tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post1992983110083570557..comments2023-10-30T08:41:06.178-07:00Comments on Inside the Law School Scam: They write lettersLawProfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174586969709793419noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-3903194653618815042012-05-14T11:41:36.428-07:002012-05-14T11:41:36.428-07:00You should not have gone to SyracuseYou should not have gone to SyracuseAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-67625355426694214282012-05-14T10:49:53.645-07:002012-05-14T10:49:53.645-07:00I found a job without any problems. Target big ma...I found a job without any problems. Target big markets and you will be fine. Go to where the money is, not where you went to law school.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-38074365807328386592011-08-26T14:00:03.189-07:002011-08-26T14:00:03.189-07:00Ten years ago, it was possible to go to a Tier 2 o...Ten years ago, it was possible to go to a Tier 2 or Tier 3 school, graduate with a decent class placement, not run up a huge debt, get a decent job, and pay off any student loans in relatively quick order. I went to the University of Missouri at Kansas City law school, tuition and books for three years cost about $30,000, most students were able to work their way through and end up with maybe $15,000 in debt. Most students came from Kansas City, UMKC is mostly a commuter school and about 90% of the grads end up working in KC. Now, those costs are estimated at nearly $40,000 per school year; three years cost is therefore close to $120,000. At those prices, it's not worth it. If you don't get pretty close to a full-ride scholarship, you'll never pay back the loans for the rest of your life; the total cost of the loans may run you closer to $300,000 and you aren't going to be getting paid enough to make this a good deal, or even a marginally good deal.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-29542461141113804822011-08-24T15:00:59.320-07:002011-08-24T15:00:59.320-07:00Why does anyone go to a tier 2 school? What are th...Why does anyone go to a tier 2 school? What are these people thinking?Asherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09892512047555912552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-82078953580132890352011-08-23T20:26:26.772-07:002011-08-23T20:26:26.772-07:00Great posts today, LawProf. Thank you. You make su...Great posts today, LawProf. Thank you. You make sure you tell this side of the story and drop it down into broader questions about ethics and why this was allowed to happen - why the academics who are the show let the admin run away with it - then you're onto something. This will motivate the reform. We'll get to that, but honestly after years of unemployment and misery, and almost at one point jumping in front of a train, it's nice to hear the argument put forward by someone other than me.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04034378179943090607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-81663555523955137032011-08-23T18:08:49.343-07:002011-08-23T18:08:49.343-07:00cut ^off^ the law schools' supply.cut ^off^ the law schools' supply.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-89280357462676046092011-08-23T18:06:29.257-07:002011-08-23T18:06:29.257-07:00These are the stories behind the statistics, and t...<i>These are the stories behind the statistics, and the law school world needs to listen.</i><br /><br />It needs to get past that environ out to the real world where parents and future "victims' can cut of the law schools <i>supply</i>.<br /><br />How do you do that? Hell if I know. <br /><br />There are actually people out there who think that being a lawyer is recession resistant because we are such a litigious society.<br /><br />The feeling is lawyers will be in demand because someone , somewhere always wants to sue.<br /><br />More lambs for the slaughter coming to a theater near you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-76396191313468329922011-08-23T17:48:23.238-07:002011-08-23T17:48:23.238-07:00This sounds mean, but on the one hand, your studen...This sounds mean, but on the one hand, your student (I think it's a she) should not have gone to law school. Law school is mostly an extremely expensive two way sorting mechanism, and if you don't get into the schools at the top, you aren't going to do well. You were sorted out. Give up the ghost and move on; don't let lower tier law schools scam you.<br /><br />HOWEVA, then what? There's almost nothing else in this economy for young, intelligent people to do, other than engineering (if they're really good at math) or nursing. A handful are allowed into medicine (because the AMA is a much better guild than the ABA), and some with great connections& a lot of luck can do ok as sales people. Teaching positions are drying up rapidly, and journalism as anything other than a hobby is dead. <br /><br />What we need is redistribution, through the channel of massive amounts of government jobs for people like this law grad. Not scamming her out of tuition would be nice, but that's not a holistic solution. That (writ large) is just going to add a whole bunch of people to the unemployment lines.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-48400596243073135562011-08-23T16:46:26.878-07:002011-08-23T16:46:26.878-07:00Dear God these stories make me so glad I got out o...Dear God these stories make me so glad I got out of law school "with only" a few thousand down the drain. The fact that I might not be able to get a job no matter how well I did scared the living crap out of me. The debt terrified me. The combo of the two threw me into depression.<br /><br />I'm still taking on debt in my one year Master of Accounting program - but at least I have job offers a whole two days into the program. Maybe law should look at Accounting as an example...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-54383529044469075022011-08-23T16:24:00.462-07:002011-08-23T16:24:00.462-07:00They can walk or ride a bike?They can walk or ride a bike?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-34765440378453050022011-08-23T16:21:08.802-07:002011-08-23T16:21:08.802-07:00@ Anonymous 3:39 PM: It's because the people b...@ Anonymous 3:39 PM: It's because the people buying a Kia don't have a choice. They're not allowed to buy a Benz. (And the people buying used Chevy K cars aren't allowed to buy Kias.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-91786821707148949402011-08-23T15:29:25.204-07:002011-08-23T15:29:25.204-07:00I still can't understand why anyone would pay ...I still can't understand why anyone would pay the same price to attend a tier 2 or 3 school as a t-14. Even if kia produced a car that performed like a benz you still wouldn't pay benz prices for the kia.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-776351696462303472011-08-23T12:34:02.514-07:002011-08-23T12:34:02.514-07:00@ Anonymous 11:45 AM: Good point. Discussions of ...@ Anonymous 11:45 AM: Good point. Discussions of this sort would make more sense, I think, if we could look at hiring data for grads over the past 20 years, and sorted according to US News tier and also according to class rank. But I doubt that the data needed for doing this exists (or it is not in a usable form, or it is just bad).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-79999480734818140052011-08-23T12:32:05.992-07:002011-08-23T12:32:05.992-07:00Here's one sad story I read on Volokh this wee...Here's one sad story I read on Volokh this weekend:<br /><br />Let me provide my anecdotal story. I graduated from a tier 2 law school in 2008. Top 20% of my class and completely unable to get any sort of job. The school has a terrible reputation (undeserved if I might say) and to make things worst, the career services office and professors’ lives revolve around getting jobs for the top 5% so the rest of us are on our own.<br /><br />So I attended an LL.M. program in the field in which I wanted to practice, the best LL.M. program for that field. I digress to make a quick observation about life at this T6 school as compared to life at my tier 2 school. It was like going from a Toyota Camry to a Rolls Royce. Kids at top schools have no idea how good they have it. This is completely ignoring the career placemen advantage. I’m talking about quality of life and quality of education stuff. There is absolutely no reason why my tier 2 school’s tuition should be comparable to the T6 school’s tuition. It should cost maybe 1/3 of that amount. I could go on and on about the ways the T6 school was better, but any way, back to the debt issue. I graduated from the LL.M. in 2009 and I was still unable to get a job despite good grades (although that may party have been due to the economy).<br /><br />Fast forwarding two years. I am in over $300,000 of student loan debt. I had zero debt of any kind (and savings, in fact) before I went to law school, but now I am in $300,000+ of student loan debt. Most of this is government debt which I can defer indefinitely via Income Based Repayment (although if the government ever takes that option away I am going right into default). There is however a private debt component (my first year, in 2005–2006, GRAD PLUS loans did not exist and you had to borrow privately). The private part of this amount is funded by a $550/month payment that barely covers the interest.<br /><br />You might be wondering how much money I have earned over these past two years. I earned $0 in 2009. $21,000 in 2010 and so far in 2011 I have earned $4,000. My days are mainly spent networking for short term work and I exist due to assistance from my horrified family. We all hope this is a temporary situation but it’s probably not. I hope I can be excused for viewing my tier 2 school as a scam of an institution. <br /><br />http://volokh.com/2011/08/21/the-education-bubble/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-33806239170809314412011-08-23T12:19:55.366-07:002011-08-23T12:19:55.366-07:00I am a *1998* grad with a "prestigious" ...I am a *1998* grad with a "prestigious" federal appellate clerkship, several publications, adjuncting, and Biglaw experience under my belt, and I lost my job at a law school--my alma mater--when I was 9 months pregnant. (Allegedly for refusing to *double* my hours, which I had never been asked to do; more likely it was because a co-worker informed HR that I had been sexually harassed by a fundraiser who had been accused of same by several other women.) Like the person whose story is set forth above, the thousand bucks a year for my various bar memberships (not to mention CLEs) really added insult to injury!<br /><br />I feel like your 2007 grad and wish I had never gone to law school, because in this profession even the slightest misstep and you are pretty much cast out forever. (At least this has been the case for almost every woman I know in the profession -- men's mileage may vary, but probably not by much.) After searching high and low for a job in private practice, state government, or "law related" in my community (I had done contract work the whole time I was at the law school, to keep up my skills) and not even being able to score a first interview, we actually ended up emigrating to my husband's home country, primarily so that we would have health care and our children would be able to attend (free) university. <br /><br />The one thing I am grateful for is that we are not in a common law country, so I am not even tempted to try to find legal work other than the briefwriting that I am continuing to do while I look for a real job here. How sick is that?Credence@Toddlerismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12398410553915620682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-15154195541334284862011-08-23T12:18:28.034-07:002011-08-23T12:18:28.034-07:00this is Anon from 12:12 again.
Another issue, r...this is Anon from 12:12 again. <br /><br />Another issue, related to class size, is that law students don't fail out of law school anymore. My first day I remember my LS dean (this was in 2002-5) saying "look left, look right." Well, that just didn't happen. We lost maybe 2-3%, and some of that was through attrition not related to grades.<br /><br />From my perspective, it seems that the only thing LSs care about is money. Education is a far second, and Jobs are on the radar only to the extent that it helps to increase student headcount.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-3634429095714266072011-08-23T12:12:02.337-07:002011-08-23T12:12:02.337-07:00I agree that we can't ignore the economy, but ...I agree that we can't ignore the economy, but part of the problem is that law schools are churning out 15% more students today than they were 10 years ago (see the numbers here http://www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/charts/stats%20-%206.pdf)<br /><br />law school class sizes CANNOT keep increasing, while the number of jobs capable of paying off the debt incurred is decreasing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-69869268314583786532011-08-23T11:45:53.001-07:002011-08-23T11:45:53.001-07:00This is a very poignant story. One thing that soun...This is a very poignant story. One thing that sounds a discordant note is that he says: "in the early 2000's folks from my law school didn't have much trouble finding jobs in the surrounding area." There is no question that the law school model needs reform. But we cannot pretend that the fact that the US and the world are now in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s is not a part of the writer's problem. From his own words, it would seem to be a major part since students from his school had little difficulty in getting jobs at the beginning of the decade. Even when reform comes, it will not insulate people from the kind of near global economic catastrophe we are in and have been in for the past five years. It looks like we may be in it for a while.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-86868888835239699142011-08-23T11:36:15.416-07:002011-08-23T11:36:15.416-07:00"While I don't feel scammed, I simply wis..."While I don't feel scammed, I simply wish I'd never gone to law school. I am discouraged. I'm humiliated and demoralized."<br /><br />That pretty much sums it up. <br /><br />"But, in the end, the bulk of the responsibility lies with the schools, and their administration, faculty, and staff."<br /><br />The leaders in the legal profession make their money by eating their young. There is no protection, no camaraderie, no mentorship.Shark Sandwichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08866373313029422313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-60361810948962111062011-08-23T11:27:36.695-07:002011-08-23T11:27:36.695-07:00The story above is neither an aberration nor anoma...The story above is neither an aberration nor anomaly. More and more, this is becoming the new norm for many law school graduates. There are highly credentialed, well-intentioned, smart, concerned people who went to law school well-informed and for the right reasons, whose situation is similar to the one you posted above. Yet law school administrators and a good number of the professors continue with the "blame the victim" routine. At some point this situation will reach a critical mass and spur change, but not before many, many people basically have their lives ruined by the legal education complex.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com