Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Law School Lemmings

Just want to point out that we've added a new blog to our list on the right hand side of the page - Law School Lemmings.  Please check it out, as it's a great barometer of how far the scam message is and isn't getting out there.  They are doing god's work over there, as are all the scamblogs.

And if any of you have blogs that address law school scam issues (or even a healthy skepticism of the law school machine), let us know.  As can be clearly seen from Law School Lemmings, there are still countless misguided kids out there who just have no idea what they're getting into, and they need all the discouragement they can get.

43 comments:

  1. It is this youthful exuberance, coupled with lack of worldy experience, that the law school cartel preys upon. Kids with lawyers in the family get the straight dope on the profession and can plan accordingly - the value of guidance and mentorship can't be overstated. So many others, for whom law appears to be a glamorus profession, get reeled in and gutted by "ethical," "professional," law schools.

    And many of them march off like sheep to the slaughter. Youthful arrogance also plays an unfortunate roll in all this - I saw a few tweets where the response was more-or-less "just becuase you oldsters couldn't hack it doesn't mean I can't!!1111!11eleven!" All we can do is warn, and I think we all feel a moral imperitave to do so.

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    1. True. The information is out there and if they are not smart enough to seek an alternative career then good luck to them. I honestly can I say I knew the profession was not glamorus but wanted a change mid life. Jokes on me. Had this much been out there and the Harper and Tamanaha books I believe I would have just went to a cheap local public school for a nighttime MBA. Understand 0L's out of the 40k people you will graduate with across the nation in 2016 maybe a couple of thousand will find success. Think deep about that.

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    2. I'm right there with you, Anonymous 8:38 AM.

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  2. When I was going to law school, I had people who told me "don't." This was in 2008 pre-crash when the legal job market still looked okay. But these people who warned me against law school - and there were only a couple - didn't provide any substantive reason. If they had told me that only a small sliver of grads get good jobs, even from the top schools, then I might have reconsidered. I might also have reconsidered if they had told me if I don't get BigLaw or a good government position, there is no soft landing and I will most likely make $30-50k in small law and that MidLaw is only available for ex-BigLaw practitioners. I would have at the very least dropped out of law school after the first or second semester.

    I can't fathom the mindset of these kids - some of whom are clear imbeciles - who are being offered this information and get angry at the person offering the information, not at the law schools who are lying to them and have an obvious financial incentive in the student attending.

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    1. That is the strangest part of all, the whole being angry at us for putting this information out there. I think they equate it with us telling them santa isn't real or the tooth fairy is really the parents. They don't want to hear the truth or anything that might shatter their Elle Woods dream of a perfect law career. They think that if they don't hear the bad stuff that the bad stuff doesn't exist.

      Get real, kids. Don't ignore the facts. We're just trying to help you make an informed decision. We're not just raining on your parade or being Debbie Downers for no reason.

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    2. I can relate to why they get angry for trying to burst their bubbles. They want to excel at something, and we go around telling them they can't. Maybe we are correct in terms of placing odds. Maybe we'd win a wager against them at even 80/1 odds. But still, some make it, and they want to be among the few who do. And we tell them, "You can't." That's a pretty heavy downer. I wouldn't want to hear it; that's for sure.

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    3. The thing is, Elle Woods is actually the poster child for what to do. She got a 4.0 in a BS major at BIGSTATE. She got a crappy LSAT score then studied for it until she got in the 170s. Then she wouldn't settle for anything less than HYS.

      If every law student was like Elle Woods, this blog wouldn't even need to exist.

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    4. The above Elle Woods analysis is absolutely correct! Trash major, high GPA, study for LSAT (although was EW lucky or did she study?), then go to a top ranked school. Absolutely true. Except most of the idiots on Law a School Lemmings don't get this. Their only takeaway from the movie is that a dummy can go to law school and kick ass and be some super lawyer.

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    5. It's not imbecilality, but youthful naivete (in that something this much of a scam could not exist), as well as needing a SOP in life to make them feel like they have a "plan" after college.
      Though med school pays, the experience is much longer, expensive and personally devastating than law school. The pre-meds are even more diffcult to convince, though granted, md's excellent profession protection in a collapsing free market makes that choice much rosier; but that doesn't make the point, that pursuing an M.D. requires one to love the idea, and form an rosy false idea, of what medicine is.

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  3. This is simultaneously funny and depressing. It's depressing to see the sheer level of ignorance and naivitee (sp?) shown by said Lemmings.

    It's funny now, but the Lemmings will sure grow up when they're 26, living in their parents basements, working for JC Penny's and trying to wrap their heads around $1000 monthly loan payments. All those nice apartments and benders that were paid for with Sally Mae's money is going to give them a bad hangover.

    Also funny that they paint scambloggers as embittered losers who couldn't cut it. FYI, I am cutting it quite nicely Lemmings, and now have more practical experience than any of my law school professors. We're not trying to hurt you; we're trying to help you.

    Lemmings, you also need to be aware that you cannot trust anyone from the law school establishment or anyone (like Uncle Joe) who does not have DIRECT, RECENT experience with law school or the legal job market. Back in 2005 I trusted my brother-in-law when he said I should go to law school (ranked 60 or so), as employers would be baying at my door. He was a law school professor. Well, things didn't turn out so great for me and I lost 4 years of employment and paid $80,000 for the privilege.

    Lemmings, be VERY skeptical. Think about this decision purely in financial terms and you'll probably come to the conclusion that for most of you (90%), law school is a sucker's game and you're the sucker. Drop out if you have to, and count it as an expensive lession.

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  4. One thing, you keep ignoring the fact of IBR. You pay NOTHING back until your income exceeds 150% of the poverty level, and then only 10% max towards your loans, so if you work at JC Penny, you will likely be paying 0 in loans per month. Law School may be a very bad deal, but at least lets be honest about the outcome of having large loans that cannot be afforded.

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    1. Weeeee VICTORY! Income so low that the gubmint takes pitty on me and forgives my loans. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to get SNAP benefits and EITC as well.

      I guess we can all dream...

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    2. "...at least lets be honest about the outcome of having large loans that cannot be afforded."

      Sure, live in poverty for 25 years, then anything you manage to save will be gone when the IRS hands you a tax bill for the "forgiven" loan amount. Yes, please, let's be honest about the affordability of that scenario.

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    3. You miss the point of course. Students who are under the gun because of their astronomical loans can rest easier knowing they need not be paid back absent ability to do so, and then at only 10% of their income. What you can do with the law degree itself is another issue entirely. Its simply dishonest to state that the law graduate will be facing thousands in payments per month for their loans unless of course those graduates have really good jobs.

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    4. When I went to law school in the olden days, it was well known even then there were too many lawyers. What the heck were you guys who assumed huge loans thinking when you did so? I still don't understand how you could have possibly thought you would be guaranteed a law job with enough salary to pay those loans. They had calculators that figure this stuff out for you online, and from HP for just a few bucks. You put in the present value of your loan, your interest rate, your number of payments . . . and you see exactly what it is going to cost per month. So yea, law schools charge too much. There are not enough jobs. Why did you incur hundreds of K of debt again?

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    5. "Let's be honest"

      All right let's be honest - there is no point in going to law school and borrowing upwards of 200K in non-dischargable debt to do so if the result is an income that does not exceed 150% of US$11,490 (the poverty level for a single person under 65 in the US).

      When you drill down, what IBR really means is that law school is not worth the price it charges. Because if it was, there would be no need for IBR in the first place.

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    6. 12:42- that is a long, nasty road to go down. People want to start families, maybe buy a home some day. A huge tax bill may be waiting for the forgivable part as well. Would you advise your 25 year old son/daughter to consider IBR? My advice would be to leave the country first.

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    7. I would advise against any child borrowing to attend college OR law school given the current economy of this country. I would advise people not going to law school, not only because of the cost, but because it is a profession filled with Narcissists. But if IBR only requires paying 10% of a person's income, I would bet that creditors, banks, etc. would take that into account when lending money.

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    8. Anon@1:28:

      "When you drill down, what IBR really means is that law school is not worth the price it charges. Because if it was, there would be no need for IBR in the first place."

      Brilliantly and succinctly explained.

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    9. Its not worth the price to the great majority of students these days, still worth the price to those who either can easily afford it or are on the lucky end of the lottery for good jobs.

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    10. IBR means never having to pay back your loans at all . . especially if you work in the public sector. Its all on the Taxpayers . . who fund the tuition to pay for the extravagant lifestyle of law school professors.

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    11. To 12:42 above:

      Don't you understand that IBR can't be sustained in its present form? The government borrows to make payments on their debt. Who makes the payments on the government's debt?

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  5. It's obvious that most of these kids aren't even ready for undergraduate studies. Those JD courses are gonna hit them hard and fast. Their courtroom fantasies won't even get off the ground.

    That imaginary Reese Witherspoon character seems to inspire some of the young women. She was charming and funny enough, in a fictitious "narrative," to attract sympathy and assistance when she needed it. Most of these hotshot tweeters have no charm whatsoever. I hope they're not counting on anyone mentoring them, assisting them, or giving them a break. Their resume-padding, prestige-seeking, status-conscious, pyramid-rising professors won't give them the time of day after they strike out at OCI.

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  6. I need to change to DepressedJD

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  7. The federal student loan program is the entire problem. Youthful idealism is a good thing and many if not most of the 20 somethings parents have no concept as to how much the world has changed. The student loan program needs to be shitcanned and replaced by a far more modest system. No money no scam.

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    1. You might be right. Stop the cash and you stop the schools. Reform will follow.

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    2. It would be enough to make the student loans dischargable in bankruptcy - then rational lending standards would be used and tuition would plummet. Win win for everyone except the scammers.

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    3. Politicians using other peoples' money to buy the votes of the very suckers they are forcing into bondage. Like Goodfellas, who cares? It's all profit.

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    4. Nah, get rid of federal loans, not only will education be the refuge of the wealthy, private lenders would just up fees. Education needs to be a government concern and free, or at least regulated by funding seats and adjusted by government based on post-graduate employment.

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  8. The idiots are ready to take over the JD factories because they're the ones who continue to think a JD gives them prestige.

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    1. This. These are not people who can be reached. These are not the kids from the Elite who, with the help of their elite, connected parents will make, I'll simply say, "better" decisions regarding law school. Those people are not spending 120-character lines of their time on Twitter. Or on Facebook being data-mined, etc.

      These people are, simply, more grist for the law school mill.

      There is no independent thought, no deep analysis, no rational decision-making, no questioning of assumptions, and no research done on their own. They are, like our friend JDP who fancies himself a "thinker" merely regurgitating the values of today, never questioning anything which might challenge their limited world-view. Said views being spoon-fed to them from infancy by those in command. In other words, a puppet. Or would "muppet" be a better word?

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    2. I'm a scamblogging sympathizer normally, but sometimes you guys go off the deep end. How do you actually know any of the things you're alleging about every one of the young people featured on that blog? The girl who congratulated her brother for getting into law school, for example: maybe it was Yale? Maybe her family is independently wealthy so the cost of tuition means nothing to them? And, contrary to the mythology of scamblogging, there is actually plenty of demand for real lawyering in the market today. Less demand and too much supply =/= no demand.

      I recently ran into a guy who's son was about to UC Hastings, and we had a chat about his future. First, the guy strikes me as, again, independently wealthy so I doubt there is a debt load for his son to worry about. Second, the son is about to graduate and has a job lined up at the DA's office out there. He's going to start his career with a decent salary, some excellent exposure to real trial skills, doing fulfilling work. Imagine that.

      If he was crushed by student loans, then yes, I'm with the scambloggers on the crisis we are seeing with law schools today (which affects the profession at large, which is why I follow these blogs as a veteran practitioner, albeit with a very fulfilling career mind you.) But the comment above doesn't reflect any economic crisis. It just claims, wildly and delusionally in my opinion, that a career in law is guaranteed doom.

      For the sake of your credibility, be accurate, folks. A career in law is not guaranteed doom. A career burdened with outrageous amounts of debt is.

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    3. Guaranteed doom? Hmm.

      The jury's out on longer-term law outcomes in the New Normal. If they are related to the Old Normal, then winners should be advised not to grow too accustomed to that nice starter job with decent salary/ benefits plus exposure to meaningful work ....

      Excess supply destablizes and undermines the entire system.

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  9. Problem is that there is no way to anonymously post on Law School Lemmings

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    1. Perhaps Law School Lemmings could create a link section and link this site, Law School Tuition Bubble and some or all of the sites linked here. It appears that some of the twits, I mean tweeters, are aware their tweets are being linked and mocked, and they might see the links and click on them and learn something.

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    2. Looks like you can comment anonymously if you click the dateline for a post.

      For example, here's a post page you can comment on (you can provide any name - I haven't tried yet): http://lawlemmings.tumblr.com/post/69120554453/law-school-is-not-hard-to-get-into-getting-a-well-paid

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  10. A great comment worth re-posting here imo:

    "higher education is organized inter-generational theft with a government imprimatur. Students take on huge amounts of non-dischargable debt at high interest rates, because in a post industrial-economy you can't exactly go to work for the GE plant and raise a family, and schools get the money up front.

    I like to call this 'monetizing' the cognitive biases of the youth.

    It's built plenty a college town McMansion."

    http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/12/open-thread-making-law-schools-better.html?cid=6a00e54f871a9c8833019b02229b63970c#comment-6a00e54f871a9c8833019b02229b63970c

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    1. Law school is "...'monetizing' the cognitive biases of the youth."

      Couldn't have said it better. But you can't convince a current or prospective law student of this. They have serious Stockholm Syndrome and keep voting for the politicians who promise more and easier student loans, despite the fact that these easy loans are what destroyed the system and sent tuition into the stratosphere.

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  11. Hey, Lemmings.

    The odds are 80:1 against you that you'll end up with a decent, paying law job (i.e., Mid- or Big-Law). The odds are similarly against you'll that you'll actually enjoy working in that environment.

    But, yeah. We get it. You're a winner. A Special Snowflake. You're gonna win. You're gonna make Biglaw, make big bucks, and like it. Models and bottles. You're gonna have a cool senior partner who not only parties with you, lets you pork his wife, and has your back on the P-ship track. You're that special, I understand.

    Guess what?

    The sheer number of lawyers produced over the past 2 decades has undermined your dream-come-true. You'll reach heaven.... but it'll collapse under you.

    You see, my dears, Scambloggers ain't bitching because they're some sorry douchebags who couldn't keep that first job. Nope. Many of them have working in this thing for 18-some years now, kinda grew to tolerate it, and are now seeing it all go down the toilet.

    Listen up, snowflakes.

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  12. "And if any of you have blogs that address law school scam issues (or even a healthy skepticism of the law school machine), let us know."

    I write a movie blog, not a LS scamblog, but as a pseudo-lawyer and doc reviewer by trade, you had better believe that when it's appropriate, I talk about the legal scholarship combine and the debt loads and bad outcomes its grads suffer. I actually went pretty heavy into it (and linked to both ITLSS and OTLSS) in my review of The Counselor, that being a(n unfairly maligned) movie about an indebted crypto-shitlawyer who probably has student loans on top of two mortgages on his condo to maintain a Movie Lawyer lifestyle and thus undertakes a perilous drug deal to get out from under it.

    Actually, I do it even when it's not really appropriate. When I watched Escape Plan, I compared law school to an abominably run for-profit prison.

    (I was just making a joke, but on reflection it's in fact a pretty solid analogy. After all, if I said that a public function funded by public money had been captured by private interests and formerly necessary if unpleasant institutions were transformed over the course of a decade into dangerously opaque and wickedly corrupt places of business that ruined people's lives, and nobody outside those directly affected seemed to care, would you *know* which one I was talking about?)

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  13. That is a great site. We've sandblasted the ABA toilet and law school pigs. Now, someone has decided to finally feature the brainless lemmings who still believe that law school is a wise investment. One wonders whether these same drooling morons still believe that a fat guy, from the North Pole, decked out in a red suit is going to come down their chimney on December 24th.

    It is about time that these dolts are profiled. Better yet, the site is simply re-posting the mental midgets' tweets. This is a great idea, especially seeing that now millions of weirdos are "updating" the world with pictures of what they ate for breakfast, their thoughts on life, or their most recent pedicure or haircut.

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  14. Law School Lemmings has added a 'Damn Research' section linking this and other scam blogs at the top.

    Perhaps the lemmings will learn something.

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  15. lol that site is pure comedy gold.

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