for a school which rumor has it will take anybody with a pulse, and is giving consideration to admitting zombies :)

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    2. I've seen a few on the walking dead who might make good lawyers. :)

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    3. I have seen a few lawyers who ARE the walking dead. And they say engineers have no personality!

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    4. Zombies are admissible to Cooley only if they show particular promise.

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  7. Given the well-documented unmet demand for legal services, one can safely assume that the author of the message quoted in the OP is lying. On any given day, there are thousands of JD-required or JD-preferred job openings listed on Indeed.com, and, so insatiable is the demand for the JD skill set, these positions frequently require no prior experience and offer unlimited earning potential.

    But, seriously, if I were running one of the countless MLM scams, I think I would target JD holders. After all, if someone fell for the $200k law school scam, they would be a prime candidate to shell out another $600 for some miracle herbal supplements that 'sell themselves'.

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    1. Can you please provide some links to the sources that document this "well-documented" unmet demand for legal services?
      And link to these thousands of jobs with unlimited earning potential?
      Or maybe just even a few of them?

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    2. ...and 10:02 gets pwnd by 8:29....October 31, 2012 at 10:15 AM

      And the funniest part is, I don't think 8:29 was even necessarily "trolling".

      Just pure sarcasm and parody of all those LS Deans out there who maunder on about how "versatile" is the JD and how lots of "boomers will be retiring soon!" etc.

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    3. 8:29 here...it was definitely sarcasm.

      The OP really had me thinking about the strong similarities between law school, especially outside the T14, and MLM schemes.

      - Law school provides numbers that are, at best, misleading, and that create a picture of financial outcomes far rosier than reality.

      - Law schools make heavy use of glossy brochures and fancy websites to project an image of success, an image that bears little correlation with the experience of the median student.

      - Many law professors and deans wrap what is clearly a shameless money-grab in secular/progressive ideology, much the same way that MLMs leverage Christian beliefs to disguise their craven natures.

      - MLM requires a huge number of failures in order to create a payoff for the tiny number of 'winners' in the system, much like law school and practice in general relies on suckers to pay prof/admin salaries and, by failing, to boost the prestige of BigLaw attorneys/partners.

      - MLM relies heavily on people's willingness to heavily indebt themselves for a 'dream', much as law school preys upon naive students who have been told that they can 'be anything they want, if only they believe'

      - Despite clearly being scams, both MLM and law schools seem completely impervious both to market forces and to legal efforts to restrain them.

      There are other similarities, too.

      Anyways, I then started asking myself, "for what type of position would the median K-JD grad of a median law school be qualified?"

      Well, just about the only thing that is demonstrably true about such a candidate is that they have a record of being willing to burden themselves with huge debt for an 'investment' with, at best, dubious value.

      Then it hit me: this is the perfect target candidate for MLM! Here is someone that was willing to mortgage their life for a sub-5% shot at a payoff; surely this same person will be willing to load up their Visa card with a couple grand worth of our worthless merchandise, on the off chance that they might someday be able to con a bunch of suckers into being the base of their own pyramid.

      Sure enough, if you search any job board, you will find thousands of these MLM 'opportunities', all of which advertise 'no experience required' and 'unlimited earning potential' - the perfect 'fit' for your median JD holder!

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    4. There is a vast unmet demand for legal services.

      It's from people who expect you to work for free! When I was a solo, everyone claimed to be too poor to pay, wanting pro bono services, etc. I could have filled a biglaw firm's docket with all the sob stories and requests for free work I received.

      Law clients are bigger crooks and scammers than lawyers.

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    5. Join the club - it's exactly the same for doctors.

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    6. Yeah, except doctors have medicare, medicaid, health insurance, workman's comp insurance, and tons of other payor sources because the need is genuinely urgent.

      Lawyers have almost nothing except giving out unsecured credit and taking liens on proceeds. Oh, and judges who flyspeck every line on a fee petition and make you settle for 40% of contractual fees even when you "win." (especially galling since many judges are former law firm owners who should know better).

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  8. To the idiot who posted at 8:22 am,

    Do you think - assuming that you ever bother to engage in this mental activity - that new solos can realistically compete with established firms and legal practitioners?!?! Those older lawyers and firms can blow you out of the water, with their advertising budgets alone. People in the community know their reputation - or at least understand which guys get results.

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  9. I knew several people in my class at Third Tier Drake who were in the top 5-10 slots. And some of those guys were unemployed as of graduation. A few others ended up in insurance defense mills. Very lucrative, right?!?!

    In my crim pro II class, the "professor" had a guest speaker. She was a recent grad who somehow landed a Public Defender position. (A local judge/curmudgeon even made several calls on her behalf.) She told us, "I make less money now than before I went to law school."

    I recognize that some people will sometimes take a job that pays less, if they are desperate - or if they truly enjoy the work. However, why should anyone incur $100K+ of non-dischargeable debt - and invest three years of their life - for the chance to do so?!

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    1. I still remember that insurance adjuster that made law review that you made reference to on your blog.

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    2. publicly available info

      http://www.linkedin.com/pub/justin-randall/18/4a2/210

      Drake University Law School
      Juris Doctor, Law
      2006 – 2009

      Graduated with High Honors; Dwight D. Opperman Scholar (full tuition merit scholarship with living stipend); best of class awards in Trial Advocacy and Commercial Paper
      Activities and Societies: Drake Law Review--Articles Editor; C. Edwin Moore Inn of Court; Federalist Society; Christian Legal Society

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  10. I've shared this before, but I'll share it again in the hopes of reaching some new readers. I graduated from a "first tier" law school in 2006. I struggledmightily my first year of law school but did great in 2L and 3L and ended with a respectable class rank. 2006 is now regarded as a "boom" period for legal employment, but I put that word in annoying quotes because there were still lots of people in my class who never got jobs. Through blind luck, I networked with the right person at the right time and got an offer at a mid-size firm for $50K per year, not great but enough to have my own place and service my loans (I "only" had $120K in total education debt at graduation).

    I got laid off in late 2008. I figured with my experience and still being young I'd bounce back quickly, but I was unemployed for nearly two years. In November 2010 I again lucked into meeting the right person at the right time and got an offer to be the third attorney at a three attorney firm at a salary of $35K, and I was happy to get it. Today I make $40K per year, and if I'm lucky I'll get a raise to $42K at year's end. I'm a 34 year old attorney scrimping and saving for the day I can move back out of my father's house.

    Keep in mind 0Ls, I consider my outcome to be a fortunate and positive one by today's standards, maybe the best that's realistically possible for someone who didn't go to a T14 or finish in the top 5-10% of the class, since I mostly enjoy what I do. Attend law school at your own risk, all 0Ls who read this.

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  11. It's not just grades. In my experience, the interview skills of most law students are fairly horrible. This situtaion is in large part because most law students have never had a professional job. For many students, the first time they have ever spoken with a practicing attorney was when they had their first interview. As Elvis Costello wrote, "good manners and bad breath get you nowhere."

    You not only have to be ranked near the top, but also polished. Law schools can rank you, but they can't clean you up.

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    1. My interviewing skills aren't horrible at all. But I never get an interview with a law firm.

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    2. I'm afraid in this cutthroat market "interviewing skills" that are "not horrible" aren't going to cut it. And also there is a very strong "beauty bias" at most elite, large nd mid-sized law firms which I never see discussed in the law blogs and which definitely isn't mentioned in career centers. Law firms want assocaites that will impress clients and to be honest, to the clients, most briefs look the same.

      With apologies to Janis Ian:

      I learned the truth at twenty-three
      That summer clerkships weren't for me
      They went to pretty girls with skin so soft
      And hunky guys whose Dad's had taught them golf

      And those of us in the lower ranks
      Would bend over and give thanks
      Without a hint of the silent rage
      We felt to work at minimum wage

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    3. Yup. I've noticed this too. Easier to spot as an "outsider" to American culture.
      Not saying it's any different or better in Dubai or Lebanon but definitely weirdly not talked about in America even though a big, big factor.
      Time to head to the gym . . .

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  12. I was graduating into this mess, I would probably have gone ahead and just used my undergrad in chemical engineering to be a chemical engineer in North Dakota.

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  13. Problem is that most of these law firms that are hiring run up or out policies of some type. There is the same dearth of jobs for the high percentage of lawyers who must leave their law firms due to up or out policies. THE MORE EXPERIENCED LEGAL JOB OPENINGS DO NOT EXIST EXCEPT IN MINISCULE NUMBERS.

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    1. This is something that we desperately need more data on. Would-be law students need to know that even if they're lucky enough to get a BigLaw offer, that's still not the golden ticket.

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    2. Law grads need to realize that a career in law is very much like one in a professional sport. You have very little chance of making it to the big leagues. If you do make it, it is likely that your career there will be short-lived as only very few manage to make an actual career of it. So rather than enjoy the money you really need to get all of your shit paid for and put the rest away to live on later when the team casts you out in favor of new talent. At that point, you are used up and broken and not good for much to anyone outside of the league...so you sell used cars and insurance.

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  14. @8:22 AM--it may be that another business plan might have kept this former solo afloat longer, but your comment is like law profs telling students that they aren't getting jobs because they aren't doing enough networking and volunteer work. That is true for some students, just as it is true that some solos do not do a very good job of generating business. But the problem is that there are more lawyers out there that there are people who 1) need them, and 2) can afford to pay them, which is why about half of all JDs can't get jobs as lawyers, and why so many solo practices fail.

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    1. Your first point (1) is not correct. There are so many people who need legal services.

      Your point (2) is dead on target. The reason there are so many unemployed lawyers is that nobody wants to pay for them. They see legal services as a luxury rather than a necessity.

      Think of all the hundreds of thousands of poor guys in jail, there because they couldn't get good legal help. Or the millions of screwed-over single moms (careful not to make myself 'hard' here, thinking about all those MILFs) who are in shitty situations because they went cut-rate for the divorce. Think of all the unprotected businesses, the injuries never compensated, etc.

      There is a huge demand.

      Surely part of the profession should focus on telling people that they *need* to use lawyers? Like docs have done with their bullshit boner drugs and 'depression' and all manner of other health problems that are just really just a harmless part of getting older?

      It will not solve the problem, but law has a huge fucking publicity problem. Imagine if medicine had the same problem, where doctors were seen as scammers and crooks (which many are), and where going to the doctor was a last resort?

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    2. Bull - there is no demand if people do not want to pay for the service.

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    3. 1:28, you need to pay attention to the "and" in the sentences you read.

      Delete
  15. Anybody check out out the military as a JAG officer? Be like the dude on the old TV series, fly an F-14 one day and ogle Major Mackenzie's hooters the next! What's not to like?



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    1. I am a lawyer with the Coast Guard. In 2011, we received 180 applications for 5 openings. Later in the year we received approximately the same number for one opening. For civilian attorney positions, we average 200 applications for each vacancy. Lots to like agreed but no room at the inn.

      Delete
    2. Confirming 1:08 PM's post above. The entire government is in a 'no room at the inn' situation right now.

      And before some jackass suggests it, that includes cops too.

      The economy is in the toilet. There are hundreds of thousands of vets back from the Middle East who are basically guaranteed government jobs. Good luck getting anything in public service.

      Yeah, that includes teaching too! (Been there, done that, got the t-shirt that says "Education Schools Are Running a Lawschool Style Scam by Promoting a False Teacher Shortage."

      Sorry JD grads. It's rough, and it isn't getting better!

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    3. At the SEC over two hundred applicants made the cut list for our last attorney vacancy. The market is saturated.

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    4. "Anybody check out out the military as a JAG officer?"

      Heh-heh; Heh-heh.

      He said "JAG Off".

      Heh-heh; Heh-heh.

      Delete
  16. "My school is a T2 in a major population center (top 10 in population city)."

    What does T2 mean? Is it on the old 4 tier scale or the newer (and more meaningless) 2 tier scale? (but for all intents and purposes, it's basically a non T-14)

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    1. Would you please, kindly, give it up?October 31, 2012 at 6:39 PM

      No one's buying your "new 2 tier scale". Everyone (EVERYONE) uses the language propagated by USNWR.

      Not saying it's good, right and salutory.

      Just saying that it IS.

      So give up with selling your "new scale". No one's buying.

      Delete
    2. Not only are people not buying it, but also it just adds confusion. You aren't helping anything or adding to the discourse by trying to create a new system.

      Delete
  17. Many of the screener interviews don't care about the things you were all told matter like GPA, law review, etc. Firms are looking for young attorneys with connections. Is your dad a federal judge? Does your dad own a big company that needs legal work? Do you have the connections to bring in the work to pay for yourself and help them? Top GPAs are a dime a dozen.

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    1. Exactly. And that is why I (the one mentioned above—top of class, law review, multilingual, and so on) can't get interviews: I'm not from a wealthy, well-connected background.

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    2. Your excuses are pathetic. By all means, keep blaming everyone but yourself.

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    3. Go ahead, then, and tell me what it is about my dossier that leads to its immediate rejection.

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    4. Bonehead, JAMES BoneheadOctober 31, 2012 at 7:34 PM

      Um, you have a "dossier"?

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    5. The word appears in ordinary dictionaries. Perhaps you should invest in one.

      Delete
    6. Bonehead, JAMES BoneheadOctober 31, 2012 at 8:57 PM

      Well Duh, bonehead. We all know what it means. It just should not have been used in the fashion you used it.

      So, when you've gone into the interviews from which you received no offers, did you explain to them that you'd whip our your "dossier" from your "attache", and then sit there and ponder why they were no longer interested in you as a candidate?

      Delete
    7. Bonehead, JAMES BoneheadOctober 31, 2012 at 8:58 PM

      P.S. Dictionaries tend to depreciate after purchase.

      Delete
  18. Yes, some ground rules on naming the tiers would be nice. For me, I always thought of it like this: T14, the rest of Tier 1 (top 50), Tier 2 (top 100), TTT, unranked.

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  19. Don't know if the Coastie above is a civilian working for the CG or a uniformed member of that service. When I went through Officer Training School in the USAF we had a couple of law school grads in our class. They had to go through the whole three-month program just like us four-year BS types. I can't remember if they were going into the legal career field or another speciality. We never saw the new medical doctors. They got about a three-week course and sent out to do their doctor trick.

    Can't hurt to go down to a recruiter and ask. Might give the Army and Marine Corps a wide birth though.

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    1. My understanding is all branches use a direct commissioning route for JAG, Doctors and Chaplains. So anyone going through OCS or OTS are going to become regular officers. Regardless, direct and regular commissioning programs are extremely competitive. You basically need a STEM degree, 4.0 gpa and be in peak physical condition. It's hard to get an Army, Navy or Air Force recruiter to even put in an officer packet for you because it's much more work for them and there is such a slim chance of being accepted. The Marine Corps has designated officer recruiters so they are more willing to work with you. Still, the Marine Corps is currently only accepting officers in the reserves and the JAG program has been shut down entirely for fiscal year 2013.

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    2. There is no cost in asking. Might get an Officer Training School slot for a career field based on your undergraduate degree. Then you might be able to move laterally into the legal field, if you want to, after spending a couple of years in your originally assigned career field. Why would you not at least check it out?

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    3. Absolutely, it’s definitely worth looking into (I have myself). But if anyone out there is interested, it will take a lot more than just sitting down with a recruiter. Sadly, many military recruiters just aren’t that bright. They rarely know more than what they need to do to get you enlisted and aren’t interested in learning. If you don’t feel comfortable with a recruiter, go to another one. And do your own research. There are a lot of forums tied to particular branches that a great source of information. Just make sure the thread is relevantly recent as info can quickly become outdated.

      Delete
  20. I don't think it's overarching to even put T2, TTT, and unranked in the same bundle

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    Replies
    1. While you're at it, add the bottom half of "Tier 1".

      Delete
  21. The sad part about this whole law school scam is that even the "winners," like the guy in the letter, are really losing. Look at the best case scenario: (1) you are in 20's and you have an LSAT/GPA combo that gets you an aid package that let's you go to law school for somewhere south of $100k in debt, (2) you bust your ass at that school and do well enough to land a BIGLAW job paying somewhere north of $100k in salary, (3) you spend the next 5-7 years busting your ass at that BIGLAW job to pay off your debt. Congratulations, you are now in your 30's and after a decade of nothing but hard work you are, financially, right back where you started. Oh, and the partnership question is looming, so your best option is to take a lower paying government or in-house job (if you can get it).

    It's a scam through and through, there are no good outcomes for anyone.

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    1. I don't believe that anyone having worked for 5–7 years at that salary would have made no financial progress, even with a quarter of a million dollars in student loans.

      Delete
    2. There is no "scam". If you don't like the career path, don't pursue it.

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    3. When midlaw was around, there were decent secure jobs to go to. They had decent pay and good hours.

      Today things are very insecure. Jobs are there to be lost. Very little hiring for very many lawyers. Fewer and fewer jobs and less and less of a chance of working as a lawyer, the more experienced one gets.

      No work, no job security, short-term jobs if one is lucky to get a legal job at all. And you don't call this a scam?

      Delete
  22. "I don't think it's overarching to even put T2, TTT, and unranked in the same bundle"

    Based on the employment numbers I have been seeing, that's probably not too far off. Pleny of schools in the top 50 with almost half the class unemployed, and many of the rest underemployed.

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    Replies
    1. Which is why I say that every school below #25 or so should count as Tier 4. The idea that #1 and #50 define the boundaries of a meaningful "Tier 1" is a marketing gimmick designed to sell magazines to simpletons.

      Delete
  23. Sitting on my front porch, Halloween. I now know that the law school scam will go on for fucking decades.

    There are so many parents who have passed me by because I have what would be considered "mild" Halloween shit twenty years ago - a strobe and a UV light. These fuckers, maybe in their early 40s, are pulling their fucking kids away because this shit looks scary to them. Everyone else on the street has bright lights, etc. I'm not no fucking sex offender, morons!

    And that's what will keep law schools in business for the next twenty years. These faggy parents, these offspring of Boomers, who are raising their own kids to play it safe, to stay away from anything unfamiliar, to take no risks whatsoever, telling them that rapists are waiting at every dark corner to fuck them up the ass.

    And law schools are the safe option. They are the bullshit haven that claims to offer stability, a future, respect. No law school admissions dean would ever fuck with the truth, right?

    Yet these Boomer offspring, with their precious kids, doesn't get it. It's the perv with the brightly lit house who will take your kid into the toolshed and stick his erection up her anus, lubed by a fistful of five year old 10W40. The perv with the brightly lit law school admissions website with its facts, its stats, and its smiling faces of puppet students with their white faces and bright futures.

    So I give up on this fucking scam. There are so many suckers, so many ultra-conservative parents, that higher education has no shortage of willing victims in our lifetimes.

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    Replies
    1. I look at all the ads for the smiling headhunters on AbovetheLaw and feel the same way. All former BigLaw associates who got canned. No one needs a headhunter anymore to place lawyers in the United States. There is a surplus of lawyers. The headhunter gig is a ticket to starvation today. Just not enough legal placements to feed most of these headhunters. Such a scam.

      Delete
    2. Moderator? Moderator?October 31, 2012 at 7:44 PM

      LawProf or someone, please "moderate" the post at 4:40.

      Delete
    3. Where do you live? Upstate we had two pumpkins and some cheap door decorations.
      Everyone still came by.

      Delete
  24. Quick and dirty, the USAF JAG course is eight weeks and the Navy's is five weeks with a direct commission as on O-3 (Captain) in the USAF, not sure about the Navy where the equivalent rank would be a Lieutenant. The services offer a $65,000 education loan forgiveness program over a three year period. The officer is responsible for paying taxes on the amount forgiven.

    FWIW each service has their own JAG website with all the details.

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    Replies
    1. Despite what their websites say the loan forgiveness programs (they are really repayment programs) have been eliminated by all branches except the Army, which only makes it available for certain understaffed enlisted MOSs. Currently the only Army MOS that qualifies is 35p Crytologic Linguist, which requires a high score on the ASVAB and DLAB (this shouldn't be difficult for a law grad) and enlistment for a minimum of 5 years.

      The loan forgiveness programs aren't used to reward soldiers just for being soldiers. They are used as recruitment incentives. What does and doesn't qualify for loan repayment can daily based on the needs on the military. So if a particular job is understaffed the loan repayment program may be offered as an incentive to fill it. Don't count on it though, in today's economy the military is flush with recruits for nearly every enlisted, officer and JAG position.

      However, many National Guard units are offering student loan repayment up to 50k. And military services does qualified as public service under PSLF.

      Delete
    2. @ 7:12; DLAB was a fun test. They yanked me out of boot camp one day and said, here, you need to take this test. They didn't even tell me what it was about until I got to the testing center.

      It confused the heck out of me, but I really enjoyed it as a puzzle exercise. I thought I must have done pretty crappy but afterward, they offered me schooling in any language I wanted (got a 136, IIRC).

      I didn't want to do that (crypto) at the time, though, so I kept on with my original MOS.

      Delete
  25. Lawprof, you must get a bunch of these emails on a regular basis. I highly recommend a weekly email post.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Congrats on the book! I hope every law school applicant reads it. Thank you for this contribution.

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  27. "In the past, the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar’s Standards Review Committee, which is working on a comprehensive overhaul of the law school accreditation standards, has kicked around the idea of strengthening the bar passage standard either by raising the 75 percent threshold to 80 percent, lowering the 15 percent requirement to 10 percent or reducing the five-year time frame to three years."

    If this is actually passed by the ABA it would probably cause many schools to close. There are certainly many schools where the bar passage rate is below 80% and their passage rate is below the state average by more than 10%. I really hope it gets enacted. They are suppose to bring it up in November.

    http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aba_committee_to_revisit_bar_passage_standard/

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  28. Looks like the Assistant Dean of Enrollment Management was the only person working on Halloween, so he had lots of time to write responses.

    ReplyDelete
  29. die, scammers, die. Get cancer. A painful cancer.

    ReplyDelete

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