Once again, we see that law schools simply don't get it. Like the proverbial ostrich burying its head in the sand, the ABA thinks making law an even less exclusive profession is the key to saving everyone's cushy jobs. And make no mistake about it: if the ABA cared even one iota about students, they would not be allowing students to enter law school without the bare minimum of an entry barrier that is the LSAT. Why try this now? To help goose LSAT scores and increase the law school's ranking in the US News, of course.
Further evidence that the legal academy and the ABA have no imagination: this scheme was already attempted by OTLSS darling Paul Pless. What is different about this proposal and what Pless was doing at Illinois? The only difference I see is the absence of smug emails calling prospective students "bastards". While Pless was shooed away from his lucrative law school gig, the people at the ABA did not forget his visionary plan. This development allows Pless to join such luminaries as Galileo and Copernicus as a person whose ideas were initially ridiculed, but ultimately adopted as absolutely correct.
The ABA is like the occupants on the second floor of a burning house who are refusing to admit anything's wrong below. This type of chicanery will not save law schools from the truth: the halcyon days of endlessly increasing tuition and plenty of people beating down the doors to pay it is over. The ABA can continue to apply band aids, but this will not stop most people from seeing that law school and the legal profession are terrible investments. The end is nigh and no one in the ivory towers wants to admit it.
Note that the bottom tier schools dominate the accreditation at the ABA. Can you imagine this happening at medical schools? No way!
ReplyDeleteThe top lawyers in the country (big law partners, federal judges, etc) don't really care about how Infinilaw fills its class. Because if you don't go to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. you're not really a lawyer in their eyes.
The comparison between doctors and lawyers is something I never understand; doctors have objective skills, lawyers have 'soft skills'. A doctor is less likely to need social skills or salesmanship ability. You have to understand that the nature of the profession, and the profession's educational model, is shaped by the professionals within it. Being an Md is strictly a 'hard skill'; quirky doctors with good reputations are highly desirable (the same can be true in law, but not usually).
DeleteI'm not a JD, but it is my guess that the ABA covers 'its own', as in faculty, and the whole higher ed LS complex anyway it can because it is one big network.
IF YOU CONTRAST THIS WITH MED SCHOOL, the professors at Med School actually have to work hard and are not compensated well enough to justify leaving the private sector strictly to have an easy job. It's not as cushy job for someone who already has an Md as it is for someone with a JD.
The type of people who go through Med School aren't going to run a scam; some of the type of people who go through Law School, on the other hand, are prone to that.
Another huge difference between med school and law school? There is no such thing as a bottom tier med school in the US. While some schools might have more prestige than others, every single med school has exacting admission standards. Look at it this way, If the worst law school in the country required a minimum LSAT score of 165 for admission, we wouldn't be here talking about the law school scam.
DeleteThe prestigious Unifarcity of Texas last year admitted a well-connected mooncalf with a 128 on the LSAT. I believe that I could get a higher score two weeks after my death.
ReplyDeleteUnder this recent proposal, that person might be able to get in without taking the LSAT at all, and the disgrace of admitting someone with a 128 would never come to light.
This profession is a joke. I could get my dog admitted to a law school some place. I do not think that the general public understands that.
ReplyDeleteWell, if your dog has a BA and the tuition...it's becoming essentially open enrollment at many skewls.
ReplyDeleteEven the BA isn't required in some states (Michigan, for instance).
DeleteNow that I've leaked this information, Cooley's next class will be full of Yorkshire terriers.
I don't think dogs would learn very well from human law professors. Admitting dogs would require a new round of faculty hiring to achieve canine diversity. This would defeat the purpose of the ABA proposal, which is to fund the revenue streams of entrenched and incompetent professors for a few more years.
DeleteMaybe Leung and Pond Scum could be taught to heel.
DeleteMy initial reaction is to wonder how, at least at a state university, setting a quota for people who get admitted under a separate set of admissions standards can withstand an equal protection challenge. How is that any different than a system of racial preferences, other than there is no compelling state interest in cutting some slack to dopes?
ReplyDeleteBut in any event folks here are hitting the nail on the head. As it stands now you can fill out your LSAT answer sheet at random and be admitted to law school at any place that will have you and your student loan checks. All this does is save the schools the embarrassment of showing really low scores and the low averages they cause.
The ABA is also proposing 10% of realtors can waive Property Law, 10% of cops can waive Criminal Procedure and 10% of the class can waive one course of their choosing.
ReplyDeleteHow will this work in practice? Here are 2 options:
ReplyDelete1. Schools will tell applicants that the LSAT is optional. 10% of the class may be admitted without the LSAT.
2. Schools continue to require the LSAT. The bottom 10% of LSAT scorers are eliminated from the medians.
I wonder which one they will choose...
What will really happen: People will be told to try their hand at a practice test. Those that have no prayer of getting an adequate score even with the benefit of an expensive prep course or private tutor will be told to apply without ever taking the test.
DeleteI was wondering the same thing.
DeleteI had a relatively wealthy friend who dreamed of getting a 'JD' as a resume place holder after UG. He didn't even want to be a lawyer. That was three years ago.
ReplyDeleteNow, this same guy I talked with last week said he would never get a 'JD' because it's a scarlet letter. He's in Med school now.
Moral of the story: perception is changing fast. Law is loosing prestige.
Law is losing prestige because law schools have been loosing their entry requirements.
DeleteDidn't Rutgers (Camden, I think) get punished by the ABA for admitting students who hadn't taken the LSAT? Now the ABA is okay with that? The ABA is a joke.
ReplyDeleteI think the enrollment numbers for Fall 2014 must be low across the board. This is great news.
The crime of Rutgers-Camden was to allow students to apply with GMAT scores, so it wasn't nearly as bad as the current proposal.
DeleteThat "apology" is more damning to Cooley than the original blog. Everything you need to know about Cooley is presented succinctly in bullet points.
ReplyDeleteYes.
ReplyDeleteThat's one of the best apologies I've ever seen. It lays it all out and (presumably) gets Cooley's BS case dismissed.
ReplyDelete