Tuesday, December 9, 2014

JD-Disadvantage, Part VI : The Not-JD-Degrees Awaken


"Wait, I thought this was the best way to get a Stormtrooper-Advantage Job...!  Why are there MORE degrees?  Why!?!"


"A law degree opens doors to many other opportunities outside of the law!"  

We've covered this quarter-half-truth several times on this site alone, not to mention the discussion that has taken place in other locations as well.  It almost doesn't bear repeating, yet this meme is so profligate, so desperate to take hold, that we can all point to examples of ShillDeans (again), NALP, and others trying to send young people and their federal student loan dollars down the primrose path to debt and joblessness. To counter this stream of misinformation, the scamblogs stand, defiant, against this wretched hive of scum and villainy.

A short while ago I covered the attempt to create a patent-law-light degree, which, as a non-bar-preparatory "law" degree, was invented to "contextualize the complex web of intellectual property, regulatory, business contracting and licensing issues that scientists, engineers, medical practitioners and other STEM professionals around the world face."  This is also known as the "(patent) law is fizzling, so get these STEM-types in here" degree, as evidenced by the discussion and comments.

The University of Colorado is looking to get in on the action, also, by creating the "Masters of Studies in Law":

"In many jobs, it's now important to use law in your day-to-day work, but not necessarily practice law," said Paul Ohm, the law school's associate dean for academic affairs. "To have some formal legal education, but not necessarily a license."
He said patent agents (LOL!  Ed.), compliance officers (LOL!  Ed.), human resources professionals (ROTFLOL!  Hello, they already have degree programs.  Ed.) and other positions require some legal knowledge. He compared the trend to the shift toward nurse practitioners and physician assistants in the medical realm.
Students in the new master's program will sit alongside traditional law students in classes, which mostly eliminates the need for new curriculum and hiring additional faculty members. The law school will create two new courses, "Introduction to American law" and "Legal writing for non-JD students."



Wait, I thought a JD was "valuable" and "versatile!"  Why do we need all these new law-degree-light programs all of a sudden, when one could be basking in the glory of a newly-conferred JD degree? Could it be that (gasp!) there is no actual JD-Advantage after all, that thousands of students were being mislead, and that people who need "legal training" for an actual job can just take a couple of classes over the course of one year and get the basic "legal" information for what they need to know (at a fraction of the cost)?  

Boy, don't you know it's encouraging for the 2Ls and 3Ls to see non-JD candidates sitting in some of their very same classes, because, well, you know, they already have jobs and are smart enough not to go into extreme debt for an actual law degree with few employment prospects.  But I digress.

Let's get down to brass tacks:  applications have been dropping, LSAT-takers have been dropping, and bar exam passage rates have been dropping.  So what is this really about?

The program is expected to generate more than $500,000 in revenue by its fifth year. The campus has budgeted $100,000 in annual expenses for the program.

Follow the money.

All you physician assistants...sorry, JD-Advantage graduates...don't need these degrees, as you are already minting money by virtue of your legal education and bar licensure.  Now, go save some dolphins.  

22 comments:

  1. I forsee great new vistas of scam. I see law schools marketing master's and certificate programs in conflict resolution, health care compliance, human resources, and general legal knowledge to couch potatoes across the land. I only hope that some law school is bold enough to claim, in its promotional material, that: "Our non-JD program will allow you to compete successfully against our JD graduates for JD-Advantage jobs."

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    1. I don't think the law schools will need to say anything -- it will quickly become obvious to everyone, but over-achieving snowflakes. To the extent there are "JD Advantage jobs" they will soon be taken by graduates of these new certificate programs. Why should an employer hire a debt ridden JD who can't afford a $30K job when there are equally qualified certificate holders who will be happy and prosper in the same position because they don't have the debt?

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    2. As a pharmacist, that has seen unlimited foreign grad entry in the context of saturation and mass pharmacy graduate growth, I can say that these masters in law programs are toxic. It's a gateway for foreign trained lawyers to enter the glutted market. The foreign lawyers will be fine: their immigrant clients work in the underground economy and no one will pay taxes. American lawyers, more screwing... I can't believe the ABA would allow this to happen--but then again the pharmacy boards (except for Montanna) green lighted all foreigners with (comparable education) to sit for boards, lol.

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  2. So they are basically advertising to let people pay to sit in on a few of their existing classes.

    "Students in the new master's program will sit alongside traditional law students in classes, which mostly eliminates the need for new curriculum and hiring additional faculty members."

    So, you get to pay to sit in in half-empty (due to declining enrollment) law school classes. If you sit in on enough of these, you get a piece of paper no one will care about. The law profs don't have to do any extra work, just teach the material they otherwise would have to a half-empty room.

    How much money do you think they are going to charge for this?

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  3. Why don't they just have separate classes for the masters students? Because that would require some professors to teach 6 hours a week, or maybe even 9 hours. You just can't do that to highly trained scholars and expect them to keep publishing after tenure.

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  4. If these master's students are attending 1L lecture classes taught by tenured faculty this degree will be worse than useless as it will teach nothing practical. An HR or patent professional sitting through a doddering old tenured lawprof drone on about the rule against perpetuities is almost funny.

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    1. But the law school dilema is that you need 1L torts and contracts to understand the courses that might actually be useful.

      Further grading will be problematic. Jimmy and Buffy HR directors probably have never received anything lower than a B in college. Can you give them an 'A' while maintaining the curve for the law students?

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  5. Firstly, physician assistants do quite well, arguably better than many doctors. Average income is $80K per year, and it only requires two years of schooling and some on-the-job training. So it's not accurate to equate these masters degrees to PAs.

    As for this new scam law schools are cooking-up, they will NOT catch-on. Only an academic can be so stupid as to think the individual out there in the workforce will fall for this nonsense. If people want to learn some law that may or may not be useful, they either (1) read some books/manuals, or (2) consult the in-house counsel.

    I'm a patent lawyer, and the patent agents I work with have picked up quite a bit of law just by way of diffusion. Hell, even the long-time secretaries have managed this.

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    1. As for this new scam law schools are cooking-up, they will NOT catch-on. Only an academic can be so stupid as to think the individual out there in the workforce will fall for this nonsense. If people want to learn some law that may or may not be useful, they either (1) read some books/manuals, or (2) consult the in-house counsel.

      This.

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  6. This won't work. HR, compliance etc are already practicing law without a license errrh I mean doing these jobs without law degrees. The state bars have never tried to make these people obtain law degrees so why would they? Oh to learn the law in the area. Is there anyone who learned the law in these classes?

    These HR etc people will probably be working while taking the classes and will realize how useless they are. I can hear them now "the prof doesn't tell us anything. He just asks us questions. I'm the one with the questions. I'm the student. Thanks but no thanks. I don't need to pay someone to ask me all the questions."

    This will be hilarious.

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  7. Replies
    1. And Necessity wears combat boots and smokes Camel non-filtereds.

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  8. The comparison to nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants makes me laugh. Those are real professions with real jobs. By contrast, not a single job anywhere calls for a "Masters of Studies in Law".

    I don't think that these new Mickey Mouse degrees will attract more than a few people. Plainly they are useless for law, academia, and indeed anything else.

    Old Guy

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    1. Also, these degrees are not actually MA degrees but tarted up certificate courses. For a true Masters degree, a student would have had to have recieved a thorough introduction into a partcular field at the udnergraduate level (or at the JD level with respect to law). Then, the student would engage in a concentarted study of a particular subject area and would have to come up with a an original premise or a unique contribution to the field for graduate work. This Masters of Studies in Law is less than an introductory course in law. It's just a marketing term attached to a few superficial courses.

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    2. Sometimes a simple typo can be really hilarious.

      "...these degrees are ...tarted up certificate courses. For a true Masters degree, a student would ... engage in a concentarted study of a particular subject area..."

      Delete
  9. So now there is a Masters of Studies in Law (I assume it will be abbreviated M.S.L. or M.SL) along with the LL.M, a.k.a. Master of Laws. They both sound similar and both are as equally useless. Why not create some more expensive worthless degrees to fill up classrooms from the law school's elective catalog. May I suggest a Masters of Studies in Law Philosophy, Masters of Studies in Law History, Masters of Studies in Law Psychology, Masters of Studies in Law Sociology, or the champion of all, Masters of Studies in International Law. Also, let's not forget about the availability of doctorate programs with these employment-friendly degrees.

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    1. Masters of Studies in Law & Hip-Hop.

      oldie fresh pond guy

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  10. This niche is going to be quickly filled by the emerging "BA in Law" programs. No one is going to pay law school prices for law school courses that don't really help them.

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  11. LLMs (especially LLMs from non-elite schools) exist because they allow foreign educated attorneys to take the bar in some states and because some failed JDs double down. LLMs at elite schools exist because there will always be a demand for credentials from these schools, no matter how dubious the value.

    Obviously CU is not an elite school and there is no reason for a foreigner to obtain this particular credential. I just don't see the market.If you are the average HR employee with a BA, wouldn't you much rather get a master's in HR?

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  12. This will not be an effective way for law schools to increase their revenues. The market just isn't there. Those dreary, boring law school classes are supposed to make you "think like a lawyer," but that's only attractive if you suppose, rightly or wrongly, that you can make money as a lawyer.

    For these new degrees to attract anything like the thousands of new students they expect, the law schools would have to design entirely new courses and get someone to teach them. Law schools have been embarrassingly bad at designing new courses. A good example would be the Washington and Lee simulation fiasco that cut their enrollment nearly in half. And the point of any new degree program should be to get more work out of existing underworked faculty.

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  13. I know these people don't think so, but they are going to hell. Dante's hell, God's hell, where their flesh will be whipped from the bodies with a cat of nine tails. They lie, invite reliance of their lies, and then leave persons in such desperate situations that they will be tempted to do every sort of destructive or self-destructive thing. There's blood on their hands, there's suffering on their hands, there's destruction on their hands. They're guilty. One way of another that catches up to them.

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  14. Have a look at the news from Cooley—er, I mean Western Michigan University Cooley Law School:

    http://www.cooley.edu/publicinformation/_docs/2014_aba_standard_509_information.pdf

    The full-time program got 1125 applicants, of whom 975 were admitted and … wait for it … 38 matriculated as full-time students. Evidently at least 117 of them also enrolled in the part-time program (on top of the people who applied to the part-time program). Even so, that's a dreadful result, particularly for a law skule that regards itself as the second best in the US.

    Old Guy

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