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.
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.
We must include among these predators the notorious Professor Stephen Diamond. He maintains an office at Santa Clara University, which is a pseudo-academic institution recruiting innocent young people into lifelong debt and self-contempt. He not only refuses to discuss the miserable employment outcomes of his own graduates; he and Brian Leiter have gone so far as to defame and threaten any law professor with a conscience who does discuss those outcomes.
ReplyDeleteThat's ***so*** unfair. The eminent Professor Diamond just posted the following missive on Prawfsblawg:
Delete"Anecdotal data suggests that the market for our graduates is improving. Numerous of my own students are joining major law firms in Silicon Valley this fall (where they will find many of their older fellow alums, many of them also my former students). I don't think there will be many Colorado or Washington University law school graduates alongside them."
Hey, a Santa Clara Law JD is the road to riches!
He made no effort to respond to someone who noted that 35.6% of Santa Clara law 2014 grads had full-time, long-term employment (excluding school-funded jobs). That's over a **third** of the graduates!
In conclusion, Professor Diamond noted:
"I hope this helps you and law school critics everywhere to stop worrying about my students and sleep better tonight."
Hey, Diamond doesn't care about the employment prospects of his students, so he doesn't see why anyone else should.
LOL. Someone needs to wake Diamond up from his dream and remind him he teaches at Santa Clara, not Stanford.
DeleteLOL, that bald dude thinks he's Mr. Silicon Valley. So do a million other dudes.
DeleteI find bringing high school kids to a law school creepy as all get out. I think it's great if high schoolers want to explore the career of law - that would involve going to hang out in a courtroom or a law office. There, they can actually explore what being a lawyer is like.
ReplyDeleteIn a law school, you learn about academic fantasy law, where toileteers can go on to argue in the 6th circuit about affirmative action and international treaties. It's fantasy reinforcement at a vulnerable age.
Imagine if a nonprofit version of the Bunny Ranch held a high school program and talked to kids about the always-satisfying, sexy, super-high-pay opportunities in adult entertainment. It would be shamed and quickly outlawed. But the law school fantasy-givers are no less revolting in their indoctrination of youth.
And at least with adult entertainment, you're not going 250k in the hole, you actually know if you have the skills to compete in the marketplace, and - gasp - there's actually a market demand for your professional services.
I can't say that about the typical Cooley enrollee.
Well, with adult entertainment you are more than likely going in the hole. But it's just temporary.
DeleteImagine if a nonprofit version of the Bunny Ranch held a high school program
DeleteImagine if the Bunny Ranch promised poor, unattractive people that they'd have lucrative careers if they paid $250K in tuition in order to study classes in International Three-Way Relations and Theories of Critical Teledildonics.
I laughed so hard a tear or two came out, until I saw the pictures and realized they are not spoofs.
ReplyDeleteLaw school destroyed my life. The debt just grows, because I cannot pay it down. My situation is so untenable, I cannot even bring myself to speak about it any detail anonymously. It has not yet taken my life, but I expect it to at some point when I simply do not have yet another monumental effort left in me. What has not yet killed you does not make you stronger, it makes you tired.
A history of monumental efforts is the shared history of any poor student who has had to fight to get an education in shit public schools, fight to afford undergrad, working the whole time, and survive through all the attendant social difficulties that lands families in poverty in the first place.
These "professors" and the principals of these "schools" are FUCKING. SCUMBAGS.
The now-relentless targeting of the poor - because that's the common theme, not skin color, poverty - with promises of good jobs, economic safety, and power in society by these fucking evil, lying, predatory mother fuckers, in combination with a set of carefully designed, fully intentional federal laws that are 100% punitive in the treatment of debt (that allegedly exists for the benefit of students) makes me want to see this country end.
How in god's name did we get the point of government-assisted fraud that lures POOR students with a ***hope of rising out of poverty*** through their own efforts that is guaranteed to keep the poor in poverty for the rest of their lives?
I watched the very same thing happen to my friends who were not from wealthy or even stable families, some of whom had no living parents get fucking scammed by one of the schools featured above. It destroyed their lives too.
The screwed us all. Tens of thousands every year. The backlash will come hard for them because now there is way too many people who got destroyed by attending law school. I cannot wait to shut down my crappy law school one day.
DeleteA sad tale. Are you on IBR? Pay the minimum you can, and move on with your life. You can't undo your mistake.
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm on IBR, but I wonder why I even bother be on it as opposed to defaulting. I cannot keep the interest from growing the balance - an interest rate which per the government is negatively subsidized at 6% (meaning 6% is the profit margin).
DeleteThe terms of wage garnishment in event of a default are identical to IBR - exclude poverty level from the gross, sliding, income-based scale up to 15%. Why bother anymore?
IBR is semantics. It exists to keep money flowing to schools that should not be receiving it because the default rate among their recent graduating classes is too high.
I will never be credit-worthy carrying this balance, although I have no other debt. I had a car loan once that I paid off. I never used credit cards. I've worked since I was 12 years old. My paper route was feeding my family. I have always been the working poor.
Move on to what?
A combined, state, federal, IBR tax rate of 50% which ensures I will always be the working poor? I cannot get married, because of the government moving to consider a non-debtor spouse's income in IBR. I will never be able to afford to have children. I will never own a major asset.
What am I living for?
Am I living for the consent financial stress that I have no reasonable basis to believe will ever abate? I'm unable to afford the doctor when I get sick. The government promises to garnish my SSDI should I become disabled, and my SSI should I ever retire.
So, why keep doing this?
To pay back money that flowed to a fraud outfit, at a price that was inflated and inflated under me massively over 3 years because of uncapped GradPLUS loans? To pay interest that was never lent to me that is7%+ in excess of the risk-free rate when I cannot declare bankruptcy or even default?
This is insane. Sooner or later, it's enough and you just quit.
Hang in there. At this point the only solace I can give you as a stranger on the internet is that it's a mess for a lot of people out there. I would IBR the debt and hope that within 10-15 years it gets taken care of politically so people who got screwed over can get a fresh start. Employment with any type of government work will qualify you for loan forgiveness after ten years. Look into teaching or anything you might find interesting. Even if the pay isn't great the loans will just be a percentage of your income and you will get rid of them eventually.
DeleteYeah, thanks, I hear you. I know damn well it's not just me and that does help. I don't like to let the bastards win, but they're winning. If they win too hard, I know my can-do-spirit gives out and I die. "Undue hardship" requires showing no hope the debt can be repaid, but it forgot to consider whether or not the debtor has no hope long before he meets the legal standard.
DeleteYou are 100% right, the current bankruptcy laws regarding student loans were forced through to protect the unrelenting greed by a parasitic ruling class currently our higher educational system. My prediction is when our generation takes power within a short period of time we will fix it because we suffered and know what the consequences are of sociopathic behavior. The entire student loan debt system is going to collapse sooner or later and will be dealt with in the legislature, it's just a matter of getting the votes we need. I don't see 2016 or even 2020 as years where a president will get elected to move Congress to get the job done because the super-rich baby boomers are still locked in power and just feeding themselves at the expense of other generations. Long-term we will win this fight and get rid of this debt. Indentured servitude is barred by the 13th amendment and it would be an interesting case to make in court that the current student loan system is a form of that system because of the change in bankruptcy protection. We are lawyers, after all and we can litigate this if we want. The main problem is the judges are all old and wouldn't take our side because law school was dirt cheap in the 60s/70s when most went.
Delete4:54 PM, please don't give up on living. Debt is not a deal breaker to all women, and you don't have to be legally married to be in a wonderful, committed relationship. Don't give up.
DeleteEmily
@8:57 AM
DeleteI know you are right. There is systemic age discrimination in favor of Boomers in Boomer courts right now. Consider, Congress enacted a non-judicial garnishment for repayment of student loans that includes the ability to garish SOCIAL SECURITY.
Why then are Boomers getting discharges in the BANKRUPTCY under 'undue hardship' simply because they are on a fixed income or have CHOSEN to retire?
Don't be a 28 year-old with a genetic, progressive autoimmune disorder or head trauma from a car crash can explicitly go fuck himself, BUT BE 60+ and the courts are discharging that debt!
See pg. 20, or the rule in the 9th Circuit. It's the same everywhere. If you're 60+ you can get an undue hardship discharge and NO GARNISHMENT of your old age welfare. https://getoutofdebt.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/SSRN-id1894445.pdf
I'm not waiting 10 years or 20 years to start being treated fairly.
Boomers, admit it: you are a plague of locusts. You have eaten the seed corn of the following generations, yet you still are not satisfied.
DeleteYou guys don't get it. It is not the boomers, it is the top 2/10ths of one percent who are doing this to everybody else, including the boomers. Scotus ensured the ultimate demise of the US with its Citizens decisions. The Koch brothers are now kings. They don't care about the boomers, they only care about themselves and the other ruling elite. It was not the boomers who changed the BK laws, it was the top bankers/lobbyists who happened to also be boomers. Use some logic please. Some boomers are scum does not mean all boomers are scum.
Delete1:56, I am 8:57 and I agree with much of what you said. It is the super-rich who are behind this, but ultimately the boomer electorate keeps voting in politicians who are violently hostile to younger people. As someone from Connecticut, I am dismayed at the current state of affairs which are pretty much an economic disaster long-term because of failed boomer leadership. Citizens United will go down as a horrible decision that eviscerated any hope of getting decent people elected to public office. If Americans had any brains, they would actually nominate and elect people who care. I hate to say it, but George Carlin was right when he said that the public sucks. When you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you get selfish, ignorant politicians. We can't get anything accomplished in this country anymore other than paying for old people's SS and healthcare and a bloated military that is ten times too big. I would run and try to help but I'm not rich. It really sucks.
Delete1:56, that just isn't the truth. It is the boomers who are drawing far more in retirement and other benefits than they ever paid in. It is the boomers who are still hogging the jobs. It is the boomers who profited from cheap tuition and abundant jobs but pulled the ladder up behind them. It is the boomers who run the law-school scam.
DeleteOld Guy, that rant is pathetically illogical. Boomers are both hogging the jobs and drawing retirement? LOL
DeleteIt isn't enough to graduate, or claim you graduated, from "an elite law school." You have to think about what you're writing. Not every successful person is evil. Not all success comes at your expense.
Now if you want to condemn the tiny subset of boomers who profit from the law school scam, I'm with you. And don't forget the scammers in the photos above who are obviously too young to be boomers.
Those of the boomers who have (recently) retired are sucking the living hell out of Social Security. The others will do so when their time comes. Social Security is set up to overpay the boomers (and the Silent Generation)—at the expense of the following generations, who pay today but won't get much tomorrow.
DeleteFor now, yes, many boomers are hanging onto jobs and even boasting about doing so. When openings do arise, the boomers favor their millennial children over Generation X.
Yes, some aristocrats from Generation X are also in on the law-school scam. So what? It's still a boomer project.
I mention the élite law school as a warning, not as a boast. (I actually think that it's a shitty law school—and was not shy about expressing that opinion when I was there.)
Old Guy is right. That is why certain younger, more attractive professors who are/were planning to spend the next 25-30 years on the Student Loan Gravy Train get all huffy when they get called out. Another interesting, and entirely correct point Old Guy makes is about these clowns favoring Millennials over Gen X. for openings. I've seen this outside of law commonly as well. It's as if the 2 asshole generations, much as they despise one another, hate the hard-working Gen-X'ers more. They are almost completely alike as well in their thinking.
DeleteAs the old saying goes, the apple does not fall far from the tree.
DeleteUntil some of you mature, you will never amount to anything. Blaming generically "boomers", for your predicament is laughable. All over the world there is now an excess of labor given technology has done away with lots of jobs, and even I knew when I went to law school decades ago, that there were far too many lawyers. They were talking about it even then. Sorry that you were not given a warranty and a guarantee with your JD. Sorry that you suck in math and felt that your only choice was to go to law school. Your more mathematically gifted peers are having less trouble finding jobs in the tech and finance worlds . . . some of them are making billions much quicker than the oil tycoons who made their billions. But when you blame Boomers for collecting Social Security and not giving up their jobs . . . I have to wonder what planet you live on and fully understand why some consider you the whining, entitled generation. Grow up. Accept reality. Senior American is not going to give up his SS and/or his job just for you. That you would think he should shows you have zero understanding of human nature . . . and yet so many of you received degrees in the humanities. If you don't understand even the basics of mankind, than obviously not only your JD's ended up being worthless for you, but so to were your undergrad degrees.
DeleteThe irony here is that most of the "whiners" are probably more intelligent, articulate, and hard-working than 8:26.
DeleteLet's take this one sentence: "Your more mathematically gifted peers are having less trouble finding jobs in the tech and finance worlds . . . some of them are making billions much quicker than the oil tycoons who made their billions."
I have a top undergrad degree, scored better than most of those finance and tech folks on the Math II (like 780), and have real-world post-grad experience in statistical analysis and computer programming. Let's just say that law school wasn't my only choice, and it isn't for most people who went to decent law schools, at least prior to 2013 or so. Law school marginalized me in an economy that everyone says needs more people with my skillset. Instead, I'm unemployed.
I'm 32. Do you know how many people my age or younger are actually "billionaires" because of their own hands? Eight. And of the eight, seven are from computer software companies that rose to the top in a swamped marketplace flooded with better programmers and more mathematically-gifted people. Only four of them became billionaires with any relative swiftness. That you even mention these flukes of post-industrial capitalism in a critique of modern law graduates reveals you as someone incredibly out of touch with the real world.
How could you possibly know that 8:29. Again with the gross over-generalizations by the angry and bitter millennials. Just think how good you guys have had it compared to the rest of us. No draft, technology making it far easier to access information and the world. Even the practice of law is far easier. My first job in Mid-law required lots of time in the library. It required reviewing the Digest, getting citations, pulling down book upon book from the stacks, reviewing the law, getting more books, shepardizing. I could spend a whole day back then doing what can be done in thirty minutes with a computer. To the extend of computerized legal research, it was overwhelmingly expensive. There were no word processors to speak of. We still used carbon paper and whiteout for corrections and copies of documents. If I wanted to know something, I would have to make ten telephone calls or a trip to the library. Now Google is available 24 hours a day. Accounting for income and expenses required hours of hand written entries into a ledger and journal. Computers have made all of this far, far easier. Computers have also cut back tremendously on the need for law clerks and associates. That's the way of the world. Don't blame the boomers for that. Blame technology. And it is going to get far worse than better as more and more people find their jobs being taken over by robots. Too bad you were born into this world. Maybe you could have been Jewish and born into Nazi Germany. Or born into war torn Syria in the present day. Baitch, whine, complaint. You act like three years of your life in law school was your entire life. So go out and do something else. Three years is nothing in a lifetime, and the knowledge you learned still has some value. As for the debt . . . as Campos says, if it can't be paid back it won't be paid back. So take the cards you were handed and go out and live your life to the best you can. You still have your youth and hopefully your health. That is far more than the boomers have.
Delete"Again with the gross over-generalizations by the angry and bitter millennials."
DeleteThis has to be a flame, right? 'Nam and Godwin's law in one bundle of rambling joy?
Dybbuk, is that you?!
@ 12:16
DeleteCan you deny that the present 40 and under crowd is not being treated equally under the law? Can you deny that older generations enjoyed better legal protection and more legal, economic equality than latter generations have?
This inequality is simply what happens when you have a boom-er demographic that votes for its financial interests over and over for a couple of decades.
Between the generations, there's tax code inequality, bankruptcy code inequality, labor law inequality (not covered by FLSA or age discrimination laws), interest rate inequality, price inequality, discrimination in the garnishment of social welfare, and those just entering college never gotten so much as to vote for the persons who passed the laws that govern their economic existence and opportunity.
For each economic discrimination against the younger generations, there was a corresponding benefit to the older generations.
Do you understand how ridiculous it is that we are denied bankruptcy protection, which would only apply to those who cannot pay out of the 1.3 trillion in federal student loan debt while last year alone, Social Security and Medicare cost 1.328 trillion? That's 37% of the federal budget that was spent on social welfare programs for old persons. And, no, you didn't pay for it all through taxation.
So, we're forced to take a 15.3% FICA hit to our pay to subsidize redistribution to older generations who systematically changed the laws for higher education after they benefited from them. That is a forced contributed from the relatively poor to the relatively much, much more wealthy.
As for demographics, Millennials are gaining on Boomers. We're a couple million fewer than you thanks to immigration, and your demographic will shrink from deaths.
What do you think our attitude is going to be towards wealth redistribution when we're the voting majority and you're no longer the voting majority? How would you like to be a sitting duck, and have the SS and Medicare cut back? How would you like to have the rug pulled out from under you?
Poor at math, am I? How the hell would you know? I was using the integral calculus at age 12. I can mentally extract square roots to six or seven significant digits without breaking a sweat. People thought that I'd major in math—and I started to, but I became bored with it. I used to be an engineer—until that too went south.
DeleteDo I think there are serious issues in the country? Absolutely. Do I think there was some orchestrated conspiracy to benefit the Boomers at the expense of the Millennials? That is ridiculous thinking. Millennials are simply the victims of a capitalistic system that is evidencing the greed and narcissism inherent in its capitalistic structure. Boomers too have been greatly injured by greed of those at the very top. When George Carlin said they were coming for "us", he meant all of us, not just the Millennials.
Delete@ 3:09 PM
DeleteI don't give two squirts of piss if it's a conspiracy or not. I want legal equality. I want actual, equal protection of the laws and not tyranny of the majority, which is what we've gotten. Laws that overwhelmingly impact only one age demographic, imposed upon them by another.
It's just a point of fact that there's national price inflation in higher education and the demographic supposed to be going off to college has no political representation. Frankly, that really doesn't smell like an accident, either.
No, boomers have not been injured. Certainly not like the following generations. Young boomers had high-paying jobs and low tuition. Young Generation Xers had low-paying jobs—if any at all—and high tuition. For the millennials, it's much the same, the chief difference being that they at least get hired—by their boomer parents.
DeleteThe boomers have created society in their own image. They shall go down in history as the most selfish, most parasitic generation ever.
Old Guy, can you at least have enough character to admit that it was your own decision to attend an "elite" law school that caused your current problems? Hating an entire generation because of that is a seriously disordered reaction by someone who doesn't want to admit he made a mistake.
DeleteFace it. You made a mistake. You did it because you didn't have adequate information. But that doesn't make 40 million people parasites. In fact, you're more likely than most boomers to collect more from Social Security than you paid in, simply because you're paying in so little. You might want to consider whether that makes you a parasite yourself.
Not to pile on our misguided Boomer frenemy, but:
Delete-The long-term outsourcing of middle class jobs to overseas labor markets to ensure lower consumer prices - disproportionately benefiting people who consume more and harming the younger/poorer who rely on such jobs - was an intentional policy choice, sponsored, at least in part, by Boomer voting patterns, mid 70s - present.
-The dramatic rise of the education sector relative to CPI, both in terms of costs borne by the young and in terms of instant benefits (income, prestige) to older generations is an inescapably Boomer social policy.
-The majority of the key people involved in the decisions that crashed the financial sector in the late 2000s are Boomers who sought to continue squeezing every possible dollar from poor people by abandoning centuries-old principles of banking in a quest of greed, only to then turn around and claim that they couldn't be removed or else it would get worse. Golden parachutes for all!
-Boomers grew up in a world where the average CEO-to-common worker pay rate was 20-to-1. When they leave, it will be around 2000 to 1 with golden parachutes for the worst offenders. They took a country that valued neighborly solidarity, thrift, and middle class labor and turned it into a nation that worships get-rich superheroes.
-Boomers grew up in an age where government was modest and funded with high income tax rates. Under Boomer voting and leadership, we've gotten ramped up government spending and drastically slashed taxes, which is essentially choking state and local government (and, frankly, keeping the economy back). No one whines like a Boomer with a fair tax bill.
Boomers' actions have not been passive natural acts of humanity. They have intentionally made policy choices that severely damaged this nation's future for their own generational benefit.
The typical Boomer benefited from FDR's New Deal ideology by getting cheap, decent education. They entered a workforce that literally had no peer on the planet. With the first tastes of wealth and financial disruption, they immediately put Reagan in the White House and basically kick-started several decades of wealth-shifting and policy-bending to their whims. Literally every social system we have benefits Boomers. We slashed public education spending after they and theirs got done with school. Medicare? Oh, no, we can't touch that. On and on and on.
Boomers: 40 years of giving yourself entitlements paid for by mortgaging the future.
@ 9:47
DeleteThere's a very good case to be made that older generations benefited by happenstance from different economic conditions - THAT'S NOT THE POINT.
What is happening is not happenstance but design.
WE DEMAND LEGAL EQUALITY, TODAY. Give the younger generations that. That thing that no one can deny we've deprived up either by happenstance or by arrangement [yeah, it's the latter.] Bankruptcy, Truth in Lending Act, usury laws...
You know what's fucking bullshit? The entire argument as to the existence of the corporate form boils down to: "gee, if we don't guarantee investors protection against loss of their personal assets - called 'limited liability', no one will invest."
Here's the modern form: "GEE, if we don't guarantee students protection against loss of their personal assets for the rest of their natural lives, no students will go to school."
Wake up call, assholes: it's not just law schools who saw their enrollment(s) peak and decline starting in 2010; the demo of all federal higher educational borrowers peaked in 2010 AND DECLINED. In 2010, 12 million Americans borrowed from the fed to go to school; in 2014 it's down to 9 million on a declining trajectory.
Hmmm...not an accident.
These law school scammers are the scum of the earth.
ReplyDeleteLaw schools are scum. It is worse than tobacco and beer advertisers using billboards in the ghettos. It is all about protecting faculty lifestyles of teaching 2-4 hours a week, summers off, tenure, sabbaticals, and other perks.
ReplyDeleteBut remember!!! The first person who may talk to your child about a Career in Law or Working for Justice will probably be a relative. NEVER LEAVE YOUR CHILD ALONE WITH UNCLE COUNSEL. Not even for a minute
ReplyDeleteUncle Counsel - lol!
ReplyDeleteThere's Uncle Bad Touch and Uncle Bad Tort. Don't let either one near your children.
DeleteIt makes me sick to see those ruthless predators grooming innocent kids for later exploitation. For the time being, the deans and professors are trying to appear friendly and helpful. But later, during the law school admission process, they embrace the adversary system with a vengeance. They suppress evidence, make fallacious arguments, and dare their inexperienced marks to find out the truth. Most college students aren't ready for that kind of rough and tumble deception, not from people they're hoping to trust for their legal education.
ReplyDeleteWho knows if some of these schools will even be around for a sufficient period for this long con to bear fruit...
DeleteIs the UC Hastings event really for "Students ages 5-18"? Really, kindergartners?
ReplyDeleteProducers of cigarettes similarly advertise to children. Get them hooked on the Hastings brand long before they are able to buy it.
DeleteMaybe a new mascot, a cartoon camel named Joe Hastings, could help them fill the class of 2036 with today's five-year-olds.
Delete"Hastings tastes good like a cigarette should." Law skules never were strong at grammar.
DeleteHow about this for an advertising slogan: "I'd walk a mile for a whiff of Brian Leiter's armpit stench..."
DeleteDo you suspect that there is a potential Law Professor in your area? Amazingly enough, there is no easy way to determine if a LawProf lives near you and your children. BE WARNED. LawProfs are known to "groom" children beginning at a very early age. They will often single out children who are looking for perceived status or stability in their own lives. These children want to believe that LawProfs are looking out for them. The ultimate goal of the LawProf is to lure a child into a "classroom", where they will then "teach" this child. The end result will make your child wish that they'd merely been fondled by Father McFeely.
ReplyDeleteAt least I have no debt related to law school (or anything else). I borrowed about $9k but paid it all off within a year of graduation.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I depleted my savings as well, and I have no job lined up.
One might think that finishing among the top few in the class at an élite law school and securing a federal clerkship would lead to a good job in law. In my case, one would be wrong.
No debt?! The world is your oyster. Walk away. Go to devbootcamp. Fly away.
DeleteWell you're in a better spot than most, and I always particularly like to read posts like yours because it really shoves it in the face of these law school pigs that try to shame the people they just finished preying on.
DeleteI think probably you'll be fine, but I hope you don't forget the struggles, especially of those with less stellar performance than yourself.
Nobody deserves to be lied to and indebted, and then shame and blamed afterwards. Frankly I think these law school deans should be forced to serve life terms in jail for criminal fraud and extortion.
I could never forget the struggles. I still struggle to find work. I don't know whether I shall ever be able to work in law. And I don't know what else to do. I shall be fifty in a few years.
DeleteSimkivic says you have a million dollar degree Old Guy. All you need to do is start networking some more and the money will flow in like water through a sewer.
DeleteAnd there's just no such thing as age discrimination in legal employment. After all, people value the wisdom and experience that you would surely bring to an organization.
Listen to anal bead porn watchers like the good Professor McElroy. She'll tell you to buck up. We can't expect EVERYTHING to be handed to us. Just get up some gumption and conquer the world!
Hastings is also preying upon the Latino population by holding sales presen—er, I mean, informational sessions in Spanish. I advise Spanish-speaking readers to stay the hell away from those pinchos.
ReplyDeleteGood advice. There definitely is a niche for Spanish-speaking Latino lawyers, but the scammers are overselling it just like everything else. Probably a fifth of the young Latinos recruited by Hastings will find legal jobs. And then there are always a few who can find non-legal jobs as collectors, pretending to be lawyers and hounding their former classmates.
DeleteGenius! Great work, yet again.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of predatory law professors, some of them will claim to understand statistical methods or economic analysis without any specialized training except a law degree. In particular, Michael Simkovic of Seton Hall law school has recently been forced to introduce fictitious numbers in a hasty and desperate effort to discredit Deborah Jones Merritt's insightful critique of his work.
ReplyDeleteConsider the following sentence from Simkovic's April 27 post at Brian Leiter's Law School Reports: "A disproportionate share of the 8 or 9 law schools in Ohio (9 if you count Northern Kentucky) are low ranked or unranked, and this presumably is reflected in their employment outcomes." Of course, Simkovic can't tell us why anyone would count Northern Kentucky as an Ohio law school, since not surprisingly it's in Kentucky. But even more important, there are 9 Ohio law schools even without counting Northern Kentucky. In other words, Simkovic can't even count correctly, let alone presume, conclude, or reason correctly.
Ohio State, Capital, Case Western, Cleveland-Marshall, Cincinnati, Dayton, Akron, Toledo, Ohio Northern...how many names are there, Simkovic? Nine. And since each name corresponds to a law school, how many law schools are there in Ohio, Simkovic? Nine.
Ironically enough, undercounting law schools would tend to undercut Simkovic's argument that poor employment outcomes for Ohio law school graduates are not a significant problem because Ohio has so many law schools. But Simkovic is so invested in reactionary efforts to discredit others that he can't keep track of his own arguments any more.
Such is the formerly plush and increasingly stressful life of a law professor...
Well, Northern Kentucky Skule of Law 'n' Hog Calling is located in the Cincinnati metro area. Cincinnati's main airport is in Kentucky. So it's not unreasonable to lump Northern Kentucky in with Ohio's law schools.
DeleteMore reasonable, in my opinion, would be to move the border to the Mason–Dixon Line so that Ohio ended just south of Dayton. After all, even Muncie, Indiana, which is farther to the north, is known as Muntucky.
If Northern Kentucky were included as an Ohio law school, then there would be ten, not nine as Simkovic stated. That young fellow, as handsome as he is, has proven himself incapable of basic arithmetic, and even a law professor should be able to count. This is a huge embarrassment to Simkovic, to Seton Hall law school, and to the babes nursing on Simkovic's pretense of statistical analysis.
DeleteNorthern Kentucky is a law school for the best mouth breathers and knuckle draggers. I tried to dissuade a Lemming from attending there about 6 or 7 years ago. She was so proud of her 148 LSAT!
DeleteAlas, she ran joyfully off the career cliff and is now a low-paid contractor in working sales for a cable company.
And northern Kentucky is also home to the creation museum, where they teach Jesus riding dinosaurs, earth 6000 years old, etc. Sooooo ... It's pretty easy to guess the intelligence of the average local law student.
DeleteI think NKU will be one of the first law schools to close.
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