Times may be tough for recent law grads generally, but not for those whose JD diplomas glitter with lower T14 prestige. Graduate with a law degree from super-prestigious Georgetown and you will be deluged with lucrative job offers, such as the one that a correspondent has shared with OTLSS, and which is reposted below.
After spending $228,000 on three years of law school and living expenses-- that is, without factoring in interest on student loans-- Georgetown Law grads are assured of the following economic return: $3,000 per quarter for up to one year, courtesy of their very own scama mater. That, of course, adds up to $12,000-- about half of what Georgetown itself estimates as the cost-of-living for a year in DC. Yes, these are the vaunted law school funded positions, which Georgetown calls its "Entry into Practice Program," or "EIP." All the fortunate grad has to do is volunteer 25-40 hours per week somewhere, and also meet quarterly with his or her career services benefactors for mock job interviews and other such tasks designed to make useless law school functionaries feel important.
Note the interesting phrase in paragraph four--"No paperwork is required from host organizations." Why not, one may wonder? Should not the law school, as a matter of quality control and as part of its professional mission, gather sufficient information to assure itself that the host organization is providing grads with useful training and professional contacts, as well as a realistic possibility of paying employment when the stipend money runs dry? Because a cynic might claim that these law school funded positions are not really meant to provide "entry into practice," but simply to artificially boost nine-months-out employment statistics and provide good PR for the school.
Oh, and a cynic might ask one more thing: With "no paperwork...required from host organizations," how is one to trust the information that Georgetown provided to the ABA survey that 76 out of the 83 law school funded positions held by graduates of the Class of 2013 nine months out were in "bar passage required positions"?
After spending $228,000 on three years of law school and living expenses-- that is, without factoring in interest on student loans-- Georgetown Law grads are assured of the following economic return: $3,000 per quarter for up to one year, courtesy of their very own scama mater. That, of course, adds up to $12,000-- about half of what Georgetown itself estimates as the cost-of-living for a year in DC. Yes, these are the vaunted law school funded positions, which Georgetown calls its "Entry into Practice Program," or "EIP." All the fortunate grad has to do is volunteer 25-40 hours per week somewhere, and also meet quarterly with his or her career services benefactors for mock job interviews and other such tasks designed to make useless law school functionaries feel important.
Note the interesting phrase in paragraph four--"No paperwork is required from host organizations." Why not, one may wonder? Should not the law school, as a matter of quality control and as part of its professional mission, gather sufficient information to assure itself that the host organization is providing grads with useful training and professional contacts, as well as a realistic possibility of paying employment when the stipend money runs dry? Because a cynic might claim that these law school funded positions are not really meant to provide "entry into practice," but simply to artificially boost nine-months-out employment statistics and provide good PR for the school.
Oh, and a cynic might ask one more thing: With "no paperwork...required from host organizations," how is one to trust the information that Georgetown provided to the ABA survey that 76 out of the 83 law school funded positions held by graduates of the Class of 2013 nine months out were in "bar passage required positions"?
We know from the ABA survey that fully 13% of the Georgetown class of 2013 (that is, 83 grads) remained in law school funded positions nine months after graduation, living the capital city high-life on $1,000 per month. One wonders how many jobless and desperate grads enroll in EIP and then spend several long, expensive, and impossibly stressful months looking for work. Or, phrased differently, how many Georgetown grads avoid that fate, and glide smoothly from law student to gainfully employed lawyer? Our correspondent's interesting answer:
If I were to ballpark the employment numbers off the direct cohort that I interact with each day, I'd honestly say 40% is an optimistic number. That is anecdotal, though. Also, that number will fill in (although probably not with very high quality jobs) after everybody sits for the bar. Further, there are different cross-sections of the class -- there are the trust funders who run in their circle and had a job before they walked in the door. Finally, there are the part-time students who, in the job market, are actually by both anecdotal accounts and professor claims are drastically outplacing the full-time class. So, there are a lot of moving parts and it would be inaccurate of me to speculate, but my own feel is that not too many people are walking away with jobs who didn't first walk in with one (there will always be exceptions, of course).
I think the more serious problem is the school's continued failure to branch out to other markets (both regions and industries) leading to straight underemployment or underemployment that manifests itself as unemployment (the job doesn't cover the bills so what the hell is the point type scenarios) sagas like that of one friend of mine who has been to the Career Service office 31 times. I paraphrase, but only slightly, that they told her, "we have an unpaid internship for you and you can get a side job as a barista."
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Dear Member of the Class of 2014,
We have in our records that you are seeking post-graduate employment. If you have already found employment, however, please fill out a Graduate Employment Survey on Symplicity (login in to your portal, click on the “Profile” tab, then click “Switch to Tab View” and it will be right there at the top) and be sure to save your changes. Once you have completed your Employment Survey, you will be entered into a raffle to win $50! If you have already submitted a survey – either in paper or online – you will be entered into the drawing as well.
We have in our records that you are seeking post-graduate employment. If you have already found employment, however, please fill out a Graduate Employment Survey on Symplicity (login in to your portal, click on the “Profile” tab, then click “Switch to Tab View” and it will be right there at the top) and be sure to save your changes. Once you have completed your Employment Survey, you will be entered into a raffle to win $50! If you have already submitted a survey – either in paper or online – you will be entered into the drawing as well.
If you are seeking employment, I would like to let you know about Georgetown Law’s Entry Into Practice (EIP) Program. This program is designed to help new graduates who have not yet found employment expand their skills and experiences, make new professional connections, and work closely with OPICS Dean Barbara Moulton or me to continue their permanent job search. Each EIP participant will be awarded up to one year of funding totaling $12,000. Awards will be granted on a quarterly basis ($3,000 per quarter), with continued eligibility contingent upon the participant maintaining the following requirements:
1. Participants should engage in one of the following two activities for 25 – 40 hours per week:
· Pro bono activities, such as volunteering with a non-profit organization or government agency. No paperwork is required from host organizations; or
· Pursuing an independent project, such as creating a non-profit organization, starting a solo law practice, or writing a publishable law review article. This activity must be pre-approved by Dean Moulton or myself and will require sponsorship by a Georgetown Law faculty member or licensed attorney. There will also be supplementary requirements specific to the particular project, such as the development of a business plan or the preparation of a detailed outline and proposal for the paper.
2. In addition, participants must meet every quarter in person or by phone with Dean Moulton or me so that we may assist participants with their longer-term career planning and job search progress. Participants will also be required to complete certain tasks each quarter, such as cover letter and resume revision, participation in a mock interview program and the development of a career-related strategic plan. Participation in the EIP Program can begin as soon as August 1, 2014, and no later than November 1, 2014.
If you have extenuating circumstances that prevent you from meeting the November 1st deadline, please contact Dean Moulton or me to discuss your situation. If you are interested in participating in the EIP Program, please complete the initial EIP application by May 15 by clicking on this link: http://apps.law.georgetown.edu/forms/index.cfm?formid=340. In early July, I will send you a final application and more information on award disbursement.
Please let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to working with you in the coming months.
Take care, Jeannie Musslewhite
"No doc" employment? Like "no doc" mortgages, those two words are simply a euphemism for "we don't care if you're lying."
ReplyDeleteThis is undoubtedly an end run around the stricter reporting requirements.
LAW SCHOOLS: You're not fooling anyone. We know very clearly that your MO is deception. We know very clearly that the numbers don't add up, and law degrees are a bad investment of time and money for most students. And we will continue to expose examples of this until you stop lying to applicants.
TO STUDENTS: I know I said above that law schools aren't fooling anyone, but year after year after year you're falling for it! Get a grip. It's long past the point at which there was any doubt about the law school scam. This post demonstrates yet again that law schools are lying to you about how successful you are likely to be. They want - need - your money. It's a business, they are salespeople, and some schools are scamming you more than the slipperiest used car salesperson. Surely you possess the basic analytical and critical thinking skills to realize this? And if you're a soon-to-be grad of Georgetown who has no option other than this feeble postgrad employment token handout, my advice is take it and find a job outside law ASAP, because there's not likely to be any law jobs for you in the next year. Cut your losses. No doc, remember? Trust me, the school won't come looking to see if you're following the rules or whether you've gone back to your old career of if you're working in a cheaper place to live than DC. They are paying you $12,000 for the privilege of reporting that you're a real life lawyer. Why? Because that $12,000 is massaging the stats that will help attract the next sucker with $228,000 burning a hole in his pocket. Not a bad investment for the school, right?
Couldn't the "no doc" aspect also be an acknowledgement on the part of the scammers at Georgetown that including a reporting requirement would kill this little game they're running here?
DeleteIt's no big deal to let a law grad keep a chair warm at your non-profit or agency. Maybe you can give them some busy work if it occurs to you. But having to meaningfully supervise an intern let alone regularly documenting your supervision just so some idiot law school dean can have a couple documents to stick in her file is probably more than anyone with a real job can be bothered with. The no doc aspect helps their grads get in the door (to a dead end internship) where otherwise the response would probably be "thanks but no thanks."
Anyone who could read that and still apply to any law school outside the T5 without:
ReplyDelete1. An independent source of non-borrowed tuition money; and
2. A guaranteed job at graduation
is beyond hope. As I have posted before, however, there will always be a certain number of people who are beyond hope . Real dopes who think they have what it takes because they can act like the lawyers on television. They are, more and more, the bread and butter of the law schools.
Which makes the whole thing more revolting than ever.
DeleteUnder ABA rules, to count as a "full time" job it must require at least 35 hours per week. US News does not count part time jobs in its employment score.
ReplyDeleteTheir email says 25 to 40 hours per week suffices. Yet their ABA employment report lists 80 grads in school funded job under "full time," and only 1 under "part time."
Great point. Once again, we see the ABA is a co-conspirator in the fraud.
Delete"That, of course, adds up to $12,000-- about half of what Georgetown itself estimates as the cost-of-living for a year in DC." Actually, their estimate is for only the nine-month academic session. Scaled up to twelve months, it would be about $35k, which is almost three times the paltry $12k that they're offering—and an even higher multiple once taxes are taken into account.
ReplyDelete"If you have already found employment, however, please fill out a Graduate Employment Survey … Once you have completed your Employment Survey, you will be entered into a raffle to win $50!" In other words, our huge (and growing) faux-prestigious toilet eagerly wants to hear from all of those who have found jobs—and no one else.
No paperwork required? They want paperwork from those who do have jobs but not from those unemployed people to whom they are paying—well, refunding—$12k?
"we have an unpaid internship for you and you can get a side job as a barista." An ASSistant dean at my law school advised me to get a non-legal job by day and do pro bono legal work by night. Oh, sure, bitch, I came to law school as a fucking labor of love.
If they simply refund money, they can't use that money to juice the statistics. And of course, this is why tuition is recycled as "wages."
DeleteHowever, if a student allowed, under the federal lending programs, to borrow money to fund employment after a degree is conferred? No, a student is not. So, here we have a fundamental absurdity: if it's labeled "tuition" coming in the door, it can become "slush fund" going out the door.
Our government allows this.
That's an interesting idea. Georgeclown Law Skule can use money from federal loans to sponsor a recent graduate's law-review article, so why can't the graduate borrow directly for the same endeavor?
DeleteBetter question -- why insert the middle man in the first place? Wouldn't students be better off just borrowing $250,000, self-studying the law, taking the bar, and using the loan money as a down payment on starting their own firm or business? Why, exactly, must we insert these rent seeking parasites? Because they have the power, vested in them by their buddies, to print credentials? Why do we accept the reality that has been given to us?
DeleteI certainly wasn't advocating federal loans for writing law-review articles, even if those articles be a damn sight better than the scholarshit that profe$$ors are paid far more than $12k to churn out.
DeleteLaw school is not necessary. As I've shown before, even hiring private tutors would be cheaper than paying tuition. I could have studied law from books rather than attending law school.
Why not take this route? Because these parasitic rentiers control access to the bar. Without one of their credentials (printed on glorified toilet paper), one cannot join the bar in most places. (Yes, Vermont offers the option of "reading law"—but it takes four years of study under a lawyer's supervision, and good luck finding a lawyer willing to supervise you.)
@ 1:20 PM I think what Georgetown is doing is not so subtle fraud on the student lending system. Technically, a student can only borrow for "qualified educational expenses" related to earning a degree. I would be interested to know more about what, if any, constraints are on schools in how they may spend "tuition" from federal loan programs.
DeleteCertainly nowhere do the eligibility statements for students on Stafford, Perkins, or GradPLUS allow a person to borrow money to fund post-graduation employment.
@ 1:36 I am with you. I think we need to get visible. Get in the streets. This situation has gotten completely out of hand.
This is 1:20 again. Certainly you're right, 3:50, that this scam is being funded with public moneys. But Georgeclown might well be able to deny that—by claiming that it is merely redistributing the funds from rich kids (who disproportionately do get jobs—handsomely remunerated ones, too) who pay full fare. After all, they do much the same with "scholarships", which, just like this "Entry into Practice Program", are used primarily to drive up their ranking by You Ass News.
DeleteStill, I like your idea of finding out what constraints apply to institutions such as Georgetown whose funds come largely from federally backed student loans.
Hey @ 1:20 That's a good point.
DeleteHere's a ballpark of Georgetown's non-federal tuition revenue:
2012 class of 626, and per US News 81% borrowed to attend. 119 did not borrow (federally) to attend (apparently). 119 * 50,890 tuition = 6,055,910.
Consider, on Georgetown's LRAP program - not its graduate "employment" program - it is paying the loan payments for 350 participants who on average make 63,145. Subtract the federal poverty level of 15,000 and multiply by IBR's 10%. Georgetown is paying about $4,815 per student per year, or 1,516,725 per year on LRAP. Guesstimated. These are Georgetown's numbers: http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admissions-financial-aid/office-of-financial-aid/lrap/upload/News-You-Can-Use-February-2013.pdf
The Washington Post story last year on Georgetown's LRAP program noted that "no one [at Georgetown] is disputing that the funds [for LRAP] come from tuition paid by the students."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/09/how-georgetown-law-gets-uncle-sam-to-pay-its-students-bills/?wprss=rss_homepage&clsrd
So, if Georgetown is spending 1.6 MM on LRAP and who knows how much more on "employment," I think the odds it has eaten through its non-federal-tuition revenue and is into federal money to fund this stuff is very good. In any case, when no non-federal cash is going to professor's salaries, etc. they actually are getting the cushion from the federal system. Also, they admit they're running a ponzi: raising tuition on newest classes to fund the "success" of earlier classes.
Works great, not for the taxpayer, but for Georgetown, until their enrollment drops.
What happens when the enrollments drop off dramatically, or when you've pushed the price of tuition so high, even the rich kids cannot pay cash?
These guys need to get sued so very badly.
I am the anonymous "correspondent" for this story. Charles is right -- cut your losses. I would suggest the following routes:
ReplyDelete(1) Work overseas, utilize the foreign earned income exclusion with IBR, accumulate capital doing something else, and either wait for the currency exchange rates to solve your debt problems and/or obtain foreign citizenship. Externalize the risk! Terrible? Maybe, but this gives you the best chance of not being a charity case and having a family.
a. For example, if you have Irish grandparents then you get Irish citizenship. Also, a few countries, such as the U.K. have eased work-visa policies for would-be solicitors.
(2) Public Interest Law -- Realize that these are soul sucking jobs wherein you actually demean your clients' humanity by reducing their problems to form arguments, jobs where you'll never get a raise, jobs where you'll never have a family, and jobs where you'll work 80 hours per week and then carry the s--- back home with you. That said, it does qualify for PSLF (I can't see them changing this for the one's already caught in the trap as it is an implied, if not explicit, condition of our master promissory notes).
(3) Become a teacher - You might actually help somebody accident and the pay is the same. You might not benefit from your school's LRAP program, but when you aren't making much anyways the LRAP is irrelevant. In fact, the LRAPs are just a marketing tool. The sign up rate for these programs are abysmal, the savings over PSLF might be a couple hundred dollars per year (because your income is virtually non-existent folks). Yet, schools like Georgetown use LRAP to justify another 4 or 5% increase in tuition (greater when you add in tuition surcharges, increases in tuition costs, increases in on-campus housing if that applies to you, etc.) in a down market and in an prohibitively expensive city. I mean, hell, at least as a teacher you get to relax a bit over the summer months rather than working 80 hours per week for the same privilege of having no love life and living in your parents' home. Besides, you can be a cautionary tale to the children.
(4) Do whatever your heart desires because there is no debtors' prison.
I mention public interest not only because of forgiveness but also because if you are still job searching at graduation then you struck out -- you aren't likely to break into firm life (if that even exists in a few years) and the best you can hope for is a trap job that you could have gotten before law school. Moreover, the firm system is buckling with the introduction of predictive coding, changes in client demands, loosened outsourcing jobs, and consulting firms encroaching on the administrative lawyer's turf. Class of 2014, if you are still job searching you actually qualify for fewer and less prestigious jobs than you did before you came to law school unless you work to establish a degree of separation.
That said, I think this public interest s--- is nonsense. Today's graduates have to stop worrying about saving children, trees, and bees (actually, the dying of the bees is an ecological catastrophe, but I digress). You are a quarter million in debt (or more) without a house at damn near credit card interest rates -- take care of yourself right now because if you are in an economically depressed situation you have no leverage and you cannot effectuate any substantial change in these matters anyways. Do not relegate yourself to being a meaningless cog in the machine unless you have some undying interest in doing just that. These is no shame in acknowledging the need to look after yourself, to step away and recalibrate, and to get your health and energy back. Go enjoy life. That's my hope for the graduating class of 2014. Sure you were dumb enough to walk into a scam, but you are also smart enough to find the back ways out. Give yourself a modicum of separation from the baby boomers self-serving dogma and reassess.
Bless you.
DeleteAwwwwww. Bless you, too. (P.S. -- neither of us sneezed... =D =D =D =D)
Delete"Become a teacher - You might actually help somebody accident and the pay is the same. "
DeleteWhat did this intend to say?
"by accident"
DeleteAh, thanks. But I'd rather say that teachers help people on purpose.
DeleteOh teachers -- forgive me if my perspective is distorted from three years of "academics" instead of teachers (hence, the wording "accidental"). A true teacher not only inspires, but guides a student past roadblocks and through the perilous maze of scams. A true teacher needn't even be a teacher, but could be a tutor or a mentor or a co-worker or a boss. I would say my best "teacher" was actually a "mentor" -- an old lady who was a U.S. Army Captain who had helped to bring about the dissolution of the Women's Army Corps into the general force -- whose advice to me was: "I don't care where you end up, but make sure that you surround yourself with people who, when they are talking to somebody, treat that person as though they are the most important thing going on at the moment... and make sure not to forget to do the same towards others."
DeleteOf course, contrast that with law schools which treat the academics, not the students as the focal point of the show. A true educational institution places an emphasis on students -- an institution with a purpose rather than an institution for its own sake.
Yes, I do think that law students and lawyers are particularly well equipped for such a vocation or task having endured the yellow brick road only to realize that Oz was a snake oil salesmen selling students that which they already possessed.
But, I place no expectation on anybody because they don't owe anyone else self-conscription into a system derived from outdated machinations. I just a hope that they do what fascinates them and rid themselves of dogmatic limitations. Just break free.
Is Georgetown going to reduce their class size anytime soon? 500 full time students in 2013 and 122 transfer in.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the market will reduce it for them!
DeleteI hope the market will reduce their class, but first it will probably dilute their class. Unless they care strongly about training qualified students for real jobs after graduation, they can just admit poorly qualified students. Almost anyone would prefer Georgetown to American U, for example. So in the short term, Georgetown can keep the money coming in and perhaps drive American U out of business. However, when the American U applicant pool can't find jobs with their Georgetown degrees, then word will get around. Both students and employers will stay away in droves. The Georgetown brand will have been destroyed. In the absence of managerial foresight--which seems to be lacking at Georgetown--market forces can be very cruel indeed.
DeleteAnonymous correspondent again -- Word on the street is no. From what I can gather, the Dean has not only sold the lie of job opportunities to the students, but also the faculty. In my talks with faculty members they think that we are returning to boom time conditions when as I talk to students I wonder if I am not living a movie about the Great Depression. That trustworthy Dean whose son mysteriously found a spot in our class despite being dumb as rocks on the same exact year that the Dean suddenly fled Fordham. Why do we even pretend that there is a meritocracy, anymore?
ReplyDeleteOh, but guess what, the first year section that has the most responses to the graduation survey gets the privilege of a "pizza party" with said Dean. These people are so tone deaf that it is disgusting.
Pizza party with the dean? How many graduates even remain in the area? And how many of them would want to go all the way back to the law skule for a couple of slices of bad pizza?
DeleteThe lie of the meritocracy is perpetuated out of need. It wouldn't do for people to be told that their lot in life was more or less determined from early childhood, if not from conception. No, the aristocrats must be portrayed as hard-working, excellent people, while the plebeians must be left champing at the bit for mythical possibilities of advancement.
Law school pizza is the worst. After those lunchtime presentations, I had to go off campus to eat.
DeleteSocialism never took root in America because the working class see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
DeleteMinimum wage is $8.25/hour in DC, about to go up. Taking 35 hours a week as required by ABA rules for LT/FT, they would need to pay a little over $15,000 annually to qualify.
ReplyDeleteNo they don't because they simply call the position salaried instead of hourly and are not required to specify that information. Moreover, while they are probably employed on their book for purposes of the ABA, they are probably just providing a stipend for purposes of federal minimum wage requirements. This is what I'd imagine -- having the best of both worlds by gaming the definitions. Stack that onto "no-doc" and the ABA regulating these schools about as well as the Office of Thrift Supervision regulated WaMu and it really is no wonder.
DeleteUnder federal minimum wage laws, salaried employees mist be paid $455/week, or about $23,000 per year, in order to avoid hourly pay or overtime requirements. So they cannot game the requirements this way, they are either violating minimum wage laws or lying to the ABA.
DeleteThis is Correspondent X.
DeleteI don't use my real name because my status as a student within the institution may, at least in theory (see vagueness of the student disciplinary code), to unjust reprisals for exercising my First Amendment Rights. Since I am relegated to a status inferior to a citizen while attending this institution, who claims its reach (See disciplinary code) extends beyond the classroom there is no reason for me to even pretend I have a last name or at least not one of any importance to the institution.
I think what 7:08 was saying is that there is a different baseline for what constitutes employment for purposes of federal reporting and ABA (private/deregulated) reporting. For the ABA, as long as you receive a dollar and purport to work the minimum number of hours then you are employed (this is, at least, how it seems to have worked in practice). By contrast, Georgetown would say, for federal reporting purposes, that these individuals are not employed but rather receiving a stipend (a charitable act).
So, interestingly, when it favors them the student is employed and when it disfavors them they claim the student is but a charity case. That said, both 8:31 and 4:12 are right to point out that these individuals are truly employed unless economic bondage has morphed into a form of meaningful employment under today's statistics. No, not employed at all.
So one must ask the separate question whether Georgetown Law is reporting these individuals as employed to the Department of Education (not the Department of Labor for minimum wage purposes) or whether the Department of Education is accepting whole cloth the representations (or should I say misrepresentations) of the American Bar Association for purposes of receiving student loans. That is my question -- is the same student deemed: (1) employed for purposes of the ABA; (2) employed for purposes of the Department of Education; but yet (3) unemployed or underemployed for purposes of the Department of Labor? If that is, in fact, the case then it would appear Georgetown has cooked up a truly novel alchemy of regulatory arbitrage so perverse that it is impossible to consider it anything but misleading, and I assert it would be materially so.
Why are you two yapping about federal minimum wage laws?
DeleteLawyers are exempt. Employers are not required to pay lawyers minimum wage.
10:34 -- thanks for the response.
DeleteI would say your point is arguable (but not unfounded). I'd answer your question with a series of other questions. Is the student interning for the organization? Working for Georgetown? Receiving a charitable payout from Georgetown? Which is it? If they are working for Georgetown, are the "services" they are providing in return for consideration -- fitting a status to be marked off as employed -- such that it can be called legal work (are they getting paid for legal work or for calling themselves lawyers)? Also, are they more akin to a private practitioner or an in-house type attorney? If the latter, I am not terribly sure that they can be paid under minimum wage (non-contract work).
I think there are enough ambiguities there to warrant a discussion. At minimum, nobody practically thinks of somebody making $1000 per month as a full-time employed lawyer which is the real problem -- the misleading (even if technically true which, again, is arguable) representations designed to defraud consumers (prospective students) and the government. So, what you raise is a fair point, but I do think it is ancillary to the broader discussion.
"Is the student interning for the organization?"
DeleteThere is no student.
And yes, a private practitioner in a law firm can be paid a salary less than minimum wage.
"Private practitioner in a law firm"?
DeleteThere is no private practitioner.
And yes, the question mark goes outside the quotation marks. Thanks for playing.
Ah, great, when reason fails a descent into grammar nazism is seldom far behind.
DeleteMy point is, you're yapping about students and minimum wage laws when the topic is graduate jobs at GULC.
And p.s., the question mark remains where it is because I am quoting you exactly, not drafting original prose.
But, "thanks for playing" (Read: "what an infantile thing for you to write").
Oh hell, no need to gripe back and forth. You're probably right. There was a sub-question, however, whether Georgetown is violating federal law either by redistributing government funding as a stipend or by paying minimum wage or whether they were somehow in the clear by having the best of all words through semantic play. Still, I suppose my comments were a bit ----ty... I guess Ii was just irritable. Have a nice day.
DeleteOkay. Have A Great Dane, Too!
DeleteWhere does this $12,000 come from? The student loan dollars of current students, to be paid by taxpayers and students.
ReplyDeleteAnd, even though this $12,000 deal is "no paperwork", I am sure some Georgetown administrator takes a cut somewhere. They have to have someone writing checks or transferring money or some such, and then someone has to manage the check-writers, and that person has to go to management training conferences somewhere warm. Plus, even though they're a law school they probably have to hire outside lawyers to ensure that they can get away without paperwork.
I really wonder how much overhead comes out of this $12,000 "no paperwork" deal. What is the amount taxpayers/government pay in, as opposed to the $12,000 the graduates get?
It is a ponzi scheme and they crow about it. Georgetown was advertising a "free" law degree on their website, but have since taken that down.
DeleteTheir LRAP, their "employment" programs are gratuitous promises, not contractual promises to current and prospective students. Georgetown can and will end them when it no longer serves their purposes.
Then what? Quasi-contractual detrimental reliance suits from grads they left hanging? Those should succeed, but look at the judiciary's hostility to lawsuits from former law students right now...
Where is the Department of Justice on this? What about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? If I were in the DOJ I'd be looking at this stuff hard trying to figure out how I could take Georgetown's endowment to cover the costs it intentionally imposed on the system.
To be frank, I have little sympathy for the mouth-breathing nincompoops who went to the likes of Cooley and now sue for allegedly having been misled. Everyone knows that Cooley is a stinking toilet.
DeleteRe: 1:14
DeleteT-roll.... Troll!!!!!! Who let the troll out from under his bridge, again? The issue, here, is a supposed T-14 acting like Cooley and engaging in fraudulent practices to prevent the students from making an informed decision. Take your caveat emptor, pick yourself up by your bootstraps bull---- to the "Faculty Lounge."
I would bet the farm that this post was by this "blame the victim" self-anointed "ethics expert" Jack Marshall - http://ethicsalarms.com/2012/10/15/unethical-website-of-the-month-third-tier-reality/
The post above (1:14) was by a regular contributor, a middle-aged graduate who can't find a job anywhere. Trolling has nothing to do with it; I meant exactly what I said. I mentioned Cooley in response to the comment about "the judiciary's hostility to lawsuits from former law students".
DeleteMy apologies, 8:40. I guess my troll radar was too sensitive and I didn't understand the context of your statement. Yes, I think that there is general agreement that Cooley and TJ grads aren't the brightest bulbs and should have been deemed placed on notice. I certainly feel sorrier for anybody within the top 100 or so schools because they had legitimate reasons to be misled. But, not need to factionalize.
DeleteWhat Georgetown is doing counting these are real full-time permanent legal jobs is incorrect. But the problem with misleading employment statistics coming from law schools is a much bigger problem than people think.
ReplyDeleteThe first year employment stats are all a fraud because the jobs, especially the coveted large law firm jobs and federal clerkships, are of limited duration. There are not enough jobs to go to afterwards. These are temporary jobs in the sense that they are not of unlimited duration if they are subject to up or out or only last a year or two. The lawyers who have to leave these jobs flood the market. There is not enough demand to employ most of them in full-time permanent positions as lawyers. There is an impression of a healthy job market absorbing half the graduates, but that level of absorption is very temporary for any law school class.
There are not follow up jobs for nearly the number of lawyers who get good first year jobs. For a lot of people, the big law job is a ticket to unemployment or underemployment a few or several years down the road.
The temporary nature of the jobs means that the market is flooded. The temporary nature of the jobs institutionalizes age discrimination in the legal profession. Age discrimination is a big issue for every lawyer, but 0Ls are too naïve to realize it. The lawyer oversupply plus the temporary nature of the jobs that lawyers get out of law school really makes for a career that is a lifelong battle against unemployment for most lawyers.
Yes. Chemerinsky claimed in his NY Times piece that employment for grads improves after months! No citation to proof, of course, for that claim. (UC Irvine is one of the participating schools now recruiting at junior colleges in California.)
DeleteOf course, all the scammers claim these "employment" programs are "bridges to practice," but give us no data to show outcomes after the programs, because what they really are is bridges to nowhere.
You're absolutely right. After these temporary "employment" positions expire, last year's graduates flood the entry-level marketplace and compete with...this year's graduates.
So, many law schools hold off the market some significant portion of last year's class and then release them in a whole new torrent of over supply with this year's class.
How long can this continue?
Bridges into troubled water.
DeleteWhat law graduates need are full-time permanent lawyer positions of indefinite duration (i.e., not limited to any time period) that are not subject to up or out standards, in other words, jobs where lawyers can work a career. Most of the entry level legal jobs do not meet this standard. I am not only talking about bridges to practice. I am also talking about associate positions in large law firms. Most of these lead to a second job. Problem is that there may be nothing else when that second job ends, which it will in this market long before the lawyer is anywhere close to voluntarily retiring.
DeleteJobs such as those are long gone. Except for law profe$$ors.
DeleteWhen you click on the $228,000, scroll down to the Debt Repayment table and look at those numbers. In no way, absolutely no way, should law school put anyone in that kind of financial position. Post-graduate programs like this cannot console those figures by mathematical reason (the $1k per month wouldn't even cover the ongoing interest). I was slightly optimistic that this profession can be saved but now it truly is hopeless.
ReplyDeleteConsole?
ReplyDeleteTo create comfort.
DeleteMaybe "reconcile" was what was meant.
DeleteIt's not incontheevable, after all.
Am I reading that right? Given all of the economic issues facing lawyers from GT, it still raised its tuition over 4% this last year? Do the people at this school live in a Bubble without a clue to what is happening to its own graduates?
ReplyDeleteThey don't care; they just want to ride the scam while they still can. The students are just conduits through which funds flow into Georgetown's coffers. The admini$tration doesn't care a whit about the students' interests. Think of that ass-wipe Pless, formerly of the U of Illinois, who boasted of the ability to "trap" a couple of dozen "little bastards" with which to inflate his supposedly prestigious law school's rankings.
DeleteQuestion to the membership: Nephew is currently attending an arguably top 5 school, 1 (L), but is getting Bs and Cs. He is full pay and his summer job will be an intern with the DOJ in an expensive city without compensation, although his LS is kicking in $5000.00. He figures next year he will need to get an internship with Big Law the summer of his 2L year. He is already 75K in the hole for this year's loans for tuition and living expenses. Do I mind my own business . . . or do I tell him it is not worth it to continue?
ReplyDeleteDrop.
DeleteHe won't rank well. Rank, not grades, matter. With his grades, I can assure you he won't rank highly after 1L. And 1L is what matters most for law school.
The key with his story is that he's paying full freight. For everything. The way it looks to me at this point is that something more than a little good luck would have to happen to launch his career, even from a T5.
He can get a job with a T5 degree but after paying full fare, it likely won't be good enough of a job to kickstart his career to something that would enable him to justify his debt level.
This is the type of person that could land in Doc Review from NYU. Middle-child / step-child type in terms of grades, no connections to help, and massive debt.
Ugh, 10:53, this doesn't sound good. Your nephew is on track for 3x$75k = $225k.
DeleteSort-of joking, but any chance you're a "rich uncle?" More importantly, are there any strong family connections to a firm? I'm guessing no, only becuase your nephew is saying he "needs" a BigLaw gig. Sure, everyone "needs" a BigLaw gig, but some already have their gig lined up prior to law school, if you catch my drift. If he is banking on that to turn things around, that is a problem.
The fact that he got into a T5 is impressive, no doubt - but with no real financial aid to speak of all that matters is what that T5 alumni network can buy for him later. The fact that he is paying full freight yet not being shepherded along is a bad sign.
Talk to him about these issues, and press, press, press for the downside. Not knowing all the facts, admitedly, I think he needs to think about something else.
He is taking a poor gamble. If he had A–'s and B+'s, continuing might be justifiable (though still questionable). As it is, however, he is probably in the bottom third of the class. He is hardly likely to get a position with Big Law next summer. With interest and fees, his debt will exceed a quarter of a million dollars by the time he finishes law school. Even this summer's position will be a net loss, and it won't lead anywhere.
DeleteI bought a book for him before he started: "way worse than being a dentist" by myerhofer and he refused to accept the book from me let alone read it. He was a straight A student at his State Flagship . . . and I suppose he did not want anything to derail him from his dreams. He did well in his LSAT but not well enough to get a scholarship to an elite law school, and so he is helping pay for the rich kids who attend there on Scholarship. It kind of irks me that the US government will take these kids and allow them to work for nothing, all in violation of its own Fair Debt Standards Act, pursuant to carved out exceptions for educational attainment I suppose.
DeleteThis is 11:24 again. A few extra comments:
DeleteIf the place is "an arguably top 5 school", it probably isn't a top-5 school (and certainly not HYS) but rather, say, a lower second-tier institution such as Michigan or Virginia.
He'll point to classmates with similarly poor grades who did get jobs in Big Law as evidence suggesting that he has a good chance. But they differ from him in a significant respect: they're the scions of high-placed people, and that's why they got jobs (and why he won't).
Without even knowing him, I'd bet $100 that your nephew will not drop out despite his shabby performance in first year: the prestige of a supposedly "top 5" degree and the sunk-cost fallacy will keep him on the road to perdition.
Tough one. If I were at all close to him, I think it would be worth broaching the subject (did the same thing with a neice who thought she wanted to spend 120K getting an architecture UG).
DeleteWhat does "getting Bs and Cs" mean, and what does it mean at his LS? I mean, if he's getting mostly Bs and can keep/get his stuff together so as to stay in top half or slightly better, that's better than the dire situation of being in the bottom third, as mentioned by 11:24.
And let's all not forget that at places like Columbia or NYU, they're still placing a lot of kids into larger firms. A lot. He's not attending UNC or an Indiana or Illinois.
For example, I just checked Columbia's 2013, looks like about 88% FTLTJD jobs, with about 73% of the class placed FT into firms over 100 (but of course some of them could be connected kids from the bottom third of that class).
Law is different than undergrad for the simple reason that everyone is graded on a curve. In undergrad, if you master the material, you can get an "A". There is a set level of performance for an "A". In law school, grading is quite subjective and feedback consists of one exam, or chance. A slight miss on an exam might drop you down the curve from an "A" to a "B" because at the end of the day, grades are forced to that curve. Whereas in undergrad, such a minor misstep might drop you 3 points off 100.
DeleteSecondly, it seems as if he just doesn't have a feel for law. It'd be different if he pulled one "A" in a course. Then at least you know it's more of lack of understanding in certain subjects which would mean taking a different approach vs. this where he's not getting even one high grade. Here, I'd say he's just not a fit for law. He just isn't the idiot savant type in law and that's what you really need, especially for 1L.
Lastly, you are correct: He's getting Reverse Robin Hooded by the rich and connected kids. Not good.
This is the Uncle. No, its UC. I guess I just don't want him to know I am on here seeking information on his behalf.
DeleteBy the way, UC has a numerical grading system and does not rank its students. Not sure if this makes a difference or not.
Delete1:03, who writes "Law is different than undergrad for the simple reason that everyone is graded on a curve. In undergrad, if you master the material, you can get an "A". There is a set level of performance for an "A". "
DeleteWhile I agree with some of your later comments (in particular, the (paraphrased) "one exam will make or break you" aspect), I'm always mystified when I see comments such as the part I quoted above.
My UG experience must have been different than most. We were graded on a curve and As generally could not include more than 15-20% of the students, depending on department, and Bs were usually limited to the next 20%.
Anyway, back to the Uncle and his Nephew - I'm just not so sure all is doom and gloom even at UC. Look, this school still manages to get ~ 63% of its class into 100+ lawyer firms. Clearly just based on arithmetic some of the bottom half of its class is still getting these jobs.
I'm definitely not a rah-rah person for LS overall (the opposite most times) but in some cases it can still make sense. I'll admit I do struggle over the debt load here, too, though.
But hey, if he can't get a biglaw slot, maybe Buzz Leityear will hire him (sorry, bad joke, couldn't resist though since it was UC).
It is misleading to say that the school gets 63% of its class into firms of that size. That 63% of the class is getting those jobs doesn't mean that the school is getting anyone into anything. As was mentioned above, many of those people—overwhelming the rich kids—were headed for jobs in Big Law before they even entered law school. A well-connected son of Croesus with a B– average probably would get into Big Law, but a nobody with the same grades doesn't stand a chance. And I say this as a nobody who graduated jobless with an A– average and a long list of achievements.
Delete"That 63% of the class is getting those jobs doesn't mean that the school is getting anyone into anything"
DeleteI can agree with that. I should rather have written more neutrally, such as just saying "At UC some ~ 63% of the 2013 graduating class managed to get into 100+ lawyer firms."
I don't happen to have any information to either confirm or argue against whether upwards of 63% of UC's class (or upwards of 73%, once you toss in Federal Court clerkships) are actually those connected rich kids.
What percentage of UC grads do you (9:56) presume are connected rich kids?
Arguably T5 - is that NYU or Penn? Not Columbia or Chicago since these are T5.
DeleteSorry. I see it is Chicago.
DeleteIf your nephew is from the Midwest and wants to work there, maybe a good chance, even with not good grades. A lot has to do with luck, personality and looks. Chicago is a pretty darn good law school and unlike Columbia, a small law school. Not clear he should drop out. A smaller firm may not care about grades as much as a large one. He may end up in a decent career.
The long term is different from the short term, and big law is not possible in the long term except for a very small group of people. As long as he can get a job and start on a career, he may be okay.
No question though the debt is steep. Is there no way for you to help him financially?
8:36, I don't know the proportion of rich kids at Chicago, but it must be high. At comparable Columbia, a quarter of the class takes out no loans at all—and thus pays $250k or so from funds on hand (probably much more, as people able to pay that amount in cash would not lead spartan lives in New York). Of those who do take out loans, many borrow only small amounts and may even pay them back upon graduation or even earlier. (Until quite recent times, one could borrow a modest amount free of interest during law school—a great opportunity for risk-free arbitrage, if one could repay the funds before the end of the interest-free period.)
DeleteRich kids were in the majority at my own law school. Many of them were so far removed from real-world financial concerns that they did not even understand my need to get a paying job and my inability to go jet-setting off to Amsterdam or Kampala or Phnom Penh for the summer.
Money aside, ask him, at the end of his internship, whether or not he could see himself doing that for the rest of his career, or whether there is anything else he'd like to do with his life. If the answer is not a resounding "yes, loved every moment of it," then tell him to quit. Life's far too short to screw up doing something you hate if you can avoid it, especially at Chicago prices.
DeleteCharles is right. My roommate, for instance, graduated towards the top of his class at Chicago a decade ago, was a Circuit court clerk, and had a fine run as a long-time associate at a top 5 firm. That said, even for him, time ran out and he is stuck in purgatory in terms of job search -- his background is in law but he can't get back in the door anywhere. So, obviously nobody should shed a tear for him, but that would have been the best possible scenario in this market with perfect grades -- he'd cash in and cash out in an unstable profession that no longer provides careers.
DeleteThus, there are two routes to go. If he can externalize the risk (perhaps set up options to work overseas) then maybe he should continue. Additionally, if he is willing to do the generally extremely unfulfilling government work (it will essentially eat your soul away as you realize with every form argument you make you are just demeaning your client's humanity as you rush on to the next matter) that qualifies for loan forgiveness then maybe (but even PSLF may be under siege -- see the news).
Finally, and this sure would be a ballsy move, if there are some family ties in something business or legislative related (or other) where one could possibly, in some almost fictitious world where there are flying unicorns, claim their law degree gives them some added ability in the job then maybe. Otherwise, he is just setting himself up to have $300,000 in debt either to work 80 hours a week to essentially cover the interest on that (and maybe a bit more) until he burns out entirely at age 50 being borderline suicidal because he sold his life away down the river in his early to mid 20's. That's basically what he is looking at.
In 2007 or 08 I spoke with an NYU 3L with grades along those lines. He wanted to come to my (middling) firm and I had to tell them we wouldn't even take a look at him with those grades. He said that was what he was hearing from all the firms and public interest jobs, and wanted any advice I could give. I didn't know what to say. Nothing but 1L grades really matters, so I couldn't tell him to study hard and raise his grades. He was networking like mad, as evidenced by the fact that he was talking to me. I didn't know enough about the lower end of the legal economy to have any useful advice on that. I knew a little bit about the economics of doc review, and mentioned it, but could tell from the sick look on his face that he was well aware that was probably where he was heading, and was looking for anything else. In retrospect, I bet that he would have been able to get some sort of crappy-but-paying insurance defense gig or the like for $50,000 a year. But I seriously doubt anyone in his shoes could do so now. And I don't have any idea how you pay off $200,000 on $50,000 a year.
ReplyDeleteIn short, I think if I were your nephew I'd probably drop out. Whether you should bring it up is another question. Based on the response to the book, I am willing to bet the odds of your nephew actually dropping out are close to zero. So bring it up if (a) you think I'm wrong about the odds or (b) you will feel guilty if you don't bring it up, but won't feel guilty if you bring it up and your nephew doesn't do it.
I think it comes as a shock to most 1L's just how important grades are - even at an elite school like NYU. Even before the crash, a middling firm wouldn't even consider an NYU grad if his grades were below a certain point. And grades are very arbitrary. Anyone who has the stats to get into NYU has a long history of getting top grades, up to and including the LSAT's. And they figure the same thing will happen in law school. But because of the hard curve, every class has to have its winners and losers. And of course, once you get away from the elite schools, the margin for error gets smaller and smaller. Decent grades might get the job done at NYU. But at a TT, nothing less than outstanding will do.
DeleteFirst-year grades aren't all: there's also age. I got top grades, but middle age damned me to unemployability—while rich kids in the bottom third of the class did get jobs at big firms.
DeleteAnon @ 10:00 PM,
DeleteHow old were you when you graduated? Being middle-aged upon graduation would be a complete non-starter for most law firms of any size. What did you wind up doing?
I graduated in my mid-forties. I got a federal clerkship but haven't found other work.
Delete"What did you wind up doing?"
DeleteI am going to guess s/he wound up specializing in digito-rhinospeleology, which is a fairly common pursuit for disillusions nontrad law grads.
When I graduated from Law School in the mid-80's, a good regional law school, but certainly without any national reputation, I started in mid-law (after a brief stint as a prosecutor) because I knew some of the guys at the firm, and I cannot think of one time anybody ever asked about my grades or my rank. Maybe today things are different, but I would still think who you know is far more important than your grades, and I don't mean Dad's connections, I mean YOUR connections just by being friendly with the people who matter.
DeleteI might as well have, for all the good that my law degree has done.
DeleteIt is really pathetic that a supposed t14 law school is resorting to this. I agree, if this doesnt dissuade people from applying to law school there is no hope for them.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is complaining about what Georgetown did. Hell, at least it is making an attempt to get its graduates in the door in the legal field. Even if the attempt is done for selfish reasons, it's much better than what my school did (if you could call it a school instead of a diploma mill.) They simply said that it wasn't their place to provide employment and that they had done their part by providing the education.
ReplyDeleteAnd considering that my first job out of law school was a temporary, non-legal gig for $9.50 an hour, I would have been eternally grateful had my school cared enough to offer me some money to do an unpaid internship so that I could have eventually stayed in the legal field. (Not having enough money to do unpaid internships while I garnered the 2-3 years of legal experience necessary to even get anyone to look at you nowadays for a legal job eventually resulted in my leaving the legal field, which turned out to be a wonderful blessing in disguise.)
Now THAT oughta sway anyone thinking about attending law school. And it's all true, folks...Think long and hard about applying to law school, or my fate may very well end up being your own...
No, it is not an attempt to get graduates a foot in the door. It is nothing more than a brazen attempt to keep the institution from sinking on those damnable rankings. The title "Entry into Practice" thinly veils the true purpose of the program.
Delete@10:12:
Delete9:21 here. As I said, I don't care what the selfish reasons are for what Georgetown is doing - ie: an attempt to keep the institution from sinking on those damnable rankings. It translates into helping the graduates get a foot in the door because I left the legal field solely because no one could pay ME $12,000 a year while I continued to do unpaid internships.
$12,000 for me would have made the difference as to whether I stayed in the legal field or left it, because I sure as hell couldn't afford to work for free for a year or two to get the experience required in today's world.
As I said, the reasons might be selfish, but the impact just may be that one student may have the opportunity to continue to practice law after taking out $135,000 in student loans to learn the law.
While you may not agree w/ what they are doing, what they are doing is a hell of a lot more than what my darling alma mater did, which was to stick its head in the sand and say "I don't give a damn." I at least admire institutions who can realize that their graduates are actually having a problem, something my school hasn't yet done, despite having a HUGE portion of graduates working in retail after graduation. There are plenty of culprits in this scam - I wish OLLS would focus on the worst ones - Erwin "there is no problem in the legal field" Chemerinsky and that other prof who thinks he is God's gift to the legal world - instead of focusing on the few who actually have the balls to admit that things aren't going so great for their graduates.
You seem to be making some questionable assumptions:
Delete1) People who cannot afford to take an unpaid internship for a year could afford to do so in expensive Washington with a $12k subsidy.
Certainly $12k is better than nothing, but it is still insufficient unless one happens to have one's housing and some other major needs covered (such as by having parents in the area with whom one can live free of charge). That tiny amount would not cover rent. After taxes, it would cover the fees for joining the bar somewhere (including a bar-review course) and leave only a few thousand for everything else.
2) The one-year internship would get the graduate's foot in the door.
Probably most of the positions found consist of make-work, which is why Georgetown does not require documentation. One might not do or learn anything significant involving the practice of law. Even a relevant internship, however, might well not open a single door. People who haven't found a job by the middle of law school have little hope left, unpaid internship or not.
It seems I am not the one making the assumptions. You assume that the internships have to be done in DC. I didn't see anything of the sort. If the grads want to stay in expensive DC, they should be willing to pay the price. They don't have to. They are free to do their internship in North Dakota if they wish. I didn't see anything in the promotional literature that said the internships MUST be done in DC. Since Georgetown is nationally-reknown (I am out west and have long heard of Georgetown), I would imagine it gets students from all across the country.
DeleteYou also assume that most of the positions consist of make-work. Yet, you have no evidence for that other than your mere assumptions. I am not trying to be a prick, but if you are going to accuse someone who has not made any assumptions other than they were happy to see a school spending money (however small) on their graduates as opposed to building a monstrous building like most schools do, you should at least try to avoid filling your own answer with assumptions.
The only assumption I am making is that an offer of $12,000 will help an individual more than the offer of $0 that my school and so many others offer their graduates. I would have given my right arm to have $12,000 while I was working for free in the DA's office a year after graduating. After 10 months of working for free, I permanently left the legal field, because I couldn't afford to keep on working for free. $12,000 may have made the difference for me as to whether I would have stayed in the legal field or not. At the very least, it would have allowed me to stay in it another year, which may or may not have been enough to get me that paid job. Having $0 definitely closed the door for me.
Does the $12,000 solve everything? No. Will you have to rely on other resources? Probably. I had to rely on living at home w/ my parents in order to work for free. Is it the answer to the crisis in employment? No. I have said none of these things.
The only assumption I have made and continue to make is that $12,000 is a better offer than what my school offered, which was to call its graduates entitled, tell us to network more, and remind us that they had no obligation to provide us with any assistance whatsoever with employment.
Just two years ago, my school's response was the standard response from almost every single school out there. The fact that some schools are now recognizing that students actually care about employment and that they have to at least pretend to care about their graduates' employment in order to stay in the game to me is progress. The fact that Georgetown is actually spending $12,000 on its GRADUATES (gasp - imagine spending money on GRADUATES when one could build a new library!) instead of on some fancy building, like my school did, to me is progress.
There are worse offenders here to fight and I just wonder if it doesn't water-down the movement just a bit that we bitch about a school that is giving its graduates $12,000 to help them in the employment field (or giving it to them for whatever other nefarious reason you want to attribute to them) while the worst offenders - the schools that still claim that there is not a thing wrong out there or that are still manipulated employment figures - are left alone. It's almost like some people don't want to see any progress at all and knock it, because they prefer to bitch.
I think the real point is Georgetown is using the $12,000 EIP program to skew their employment statistics. It's not progress because it has nothing to do with helping graduates enter into the legal field (no paperwork required); it's only about helping Georgetown.
Delete11:16, well said. You know your own circumstances. Well said, again.
DeleteYou worked unpaid in the DA's office for ten months and were forced to leave law, yet you think that $12k might have enabled you to stay on in that post long enough to find a paying job?
DeleteThat strikes me as very unlikely. Who would have hired you after two years of unpaid work in the DA's office? Two more graduating classes would have come up in the meantime. If even ten months in the DA's office could not get you anywhere, why should an extra year have made a difference?
I freely admit that $12k is better than $0, but the idea that it gives an "Entry into Practice" is a myth. Your unpaid post (I despise the term "internship" in this context) was a good deal better than what most people would find under the circumstances, yet it still turned out to be useless for finding work as a lawyer. For most people, an unpaid post of that duration would be difficult to hold down on a measly $12k subsidy. Since it is very unlikely to lead to work, calling it "Entry into Practice" is at least inaccurate, if not downright dishonest.
I suppose that you're right about the possibility of completing an internship in North Dakota rather than in Washington, DC. But note that the program requires participation in mock interviews and other activities that presumably require presence in Washington. On $12k for a whole year, flying in from North Dakota would be infeasible. By the way, one wouldn't live easily on that amount in North Dakota either.
This pernicious program certainly does deserve denunciation, for it is just yet another false promise made in order to promote the institution at the expense of its future students. The best realistic outcome would be a poxy little job somewhere paying a salary that would not support the payments on the student loans—which, by the way, would grow by a five-figure sum in interest during the year in which the person making an "Entry into Practice" was doing unpaid work on a $12k refund from the univer$ity that had collected $150k or so.
Haha, 11:16am trusts the "promotional literature." Isn't the marketing collateral the reason most of you are in the precarious financial position you are in?
DeleteOff topic, but here's a recent yahoo article:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/law-students-push-license-dead-133035637.html
The sad thing is that these law students think that they are doing important work and righting an injustice (which by the way, is moot since the guy is dead) when in fact the real injustice is being done to them. They probably won't figure that out until they graduate unemployed or under-employed without any hope of paying off their student loans.
The other thing to note about this is that the law professor has "has made a career of working with law school students to redress past injustices". Of course, for law professors, redressing past injustices is more important than addressing current injustices.
I think this type of experience in a clinical setting is a very good thing. I learned how to practice law to some degree when I did a clinical education in my last year. I felt good about what I was doing. These students should feel good about what they are doing. This has nothing to do with the possibility that nothing awaits them once they graduate but debt and poverty. They already chose their lot in life. At least this gives them an opportunity to get something out of it.
ReplyDeleteYes! Whats a few thousand dead peasants in the name of progress, eh comrade?
ReplyDeleteDo any of these law school funded positions lead to tenure? 12K a year is what the law professors should be making.
ReplyDeleteFire them and offer them a $12k subsidy (with strings attached) as an "Entry into Practice".
DeleteSomething else that's interesting about this "Entry into Practice" scheme/scam: even the writing of a law-review article is eligible for the $12k refund. How the hell could an article, even if published, help anyone to find an entry-level job as a lawyer? Even people who fancy that an unpaid job might get their foot in the door cannot be so foolish as to suppose that an article that might or might be published would help them to find work.
DeleteRecent letter from the dean of the law skule at the Univershitty of Oregon:
ReplyDeletehttp://law.uoregon.edu/socialmedia/email/dean-email-140311/
Note that he signed it "Michael", in an eight-year-old's handwriting. Why not "Mikey", printed with a crayon in block letters, with the k turned backwards?
Anyway, I refer to this letter because of the claim that the law skule's fall in the dumb rankings by You Ass News "stems principally from the employment statistics from our class of 2012, which are not where we want and need for them to be". The key word there is need: they need to bolster those statistics in order to boost their ranking. Going from 100 to, say, 80 (which is just about all that this toilet could expect to do) would make no difference to the graduates' prospects of employment but a great difference to the law skule itself, thanks to the prestige-seeking lemmings who fail to understand that no law school outside the "top" 18 or 20 is worth attending.
@7:23, I was with you right up to the end when you in effect validated the rankings by citing them. The madness of the letter is that the learned dean himself criticizes the rankings while trying to explain why his own school's numbers aren't as bad as they look. Much has to change, including the elimination of more than half of all law school seats nationwide, but here is my proposal for a good first step: Every dean at every ABA school denounces the rankings, refuses to supply data for them and prohibits their staff from ever making any reference to them. The British dominated India for two centuries by playing the various local nabobs and sahibs off each other. USNWR sells ranking issues by playing law schools (and other graduate and professional schools) off each other.
DeleteI put "top" in quotation marks by way of distancing myself from those dumb rankings.
DeleteYour proposal makes a great deal of sense. Unfortunately, getting that sort of collective action from deans of law schools will be all but impossible. The best way to get the desirable result that you seek is to get some of the high-"ranking" law schools to pull out. What if a Yale or a Penn or a Michigan refused to take part? Already these institutions do not make much of their "ranking", mainly because they don't have to. But I suspect that the set of decent schools that might seriously consider pulling out of those dumb "rankings" is limited to Yale and Harvard.
Georgetown, more than any other school, simply can't afford to stop playing the ratings game. Lemmings all believe the "T14" are the super-elite law schools (although actually its only the top 5 or even only top 3 which can claim this nowadays). For Georgetown to fall even one place would cause an immense blow to their prestige, and hence the amount of tuition they can get their hands on.
DeleteProbably they had no choice but to pay this $12k stipend to their graduates in order to massage their ratings. Not paying it was too risky, as they have to take any reasonable measure they possibly can to make sure they keep that precious #14 spot.
Those are some good points above about the US News rankings.
DeleteI have mixed feelings about all the available rankings, and believe it's hard to rank schools well. Many rankings devolve into the sort of self-referential "prestige" that legal academics can't resist pimping to awe-struck students. However, if used correctly, most rankings are at least somewhat useful in advancing the law school reform movement.
While the US News rankings are notorious for overranking certain cesspools like Hastings and American, they do a pretty good job of isolating the worst schools at the bottom of the pile. For example, as student inputs and job outputs deteriorated at USF, it steadily slipped in the rankings and currently is no longer ranked. If your niece or nephew is considering attending USF, you can simply point out that USF isn't even ranked any more. Even if you do it ironically, it should do the trick of keeping them out of a pretentious, life-destroying roach trap. Isn't that what we're all about? The really fun part of this is that the more pretentious your relative is, the better the appeal to rankings will work. Consider it one more tool in your toolbox as we all try to build a more just society and a more honest legal system.
More generally, can anyone name a school ranked under 100 by US News, or not ranked at all, that doesn't deserve extreme suspicion as an educational investment? See what I mean about the rankings being useful sometimes?
I would have given him more credit (though still not much) if he had forthrightly signed his name over the title "The Nike Dean" (or better yet over a swoosh symbol) instead of the "Phillip Knight Dean."
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