"Why You're In Deep Trouble If You Can't Afford A Lawyer," Mother Jones Magazine
This article is worth a read for all you Perry Mason wanna-bes. It's a cliche that criminal defense lawyers are chronically overworked and underpaid. Here are the statistics to back it up. The article could just have easily been entitled "Why You're in Deep Trouble If You Are a Defense Lawyer."
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"The Calculus of University Presidents," by William D. Henderson (National Law Journal)
Another very good article worth a read. Henderson basically argues that most university presidents will either have a choice to radically integrate law schools without either national or regional employment strength into the arts & letters department or shut them down completely.
Money Quote: "Arguably, law schools are the bleeding edge of the growing problems facing all four-year colleges and universities: growing tuition and debt loads in combination with flat or declining earning for graduates. The six-figure debt loads of unemployed or underemployed law students make them the poster children for a system of higher education that is rapidly on its way to becoming unsustainable. Sallie Mae, the government-chartered lender for higher education, is having difficulties selling its bundled student loans to large institutional investors, prompting concerns that the federal government is financing a student loan bubble that is destined to burst."
"Ask Stacy: Should I lend My Granddaughter Money for Law School?" by Stacy Johnson (Money Talks News)
Let me take a crack at answering this letter: "No, you should not lend your granddaughter money for law school. You will never see your money again. Your granddaughter's life will be ruined. Hire her to help you clean around the house and run errands for you. You will get something for your money and your granddaughter will have a marketable skill."
Seriously, neither "Stacy" nor any of the commenters mentioned that law school was a disastrous idea in and of itself. All they were worried about was whether it was a good idea to lend to family and how much interest they could soak the grandkid for. Sheeesh. What sort of advice column is this?
"Time for a Radical Change in Legal Education," by Douglas A. Kahn (National Law Journal)
Money Quote: "One current proposal is to reduce the amount of required law school training to two years. For reasons noted below, I believe that there is a much better vehicle for addressing this problem. Instead of reducing the years in law school, I propose a substantial reduction in the amount of required general undergraduate education."
Gotta love this proposal. Turf warfare. "Hey, we law schools have been giving the English and History Department cover for generations, the cut shouldn't come at our end but their end!" How is it a radical change in legal education to cut out a few years of undergrad? Isn't that keeping the law school status quo intact?
"Oakton's John Cochran wins 'Survivor' show and $1 million," by Tom Jackman (Washington Post)
Money Quote: "The [Survivor] episodes were filmed last year on Caramoan in the Philippines, where [John] Cochran had to eat nasty things and do all the other physical and mental torture tests required of the contestants. He collects $1 million for his troubles."
Turns out Cochran also graduated from Harvard Law School. Obviously Cochran landed one of the "JD Advantage" jobs with the reality show gig. If Cochran was actually practicing law with his degree, he would be doing much worse things than eating bugs and likely doing them for minimum wage. Way to play the game, Mr. Cochran. We salute you.
"East Campus would be perfect setting for law school," by Thomas T. Huff (M-Live Guest Opinion)
A guest opinion letter to support the new "Western Michigan University Law School" formerly known as "Cooley Law School." The writer claims this new merger will "elevate the university to a new level" and he advocates for setting up the new law school in the old part of campus "surrounded by mature oak trees."
No. Stop. Don't.
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"Ask Stacy: Should I lend My Granddaughter Money for Law School?" by Stacy Johnson (Money Talks News)
Let me take a crack at answering this letter: "No, you should not lend your granddaughter money for law school. You will never see your money again. Your granddaughter's life will be ruined. Hire her to help you clean around the house and run errands for you. You will get something for your money and your granddaughter will have a marketable skill."
Seriously, neither "Stacy" nor any of the commenters mentioned that law school was a disastrous idea in and of itself. All they were worried about was whether it was a good idea to lend to family and how much interest they could soak the grandkid for. Sheeesh. What sort of advice column is this?
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"Time for a Radical Change in Legal Education," by Douglas A. Kahn (National Law Journal)
Money Quote: "One current proposal is to reduce the amount of required law school training to two years. For reasons noted below, I believe that there is a much better vehicle for addressing this problem. Instead of reducing the years in law school, I propose a substantial reduction in the amount of required general undergraduate education."
Gotta love this proposal. Turf warfare. "Hey, we law schools have been giving the English and History Department cover for generations, the cut shouldn't come at our end but their end!" How is it a radical change in legal education to cut out a few years of undergrad? Isn't that keeping the law school status quo intact?
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"Oakton's John Cochran wins 'Survivor' show and $1 million," by Tom Jackman (Washington Post)
Money Quote: "The [Survivor] episodes were filmed last year on Caramoan in the Philippines, where [John] Cochran had to eat nasty things and do all the other physical and mental torture tests required of the contestants. He collects $1 million for his troubles."
Turns out Cochran also graduated from Harvard Law School. Obviously Cochran landed one of the "JD Advantage" jobs with the reality show gig. If Cochran was actually practicing law with his degree, he would be doing much worse things than eating bugs and likely doing them for minimum wage. Way to play the game, Mr. Cochran. We salute you.
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"East Campus would be perfect setting for law school," by Thomas T. Huff (M-Live Guest Opinion)
A guest opinion letter to support the new "Western Michigan University Law School" formerly known as "Cooley Law School." The writer claims this new merger will "elevate the university to a new level" and he advocates for setting up the new law school in the old part of campus "surrounded by mature oak trees."
No. Stop. Don't.
"Law schools are the bleeding edge of the growing problems..." Yeah, and the graduates are the ones who will be doing all the bleeding.
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to interview a group of students who are now about 3 months away from starting Law School, Fall 2013. Just what are they thinking? And how much do they still instinctively follow their parents' leads rather than chart an independent path based upon personal observation of contemporary events.
And you just gotta love the idea of eliminating undergraduate studies so that a law student emerges with less debt... and creating a new law school ?!?
There aren't enough jobs.
I see these troubles every day in the city. Fortunately, I can nab some of the clients after the PD does nothing for months and the client wants a trial, not a deal. Unfortunately, the PDs often let important deadlines expire because of the huge case loads.
ReplyDeleteThe private criminal defense market is extremely competitive, especially for young lawyers on their own, because so few clients have access to money for payment. For every 10 calls, you may get one case, and few cases are high dollar felonies.
Exactly. Criminals are generally - no, scratch that, always - stupid, greedy, lazy, lying pieces of human trash. But they do need defending against a system that is equally broken.
DeleteBut it makes me wonder why any sane person would spend $150K on law school for the amazing business idea of having criminals as clients...
Outcomes/salaries vary wildly for criminal defense attorneys--the really good, driven ones make way into the six figures, others try to run a solo practice and go broke. My guess is that most make in the mid to upper five figures, which isn't poverty, but a far cry from the public image of attorneys being wealthy. It also is a poor outcome if you went six figures into debt to achieve it.
DeleteIn this line of work, most of the clients you deal with are not bad people--they just did something stupid--e.g. drug possession, DUI, shoplifting, etc are the bread and butter. From time to time you do get the violent stuff but not a whole lot of it.
We in the US criminalize a huge range of behavior and I would imagine all of us have done something that would be grounds for arrest if we had been caught.
If you are PD you get pretty much everything and see a lot of the same clients on a repeat basis and many of them are pretty fucked up people. So why would someone do this for a living? Well you see a lot of interesting stuff and from time to time get something meaningful done. And if you are a PD there is no need to worry about running a business, getting clients, etc.
I am not sure if Henderson is talking about these options for his own school or not. There are more than enough law schools in Indiana.
ReplyDeleteThe Ask Stacy column made me sick, listening to all those greedy boomers grasping their bags of money close to their chests and screaming "Get off! Get off!!! Mine!!!!!"
ReplyDeleteLaw school is a bad idea, but that never came up. I imagine the boomers would have the same cold, greedy and selfish conversation when their grand kid needed $10,000 for surgery because they couldn't afford health insurance.
Whatever happened to families acting like families? If my kids (1) need something and (2) they can't afford it and (3) I can, then I'm happy to help. I'm not writing it up like a loan.
Do boomers not get that all their greed is building up a bubble of resentment in the younger generations, and it's getting to the point where the younger generations are starting to hunt for needles to burst it?
Like with this blog. We're not just sitting back waiting for the bubble to burst on its own. We're stabbing at it.
Asking boomers to forego greed is like asking the fish to get over his swimming obsession.
DeleteI love the column's obtuseness. "Should I lend my nephew $10,000 to start a human smuggling business, specializing in bringing undocumented, underage labor into this country to provide slave labor to service white-supremacist hate groups that wish to provide free tainted narcotics to local minority school children and indoctrinate them with violent political doctrines?"
Well, I'd have to know if the interest will be simple or compunded quarterly, don't you know.
That column is despicable. It's poor advice, since it completely ignores the purpose of the loan and the role of a sound financial plan in dealing with lenders.
DeleteHere's better advice for grandma: sit down with your grandchild and have a face to face conversation about what they're doing with their life and why. If they convince you it's a great idea for them to go to law school, give - as in GIFT - them an advance withdrawal on their inheritance and/or make it a forgivable loan if they complete law school and work in the legal field.
Don't treat your own grandkids like customers. Good God.
Grandma, please treat your grandkid the same way in which you would as if she'd just requested money to buy a new crack pipe... or make a partial payoff to a heroin dealer to whom she was in debt. "Not on your life, sweetie."
DeleteFamily doesn't sit by and watch someone screw-up their lives chasing after a long-faded dream of yesteryear.
Law school is no longer about entry into the profession (if it ever was)... it's simply a 3-year extension of the liberal arts cirriculum. It's just more school. Not a ticket to the professional class.
'Paper Chase' is now 40 years old and the cache of the supposedly prestigous education has long passed. It would be one thing if they charged 1973 tuition. But that, too, is long gone.
"A guest opinion letter to support the new "Western Michigan University Law School" formerly known as "Cooley Law School." The writer claims this new merger will "elevate the university to a new level" and he advocates for setting up the new law school in the old part of campus "surrounded by mature oak trees."
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised to see Cooley merge and change its name. Anyone familiar with "legal education" knows that the school's reputation is lower than whale excrement. Instead of improving job prospects for TTTThoma$ M Cooley Law Sewer students and grads - which would entail closing down several campuses and reducing itx enrollment by at least 80 percent - the bastards will go with the window dressing solution.
As you can see, the law school pigs have no integrity and no shame. At this point, anyone who enrolls at Cooley should be placed in a padded room.
"A guest opinion letter to support the new "Western Michigan University Law School" formerly known as "Cooley Law School." The writer claims this new merger will "elevate the university to a new level" and he advocates for setting up the new law school in the old part of campus "surrounded by mature oak trees."
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised to see Cooley merge and change its name. Anyone familiar with "legal education" knows that the school's reputation is lower than whale excrement. Instead of improving job prospects for TTTThoma$ M Cooley Law Sewer students and grads - which would entail closing down several campuses and reducing itx enrollment by at least 80 percent - the bastards will go with the window dressing solution.
As you can see, the law school pigs have no integrity and no shame. At this point, anyone who enrolls at Cooley should be placed in a padded room.
If I'm thinking of the correct location in Kalamazoo, that area with mature oak trees is adjacent to the former state mental hospital. Oh, please be true!
DeleteRebranding.
DeleteGod knows how much (student) money they spend on consultants to figure out how to "gild the dogturd".
Students paying student loan money to an organization that spends said money on finding better ways to scam said students. Like a snake eating its own tail. Or picture one of those curly long turds in the toilet, one end touching the other in a never ending loop of shittiness.
I believe this site, as well as the others exposing law schools, is really going to change how a legal education is viewed. More mainstream coverage can do it faster. However, applications are down but there are still too many.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of un/under employed attorneys is staggering but yet public defenders have no time to spend on all of the cases. There is not enough money to hire more so ultimately the defendants suffer, attorneys seeking employment suffer and society suffers. Why don't the law schools and public defenders offices work out an agreement where classroom rhetoric can be exchanged for valuable experience?
Like “Chernobyl” and “Madoff”, the very name “Cooley” has become so toxic that even the pinheads who traditionally matriculate at this trash heap are starting to think twice before signing over their student loan checks. Thus, the fraudsters running this “school” have come to the realization: the name has to go.
ReplyDeleteI think Cooley's motivation is that by aligning itself with a state university it has a "feeder" university and higher profile. There has been some discussion that the only law schools that are going to survive are those with strong alliances and the for-profit independents are vulnerable.
DeleteWhat's interesting to me is Western Michigan University's decision to enter into this arrangement with Cooley. I have to think their motivation is to simply have a law school like University of Michigan and Michigan State University.
It seems like WMU only looked at the up side and ignored the storm clouds on the horizon.
UNC-Charlotte is a solid, if unprestigious, school that has prepared a lot of students to have successful adult lives. So, I was dismayed to see recently that they have started a JD/MBA joint degree with the odious Charlotte School of Law. Why would they do that? The added revenue only explains a small part of their actions. The real issue, in my opinion, is the crushing inferiority complex felt by less prestigious universities when they compare themselves to the more prestigious universities that offer the full suite of graduate and professional degrees. Little do they know, affiliating with a for-profit law school will have the opposite of the intended effect on their reputation.
DeleteYou can quibble with the details of Doug Kahn's proposal - I think anything that reduces the cost of education is worth exploring, and the Euro system of making law an undergrad degree seems to have worked for centuries. but the real nugget in his article is this admission:
ReplyDelete"The plea for eliminating one year of law school training is only partially motivated by financial concerns. It also responds to the fact that law schools have expanded their curriculum to include a number of courses that are only marginally related to preparation for law practice."
To hear a tenured professor at a T14 make this admission is astonishing to say the least. This is Campos-like in its audacity. I know for a fact that Michigan has long been notorious for a glut of "Law And insert crap here" courses. There were debates about their utility as far back as 1993.
Full disclosure: I took a tax law class with Kahn and was quite gratified that he taught the IRS tax code as written and made no attempt to place it in the context of English legal history, social justice or any "deconstructionist" nonsense - you learned the code and how to interpret its provisions - pure and simple
Reducing years of undergrad to make law school shorter? Huh?
ReplyDeleteWhy not let law school be an undergraduate major like most of the rest of the planet. Are we still clinging to 19th century ideas that law is *special* and needs to be taught at the graduate level, using the Socratic Method, which is really neither Socratic nor a method.
One more thing! Left-leaning elites that dominate law schools and the ABA love to be critical of American traditions. Yet one absolutely horrible American tradition, law school at the grad level taught in a weird way, is one of the few traditions they absolutely adore and defend to the death. It's really puzzling to me. It'd be nice if they turned their critical eyes toward this awful tradition that really needs abolishing.
About the Harvard survivor guy -- its not surprising given that he was likely an expert backstabber and social climber with no principles to get into and out of Harvard successfully. He's likely the same types you see at the top of the pile at crab tank at a seafood restaurant. He'll be great at office politicking or real-life politicking where ever he goes.
--Jim