Indiana Tech's Missing "Law School Feasibility Study"

The recent discussion of Indiana Tech and their "raffle-based" scholarship pitch made me think back to the varied posts that I've seen on this fine establishment over the years.  Time after time, I have asked myself "no, really, what were they thinking," as Indiana Tech Law School seems to solidify everything that is wrong with the current legal-education-mindset.

But, wait, wasn't there a "feasibility study" published a few years ago that explained why there needed to be a fifth law school in Indiana?  A well-researched, vetted manifesto as to why money should be spent, why multiple working hours should be invested, and scores of students should sign on the dotted line?  Yes, Indiana Tech even published it on their website!  Let's go find it:

Whoops!  A muted trumpet plays "wahh wah wah wahhhhhhh....." in my head after I key in the website address.  Apparently some "ninjas" ran off with the report that only recently proudly proclaimed the raison d'etre of ITLS!

(Incidentally, it seems appropriate that "ninjas" absconded with the report.  Children of the 80s learned early on that ninjas were super-awesome-magical defenders of truth and justice and went after the bad guys...although history indicates that ninjas were, in reality, hired mercenaries that did the "dirty work" that their masters found too politically intractable and dishonorable to do themselves...say, for example, erasing "mistakes.")

Well, never fear, gentle readers!  Thanks to the mystical power of the internet, what once was lost (or absconded with) can now be found!  Join us below the fold for some highlights of the study:

Talk to your child about law professors.

With the media rife with images of legal practice as "cool" or exciting, it has never been more important for parents to talk to their kids about scam. Law school is not just something that happens to other people’s children. It can happen to anyone.

Open a dialogue in a calm and supportive way. Find out whether your teen or child has ever been approached by a known law professor. Find out whether the law professor has invited your teen or child to a seemingly innocuous Youth Law Day event, tried to get him or her involved with the mock trial crowd, or outright offered or dealt intoxicating and dangerous career advice. 

You should reassure your kids that it is okay for them to care about social and aquatic justice. However, you should also stress the importance of making good choices. Talk to them about the profound long-term consequences of six-figure non-dischargeable educational debt and a stigmatized degree-- consequences that may be personal, professional, financial, or health-related, and that may impact loved ones as well. Discuss movies and TV shows that seem to glamorize lawyers, and ask questions that reinforce their understanding of the difference between what is real and what is make believe. 

Finally, if you learn that law faculty have visited your child’s high school or middle school in an effort to recruit or "groom" new customers, do not panic. Free information and assistance is available at your nearest scamblog. Together, we can protect our children from these predators. 

Vanity Rephrased, Part Two: Ave Maria's Big Splash and a Prayer for Relief

Ave Maria in 2015:  It's About Money

Ave Maria Law has fallen a long ways in the decade since its subsidized first class graduated.

Where once it may have been a small law school with a viable mission, a better version of Liberty or Regent perhaps, its Class of 2013 graduated 159 people (double from its first class), it has a sub-40% LST employment score, and the full-freight cost of attendance is over $60,000 a year.  In the Fall of 2014, Ave Maria enrolled 112 poor souls with a median LSAT score of 143 and a median GPA of 3.06.  Many of them should abandon all hope, as they will be likely tithing to loan servicers until the Second Coming [of bankruptcy reform].

With those numbers, there is little room for debate: Ave Maria Law is a diabolical shithole with little chance of salvation.

This is what passes for Ave Maria's "good news" these days:

Ave Maria School of Law on Thursday will officially announce that it will purchase the North Naples campus and launch a $3.2 million capital campaign, thanks to an anonymous $1 million gift.
...
The law school will also celebrate ... being ranked No. 1 in the state of Florida with 83 percent of graduates passing the February bar exam on the first try, far exceeding the statewide average passing rate of 64.3 percent.

They are literally celebrating ten (10) people passing the bar out of twelve (12) takers.  They should also place a plaque on campus somewhere, as long as the town elders allow such small-scale displays of vanity.  One has to wonder if they celebrated last summer, when only 43 of their 76 bar examinees passed the Florida bar, the lowest number in a state full of derelict toilets, secular or otherwise.

With such an abyssal annual bar passage rate (60.2% average over the last two attempts), most law schools would cower in shame.  But not Ave Maria.   No, in its full vanity, Ave Maria celebrates a land transfer between quasi-related entities and a good deal of their graduates failing the bar multiple times.

But there are, of course, other benefits to buying one's own plot of earth:

With the purchase of the campus, a significant savings in rental expense will be realized, thus freeing up funds for scholarships, new academic initiatives, campus infrastructure improvements and faculty development. The campus purchase also provides for naming opportunities on campus.

Let's actually look at Ave Maria's finances for a minute and see if this checks out.

According to its 2013 tax return posted publicly, Ave Maria (which gives out "juris doctorate" degrees, apparently, whatever those are) had a debt ratio of 170%, with assets of around $3.4 million and liabilities around $5.8 million.  That's kind of debt-heavy as it is, particularly for a non-profit having to use steep discounts to sell its existing inventory.  When one looks at Schedule L, page 28 if you use Guidestar, one learns that Tom Monaghan appears to be the school's principal lender at the time, with $4.8 million due on a loan for "general operating expenses."

Both the school's revenue and functional expenses are around $16M.  Very little of that $16M appears to have come from grants, donations, or contributions from the school's specific foundation.  On the expense side, over $5.8 million was paid out in salary and wages alone.  They report $1.5 million in annual occupancy expenses, some of which would be paid out anyway, since "occupancy" does not equal "rent" in IRS lingo.

So despite having net assets of -$2.4 million and apparently barely breaking even due to the operating expenses listed on their 2013 form 990, Ave Maria has now purchased of a massive tract of land.  They claim this will free up cash for lots of new endeavors.

The question is:  how?!

Collier County, Florida is swell enough that they have made their real estate records public and freely available online.  Reviewing the records, one finds the following:

• A "mortgage and security agreement" (instr. no.  5108897) granted by Ave Maria Law on 4/15/15 to First Florida Integrity Bank for $7.5 million.  Notably, the mortgage makes reference to "final payment" due under the note on April 15, 2018.
• A "second mortgage and security agreement" (instr. no. 5108900) granted by Ave Maria Law on 4/15/15 to "Mary's Law Angels, LLC" to secure an indebtedness of $5.6 million.  A search of Florida's corporate records shows that Mary's Law Angels, LLC, was incorporated in January and happens to have the same address as Ave Maria School of Law, with Ave Maria Law's president serving as the manager.  (If you already have a 501(c)(3) foundation to support the school, why create this LLC?)
• A warranty deed (instr. no. 5108895) whose stamp identifies the consideration for this purchase as $13 million

Although we lack the notes and other key documents, by purchasing their campus, Ave Maria has taken on what appears to be around $13.1 million in new debt, exchanging annual rent expenses to friendly entities (they're independently-run, but really, was Ave Maria University ever going to evict Ave Maria Law?) for unidentified mortgage payments, including mortgage payments to an unrelated bank (you know, the things that actually may foreclose you) for a note that appears to be due in three (3) years.  And I would also bet that mortgage note is personally guaranteed by the man or men upstairs, and I don't mean the Lord.

If all that's true, it would mean that - at least for the next three years - Ave Maria's real occupancy costs would increase dramatically over what is shown on the 2013 return before dropping.  At the absolute minimum, they appear to have taken on a lot of new debt that would not appear to increase "funds for scholarships, new academic initiatives, campus infrastructure improvements and faculty development," at least while the debt is being serviced.

Because interest in law school is flat-lined on a good day, I'm highly skeptical there's any real cost savings at work here.  What did appears to happen, however, is that Tom Monaghan's overall vanity project, Ave Maria University, just got a $13 million cash boost (selling an asset in less-than-free market conditions), a seemingly-related for-profit LLC just became a second mortgagee and creditor to the law school, Monaghan himself may still be an individual creditor to the law school, and the school's main source of past revenue has been tuition receipts.

So who's actually paying for that building?  Students, and maybe donors who can't find a better charity than a shit-stained law school that already burned its benefactors once by relocating on the whims of a billionaire.

They can talk about capital contributions and campaigns, but the school is fifteen years old.  There are no dying wealthy alums pining to dump their estates into Ave Maria's endowment account.  The oldest alums are likely peeved the school moved to Florida.  Monaghan may be able to find new Catholic blood to buy into the law school part of his project, but if those contributions actually existed, one would think they would have tapped those years ago.

Knowing what we know about law school in general and Ave Maria's finances in particular, it is difficult to see Ave Maria Law as a viable long-term project absent some serious propping-up by its founder and other rich folks who take up his mantle.  In fact, there's a chance that this sale was a play in eventually winding down the law school.  After all, unlike many non-profit universities, the law school is a separate entity from the university itself.

As a commenter to Part One noted, the Department of Education uses a Financial Responsibility Composite Score to judge an institution's financial health using three ratios.  It is but one measure that the DOE uses, and schools are allowed to show alternative means of financial health.  Yet, the scores may be instructive in this case.  Scores range from -1.0 to 3.0.  From 1.5 to 3.0 is financially healthy.  On the August 2014 release, Cooley had a 2.9.  Albany and Charleston had 3s.  Ave Maria Law had a -0.5, one of the worst 100 institutions in America, more surrounded by proprietary cosmetology schools than colleges of law.

Of course, it's possible the financial picture is bright, they've slashed expenses from 2013, that donors will line up, and/or that the purchase of land really will free up new money thanks to God-fearing accountants.

None of that changes the fact that the school is a blood-curdling, near open-admissions compost heap that makes Stetson and Nova Southeastern look like Georgetown.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Prayer for Relief

Dear Lord, please close this school down.

I do not, in any way, doubt Mr. Monaghan's religious beliefs or his sincere desire to produce orthodox Catholic attorneys.  And frankly, if he wants to be moral dictator over an arch-conservative town in southwestern Florida, so be it, so long as he doesn't enslave anyone.

But, taking his intentions at face value, the best thing Mr. Monaghan can do for everyone involved is to close this school down.

If he or others genuinely want to aid the cause of conservative Catholicism in the legal sphere, he can set up his foundation to give scholarships to students from super-Catholic schools like St. Thomas More or Franciscan to study at reputable law schools.

In this day and age, having those kids come to Ave Maria and study is likely doing more harm than good.  A "real" Catholic going to even a second-tier school like the University of Florida or Florida State has an exponentially better chance of aiding the Catholic cause in his or her legal career than any student that graduates from Ave Maria Law.

Even with a full-ride scholarship, an Ave Maria graduate will incur at least $60,000 in principal in living expenses.  With only 1.3% of graduates working in large firms and 18.2% working in solo shops or small firms, that debt will be considerable even for the best candidates under very good scenarios.

For someone with a 50% scholarship, real costs are likely to be more around $150,000.

If Ave Maria lures devout Catholics to study law there instead of at "better" options - including not studying law at all - it is playing an active part in disproportionately placing its target product in troublesome debt.

How can conservative Catholics best serve the Lord when they are deeply indebted and un- or underemployed?  When the best case scenario for 95% of them is paying down debt working in family law, immigration, etc.?  When they attend a law school who's brand places them at a disadvantage in a swamped legal market?

Ave Maria University will never be elite.  For Ave Maria Law, it's a longshot to ever be mediocre again.  Absent the school being truly beneficent and letting students attend for free including living costs, the school is a net negative, both for Catholicism and for the legal academy.

Please, Lord, close this school down!

Amen.

Vanity Rephrased, Part One: Tom Monaghan and Ave Maria Law

This is part one of two entries discussing Ave Maria Law School.  In part two, we will look at some recent news regarding the college and look more at the school's financial picture.

The Abridged Ave Maria Story

It's a story that may be more fitting of a film entitled A Monaghan for All Seasons.

The early 90s dawned, and Domino's Pizza founder and billionaire Tom Monaghan had a Paulean revelation about free-spending materialism.  “I realized I was a showoff. I wanted not just more, I wanted more than others. What I thought were virtues were really not.”  Monaghan sold the Detroit Tigers, a rich man's toy he had bought stocked with World Series talent and sold right before a decade-long dumpster fire of baseball futility.  He stopped collecting classic cars and even stopped work on his latest Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired building.

Monaghan - a genuine, devout Roman Catholic by all counts - turned to education, vowing to give away his fortune to assist his charitable ends.  To better understand his pious aims, we must first understand that he had, and has, a problem with contemporary Catholic education.  Places like Georgetown, Loyola, Seton Hall, St. Johns, DePaul, Marquette, Boston College - for many devout Roman Catholics, these schools may as well be secular.  (And here and here)

A few truly devout schools fought against the tide of liberalism and secularization.  Catholic University of America was and is one example, not to mention a smattering of liberal arts colleges that upheld the strictest Catholic virtues.  Nonetheless, Monaghan joined the mini-schism in Catholic education and sought to augment the presence of traditionalism in academia, concurrent with a broad expansion of undergraduate enrollment nationwide.  He started the Ave Maria Foundation to fund various endeavors.

Ultimately, his goal became to build a world-class, devoutly Catholic, elite university.

Monaghan was, or became, a benefactor of Franciscan College of Steubenville (Ohio), one of the handful of colleges with an approvingly orthodox bent.  He initially pushed for a law school there.  But, according to the New Yorker article cited above, Franciscan lacked the ambition to become a big, elite research institution, as did another small college.  His university wouldn't be a modest priest.  It would be a Cardinal.

Monaghan founded his own college, Ave Maria, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1998, and then appears to have purchased a local college called St. Mary's when he ran into accreditation issues.  But as any good academic knows, a liberal arts college is just one piece of the elite university puzzle.  As coincident fortune would have it, nearby, Professor Steven Safranek and three of his peers sought a more Catholic school than Detroit-Mercy.

As [Safranek] recited his Hail Marys, an idea began to percolate: Why not start a new Catholic law school? A few weeks later, Safranek caught word that Tom Monaghan, the eccentric billionaire who founded Domino’s Pizza, had sold his business and was planning to devote his fortune to conservative Catholic causes. So he hashed out a proposal and got four other University of Detroit Mercy professors and an administrator to sign on. To show they were serious, each of them offered to chip in $20,000 and work for free for a year.

Monaghan bought into it, and quite literally.  Ave Maria Law School was born, amidst a new wave of pure Catholic institutions and the latest piece to Monaghan's elite university puzzle.

Safranek and friends moved to Ann Arbor.  Nino Scalia and other conservatives gave positive feedback.  Applicants showed interest.  In 2000, with significant scholarship support, Ave Maria Law School enrolled seventy-five students with generally good admissions criteria.  Bar pass rates in 2003 and 2004 rivaled the University of Michigan's.  Almost a decade before Irvine, Ave Maria had the first phase of a vanity law school down pat.

But not all was well in this academic paradise.  

Monaghan still wanted a big, elite university in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  As the New Yorker explains, the local community lacked his prescience and imagination:

Monaghan hoped to move the college and the law school to the vast grounds at Domino’s Farms, an action that had to be approved by the Ann Arbor township. Approval was hardly a given; some of his earlier projects, such as a subdivision featuring homes designed by the thirty best architects in the world (chosen by a panel), had been stalled by the town. Now there was much local grumbling about a plan to erect a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot-tall crucifix, bearing a forty-foot-tall Jesus, at the site of his proposed university. In April, 2002, the town denied Monaghan permission to build his university in Ann Arbor.

Significantly butthurt about Ann Arbor rejecting his twenty-five story monument to the ultimate act of pro bono publico, Monaghan sought to move his project (or, rather, His project) to sunnier locales.

He found Naples, Florida:  a vacation spot heavy on local conservative Catholicism and light on local elite university competition.  After all, Monaghan's university was not going to compete with Miami and Stetson.  It was going to compete with Duke.

In Naples, he would construct his modern-day Ark, of sorts: "an old-fashioned company town with a theocratic twist."

Unfortunately, those of lesser faith scoffed at suddenly moving across the country.  Professor Safranek, once his ally in the fight against heterodoxy, suddenly became a Luther-like foe.

Safranek...complained to the American Bar Association that Monaghan wasn't acting in the school's best interests by relocating....

The professor led a September 2006 faculty revolt against the move — and was quickly fired. Then, like Ernsting, he sued. "We had done everything right. We were poised to be one of the best law schools in the country," Safranek says. "But Monaghan's greed, his desire to say, 'Look what I'm going to do; I'm going to create this university in the middle of nowhere,' ruined it all."

Charlie Rice, a founding board member of Ave Maria law school and then a constitutional law professor at both Notre Dame and Ave Maria, agrees. "Monaghan just wanted to get rid of people who were not favorable to the move. He treated those guys outrageously. It was unconscionable."

Students and faculty at Ave Maria College likewise protested; that college was quietly closed in 2007.  Moreover, faculty at Ave Maria Law were frustrated not only at the pending exodus, but also at Monaghan's control over the school.  According to the New Yorker article, he had instituted a dress code for faculty.

As it turned out, his money was not given freely with the spirit of beneficence; his purse came with strings, and they were sinners in the hands of a despotic puppeteer.

Lawsuits would be filed and settled.  The American Bar Association gave its papal acquiescence.  Ave Maria Law was founded in 2000, accredited in 2005, and, like one called to go on a mission in the tropics, transported itself to a new jurisdiction in 2007.

In the ultimate act of vanity befitting a billionaire businessman, Monaghan had co-opted someone else's faith-based vanity project as part of his own faith-based vanity project and turned the commandment dial to 11.

In Florida, Monaghan found a deal that was too good to be true.  A company called Barron Collier entered into a joint venture with Monaghan where they would build the planned community of Ave Maria, Florida, around the university in some swampy tomato fields near Naples and split the profits down the middle.

But Monaghan needed a way to exercise control over his company town against pesky things like democracy.  He discovered good old fashioned legislative exceptions and theocratic feudalism.

The law gives Monaghan and Barron Collier Cos. more power than any Florida developer in at least 24 years, power perhaps not seen since the days of the early 20th century land boom. The law makes landowners, not registered voters, the ultimate authority in Ave Maria. The law ensures Monaghan and Barron Collier Cos., as the largest landowners, can control Ave Maria's government forever.

What could possibly go wrong with this utopia?

Sure, contraceptives and pornography are banned even for non-Catholic residents.  Sure, words like "fascist", "edicts", and "nightmare" get thrown around when discussing the town.  But Monaghan has built his dream, of which a law school pumping out Catholic-infused lawyers ("every 1L is sacred"?) appears to be an integral part.

For as much as we criticize Erwin Chemerinsky for the vanity project of UC-Irvine, he didn't move the school and build a new university-town combo over which he could remain overlord.  Before there was Chemerinsky, there was Monaghan, and Ave Maria, the vanity project on ecclesiastical acid.

Indiana Tech, the finest unaccredited law school in Fort Wayne, offers a raffle-based scholarship.

There is an ongoing debate over whether academic scholarships and grants should be primarily need-based or merit-based. The former may be harmful where the scholarship award still does not justify the recipient’s costs and risks. The latter may reinforce the class structure rather than reward real aptitude, especially where merit is measured in substantial part by flawed or teachable standardized testing.

Unaccredited Indiana Tech Law School, ever the innovator, may have hit upon a third way: the raffle-based scholarship. If you sign up for illustrious law Prof. Adam Lamparello’s upcoming two-hour student recruitment event, described for some reason as a boot camp, you will be eligible to win a $5,000 scholarship to Indiana Tech Law. A set of Beats by Dre headphones will be raffled off as well.  Not only that, but all attendees get a free LSAT registration (certain conditions may apply), and a light lunch. So everyone leaves a winner-- well fed, but hungry for justice.

Law School Boot Camp  

April 18 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm   

Please join us on Saturday, April 18, 2015 for a workshop designed to show you how to be prepared for your first year of law school. The workshop will be held from 10:00am to 11:00am, followed by a "What do lawyers do?" panel from 11:00am to 12:00pm, in the Courtroom of Indiana Tech Law School, with a light lunch to follow. Assistant Professor of Law, Adam Lamparello will discuss topics such as how to succeed in your law school courses and which skills are most important to become a successful lawyer. He will also provide mini-outlines for some first year courses.  

                                                         *** 

Attend for a chance to win a $5,000 scholarship! 

At this workshop, one person will be awarded a $5,000 scholarship in addition to any other scholarships or financial aid received. One raffle per event, you must be present to win, and scholarship must be used for matriculating in Fall 2015. Other raffles include a Beats by Dre headphone.

I worry that the faculty and staff of Indiana Tech Law School might be alone out there in their efforts to reconfigure legal academia’s approach to student recruitment and scholarship disbursement in a way that enhances the dignity of our profession, so here are a few more suggestions:

1: A tent revival, featuring enthusiastic testimonials from persons who were saved from the torments of low-income career malaise by blind faith in unaccredited legal education, followed by a call from a charismatic law preacher for believers to step up to the stage and receive unto themselves their personal law school scholarship.

2. Ads on the inside of match book covers. ("If you can draw or copy this crude picture of a blithering fool wearing a dunce cap, you are eligible for scholarship money at Indiana Tech Law School.")

3. A spam email. ("Greetings, good Sir or Madam. I am the Prince Regent of an important third world kleptocracy, and I require a small amount of undemanding legal work by an Indiana Tech trained legal mind, upon completion of which, compensation of one million dollars will be most gladly deposited in your account by my Minister of Econometrics. As a token of My royal goodwill and respect, I have attached an Indiana Tech Law School scholarship voucher.")

4. An astrological hotline, where the psychic foresees an Indiana Tech Law School scholarship and great wealth in your future, but only if you act soon. 

5. Fake online dating profiles featuring impossibly attractive persons of both genders who declare their red-hot passion for justice, and state that what they most desire in a romantic partner is an Indiana Tech law degree.

6. Suggest to the rising generation that quality professional legal education, both globally and in Fort Wayne, involves dance music, sports law, and the overthrow of oppressive grammatical conventions, such as capitalizing the first letter of one’s many names.

Okay, maybe the last one is too far-fetched.

University of Arkansas Law Prof. Christopher Kelley touts the remarkable career-building opportunities offered by his two week "Transnational Negotiations" program in Minsk.

(Cultural Learnings of Belarus for Make-Benefit Glorious University of Arkansas Law School students).  

Practicing law, like so much else, is mostly a matter of learn-by-doing. Consequently, legal academia is now placing greater emphasis on experiential education, after only a trifling century-and-then-some delay. In my view, experiential education is, potentially, a small step in the right direction, even though it does not really address the far greater, and intertwined, problems of the mammoth law student debt burden and the cratering of the entry-level legal job market. Law students are paying for professional training, and that is what the JD-peddlers should provide.

But, no, count on legal academics to get experiential education wrong. When they speak of experiential education, they often mean elaborate and pointless simulation games [1], rather than live-client clinics and internships in law offices.

Take, for instance, the art or skill of "negotiation." In our market-oriented system, anybody would benefit by becoming a better negotiator. Now suppose that a law student has two weeks to devote to the task of improving his or her skills as a negotiator. Which of the following options should the student select?

A. Arrange a short-term internship with a successful local attorney who specializes in, say, family or personal injury law and observe the attorney as he or she assesses people and situations and determines what concessions to make, what points to insist upon, what deals to offer, and how to frame his or her proposals as being in the best interest of the other party or parties. 

                                                                   or

B. Fly to Kiev or Minsk with a law professor at a cost of thousands of borrowed dollars, pay for housing, attend intensive all-day classes in which the professor yaps about "cross-cultural negotiation skills in an international setting," and then breaks the students into "negotiation teams" and has them role-play international business deals with Byelorussian or Ukrainian students, some of whom, unfortunately, do not speak English very well. [2]

I shouldn't imply that the choice is so clear because option B has its supporters, such as Professor Christopher Kelley of the University of Arkansas School of Law. Prof. Kelley runs a two-week long two credit hour course in Transnational Negotiation that includes a week in Minsk or Kiev. The course is held during Spring and Fall Break because, as Professor Kelley shrewdly notes, lengthy summer abroad programs tend to be "less popular," what with the law students' need to work summer jobs, presumably not available in Belarus or the Ukraine.

http://law.uark.edu/2013/03/one-of-a-kind-international-experience-in-belarus-for-ua-law-students/

Professor Kelley feels so strongly about the pedagogical benefits of his approach that he spoke at a workshop on "Globalization Across the Law School Curriculum," at the big 2012 annual SEALS (Southeastern Association of Law Schools) shindig at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Florida to share his groundbreaking ideas about "ways to integrate globalization issues and instill cultural competencies and values in courses throughout the law school curriculum." [3]

Law schools should, indeed, offer courses in international law. But a two week role-playing course in negotiation half way around the world during spring break? What the hell is that? [4] The professor gets paid, gets an appealingly exotic line on his CV, gets to make or maintain career-enhancing contacts abroad, and gets invitations to Amelia Island to yap about his innovative pedagogy. And the students get the bill.

It must be admitted that, at least from the law school’s press release, the law students seem to enjoy the program. Students who participated in the program in 2013 were quoted as follows:

*  "I firmly believe that there is a need for lawyers in all areas of the world . . .Everyone has the same human desires and if you can help them achieve those, then your services will always be in demand."

*  "My favorite part of the trip was the exchange with the Belarusian students both in class during negotiations and after class when they took us to some of their favorite local joints."

*  "I’ve always been interested in the international aspects of business and law and somebody I hope to live and work abroad. . . Being in Belarus has enhanced my desire to work in international law."   

*  "I lived in Australia for two years as a missionary for my church, and I was interested in international law before this trip. . . .I’m definitely still interested in a career in international law after going to Belarus. Belarus was amazing!" 

*   "The practical exercises that we engaged in with the students from Belarus taught me not only a lot about myself as an individual and American, but also a lot about others. . . One student said it all, “we are all people.” I think this theme sums it all up."

Yes, we are all people, an excellent lesson to absorb in nursery school.  The dispiriting qualification that the kids will learn as they mature is that some people are scammers. For instance, law professors who reach deep into your pocket to pay for their travels abroad or their academic "conferences" in resort locales. [5] 

My question is this: Will these kids feel as positively about their pricey Byelorussian adventure a year or two down the road when they are fledgling lawyers trying to find jobs in a flooded profession? Will they recall with gratitude the negotiation skills acquired or enhanced in Belarus? Or will they recall their study abroad course as a little scam within the larger scam of law school?

_____________________________________________________

notes and additional links.

[1]  See e.g., http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/06/lets-play-pretend-washington-and-lee.html

I except mock trials from my general skepticism of simulations or practicums because there it is possible to fashion a simulation that is a reasonable facsimile of the real thing.

[2] A student's comment, from the linked article: "All of the students in the course spoke English but some were better at it than others. . .[s]o not only were we working on negotiations, we also helped the students who weren’t so strong in English understand what the issue(s) were and in a sense taught helped [sic] them with their English skills."

[3] http://www.law.edu/res/docs/pdf-documents/2012-/Summer-2012/SEALS-Program-2012.pdf

(scroll down to p. 10)

See also Tamanaha, Brian Z. (2012-06-18). Failing Law Schools (Chicago Series in Law and Society) (Kindle Locations 3670-3673). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition. ("The Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) is known to select attractive family venues for its annual gathering, holding conferences in 2010 at Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida, in 2011 at Hilton Head Marriott, South Carolina, in 2012 at the Ritz Carlton-Amelia Island, Florida, in 2013 at Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida").

[4] Note the disgraceful hype in Kelley's come-on to his students in which he yaps about the "remarkable opportunity for you to be a pioneer" the "valuable educational and career-building opportunities" and the "extraordinary, unprecedented opportunity": 

"I invite you to consider being part of a Transnational Negotiations course this spring in which you will negotiate with Belarusian State University Law Faculty students in Minsk, Belarus, during our spring break. To my knowledge, no American law students have ever entered the Belarusian State University Law Faculty for a class with BSU students.  So this is a remarkable opportunity for you to be a pioneer. You will be the first American law students to develop your skills with BSU [Belarusian State University] law students in a BSU classroom. . . . You will be responsible for your expenses for the Minsk trip. . . .You will have alternatives–other spring-break courses are being discussed. They, too, will offer valuable educational and career-building opportunities. . . .I am eager to talk with you about your interest in this extraordinary, unprecedented opportunity." 

[5]  Do law professors believe-- not just say, but actually believe-- that legal education is enhanced by their conferences and courses in the Breakers, Amelia Island, aboard an tropical island-hopping cruise ship, in Minsk, Kiev, the French Riviera (hello, Thomas Jefferson School of Law), or many, many other beautiful locales of their wanderlusting hearts' desire? Brian Tamanaha demonstrated how to dissolve such pretensions with a laser flash of wit: 

"I did chuckle, though, reading your statement that law profs have set up a panel at "The Breakers, in Palm Beach" to discuss "the challenging environment for law schools."

Lies, Damned Lies, and Employment Statistics: Blog-Fog About BLS Lawyer Employment Numbers

This is a longer post, so I'll give you the main takeaways up front:

• The actual Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)'s projections for lawyer growth show a need for about 20,000 new lawyers a year including projected retirements - if the BLS doesn't believe an impending wave of Boomer retirement will hit American justice, why should you?
• Since we're still pumping out way, way more than that, it's still a bad time to go to law school
• There are multiple BLS programs.  Figure out which one your author is referring to, and the pitfalls of using such numbers.
• Claims of lawyer employment/unemployment based on the CPS program of the BLS/Census Bureau have to be taken with a bucketful of salt

40,000 New Lawyer Jobs!  Rad!

It's slightly old now, but a few weeks back, Thomas Cooley's President Don Leduc made an astonishing announcement:

According to a just-released U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the number of employed lawyers in 2014 increased by 40,000 compared to 2013, while the number of unemployed lawyers fell by 8,000.
...
The time of the law school critics has passed.  Now is the time for those whose dream is to become a lawyer to disregard the blog-fog and look at the clear employment picture that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has painted.  That dream’s future is now.

If you look at the pretty graph accompanying this fine piece, with its bombastically stellar closing paragraph, it clearly shows consistent lawyer employment rates over 97.7% with a maximum unemployment of 24,000 between 2008 and 2014.  A footnote to the table states this:

BLS Current Population Survey - Table 3. Employed and experienced unemployed persons by detailed occupation and class of worker, Annual Average for each year 2008-2014 (unpublished, obtained from BLS by request)

Wait a minute - if it's a "just-released...report," where are these numbers coming in the chart coming from, particularly if something had to be obtained from the BLS by request?

I've looked around for a recent BLS report about lawyer unemployment, and am unable to find anything.  So let's walk through this one step at a time.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics ("BLS") has multiple programs that often get thrown together in casual discussion.  For a helpful starting point, you can look at Leichter's page on lawyer overproduction.  He knows more of this stuff than I do, so feel free to hassle him with any questions.

The CPS:  What Leduc Referenced

The Current Population Survey ("CPS") - what they reference in the footnote - is a joint effort between the BLS and the Census bureau.  It's conducted via a monthly survey of 60,000 people and its methodology can be reviewed here.  You can review the questions asked here.

This is where Cooley is getting the "employed lawyers" numbers in their chart.  The number of employed lawyers in the annual 2014 report (1,132,000) is, in fact a 40,000 person increase from the 2013 report (1,092,000).

But this needs to be taken with heavy salt:

• If a lawyer is employed in anything else (including severe underemployment like working retail), they show up under that profession, and not as a "lawyer" at all.
• CPS counts someone as employed if they worked at any point in the previous week, including having a lousy week in part-time solo practice.
• CPS (and other government surveys) are generally biased against counting people as unemployed, and one is apparently "unemployed" based on their last occupation, and not any particular occupation they trained for.
• Another helpful CPS chart shows that "lawyer" has a median age of 47.0 - higher than most computer professions, engineering professions, and - yes - physicians and surgeons.  For a profession that pumps out 45k a year and ostensibly employs 30k or so new entrants every year, how can this be, unless there is a disproportional departure from the ranks of those under 45?
• CPS never asks its respondents if they have a Juris Doctor
• CPS only samples 60,000 a week.  That means its sub-sample of lawyers will be around a few hundred or so at the most.  At that point, the numbers aren't as precise and celebrating over a 3-4% change isn't as reliable as it might be otherwise.
• None of the unemployment tables published list a number of unemployed lawyers.  The most recent tables show a decrease of 10,000 in the legal sector overall.  And this shows a sharper drop in unemployment for women than men, which doesn't bode well for 80% of the drop being attorneys. 
• CPS is self reported, so if workers go from unemployed/not seeking to part-time solo practitioner, it would show as a rise in attorney employment, as would attorneys whose solo practices are losing money and not paying themselves anything.
• CPS includes part-time employees. Reduced to "full-time", the number is 737,000.

If anyone can find detailed CPS unemployment numbers online, please let me know.  One must assume it's the "experienced unemployed persons" information that Cooley got directly from the BLS, as I don't see that denominator listed in the online tables (I may just be missing something).

Still, given what we know about what the CPS measures, it's not really proper for Cooley to claim that the BLS is painting a "clear employment picture"for prospective students, when the data that they're using isn't designed to measure new lawyer openings at all.

The OES/CES:  What Measures Lawyer Jobs

Another BLS measurement, the Occupational Employment Statistics.  The OES is a separate survey you can read about here.  The OES data is used to generate industry-specific and region-specific estimates for current and future employment.  It does not measure unemployment in any meaningful way.

The OES projects 1,052,900 people in the entire legal sector with a 50% median hourly wage of $36.95 (about $75,000).  They project there are only 603,310 lawyer jobs in the country.  Yes, they estimate fewer jobs in the sector than the CPS shows as employed lawyers.

Why the discrepancy with CPS?  OES excludes law firm partners and solo practitioners.  Unless you plan on being a solo or insta-partner (hint: you're not that special), this is really the number you need to focus on for determining where lawyer jobs are actually going, not the CPS.  The fact that there is no attendant unemployment number suggests that one should not be relying solely on any single BLS statistic.

There is also the Current Employment Statistics, which is a separate survey targeted to calculating aggregate employment and payroll, and is useful in their Projections programs.

Employment Projections:  What Actually Projects Jobs

The BLS uses the numbers from OES and CES (and possibly other programs) to develop its industry-specific projections in the Employment Projections Program.  You can read its methodology here; pay attention to the part where they do not use CPS data.  As you can see, the BLS is currently projecting an overall growth of 132,000 or so in the entire legal sector between 2012 and 2022.  When we break it down further by occupation, we find the BLS currently projecting overall lawyer growth of 74,000 positions with an overall 196,000 job openings due to growth and replacement needs over the ten-year period from 2012 to 2022.  If you read the accompanying technical documentation, you will see that the second number is the first plus projected replacement needs based on workers leaving the occupation, which is derived from CES survey data about payroll.  This is actual survey data that should be a fact-based stake in the hearts of the "Baby Boomers are leaving!" argument.

From this, we know that the BLS is estimating that there will be 74,000 "new" lawyer jobs over the next ten years and 122,000 "replacement" job openings.  Each year, that means that there are 7,400 "new" lawyer jobs and 12,200 "replacement" job openings.  This doesn't count retiring solo attorneys or law partners leaving, but the number of new "lawyer" jobs would already factor in if new "lawyer" jobs were being created by their departures.

How many new lawyers do we need each year?  About 20,000, according to the BLS.  I'd concede we likely want to graduate a few thousand more than that to accommodate legitimate JD-plus jobs and account for washout, but taken as a whole and in context, the BLS numbers can only fairly support the assertion that we're pumping out way too many lawyers, probably to the tune of 15,000 at least.

And as Matt Leichter points out on his "overproduction" page linked above:

If you look carefully, you can see that the projections tend to overestimate the number of lawyer jobs that eventually exist ten years later.

Yet, Leduc is telling prospective students the future is now, while still playing a part in pumping out 40,000 or so new lawyer job candidates every single year.

So . . . who's creating "blog-fog" again, and who's being clear?

Another Public Service Message from OTLSS

Much has been said already concerning dybbuk's excellent take-down of the Simkovic & McIntyre papers and the obvious conflict of interest involved, so it was time to commemorate this event with another LSAC parody-poster:

While we're at it, let's bring up our prior greatest hits, including taking a jab at representing dolphins:

And, given that "Better Call Saul" took off in its own right, here our prior jab at "S&M", the first time around:

Here is the ad it was based on (Thanks, UConn):

Friends of the movement, print these out and hang them up, give these out as flyers, e-mail them to people you care about.  The Cartel is faltering and the correction has been long overdue.  Help us spread the word and prevent good people from making a well-intentioned but uninformed educational and financial mistake.

Remember, we don't make any money by issuing warnings.  They, on the other hand, make money by enrolling the naïve.

Guest Post by Prof. Michael Sycophant: I am not addicted to the satisfying, smooth, and flavorful taste of six-figure grants from the noble and highly-regarded tobacco industry.

By Prof. Michael Sycophant

Paul Campos of the University of Colorado is once again confused by my independent research with Joe Camel and Marlboro Cowboy. Our masterwork, The Cardiovascular Value of Smoking, was not funded with grants, and is the product only of the scrupulously objective analytical rigor made possible by my absurdly cushy and well-paid job as a Junior Valet at the Smoker’s Union. 

Two follow-up studies-- "The Best Time to Start Smoking is Right Now" and an upcoming study of the comparative pleasurability of smoking according to college major, race, and gender, are funded through grants from Chemotherapy is Fun Inc., an independent provider of health care solutions, and from the Smokers Emissions Council, which is an important provider of research into why adorable dolphins would be totally heartbroken if you don’t light up immediately. 

The funding provided through these grants is used to acquire software and equipment (Dude, I’m getting a Dell!), a teaching buyout to relieve my beautiful mind of the burdensome time-suck of yapping at a couple of classes of thick-headed losers who couldn't even get into Harvard, a staff of obsequious flunkies to cater to my every whim, and summer vacation stipends, as well as to attend conferences at important luxury resorts. 

There has never been an effort by the Smokers Emissions Council or Chemotherapy is Fun, Inc. to censor our findings in spite of the fact that our results are completely favorable to them. Joe Camel, Marlboro Cowboy, and I are proud of our success in securing funding from such highly-regarded organizations. Furthermore, grant funding of important scholars like myself is extremely common. For instance, just off the top of my head, I can name a host of researchers who have received grants from organizations such as the National Science Foundation, and who have conducted research into weighty matters like antibiotics development and child abuse. Are you against science? Antibiotics? Saving children? 

Critics claim that my alleged addiction to nicotine money is some kind of hushed-up little secret, but actually the sound of my morally diseased hacking could rouse the dead. I believe in transparency, and these critics are clearly blinded by the obfuscatory smoke of their own toxic jealously. With better data, obtainable by placing $220,000 in my transparently outstretched palm, everybody can win—be they smoker, nonsmoker, tobacco company, or dolphin.