I wrote a few of the emails that Prof. Campos posted on Inside the Law School Scam. I want to revisit one of them: http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/search?q=cle
In that post, I discussed the New York State Bar Association's requirement that new lawyers complete hundreds of dollars of live MCLE courses in the first two years (after charging $750 for applications and dues and bar exam fees). The NYSBA allows a tuition reduction if a person applies for it. However, even if this person qualifies for government assistance because she is below the poverty line, the bar only will provide a $50 coupon or, if she is lucky, 50% off of the course, which will still cost $75-$125.
The NYSBA also offers week-long courses, which require $300+ fees and travel/lodging expenses. For example, they are running a week-long trial advocacy camp for new lawyers near Cornell, meaning that most interested in this program will have to take a week off of their Starbucks job to travel and sleep away at Cornell.
As we all know, the normal MCLE courses could be offered online for $20 or less. Alternatively, the live courses in New York City could be hosted at much cheaper locations than, say, the most expensive midtown hotels.
I took an MCLE class again yesterday, and based on the number in attendance and the cost of the class, this one-day MCLE workshop generated over $21,000 in revenue (before factoring in the merchandise sales). The bar hosts a dozen of these classes each month!
I have tried getting answers about these high costs from the person in charge of the Continuing Legal Education in New York, but he will not discuss the hard numbers or the reasons for so little relief for new attorneys despite the required live courses and the higher number of credits required to stay in good standing.
Again, this is all indicative of the clueless or the outright gouging of an out-of-touch generation. The lawyers teaching my criminal law workshop did not understand that half of the people they were instructing were unemployed (a fact that came out toward the end of the day after someone asked for a show of hands). Yet, there we were, learning strategy for murder trials and other felonies that few of us will ever handle.
Interestingly, a New York Times article today echoed my "Jobs Now" post about the huge number of poor people without access to legal help despite the huge number of new attorneys available to work for low pay and/or loan forgiveness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/us/16gideon.html?hp
The good news: I feel that the USNWR's attempt to posture--pretending that they were harbingers of the truth--and the mainstream media stories published each week about the law school collapse, the lawyer glut, and the public's lack of access to legal services means that change is starting...even if slowly. Don't expect those in charge to help--they will continue to posture and to take credit for change after we force it.
The best pressure now is shaming the bar associations, who often block many talented young lawyers from jobs and government revenue, and expanding the audience receiving our message.
Many bar associations now depend upon MCLE for revenue. Not surprisingly, the same organizations make it hard for others to offer MCLE cheaply.
ReplyDeleteMCLE could be free, just as MOOC are. But you can count on the fact that law faculties, bar associations, and state bars will view lawyers as ATM machines.
Yesterday, they reeeaaally needed to pay for four upstate attorneys to travel down and spend the night and eat meals at the Radisson near Penn Station because no criminal attorneys work in the city apparently. They did use our money to serve a huge vat of Starbucks coffee, which we could intravenously access.
DeleteThe bar dues also have gone up year after year to pay for the new bar association facilities and staff to fill them up. Basically, I pay $400 a year for a phone directory. They send a magazine once a month but it is filled with articles that are much like law reviews -- obscure topics that no one but a few specialists in Big Law ever use.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Adam. I like the tie in with ITLSS, and thanks after the fact for feeding emails to Campos for him to use as material.
ReplyDeleteMCLE is the bar's scam. Forced participation - no license if no MCLE credits. It's like a car manufacturer requiring that you take it to an official and expensive dealer for service so as not to void the warranty.
Most of the in person courses are low budget stuff. Practitioner to lecture pre-written material, hotel for the night, perhaps meals and local travel costs for the practitioner, rent a hotel conference room with those weird curtains around the bottom so you can't look up people's skirts etc. All in all, I bet that a CLE course - live - can be put on for $5,000, all in.
And for that, lawyers are charged $250 - $500 (or more) each? It's a scam.
And you'd think that online repeats would be offered for cheap, but even those cost hundreds of dollars to see. MCLE is like the gift that keeps on giving for bar associations.
And like someone else posted, if you don't take the MCLE or pay your dues to these scammers, you're treated to inclusion on a list that deliberately includes attorneys who have been convicted of sex crimes, fraud, and other things like that, with no differentiation about who in on the list for raping a kid and who is on the list for failure to complete the required amount of rip off MCLE credits.
Yep. It's a scam. I'm paying those bastards my hard earned money for literally nothing in return.
DeleteAnd to think I need to pay them to teach me "ethics." Will wonders ever cease?
ReL this Blog IMHO:
ReplyDeleteToo many fleeting posts and to fast. Too many cooks (authors) spoiling the soup. To much pornographic and willfully hateful anon stuff against Leiter which will not help Campos out either if any one of you cared to stop and think, and probably reflects badly on Lawprof in a remote way.
I would think that that is why Lawprof has not commented here after the first early posts.
No stated purpose for the blog as one will see with TTR.
And no comments from the commonly known ILSS followers to speak of.
I have my own problems with a cyber bully and stalker, but even idiots like me can offer feedback.
Painter
THANK YOU for your "valuable" advice on how to run this blog! Your comments are SO appreciated!!!!
DeleteWe thought that you had moved on from this blog due to your complaints about stalkers. We are going to follow Campos' lead from ITLLS and ask that you please move on. We also will follow Campos' lead and ask commenters to not engage Painter.
Delete@Adam,
DeleteWatch your back, brah. If you say anything on this site that he doesn't like, he'll send an imaginary SWAT team to your house to destroy you. You big bully you. See the comments below.
Unless you're willing to go to court to MAKE him stop hijacking your blog, you will just have to get a diligent moderator to delete his comments right away, before the inevitable flame war begins.
DeleteIt is a matter for the police by now.
ReplyDeleteThey might care about anon posters that repeatedly try to pin racist comments that I never made on me, as was done on the March 6th TTR Post.
DeleteAnd they might care about anon posters that spread false rumors among thousands or readers about how I do not work.
And the police also they might care about anon posters that repeatedly harass and bully and insult without saying who they are.
And so that is enough reason to get the police involved. Which I will do, because I do not want the cyber buly and harasser to follow me around for much longer.
I am not anon and I have been in the public media with my real name and am it seems a public figure, but there seems to be a real anon person out there that is very obsesed with me and might be dangerous.
Tip: It could well be Mr. Infinity, but I cannot be sure.
And so I need to talk to the police this week.
If I were you Mr.anon I would just quit it.
John Koch
@Roachie,
DeleteI'm not "Anon." MY NAME IS MITCH CONNOR - just your run of the mill con man. I've been moving from town to town, scamming people since I was fifteen. But I'm tired of running. I've been a cheater all my life. And now I've ruined a great sculptor's career, lost a blog millions of readers, and cost a little roach its precious time. Mostly I'm sorry to you, Ben. I'm sorry I played tiddlywinks with your heart.
But it's over now. The cyanide pill I took should be taking effect very soon. It looks like the sun is going down. I wonder - will I dream?
1218,
DeleteNOBODY "follows" you anywhere on the internet, you piece of trash.
Do you own this fucking website or something? You don't? Well surely you at least own TTR then, right? No again?
Apparently you think you have the right to say whatever the fuck you want on the internet and be immune from criticism.
If you start your OWN blog, and people keep going there and "bullying" you, THEN you can cry about it.
LOL, maybe I should break into someone's house some night and then accuse the people there of "stalking" me when they try to make me leave.
You don't DESERVE any more money. You've had enough already. I hope your debt never goes away for as long as you live.
God, how I wish I could see the look on that long-suffering cop's face when you unload your terrifying tale to him. I just hope they leave one or two cops behind to pursue all the murderers and drug traffickers out there, LOL.
University of Oregon adjunct law professor cited for theft, harassment following confrontation with students
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/03/university_of_oregon_adjunct_l.html
A little disappointed that the students weren't protesting law schools after I saw that they were called "Students Against Imperialism." I thought Cooley might have been involved. Oh well, any bad press for law schools is good press, I suppose.
DeleteDude must not have taught constitutional law.
With the increase in Law school scams they are putting stones in the path of the talented students.The best pressure now is shaming the bar associations, who often block many talented young lawyers from jobs and government revenue.
ReplyDelete