Monday, October 8, 2012

Indiana Wants Me

I've gotten three emails in the past week from people who sounded positively suicidal, so I'm not getting the mordant amusement from this exchange on TLS than I might otherwise be inclined to extract from it.  Under the subject heading "Indiana Tech Law School," someone asks:

Anyone know anything about this school[?] They emailed me a good luck email for the lsat today but, I cant find out anything about them on LSAC, or access the application. Anyone know what GPA/ LSAT's they are looking for?

After a few appropriately cynical responses from the TLS crowd, no less a personage than the dean of this institution makes an appearance:

For those of you who are wondering about Indiana Tech Law School, I am the Founding Dean. Perhaps I can answer some of your questions. We are located in Fort Wayne and we open next August. We are enrolling only 100 students in our Charter Class.

We intend to be a new and different kind of law school, one that intentionally blends theory and practice and one that focuses on ethics from the very start of school.

We will require all students to complete a professionalism course in the first-year curriculum and two ethics courses, one of which will also be taught in the very first year of law school. This is an innovation that sorely needed in legal education although very few law schools offer an ethics course until much later in a law student’s career. We will also require students to perform 30 hours of pro bono volunteer hours, as an additional condition of graduation, to benefit the public and to instill in the students the inherent value in the legal profession helping those members of society who are in need. A wide variety of opportunities will be developed so that students will be able to complete the 30-hour requirement from the very beginning of their law school careers.

In addition to the curricular innovations, we will give students the option to specialize their education by concentrating their upper-level electives in a particular area. Concentrations are much like undergraduate “majors” and, at Indiana Tech, students will be able to receive a notation on their transcripts that they concentrated their studies in one of four areas if they choose: Advocacy/Dispute Resolution, Intellectual Property/Technology Law, Transactional Law, and Global Law and Leadership. In order to complete the requirements to receive a concentration, students must not only enroll in a certain number of hours of coursework, they must also actually practice law either in a law school clinic or in a full-time, 40-hours-per-week “semester-in-practice” internship with a member of the profession whose expertise is in that same area.

In at least half of our courses, and all of our first-year courses, students will also be given opportunities to hone their lawyering skills by engaging in “experiential learning exercises.” Professors will give up some class hours so that a judge or lawyer from our area can take over the class and bring in real life examples of the theory and history that the students will have been studying. The students will write client letters, draft wills, prepare court documents, etc. and the hope is that our graduates will be viewed as more “practice-ready” than other law school grads when they interview for jobs. We firmly believe that the intentional blending of theory and practice skills will make them better professionals.

Regarding GPA and LSAT medians, we don't have any history so we can't set them; however, we would like to open in third place among the five Indiana law schools so that would place our medians at approximately 156 for the LSAT and 3.5 for the GPA. Our tuition is $29,500 per year and we have academic scholarships available.

For more information, please visit our web-site at http://www.indianatech.edu/law or email me at PCAlexander@indianatech.edu.

Peter Alexander
Dean and Professor of Law
Indiana, which contains 2% of the US population, already has four ABA-accredited law schools, including two "top 30" institutions, both of which feature legal unemployment rates for their grads of around 40%, and which are currently placing only 20% to 25% of their graduates in firms of more than ten attorneys.

Chutzpah has been defined as murdering your parents and then pleading for mercy because you're an orphan.  How about setting up another legal diploma mill in a hyper-saturated market, while claiming that what will set your school apart is its emphasis on "ethics" and "professionalism?"

Of course none of this is going to keep the ABA Section of Legal Education from accrediting this absurdity after the requisite site visits and other bureaucratic hoop-jumping. And until something changes nothing is going to stop the school from trolling the internet for victims future lawyers paying customers, who will fund this latest foray into professional school carnival barking via a combination of the generosity of the U.S. taxpayer and their endlessly naive willingness to believe people like Peter Alexander, Dean and Professor of Law.

108 comments:

  1. Well played Anon @ 7:19......your post showed up as I was typing my "first"....touche.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Probably not PosnerOctober 8, 2012 at 7:33 AM

    It's somewhat heartening, at least, that the students at TLS were pretty sophisticated in evaluating Alexander's statement. The message is getting out thanks to sites like this.

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  3. Yeah, all of this "ethics innovation" and "practice ready" palaver will somehow create tens of thousands of positions for the poor saps who won't get jobs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hear ya. Word is getting out that a mountain of debt, and not a job, is the only thing guaranteed from your three year stint.

      Delete
  4. I love the focus on ethics. What classes do they offer - How to Sleep at Night While Ruining Students' Lives or Reporting Employment Statistics - Numbers Are What You Make Them?

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  5. "Advocacy/Dispute Resolution"

    Yes. In the future, after Indiana Tech graduates its first lawyers specializing in advocacy/dispute resolution, that is where I'll look for a mediator for my tractor trailer collision cases; cause, why would I want some guy or gal with like twenty years of experience in these kinds of cases doing it? This dean is delusional.

    Regarding the requirement of forty hours of work in Global Law and Leadership for a "major"---is the UN and the World Trade Organization moving to Fort Wayne?

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  6. Now we know what buzzwords tested well in the focus groups and polling: "ethics," "professionalism" and "practice-ready."

    The school is waiting until later in the recruiting season to use "Mila Kunis" and "iPad Mini."

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    Replies
    1. pure comedy

      http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/photo_21040_wide_large.jpg

      Delete
  7. Going rate for insurance defense associates in my city: $90/hr.

    Going rate for appointed criminal work in my city: $60/hr.

    In case you have no experience with the practice or business of law, these are not good rates.

    There is no need for another law school. I repeat, there is no need for another law school. When will the bar take back this profession from the law dean scammers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, and there are often caps with those rates. And that's gross pay, not pay in your pocket. You have to cover your own postage, electricity, computer, secretary, office supplies, transportation, health insurance, etc. with those $90/hr and $60/hr rates, and they often have hourly caps (like only 20 hours on this criminal case max, even if there's a trial).

      Delete
  8. The conservative blogs lament that young people want to be part of the "virtuocracy" -- to work at non-profits and environmental groups and other goody-goody enterprises.

    The desire has nothing to do with reality -- those jobs are scarce and pay poorly -- but are a reflection of the students' inflated self-esteem and desire to be seen by peers as moral and not selling out.

    Looks like the good dean has determined that's a major selling point.

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    Replies
    1. Also, there is a more mercenary rationale at work. Many people who want to work for the state or public interest organizations do it for the ten year loan forgiveness program.

      Delete
    2. "but are a reflection of the students' inflated self-esteem and desire to be seen by peers as moral and not selling out."

      I think you give young people too little credit. Not everyone buys into the idea that big salaries buy personal fulfillment.

      Young people of every generation have inflated self-esteem and a fear of their friends thinking of them as sellouts. This is nothing new. What I don't get are why so many older people ridicule them for having different ambitions than they themselves did. Could it be buyer's remorse / sour grapes?

      - spencer

      Delete
  9. I want to add a NALP question to those 9-month studies:

    "Knowing what you do now, if you had to do it all over again would you still have chosen to go to XYZ School of Law?"

    - This would be the most telling question from the student survey.

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  10. Ethics indeed! If this jackanapes were at all ethical, he wouldn't even open this travesty of a law school, never mind preside over it.

    Those four "concentrations" are a patently risible attempt to give this dive an aura of distinctiveness. Employers won't even see that pointless notation on the transcript, as they will not consider an applicant who attended law school at a vo-tech.

    There is nothing "new and different" about this mephitic outhouse of a would-be law school. It's doing exactly the same thing as every other law school. Even its cosmetic differences (the "concentrations" and the alleged focus on ethics) are nothing new.

    But indeed the ABA will duly give this place its seal of approval.

    At least Irvine had the decency to bribe its first class with zero tuition. That might, just maybe, have made it worth attending, despite its lack of accreditation (shared by Indiana Tech).

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  11. By the way, there are also numerous law schools within an hour of Indiana, including those in Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Louisville.

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    Replies
    1. Here's a map of ABA-accredited law schools in the US:

      http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=112814580544975292567.000463ecdfc0c9c200ddb

      Delete
    2. Surprised NV has only one LS.

      Delete
    3. Just wait for Winnemucca Technical College of Law and Underwater Basket-Weaving.

      Delete
    4. Uh, as a Hoosier lawyer, Detroit is nowhere near an hour from Indiana and Louisville and Cincinnati are not near Indiana population centers.

      That said, 500 people were sworn in when I was 3 years ago and almost half of them were unemployed

      Delete
    5. Sounds like a whole lot of lawyer snobbery going on in many of these posts. Not everyone who goes to law school wants to work in a big firm. The best lawyer I ever had was a legal aid lawyer.

      Delete
  12. I actually met Dean Peter Alexander many years ago. He struck me as a passionate educator who was concerned with the under-represenation of minorities in the profession. Here is the problem Peter, you are disconnected from the realities of the so-called legal profession. Based on my experience and observation, Biglaw eschews minorities save for a few handful that are sprinkled for diversity purposes (to game NALP, Vault and other industry surverys).

    I have met dozens of struggling minority attorneys who felt duped by people like Dean Alexander. Dean Alexander praises terms like "access to justice," "empowering the disenfranchised," etc. but rarely acknowledges the vicissitudes that minority grads face today. Let's be frank here. I don't know what study I recently saw that stated that nearly 1/3 of African-American JD grads do no pass the bar exam. What happens to this unfortunate lot? How do you propose to help those people out Dean Alexander? Are you willing to give them a refund once they have been shunned by the profession? Again, I don't think Alexander is a scam artist like the traditional trash pit law school dean but I think he is being wilfully blind by refusing to accept that his new school will hurt his students more than he claims it will help them.

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    1. I cannot comment upon his sincerity, but I fully agree that opening a dump of a law school is no way to bring racialized people into the profession. Wittingly or not, Alexander is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the racialized people whom he purports to help.

      Delete
    2. "He struck me as a passionate educator who was concerned with the under-represenation of minorities in the profession."

      LOL. It's been established that the minority card is just a bullshit selling point for federal loan qualification.

      Delete
    3. Racialized people are being exploited as a niche market. With three racialized women among its first four professors (the other being an effete, pretentious, look-at-me-with-my-uncapitalized-names ass whose "scholarly" interests include "hip-hop culture" as long as he can get a free trip to a Swiss resort), Alexander is putting on a minstrel show calculated to lure racialized people into signing up for six figures of non-dischargeable debt.

      Delete
    4. http://www.indianatech.edu/Academics/law/PublishingImages/photos/peter-alexander-headshot.jpg

      Delete
  13. Only three suicidal law students/grads? Count on Indiana Tech to add to that sum.

    Indiana Tech Law's website announced its first four faculty hires. Among them is andre douglas pond cummings, the new associate dean for academic affairs, lured from his faculty perch at West Virginia University College of Law. andre douglas pond cummings is so cool that he did not feel the need to capitalize any of his four names or shave his five o'clock shadow for his faculty pic.

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/8/prweb9779060.htm

    Even though law classes at Indiana Tech have not yet begun, andre douglas pond cummings and the other new faculty are "assisting our admissions staff in the recruitment of students." It is interesting that the finely-honed sense of social justice of these faculty is consistent with actively preying upon naive kids.

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/8/prweb9779060.htm

    Incidentally, andre douglas pond cummings appears to be quite the scholarly jetsetter. See e.g., this entry, from his CV:

    Franklin College, Switzerland, Invited Panelist, “Thug Life: Hip Hop’s Curious Relationship With Criminal Justice,” Panel Presentation “Pop Culture and the Law,” Intersections of Law and Culture Conference 2009, Lugano, Switzerland, October 4, 2009 (With Akilah Folami and David Oppenheimer).

    http://law.wvu.edu/r/download/119900

    My question is this: How do actual criminal law practitioners-- ASAs and public defenders-- get aboard this gravy train to conferences in foreign ski resorts on criminal law and pop culture? Obviously, practice experience is not enough. Maybe it is a reward for that scholarly je ne sais quoi that comes with four uncapitalized names. Or maybe it is Judas pay for scholars who yap about social justice even as they swindle the naive kids who fill up law school classrooms.

    dybbuk

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    Replies
    1. Note this gem in "cummings' " CV:

      "He is a prolific scholar whose writings focus on race, gender, hip-hop culture, investor protection, and corporate law."

      I love the "hip-hop culture" concentration. What, no "international sports law"?

      And if he's focused on "investor protection," what does he think about THIS scam and his part in it?

      Delete
    2. Maybe this ass andré douglas pond cummings is a descendant of e. e. cummings. Whatever the case may be, his pretentious eschewing of capitalization is a cry for attention.

      Delete
    3. Franklin College, Switzerland, Invited Panelist, “Thug Life: Hip Hop’s Curious Relationship With Criminal Justice,” Panel Presentation “Pop Culture and the Law,” Intersections of Law and Culture Conference 2009, Lugano, Switzerland, October 4, 2009 (With Akilah Folami and David Oppenheimer).


      Wow this crap is up there with an LLM in "International and Comparative Sports Law."

      Delete
  14. Also this whole concept of "ethics" as a curriculum is ridiculous. Ethics can be boiled down to two simple concepts: 1) Don't steal from your clients, and 2) Don't lie to the Courts.

    If you follow those two rules, you won't get disbarred or brought up on ethics charges. Any questions?

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    Replies
    1. It's not that simple.

      Delete
    2. No, it isn't. It would behoove you to read ALL of the ethical rules for your state.

      Delete
    3. At 9:18-- you're right, there's a third and fourth corrollary-- (3) communicate with your client, and (4) don't take representations where you don't know what you're doing.

      That's pretty much all you need.

      Delete
    4. Read the ethics question and ask yourself: If I did this could I make money?" If the answer is"Yes" then the conduct is unethical.

      Delete
  15. Minority students? It's not just minority students who feel scammed. At my school, 70% of ALL students ended up either working in retail or unemployed several years out after graduation. Only 30% ended up w/ legal jobs and most legal jobs paid less than $12,000 a year.

    I, too, am passionate about access to justice. But I know that access to justice doesn't happen by simply letting everyone into law school, charging them $30,000 or $50,000 a year in tuition, having them do a couple of hours of pro bono work, and then closing my eyes when they graduate and imagining them getting jobs afterwards.

    When is the legal establishment going to learn that it's not what you instill in the grads (ie: a passion for serving the under-represented through requiring pro bono work, etc.) that matters. We aren't having a problem because enough grads don't want to work in public interest work. I tried for two and a half years to get a public interest job (and by try, I mean I worked at several unpaid public interest jobs for free) and am now leaving the legal field because I can no longer work for free - my funds have dried up and a paid legal job is harder to find then a unicorn right now.

    Dean Alexander: you can have the most practice ready grads. You can have the most passionate grads about public service. But if the market is still graduating 25,000 attorneys more than there are jobs, then all those passionate, more experienced grads will end up unemployed and disillusioned with the entire legal profession, as I am. Is that really what you want for those individuals? Or in your passion to get more individuals working public interest jobs, did it ever occur to you to think about the individuals that you were requiring to pay $30,000 a year in tuition, and what their lives would be like after taking on massive debt and having little chance of getting employed afterward?

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  16. @8:55AM

    8:39AM here. I did not mean to say that the JD scam is limited to minority victims. However, Alexander's new law school seems to be geared toward minorities since they have recruited minority faculty although that andre douglas pond cummings seems whiter than Vanilla Ice.

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  17. That snakeoil salesman can shove those supposed “experiential learning exercises” right up his ass. While this may sound nice to ignorant law school applicants, it is not that great.

    If you learn from judges, or take part in a clinic, how does that help you when there are nowhere near enough attorney jobs for the numbers of graduates pumped out every year?!?! Will Baskin-Robbins going to care about your role in helping draft a will for an 84 year old invalid?! No, they want to make sure that you can serve their customers!

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  18. Like an extra ethics course is really going to make jobs magically appear out of thin air for the 90% of grads that will unemployed out of this no name dump. Stay away! This place will be nothing more than a debt death trap.

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  19. youth == prey; law school staff/deans == predators. You can never get away from nature; it is inescapable.

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  20. 32nd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  21. Why would anyone stay away from this scam school?

    They get to go for FREE.

    Thanks to our wonderful and completely legitimate government!

    The lemmings will flock to this school in droves. Must be nice to offer a "service" that is completely subsidized by this retarded government.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hey, look! MSNBC - "Student loans are a problem!"

    http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/07/14246378-student-loans-backed-by-government-crush-many-families?lite

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  23. Fort Wayne attorney here. Thank you, LawProf for covering this school and for having this site.

    Three weeks ago I spoke with a named partner at a well respected firm in Fort Wayne (~20 lawyers). He told me that he had received nearly 60 applications for associate positions and "can't even consider hiring a darn one. Even the ones from impressive schools."

    Don't even consider a government or non-profit gig in Fort Wayne either. Those have dried up due to budget cuts.

    At last year's local bar association meeting, the president of Indiana Tech announced the pursuit of this new law school. One attorney joked at the table behind me, "Haha! Great! Free Interns!" Don't expect anything full-time, especially enough to service that tuition bill, after graduation in this community.

    Many other local practitioners laugh and roll their eyes when this new school is brought up in a conversation. It makes me sick to even think about what these graduates will experience even in this local market after graduation and ~$100K in debt. Not to mention the risk of not even getting an 'ABA approved' degree. Whatever that means anymore??

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  24. Federal government revenues are only 70 percent of payments, the balance is borrowed money. This cannot continue. The senseless, endless wars, the unworkable military procurement programs, the fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the abuse of the SS Disability program, the fat, succulent federal civil service programs, tax avoidance by the filthy rich, and the ongoing educational farce have got to come to an end.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With the 10-year treasury yielding less than 2% and no one being particularly concerned that the Fed is QEing whenever it feels like it, I don't think that debt service or origination is much of an issue in international finance at the moment.

      I doubt this becomes an issue until 2020 to 2025.

      That's a ways away.

      Delete
  25. And a pro bono requirement to boot! Because the best way for me to prove my committment to the poor and underserved is for me to require someone else -- preferably someone young, inexperienced and powerless -- to work for them for free.

    RPL

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  26. as somepone who reviews resumes for potential hires at my firm, i would like to warn any potential indiana tech students that their resume will immediately get thrown in the trash should it cross my desk.

    please, dont go to law school.

    ReplyDelete
  27. This article contains a morbid picture of Dean Alexander and his vulture-like cohorts digging the graves of future law grads. Look at the smiles of these ditch diggers. They can almost feel the flow of honey and milk from the federal student loan teat.

    http://www.theindianalawyer.com/indiana-tech-breaks-ground-on-law-school/PARAMS/article/28849

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    Replies
    1. “I don’t think people should think about it as adding another law school, because I think in five years, 10 years, we’ll see the number of law schools declining, because those schools will disappear if they don’t change their model.”

      I agree with this statement from the article, but I don't see how this school is going to be any different.

      Delete
    2. What can more easily bring in an innovative model: an established school, or an unaccredited upstart?

      Delete
  28. 602 Passing the Indiana Bar per year for an estimated 339 posititons, leaving a surplus of new attorneys estimated at 263 a year. Just what Indiana needs, another law school.

    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/the-lawyer-surplus-state-by-state/

    ReplyDelete
  29. Stop picking on andré douglas pond cummings! Let’s not forget about other “prolific legal scholars” –

    Professor SpearIt (who authored “Raza Islamica: Prisons, Hip Hop & Converting Converts,” “Growing Faith: Music & Imprisonment,” and “Why Obama is Black”)
    http://www.slu.edu/colleges/law/slulaw/faculty/spearit

    Professor john a. powell (did he start this awesome no-caps law prof trend?)

    http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/faculty/bios.php?ID=41

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    Replies
    1. "SpearIt"?! His whole name is "SpearIt"?! Is this some sort of joke?

      Delete
    2. I remember when john a. powell was being considered for a job at minnesota law school. I was spending a semester there at the time and I asked a law professor who shall remain nameless what the deal was with the no capitals. She said "I used to do that with my name too. Then I turned 14."

      Delete
    3. i'm a special snowflake, short and stout!
      Here is my handle, here is my spout.

      ——john andré pretentious-ass mother-fucker pond powell viii

      Delete
    4. "bell hooks" is another of these pretentious lower-case-only ninnies. The first time I saw a reference to bell hooks in print, I thought that it pertained to hardware for a carillon.

      Delete
    5. Critical race theory?

      BAHAHAHAHAHA

      What a joke.

      Delete
    6. another legal "educator" - Professor Mitch

      http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/89747252.html

      Delete
    7. http://law.wisc.edu/profiles/mitch@wisc.edu

      Delete
    8. I looked up the CV of Professor [no first name] "SpearIt," wondering if he had practiced law under that name.

      http://slu.edu/colleges/law/slulaw/sites/default/files/spearit_0.pdf

      It came as no major shock to learn that SpearIt has never practiced law as a licensed attorney. SpearIt even dispensed with the the fig leaf of a one year judicial clerkship, which decorates the CVs of most of these law-professors-who-have-never-practiced-law. Indeed, there is no indication on SpearIt's lengthy CV that he is licensed to practice in any jurisdiction.

      SpearIt got a Ph.d. in religious studies from UC-Santa Barbara in 2006. He got a JD from Berkeley in 2009. By 2010, he had obtained a law professorship at St. Louis University, that train wreck of a third tier, where he teaches criminal and entertainment law.

      Interestingly, SpearIt has made some, uh, spirited contributions to the debate on the ongoing crisis in legal education. On August 29, 2011, SpearIt published a ridiculous attack on Law Prof, in which, inter alia, he condemned Law Prof for suggesting that law faculty salaries are too high and modestly noted that he, SpearIt, is a pedagogical workhorse. In the article, SpearIt also asserted:

      "Another defect in his account is in assuming that law schools are only supposed to produce lawyers. Rather than short-sighting law schools as a manufacturing plant for attorneys, legal education might be encouraged beyond. Whether one aspires to business, politics, public service, or scholarly pursuits, law school may be a worthy investment."

      http://www.saltlaw.org/blog/2011/08/29/unmasking-anonymity-whos-scamming/#more-2808

      SpearIt followed up two months later with another post proposing that law school be expanded to four years. The title of that post is "Law School Now More than Ever."

      http://www.saltlaw.org/blog/2011/10/30/law-school-now-more-than-ever/#more-2953

      dybbuk

      Delete
    9. Sorry, but I just can't take seriously anyone whose name is "SpearIt".

      Delete
    10. Let me get this straight. I can't get a law prof bob despite having a PhD AND legal experience (and lots of publications).

      Oh yeah, I'm a conservative and a white guy.

      Delete
    11. *job* that is.

      Delete
    12. Your phd is irrelevant. Were you in the top 10% of your law school class and on the managing board of the law review? Did you clerk for a federal appellate court?

      Delete
    13. There are actually a number of law school faculty who have PhDs instead of JDs. Not sure why, exactly, but it happens.

      - spencer

      Delete
  30. I do have some doubt about the word getting out regarding the law school scam. A friend of mine took the LSAT this past weekend in northern california and the place was packed at well over 700 people who were taking the exam. They were lined up down the street, it kind of looked like that scene in the film "The Wall" by Pink Floyd where they are all lined up at the education "factory"

    Funny they all looked so young. I couldnt imagine any of them as attorney's; most looked like they were going to go home and play with their tonka trucks. My friend said the guy next to him had just graduated from the UC in humanities and was already 100K in debt, and couldn't find a job, so this was 'the next best thing'. Nobody around him had heard anything about the employment data, and were quoting the school webpages on job placement.

    There is clearly no shortage of new suckers. PT Barnum's math was wrong, and most law schools know this. Meanwhile the word really isn't as out as it should be, but don't give up.

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  31. The reason that Dean Anderson and his kind do what they do is that they honestly believe that the problem is that today's current grads (and the entire generation) are just a bunch of greedy, heartless individuals. If Dean Anderson and his bunch can get to these individuals and show them what a joy it is to do public service, perhaps they can change this profession and the negative connotations that are now associated with it around.

    The reason that the legal profession is so topsy-turvy, according to these gentlemen, is that this new generation just expects too much. There is no dearth of jobs. There is just a dearth of $200,000 a year jobs, and since every legal graduate is just greedy scum, we all know that was what they were expecting to make.

    If we can just get to them and make them realize that they don't need $200K a year to be happy - if we can just get to them and teach them the joy of serving their fellow man...

    What's that you say? They took out $100K in loans to pay for a legal education? And they can't afford to do the public interest work that I keep telling them they need to do because they have those pesky things called $1500 a month student loan payments?

    Well, they shouldn't have been so prolific in their borrowing! They should have educated themselves as to what they were getting into. They should have worked part-time at the grocery store to reduced their $100,000 debt by $1571. They should not have taken on this debt expecting a job - any job - at all. Entitled scum!

    Yes, the problem rests entirely with this current generation, who, for some reason, after spending $100,000 on law school tuition, does not realize the value of working of working in public interest positions or for free in unpaid internships for years on end, as they should. If we can only get them to do 30 hours of pro bono work, that ought to solve the problem and they will be grateful for their non-paid public interest internships that they have to do for years on end to get a job.

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    1. Alexander cannot be unaware of the state of the profession and the academy. Before the money was allocated for this new toilet-to-be of a law school, there must have been a study of the job market, the need for a new law school, and the financial prospects of this institution. Hell, Alexander even admits that there are too many law schools and that many of them are likely to shut their doors in the coming years. He only attributes that to their alleged desire to become Harvards.

      Well, pooh. The truth is that Indiana Tech is a business venture. It's possible to make some money off this thing for a few years, so it will be built. Once it too collapses, the building will be sold, and André Lower Case will look for a job teaching hip-hop theory.

      Delete
  32. One or two of the ideas in Dean Anderson's description seem plausible. Spending a semester actually working under the tutelage of a lawyer, for example--it's not hard to imagine how that could go horribly wrong, but you can also imagine it working well. Some other things, like the implication that lawyers do bad things chiefly because they didn't take their ethics course early enough in their law school careers, are breathtakingly stupid. But in the stupidity sweepstakes, nothing holds a candle to the stupidity of thinking that Indiana needs yet another law school.

    Pueblos

    ReplyDelete
  33. Why does "Peter Alexander, Dean and Professor of Law" write like a high school junior?

    Or do you think he was "writing down" at the TLS posters he was addressing?

    As for He Who Shall Remain Uncapitalized, there may be an "s" missing from his name, or perhaps it was supposed to be in front of his ultimate name instead of appended to it?

    I suggest, "andré douglas pond scumming", at least in fun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe Alexander wants to seem approachable to his targets—people with less than 150 on the LSAT. We's here ain't none of dem dar snooty-ass Harvard types.

      Or maybe he is indeed barely literate.

      Delete
    2. He will be surprised if he underestimates the TLS posters.

      Delete
  34. how can working for someone fopr a semeter go wrong?

    kind of like Kramer's NYU intern on sinfeld working for kramerica industries.

    ReplyDelete
  35. This seems to be the clearest example yet that the law school situation has not bottomed out. There are still plenty of reasons to open a law school from a supply/demand viewpoint. Of course, it's all distorted by free money, but I think it worth noting (not that it hasn't been already; but not necessarily directly) that there could still be years to come of the problem only getting worse.

    Graduate outcomes be damned, there is a lot of money to be made by opening a law school right now.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Ooooh! How Excitin!!!October 8, 2012 at 11:36 AM

    For those of you who tend to find your current hobby of watching paint dry jeeest a teensy bit too excitin', here's the latest and greatest craze!

    Yes, YOU TOO can watch the Indiana Tech Lawl Skule being built in live, real-time action!

    http://www.indianatech.edu/About/Pages/ConstructionCam.aspx


    (I only wish I were kidding about this.)

    ReplyDelete
  37. LawProf, I have heard from now three sources that the LSAT test administered this past Saturday was too easy and seemed a bit dumbed down. Is it possible that LSAC is in cahoots with the law schools to preserve the higher LSAT medians despite that "smarter" people are bypassing law school altogether? It would not surprise me if this is happening.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The test is scaled...

      Delete
    2. Exactly: Since it is scaled, the scores will remain more or less what they are even if the test is dumbed down.

      Delete
    3. There are plenty of people on TLS who feel that the test was about what they expected but at least one game was very challenging.

      One of the part that seemed easier is debated as being experimental.

      No one is saying the test was easy and dumbed down.

      Delete
  38. 11:36AM,

    I am not sure what is more exciting to watch: a sleep deprived asshole who claims to being "electrocuted" as a dumb stunt and cry for attention, or watching the construction of a mausoleum (aka Indiana Tech) that will house the future stillborn careers of many gullible college grads.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Curiouser and curiouser, saith AliceOctober 8, 2012 at 12:01 PM

    You know, sometimes an awkward turn of phrase gets my "um, what?" detector running.

    Here's one: "[Victoria] Duke is an associate professor of law and teaches and researches in the tort law area. She was most recently a member of the Florida A&M College of Law faculty. "

    Not that she has "expertise" in torts, but rather that she "researches" in it.

    And not that she was a prof at FAMU, but was "most recently" a "member" of the faculty.

    What do these mean?

    Someone's hiding a ball somewhere.

    Sorry I'm such a suspicious sort.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hein Online doesn't list a single article by Victoria Duke.

      Luna and Cummings (I refuse to honor his petulant insistence on lower case) have a number of articles each in publications listed on Hein Online. Most of them are about "hip-hop culture", food, and other topics of questionable significance to legal "scholarship".

      Poydras has one non-scholarly piece on ways to recruit legal librarians.

      Delete
  40. A question, how and when does a new law school become qualified to have it's students eligible for federal student loans? What if anything does it require from the ABA? William Ockham

    ReplyDelete
  41. The song "Indiana Wants Me" was a top ten hit...this joint won't be.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Hey there WO! haven't seen you @ Marcy's place lately -- miss you.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Back home again in Indiana,
    In pursuit of a JD
    At a revolting wreck—
    Indiana Tech—
    For no other school took me....

    ReplyDelete
  44. "A former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader pleaded guilty Monday to having sex with her 17-year-old former student while she was a teacher at a northern Kentucky high school, a move that will allow her to avoid jail time.

    In a tearful admission in Kenton County Circuit Court in Covington, Ky., 27-year-old Sarah Jones pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct and custodial interference in place of more serious charges as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

    "I began a romantic relationship while he was a student and I was in a position of authority," Jones said, her voice cracking as her family members wiped their own tears."

    and kicker...

    He said that Jones will not try out to be a Bengals cheerleader in the future, and that for now, she's working as a legal assistant in his office.

    Jones has expressed interest in becoming a lawyer and is studying to take the Law School Admission Test, he said.


    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/08/former-nfl-cheerleader-pleads-guilty-in-student-sex-case/?test=latestnews#ixzz28k3ZLESd


    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/08/former-nfl-cheerleader-pleads-guilty-in-student-sex-case/?test=latestnews#ixzz28k3IUE4c

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "We feel that it is a just and it is a fair result," prosecutor Sara Farmer said. "It's certainly difficult when a victim and his family don't cooperate by not providing information, but it makes our case a lot harder when they're actually proactive for a defendant, and in this case, the family was more than supportive of the Jones (family). They were proactive for them."

      We need to take a tip from this prosecutor, and not only support Campos, but be proactive for him.

      Delete
  45. This is what the end looks like.

    ReplyDelete
  46. The ABA committees on legal education need to be disinterested - that means no legal educators should be on the committee. They should represent the cross section of law school grads - including a fair share of the unemployed, underemployed and employed with inability to pay back their law school loans.

    Who sets up a conflicted committee to oversee a process as important as accreditation.

    The ABA needs to limit each law school to a number of places that approximates the jobs its grads can get.

    The pity of this is that once Carnival Barker School of Law is set up, a few of its grads will knock out grads from much better schools from their jobs. Each new law school hurts- not only its own grads who cannot get jobs, but also grads of other schools who lose out to the small percentage of Carnival Barker Law School grads who do get legal jobs.

    Sorts of stinks, doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Appalachian School of Law is hard pressed to find any lawyers to list among its graduates. It gloats of one alumnus's descent from a 170-odd-year line of lawyers, yet that person appears to be unemployed and in any event is not practicing law.

      Delete
    2. I know of two who got hired recently here in Tiny Law.

      Delete
  47. If you attend this dump of a school, you DESERVE what you get, which is a lifetime of debt servitude (if you're lucky enough to find any job that would allow you to pay back your debt) or homelessness, no job, quadrupled student loan balance with no means to pay it down (see that idiot J.D. Painter), no spouse (since you'll have nothing to offer a spouse), etc., etc. Seriously, you will have ZERO respect coming out of this school. Get ready to go through life with a loser badge stuck to your lapel. This Pond Scummings guy is delusional (as another poster stated). There are no jobs. In case you haven't heard, it's an employer's market and they're not hiring from podunk Indiana Tek School of Hip Hop Law. What a joke. Avoid this place like the plague. You will regret your decision. If this dump is the best you can do, retake the LSAT.

    ReplyDelete
  48. In Indiana Tech, we truly have a marvel: a place conceived and built after the scam became well known and opened long after the downturn in applications. It's like building an investment bank in 2010 or a milk man service in 1980 or a CD megastore in 2005.

    The economic foolery is impressive. It's one thing for law schools that have been around for a century. It's a whole different ballgame when the assbuckets build one from scratch because they're going to do it "differently" while doing it virtually the same way as everyone else.

    If I ever have to hire and I get an Indiana Tech grad, I will bring them in for an interview just to laugh at them. Worse than Cooley.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I see this with a load of schools: construction, even if the buildings have no real purpose. I think it really has more to do with keeping local construction firms going than creating an object the campus truly needs.

      Delete
  49. I am waiting for andre's next law review article which I hear is tentatively titled: "Fusing Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dog bite cases: No Free Bites in this World."

    ReplyDelete
  50. Indiana Tech will at least be well placed to allow its students to transfer to the plumbing or welding department.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Ethics are easy when you are making money, they get fuzzy when you can't pay your bills.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Notice how "Charter Class" is capitalized for no good reason. It's the little things that are very telling.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Someone's reading:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/new-indiana-law-school-to-open-in-2013-2012-10

    ReplyDelete
  54. no one will hire from these schools. In Southern California most firms ignore dont even send recruited to thomas jefferson and a couple of other of these diploma mills.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Why judge another person's aspirations? Perhaps some people are interested in attending this law school! I met dean Alexander; he is a very intelligent man.

    Many of you are simply jaded because you weren't able to secure biglaw positions. Perhaps you don't have what it takes, but certainly many others do!

    ReplyDelete
  56. it will be interesting to see when and if the Mayor actually closes the schools or he will expose the children to the severe weather just for a few dollar plumbers walnut ca

    ReplyDelete
  57. Nice post.
    I like the way you start and then conclude your thoughts. Experiential marketing agency

    ReplyDelete

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