Friday, July 5, 2013

"The Happy Lawyer": UMKC Law Professors Nancy Levit and Douglas O Linder's hypocritically stupid advice to law students and law grads.

Nancy Levit and Douglas O Linder, Professors of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, have earned a place in my ongoing list of idiotic quotes from law professors, even though most of their quotes are more accurately described as hypocritical and sententious than as idiotic. The quotes come from their 2010 book, called "The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law." First the quotes and then a discussion below.
1. "Law degree offer tremendous flexibility. If you go to dental school—well, plan to spend years looking at teeth. A law degree, on the other hand, can open doors in politics, business, health care, journalism, law enforcement, and other fields where clear thinking and a knowledge of our nation’s laws is valued. Don’t limit your career vision to traditional law jobs. You can consult in an area of your expertise (such as business valuations); be a headhunter; go into arbitration or mediation; look at human resources jobs (such as affirmative action officer); develop real estate; write thrillers (think Scott Turow or John Grisham); become counsel for a school district; use the law degree to teach at the college, junior college, or paralegal level; become an agent in the entertainment or sports industries; manage a baseball team (Tony La Russa); coach football (Vince Lombardi); write poetry (Edgar Lee Masters); create crossword puzzles (Will Shortz); become a sportscaster (Howard Cosell) or broadcast journalist (Geraldo Rivera); become an actor (John Cleese); become a Presidential speechwriter and a game show host (Ben Stein); or even become a community organizer and then President of the United States (Barack Obama). In short, don’t start law school thinking that the sole career outcome is to practice law with a law firm."
Levit, Nancy; Linder, Douglas O. (2010-07-22). The Happy Lawyer:Making a Good Life in the Law (p. 114-115). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
2. "The best elixir is not money, but people. Search for a law school where professors understand and teach the importance of social bonds. Is your prospective law school one where students and faculty play together? Does it hold poker tournaments, faculty-student softball games, or annual skit shows? Do members of the law school community participate in Habitat for Humanity or other charitable projects? Ask current students if they have ever had a beer or a cup of coffee with a faculty member." Id. at p. 119.
3. "Consider how many of your current decisions are motivated by economics—what you can afford to do, and whether you can repay your student loans. Fortunately, this debt may be more manageable than the looming large numbers first make it seem. Lawyers are not minimum wage earners and make a good salary over time." Id. at p. 136.
4. "Unlike some other sources of lawyer unhappiness, feelings about not serving a larger social purpose come from a choice you made. No one forced you to take the job with the fancy downtown firm with its list of well-heeled clients. You could have taken a job with the county prosecutor or the public defender (which one would have given you a sense of contributing to society’s betterment depends upon your own views on law, order, and justice)."  Id. at p. 105-106
5. "Instead of taking that higher paying job at the prestigious firm of Thurston, Howell & Gilligan, how about accepting that slightly less lucrative offer from the seven-person firm in your hometown?" Id. at p. 90.
6.  "Developing social connections with faculty outside the classroom not only enhances learning, it "makes the educational process more meaningful" because professors can often help students reflect on their own values better in one-on-one meetings." Id. at p. 134.
7. "Fortunately, you will probably discover that lawyers in the community are more than willing to be mentors."  Id. at p. 134.
8.  "You may look back and realize that law school did equip you to handle many of the slings and arrows of practice: that you learned teamwork in sharing notes, that the Socratic dialogue prepared you to sharpen your thinking and articulate positions for your clients and to understand that there is no single right answer to "most of the hard questions that real world practice poses," and that as a litigator—and unlike Yogi Berra—you need to be ready to "take both forks in the road."  Id. at p. 131-132.
9. "The range of possible pro bono possibilities is vast. . ."  Id. at p. 197. [1]
Was the whole book as stupid as these quotes indicate? Not quite, which isn’t saying much. I thought that Levit and Linder’s discussion of some aspects of lawyer unhappiness was okay, if very shallow and overlong. They note that humans are "happiness-seeking animals." Id. at p. 226. They look to neuroscience and evolutionary psychology for insights into what makes humans happy. They note that relationships are key to life satisfaction. They recommend working a job consistent with one’s values, and discuss the importance of flexible schedules, autonomy, and maintaining a reasonable work-life balance. Ect.

Now, most of this stuff applies to white collar jobs generally, not just to lawyers. Indeed, in evaluating the unhappiness of practicing lawyers, Levit and Linder are not speaking from long or recent experience. The "employment" section of Levit's CV indicates that her only her experience as a lawyer consists of a federal district court clerkship and a single year of private practice. She has been a law professor since 1988. The biographical squib of Prof. Linder on his law school's website does not include a CV or even a list of positions or dates, but merely states that "Professor Linder is a former member of the Minnesota bar, and has practiced in the areas of environmental law and communications law." Linder has been a law professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, since the mid-1980s--where it is unlikely that his Minnesota bar membership, now lapsed, ever did much good. 

What infuriates me about this book is the near-complete failure to critique law school as a source of lawyer career unhappiness, even in the longest chapter of the book, Chapter 5, entitled: "Preparing for a Satisfying Career: The Law School Years." Why must law schools graduate 44,000 freshly minted lawyers to compete for 20,000-26,000 full-time legal jobs?  Why must they force their students to shoulder debt loads from hell? What about the declining levels of job security that Levit and Linder correctly identify as a source of lawyer unhappiness-- isn’t that ultimately a product of the market-flooding behavior of law schools? These questions are not addressed in their book.

Levit and Linder insistently advise young lawyers to go for that small firm or government job rather than opting for Big Law. Do they really believe that more than a sliver of new graduates have the choice? Or that government jobs are plentiful in this age of austerity? Or that small firms are eager to hire new law grads, even as ever-increasing competition, tort reform, and the growing availability of online legal resources eats into their bottom line? Young lawyers simply do not have the options they had a couple of decades ago. They will be lucky to get a job of any sort in the profession, and their JD is not respected by nonlaw employers. Of course, that is due to larger economic forces. But a new lawyer’s career prospects and opportunities for "happiness" would not be nearly as dismal had it not been for the greedy behavior of law school deans and professors. 

Levit and Linder add stunning hypocrisy to their cluelessness in advising their debt-ridden students that that money can’t make you happy, indeed that "even having higher income aspirations leads to reduced life satisfaction."  Id. at p. 137. If that is really the case, then maybe law professors can set an example by sacrificing their "higher income aspirations" for the greater good of their students and their profession. Yes, maybe Levit and Linder can ask that half their salaries be used to offset student tuition– in the interest of social bonds and trust and values and all those good things they talk about in their book. [2] The professors would merely be discarding those happiness-destroying higher income aspirations. Plus, if they ever did need some extra income, they could avail themselves of the "tremendous flexibility" offered by a law degree and coach a football team, write a thriller, or help launch an innovative comedy troupe, following the example of John Cleese.

notes and additional links.
[1]   Possible possibilities. I guess these happiness experts do not care about the happiness of their readers.
[2] In their book, Levit and Linder assert that: "So, if you earn more than, say, $70,000 (the midpoint of the $50,000 to $89,999 bracket), your absolute salary level should not matter much to your general life satisfaction—you will be earning enough to live comfortably." Happy Lawyer, at p. 10-11. And, yet, according to the University of Missouri employee salary database, Levit was paid $156,750 and Linder was paid $141,250 for the academic year 2011-2012.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/university-of-missouri-employee-payroll/html_6a155f54-6766-11df-bc3d-0017a4a78c22.html?appSession=108244848274722
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/university-of-missouri-employee-payroll/html_6a155f54-6766-11df-bc3d-0017a4a78c22.html?appSession=34744848018658
 

56 comments:

  1. Nice work. Keep up the good work guys/gals. IMO, these two are the best:

    "4. "Unlike some other sources of lawyer unhappiness, feelings about not serving a larger social purpose come from a choice you made. No one forced you to take the job with the fancy downtown firm with its list of well-heeled clients. You could have taken a job with the county prosecutor or the public defender (which one would have given you a sense of contributing to society’s betterment depends upon your own views on law, order, and justice)." Id. at p. 105-106

    5. "Instead of taking that higher paying job at the prestigious firm of Thurston, Howell & Gilligan, how about accepting that slightly less lucrative offer from the seven-person firm in your hometown?" Id. at p. 90."

    So, everyone stop complaining. Your only REAL choice is to choose between Biglaw or public service, depending on your particular tastes. What a fucking joke. I know a fellow classmate who recently took a job at the county prosecutor's office. He had to beat out 750 applications and 10 other interviewees to land it. AND he had connections at the office before he applied (he is more than qualified, mind you, but not sure if he would have landed it otherwise). While I do live in Cooley land USA, it is not as if one can just stroll into these jobs. These professors are so clueless; probably because they are too busy producing their world-changing scholarship to research employment stats.

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    Replies
    1. What the heck is "Cooley land USA"?

      Are you talking about Lansing or something?

      Delete
    2. Linder was a tool.

      Delete
  2. Their advice seems to say "hey, law grads, stop trying to get the small array of jobs up on the top rung. There are plenty of opportunities at, say, the third or fourth rung that pay well and yield satisfying lives, if you will condescend to taking them."

    From the LawProfs who hardly practiced law and were professors from the mid-80s, making six-figure equivalents the whole way through. Meanwhile, tuition in real dollars quadruples and people are trying to get jobs on the 50th rung.

    Typical clueless, bubble-living LawProfs. Their time is coming.

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  3. Vomit inducing stuff. Dybbuk, thanks for digesting that material for us. What shallow, clueless fools those professors are.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Burn this book on You Tube please someone.

      Delete
    2. Let's use the book as an object lesson.

      No book burning, please. A rather sordid history, that.

      Delete
  4. Some of the old farts may be clueless about the current lawyer job market. However, the majority of the younger academic thieves are AWARE of the situation facing students and recent grads. After all, these pinheads graduated from high-ranked law schools near the top of their class. The pigs continue to utter nonsense, in order to give false confidence to applicants. Their primary concern is getting asses in seats.

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  5. I have practiced law for 26 years. Neither I,nor any other lawyer known to me will mentor our competition.. Selfish? No. Survival? Yes. These people are so clueless.

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  6. I mentor people all of the time. Its the decent thing to do. Additionally, I am part of a group of trial lawyers with a dedicated message board limited only to our group. We help each other all the time with advice, names of expert witnesses, etc. It would be a sad day for all of us indeed if we were that selfish and myopic where we were unwilling to help other lawyers with advice.

    Further, what would anybody here expect these people to say? Do you expect them to write a book about how terrible law is when they are trying to fill law school seats?

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    Replies
    1. I must agree. In my community, we have an established mentor/mentee program where experienced lawyers pair up with new ones. It is a great program and it benefits all who participate.

      Delete
    2. Let's go into the high schools and colleges and do some real mentoring: DARE to say No to Law School.

      Here, the real problem is that the parents and teachers are the pushers. They came of age during the Boomer era when Law was the ticket to the upper middle class and the legal profession was a growing concern.

      Delete
  7. The possible pro-bono possibilities are possibly endless, potentially vast, and probably or at least possibly impossible to handle without malpractice insurance, without which you possibly or even probably shouldn't propose to perform pro-bono. Probably, that is.

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  8. I have no idea why Blogger refuses to recognize the lines I keep trying to put between paragraphs.

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  9. By now the last line of defense and fallback argument of academic types has to do with lifetime earnings, and they keep saying or implying that although things may seem not so good now, they will get better.

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    1. This is just more fluff in hopes of keeping the facade that the legal industry can recover. Times change and the legal industry has changed for the worse. Permanently. These clowns have no business prognosticating about the future.

      With nearly insurmountable debt, law school has never been worth it.

      Even if it were free, law school is not a viable way to earn money.

      Don't go to law school.

      Delete
  10. What exactly stops a dentist from going into countless other fields?

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    Replies
    1. Good point.

      Zane Grey (writer), Doc Holliday (gunslinger), Thomas Welch (fruit juice entrepreneur), Edgar Buchanan (TV actor -- "Beverly Hillbillies," "Green Acres"), Paul Revere (midnight rider) . . .

      . . . dentists all.

      D.D.S. -- The Other Versatile Degree.

      Delete
    2. My guess is that actually having a well-paying job in the field one was trained to enter tends to cut down on the supposed "versatility" of a professional degree.

      I will say it's unlikely any legal academic today would write something so utterly clueless as the quotes dybbuk assembles here.

      Which I guess counts as progress -- or maybe that's just wishful thinking.

      Delete
    3. A fake Lois Turner reclaimed from the grave and out of mothballs and with a lot of attitude.

      I love it!

      Delete
    4. "Fake"? "From the grave"? Are you confusing me with Lana?

      Delete
    5. I am relieved that you are still among the living, Lois Turner. I was afraid that 1:33 PM knew something.

      Delete
    6. Well Paul, one of your utterly clueless and much-reviled legal academic colleagues assigned the book just last spring for his ethics class. So I wouldn't be so sure.

      Delete
    7. Really? Ugh. It's hard to gauge how much progress has or hasn't been made on the consciousness-raising side of things. Of course nothing helps in that regard more than a few layoffs . . .

      Delete
    8. Take a look at Peter Huang's FCQs. Atrocious. Nothing like laterally hiring a complete bozo with tenure.

      Delete
  11. I'm a prosecutor. Though I've practiced for a decade now and still hover below the $70K mark in earnings, I feel like I have hit the lottery.

    I have interesting work that I enjoy. Though not wealthy, I have enough money to be fairly comfortable, own my own home, and excellent health/retirement benefits. The hours are manageable.

    I also got a great interest rate (just through pure luck of when I graduated) when I consolidated so that my loans are manageable.

    The problem is that my story is almost never repeated anymore.

    An office like mine used to be a training ground for young lawyers. When I started, people would ask me when I would leave "to make the big bucks." That seems like a joke now. I wouldn't even consider leaving now....and most of the office is now the same way. Three of the last four hires have ten years experience, all more than ready to get out of the private sector. Two were former prosecutors coming back.

    So the old path to the office, intern, work for free for a while, then get in line when an opening comes, is no longer a realistic option. I think we've maybe hired one person straight out of law school in the last 7 years. It's sad in one way, in that even for the folks who go into law school just wanting to do public service, those jobs are so few and far between any more.

    I'm thankful every single day that I came out of school when I did and landed the job I did, because I know how many other people would give anything to have what I have now.....and many of them are people who got the brass ring of Biglaw.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. "The problem is that my story is almost never repeated anymore. "

      Thanks for sharing. Curious, you mention "people who got the brass ring of Biglaw". What happened to them? Do you meant they still there in biglaw but would prefer your (more livable) life/work? Or did they get biglaw originally then get eased out at the ~ 6 year mark, and are now scrambling for any work?

      Delete
    2. Mainly those that got pushed out. Although I've had a decent percentage of classmates make partner in biglaw. The most successful, though, are probably those that went to mid-size or smaller cities. Almost all of them made partner. They didn't make six figures coming out, but they do now. I also take it that they generally like their work, as they tend to stay with one firm as opposed to hopping around.

      I should also mention I live in a place with an incredibly low cost of living. Not everyone would be happy living in a bedroom community or suburb type place, but I grew up in a rural area so I'm fine with it.

      Delete
  12. A decade out of school and earning 70K? I know you are happy with this and I suppose there is good reason. I made that working mid law back in the mid 1980s . . which just shows how far law has fallen as a viable career I suppose.

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    Replies
    1. That's good money. With IBR, that is wonderful!

      Delete
    2. I don't come close to qualifying for IBR.

      Delete
  13. McGeorge School of Law is Downsizing

    http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/05/5547384/mcgeorge-law-school-downsizing.html

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  14. "Lawyers are not minimum wage earners and make a good salary over time." Id. at p. 136.

    PURE Horse shit. And drizzly shit at that. The iron law of wages and elementary principles of supply and demand are driving earnings completely through the bottom.

    Who will be the first person to make a YouTube video of himself seting fire to this foul book ... or better yet, shitting into it and slamming the cover?

    The notion that lawyers are supposed to be "happy" is a sophistry and naive. The hypercompetitive nature of this must-win profession leads most lawyers to depression and substance abuse. And that was back in the good old days. It's 100x worse now.

    The authors act as if law school can cure lawyer unhappiness.

    THEY'RE RIGHT.

    Law School CAN bring about a great amount of lawyer happiness right now: CLOSE DOWN. Padlock the front doors and board up all the windows. No Fall 2013 semester. No pipeline of cannon fodder for firms. Then stay closed for 15 years.

    Turn the academicians lose on the streets to perform lewd acts for any money they can squander. Versatility is what they preach.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. Absolute bullshit. If you're unemployed after graduation, you are making 0x minimum wage. And it's even worse than that. At the patent search firm i worked at after I graduated LS (hint - rhymes with bar final), I often made about $5/hour.

      Delete
    2. "patent search firm i worked at after I graduated LS (hint - rhymes with bar final),"

      Cardinal IP?

      I've heard from some people that they treat their searchers like sweatshop workers. But I've also heard at least a couple of former employees speak favorably of them.

      Delete
    3. Yes, Cardinal. It's a hellhole and they, as a government contractor, are probably violating federal law (McNamara something something law).

      Delete
  15. "Instead of taking that higher paying job at the prestigious firm of Thurston, Howell & Gilligan, how about accepting that **slightly less lucrative offer** from the seven-person firm in your hometown?" p. 90.

    Or, how about move to Kitty Hawk, NC and help those young Wright brothers in their work on the aeroplane.... or move West and help build the Transcontinental Railroad... go to Georgia and help General Sherman march to the sea... or join Chris Columbus on his next voyage to the New World....

    What century are you guys living in?

    The authors would do readers a far better service if they limited their observations to themselves and the world that they experienced first hand.

    However, their attempt to offer prospective, forward-looking advice to today's law students in today's world is dangerous because it's based on outdated assumptions.

    Put this profession out of its misery. Close 70% of the law schools this year and the close the rest of them the next. Keep Harvard and Yale and Stanford as some type of theme-park attractions --much like a European country keeps trappings of monarchy-- to attract tourists and satisfy the curiosity seekers.

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  16. These two academic frauds remind me of the typical nyt sunday feature about a stay at home mom who "blogs about freedom". meanwhile her husband is in afghanistan exposed to depleted uranium poisoningwhile her dylan and dakota are being strip searches everytime.they dly to grandmas house in florida. these people ing to their delusions like a dying man in the desert clings to his canteen

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  17. "Young lawyers simply do not have the options they had a couple of decades ago. They will be lucky to get a job of any sort in the profession, and their JD is not respected by nonlaw employers."

    Even 20 years ago, things (while certainly a lot better than they are today) were nowhere near as good as the likes of Levit and Linder would have you believe. I graduated from law school in 1995, and there were a significant number of law grads struggling to find positions in the legal field even then, though not nearly as large a percentage as is the case today. And nonlaw employers weren't all that much more interested in JDs than they are now, although the general state of the economy meant that you were more likely to get hired by someone to do something sooner or later than in 2013 (and the debt levels you were facing in trying to make such a transition were obviously much lower).

    ReplyDelete
  18. http://www.salon.com/2013/06/30/thanks_for_nothing_college/


    "In a sense, the conservative voices that have worried about moral hazards were prescient, though probably not as they expected. After the new bankruptcy laws were enacted (and subsequently strengthened), loan originators lost any incentive to deny money to borrowers, and a culture was created where unscrupulous colleges and universities were able to raise tuition costs aggressively, safe in their knowledge that the banks would provide any loans to any students pursuing any degree programs for any reason, without regard to cost, future job prospects or even (in many cases) the realistic expectation that the loan might be repaid. A moral hazard, indeed. And while this is by no means the only cause of the ballooning costs of college, it reveals a broken incentive structure that benefits powerful, moneyed groups at the expense of 76 million Millennials who lack effective advocates in Washington."

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  19. Everyone knows that you'll be happily employed, always fulfilled, and generally satisfied when you move to Nebraska and work for a medium-sized firm. You just take half the BigLaw salary and it's half the stress, and the cornhuskers are ever-so-thankful to you for coming. So head to Omaha or Lincoln ASAP. Happiness awaits.

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    Replies
    1. Not Jack MarshallJuly 6, 2013 at 2:26 PM

      Why move? Any attorney can set up shop with just a laptop and a printer. Hit the pavement and find people who need legal work. Or, you could use your law degree to get one of the many jobs that's looking for JD skills. You just don't know how to sell the fantastically orgasmic juris doctorate as an employment credential that opens doors.

      Delete
    2. Not to disagree with any of the above, but keep in mind that, in Nebraska (or nearly anywhere else), one can earn one-third what one earns in a city and live a better lifestyle. Unless one simply has to have the nightclub life.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, if you earn NYC salary in Lincoln, Nebraska it'll buy you more crap than it would in NYC.

      But you'll be earning a Lincoln, Nebraska salary in Lincoln, Nebraska. Not so sure you'll come out ahead. And how 'bout asking the good citizens of Nebraska about whether they actually want or need more lawyers.

      This whole thing is not about the money you could/should earn. It's about the market's need for lawyers.

      Most law schools should be laid off as reduandant.

      And you now may very well need the Nightclub Life to meet your new clients.

      Delete
  20. These law professors who are insulated from the legal job market and absolutely clueless as to what is going on in the experienced job market. They are intentionally and misleadingly ignorant of the glut of lawyers and its impact on the legal careers of most lawyers. Their book is misleading.

    If it were only possible to get and hold on to that job in the seven lawyer law firm in a lawyer's home town, most lawyers would be very happy. Problem is that jobs in a seven lawyer law firm in one's home town are very hard to come by and even harder to hang onto.

    First of all, it is very hard to get a job in that seven lawyer firm. They have hundreds of applicants, many unsolicited, from highly qualified lawyers all over the United States. Many of these applicants have top law firm or government experience, law review, clerkships and top college and law degrees with honors. Many of the applicants are unemployed or about to be unemployed- lathamed from their law firms or other legal jobs.

    The problem is the glut of lawyers. There is a glut graduating from law school and a glut of experienced lawyers seeking work. There is also a glut of lawyers working in most law firms relative to the amount of work and a glut of law firms relative to the amount of legal work. Simple - too many people - too little work, but by leaps and bounds.

    If you have an honors degree from an Ivy League college and a top 14 law degree and years of big law experience, or an honors degree from your local school, you may, and it is clearly may, be able to get a job in a seven lawyer law firm in your hometwon. But it is unlikely to be in your home town, or anywhere near where you live. In order to work, you may need to travel hundreds of miles from home,live in a rented room, and only see your family every other weekend. You may even need to take a job in another part of the country or another country from where your family lives if you want to work at all with your law degree. You will make very little because it costs a lot for your rented room, travel home and having a single parent (your spouse is now a single parent because you have this far away job) at your home taking care of your family.

    The glut of lawyers also means that ideal job in your hometown is highly unlikely to last if you hit the lottery and are hired. You need to produce a quarter million dollars of business year after year to stay employed. The market is glutted and too many lawyers are seeking too little work. Bad year? Over 50? Your dream seven man firm wants to give that good looking 30-something lawyer coming directly from big law a chance at the firm, and there is not room for you any more.

    The absence of reliable employment statistics on a law school by law school basis or even for experienced law graduates as a whole leads to many lies. Having a happy career as a lawyer - maybe 20% of the class at a top 8 law school is going to have a happy and long legal career that lasts until a decade before they would otherwise chose to retire. Maybe 10% of the over age 53s at a top law school will have a private sector job that pays at least the median lawyer income for their state as per the Bureau of Labor Statistice. Most other people who graduate from law school will be out on the street long before they want to stop working.

    These law professors are in another world, an ivory tower, and not in today's legal job market.

    ReplyDelete
  21. "The happy lawyer." What a conflicted concept today. What's next? The capitalistic Communist, the racially progressive nazi, the athiest priest, the Flat Earth astrophysicist?

    The fact this book is being issued and promoted today is outrageous. The schtick of "take less money and be happy at a small firm" was appropros in the Reagan era. The first term of the Reagan era (1981-84).

    Why is unhappiness the lot of lawyers? Let's see: unemployment/underemployment, cutthroat work conditions, absurdly brief job tenure, job insecutiry to the max, 5 or 6 lawyers to each paying business client, frivolous lawsuits, public disdain of lawyers, and legislative reaction to all this. These are all byproducts of FAR, FAR too many lawyers. No, not a "glut" or an "overabundance," but a super, hypersaturation of lawyers far in excess of any absorption point.

    Before 2008, the lawyer surplus was said to be a "saturated market" and "overabundance of lawyers" or a "flooded market."

    It's far worse than that now and simply speaking in terms of the lawyer "glut" is failing to accurately convey the gravity of the situation.

    Since the 2008 recession, the attempt to describe today's lawyer surplus has shown the limitations of the English language--- "Super oversaturated"... "hyper overabundance" ... "super overflooded at astronomical tide levels".

    And what created all of the super-saturating agents, and continued to vomit them forth at astronomical rates? Why law schools, of course. They ruined my profession and I'll be Goddamned if I gonna let them tell me to be happy about it.

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  22. I'm sorry, dybbuk, but I could not read your whole post. The first few quotes were just too enraging.

    If I really make an effort and give the authors every possible benefit of the doubt, I can come with a slim argument in their defense that, since this piece of garbage was published in June 2010, it was probably written in late 2009-early 2010 at the latest, which was before most people had realized how incredibly bad the job prospects were for law students. (ITLSS, for example, didn't start until August 7, 2011, and David Kazzie's now famous animation "So You Want to Go to Law School" didn't hit youtube until October 14, 2010.)

    Still, even before the 2008 recession, the school where these authors teach (U. of Missouri - Kansas City) was already charging kids way too much for a TTT degree.

    And I always laugh when academics -- people who have shown by their actions what they think of the chances of being "happy" while practicing law -- have the crust to tell others how to be happy lawyers.

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  23. The Happy Lawyer - wasn't that written by Xaviera Hollander?

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  24. la times has an ad-story for two schools up:
    http://discussions.latimes.com/20/lanews/la-me-amicus-project-20130708/10

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  25. I graduated from UMKC Law some 20 years ago. Never did get a job and had to open my own shitty practice.

    Then a Multi Million Dollar case dropped in my lap, and I co counseled with a top grad from a top law school and now I have it made.

    No thanks to UMKC.

    By the way, I can't believe that jerk Linder stayed there all these years.

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  26. The professors in law schools understand and teach the students about the importance of social bonds.Developing social connections with faculty outside the classroom not only enhances learning, it "makes the educational process more meaningful" and helps them to become Best Lawyers because professors can often help students reflect on their own values better in one-on-one meetings.

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  27. Bail bond is a bond charged to person who is arrested and it works by releasing a defendant in exchange for money that the court holds until all proceedings and trials surrounding the accused person are complete. The court hopes that the defendant will show up for his or her court dates in order to recover the bail.Tampa Bail Bonds

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