The Student Loan Cycle of Madness Continues

It was bound to happen.  Just as the lax attitude of the Law School Cartel steadily marched towards mutually-assured destruction due to increasing cost and terrible prospects, so has the student loan system begun to turn full-circle and prey upon those least able to pay:

The government has collected about $1.1 billion from Social Security recipients of all ages to go toward unpaid student loans since 2001, including $171 million last year, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday. Most affected recipients in fiscal year 2015—114,000—were age 50 or older and receiving disability benefits, with the typical borrower losing about $140 a month. About 38,000 were above age 64.

 The report highlights the sharp growth in baby boomers entering retirement with student debt, most of it borrowed years ago to cover their own educations but some used to pay for their children’s schooling. Overall, about seven million Americans age 50 and older owed about $205 billion in federal student debt last year. About 1 in 3 were in default, raising the likelihood that garnishments will increase as more boomers retire.

 “I believe this is the tip of the iceberg of what may be to come if we don’t work harder on this problem,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the top Democrat on the Senate Special Committee on Aging.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-21/baby-boomers-increasingly-having-social-security-checks-garnished-cover-student-loan

Wait, I thought it was only lazy, stupid Gen-Xers and Millennials who didn't want to work hard, were entitled, were deadbeats, wanted a trophy just for showing up, etc.  Maybe these Boomers should show some initiative, go get a damn job, and pay their bills.

Except I can't really bring myself to say this with the venom I might like.  While I and many. many others have had to deal with this sort of dismissive verbal abuse for decades, and it has taken some time for the truth to bear fruit, two wrongs do not make a right.  Maybe the actual truth, a truth that the scamblogs have diligently proclaimed for some time now, is (1) that the last ten years (and more) have been hard on most everyone, and (2) that the cost of higher education has been a cost that has rapidly and disproportionately risen compared to the value actually received.

Further, I believe once you start garnishing social security checks, the ridiculousness and moral depravity of non-dischargable student loans are apparent for all to see.  These people are not doctors who declared bankruptcy after medical school and now have enjoyed million-dollar salaries for decades, scott free - they are people who worked, tried to make a living, tried to support others, have varying degrees of disability, and yet still have the yoke of student debt affecting their retirement.  

A failed small-business owner can declare bankruptcy, learn from what worked and what didn't, and try again.  A student-loan debtor apparently carries the albatross around her neck for life.  Meanwhile, in the irony of all ironies, the ABA has had to sue to enforce PSLF for its own employees.  IBR and PAYE are increasingly in the crosshairs due to angry legislators who feel mislead.  Now, get out there and "network."

Friends - do not go to law school.  Costs are only increasing, prospects only get worse, and the student-loan "safety-net" touted by ScamDeans and LawProfs is actually no safety-net at all to graduates.    Find something actually in demand and hopefully less financially onerous regarding the requisite education.   Perhaps we will all have garnished checks in "retirement", but at least you can act to minimize the damage, now.

Federal government kicks Charlotte off the gravy train

As of the end of the month, the Charlotte School of Law will be ineligible to receive funds from federally guaranteed student loans:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article121768063.html

Last year those funds brought almost $50 million into Harlotte's coffers. Without that money, which represents the bulk of its revenue, Harlotte cannot continue to operate. It may well never open its doors again.

Unsurprisingly, the news of this minor victory for the anti-scam movement has ruffled feathers over at Harlotte. Students are circulating petitions and seeking legal advice in contemplation of litigation. Professors are calling upon InfiLaw, the parent scam-company, to keep the school alive, presumably by injecting tens of millions of dollars per year:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article122250319.html

Particularly aggrieved are those students who expected to graduate after one more semester. I agree that they should be given that chance to finish their degrees. Late December is a terrible time to find out that the skule may not open again after the break.

But should they want to finish? If the skule closes down on them, they can wash their hands of their student loans. That's a hell of an opportunity, one that many similarly placed students and recent graduates would grab in a trice. I suspect, however, that at least 90% of the 3Ls at Harlotte won't share that view: they'll still want the degree, despite their very poor prospects and the huge amount of non-dischargeable debt that most of them will have run up.

Might two camps emerge at Harlotte? The professors and most of the students will probably demand that Harlotte stay open for one more semester at least. But students who find out about the rare opportunity to dump their student loans may lobby for Harlotte never to open again. And the administrators may even advertise that opportunity in order to drum up support for a prompt closure.

The option of transferring raises an additional complication. Traditionally one could transfer no later than the end of the first year. Lately, however, some law schools have taken transfer students with two years of credit. Might some enterprising scamsters, especially those in or near North Carolina, go after some Harlotte students needing to transfer for only one more semester? Students availing themselves of that option would not be allowed to discharge their student loans, so transferring would probably still be a bad idea.

And what is InfiLaw going to do? Presumably it will offer to absorb Harlotte's students at one of the other two InfiLaw toilets. But would anyone, even a Harlotte student, be stupid enough to take that offer after being stung by InfiLaw?

Is the ABA violating its own protocol for auditing law school employment survey results?

In my last two posts, I criticized ABA managing directors Barry Currier and William Adams for asserting, on the basis of highly deferential preliminary audits of the annual employment survey results from 10 randomly selected law schools, that law schools were accurately reporting their placement results. See here and here. 

These posts did not receive the customary number of page views or comments. The reason, I strongly suspect, is that I am one of the few persons, other than sub-150 LSAT-scoring 21-year olds, who was sufficiently naive to believe that the ABA audit of would amount to something more than a public relations ploy. Law schools scam up their placement numbers without consequences. The sun also rises. What else is new?

Nonetheless, I am going to flog this hobbyhorse onwards for the length of at least one more boring post.

Recall that five out of the 10 law schools selected for a random annual audit did not comply with the ABA's preliminary stage requirement that no more than 5% of their employment files be deficient (i.e. incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading). Accordingly, Adams informed the ABA Council of the Section of Legal Education by memo that a three-member ABA committee would decide, as a matter of discretion, which of the five schools would be subject to Level 2 Review (A Level 2 Review involves independent verification of some of the reported data, unlike a first-stage audit, which basically just involves a review of employment files for completeness). 　

In his memo, Adams stated that "If more than 5% of a school’s files are found to be deficient, a Level 2 Review. . .  may be ordered. . . . A committee of three persons, including me, has been appointed by the Data Policy Collections Committee to determine which of the schools with discrepancies should get elevated levels of review. . . After this further review of the schools with a compliance rate below 95%, the review committee will determine which of these schools may warrant a Level 2 Review." (emphasis added)

What is the problem here? The problem is that the ABA's "Protocol for Reviewing Law Graduate Employment Data, and Statement of Procedures for Collecting, Maintaining, and Reporting Law Graduate Employment Data" (hereafter: "Protocol") states that "If more than five percent (5%) of the Files are found to be deficient, the ABA will then proceed to a Level 2 Review." (emphasis added).  

Why then is there a need for Adams and the other two members of the review committee to deliberate and determine which of the five law school violators may be subjected to Level 2 review? Under the Protocol, they all should.  You see how the Protocol's "will then proceed" has turned into the memo's far more equivocal "may be ordered" and "which. . . may warrant"?  I think that every lawyer appreciates the often night and day difference between a mandatory procedure and a discretionary one, and Currier and Adams surely do. 

As a further confidence-builder, the members of this great triumvirate have been appointed by a larger ABA committee known as the Data Policy & Collections Committee (DPCC). The DPCC consists of two law school deans, two associate law school deans, four law school professors, one director of law school admissions (at bottom-tier New England Law), and one dean emeritus. So the three member review committee was specially selected by a group of persons who have a vested interest in the public perception that law schools are modeling the values of professionalism and are accurately representing that a JD usually leads to a good job.

Consider the following significant defects in the ABA Protocol and in the way the audit has been managed by Currier and Adams: (1) Only 10  out of the 205 accredited law schools, were selected for a random audit, a disturbingly small pool that Currier has no intention of expanding. (2) The first stage of an audit consists "solely" of a review of the employment files themselves and does not involve independent verification or confirmation of reported data. (3) The first stage of an audit accords the school a presumption that its employment files are complete, accurate and not misleading, absent credible evidence to the contrary. (4) Under the Protocol, up to 5% of a school’s employment files may be found to be incomplete, inaccurate or misleading without triggering additional review. (5) According to Currier, the names of the five schools that did not comply with designated minimum standards will not be publicly revealed.

Now consider the following praiseworthy aspects of the ABA Protocol, those that may genuinely protect consumers by deterring or exposing scammed-up employment survey results: (1) According to the Protocol, if more than 5% of a school’s files are found to be incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading, that school will be subjected to independent verification of some of its reported data, aka Level 2 review. (2) Sorry, this list only runs to one item. And yet it is this verification provision that has been quietly diluted. 

It is distressing that the ABA is, seemingly, unwilling to enforce its own standards. Are law school employment survey results anything more than fantasy fiction in highly granular numeric form?  Who knows?  The law school scam abides. 

Should ABA honchos Barry Currier and William Adams have lauded the "good news" that the first annual ABA audit of law school employment data has not revealed evident misconduct?

According to an old joke, the meaning of the ethnic word “chutzpah” is best illustrated by a man who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy on grounds that he is an orphan.  However, I always felt that it would that it would be fairly easy to create more outrageous examples of brazen hypocrisy.  I mean, the man in the joke does implicitly acknowledge his crime and offers truthful, if unpersuasive, mitigation. 

What if, instead, the man in the joke bragged about the excellent parental care he had provided? How about if he asserted that his moldering parents were alive and healthy on the basis of a quack medical protocol that presumes life and health and does not require that the patient be examined for respiration, pulse, or movement? How about if he insisted that any allegation of wrongdoing be adjudicated confidentially by a clubby panel of parricides?

I want to flag the comments below, from ABA Section of Legal Education managing directors Barry Currier and William Adams, as exemplifying law school scam chutzpah. These comments pertain to the preliminary results of the first annual ABA audit of law school employment survey data. The ABA found that five out of the ten schools selected for a random audit failed to comply with the standard set forth in the ABA protocol that at least 95% of a school's employment files be “complete, accurate, and not misleading.”  Moreover, two schools created documents only after being informed that they would be audited or asked to submit files.  

Bad news, one would think, or at least troubling news, given law schools’ dismal recent history of circulating inflated and highly deceptive job placement numbers so as to bolster student recruitment efforts. But, no, Currier and Adams both hail these results as “good news”:

• “The issues identified tend to be small things like which boxes to check on forms or where to store information. . .If the underlying information turns out to have been accurate, which is what we are finding, that’s good news. . . Then, getting them to do the paperwork in exactly the right way is our major concern.” (Barry A. Currier, ABA Managing Director of Accreditation and Legal Education, quoted in Inside Higher Ed, Nov 1, 2016)

• “The good news is that the overwhelming majority of schools subjected to the data review have both accurately reported employment results and provided credible documentary support of what they have reported. Of the schools identified for follow-up discussions, most have issues relating to documentation questions. It is not yet evident that any of these schools has misreported data. . . The two schools that appear to have created their documentation after the fact raise more serious problems, but they may also be able to explain that what we perceive is not accurate.” (Bill Adams, Deputy Managing Director, Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, memo to Council, Aug. 5, 2016)

• There are no plans for releasing the names of law schools flagged for issues. There are also no plans for expanding the audit pool for the random school review, which found issues at half of the schools scrutinized. Currier had no projected date for finishing the audits. “We feel like we’re actually reasonably far ahead of the curve of what other accrediting agencies are doing.” (Barry A. Currier, quoted and summarized at Inside Higher Ed, Nov 1, 2016)

Why do these comments constitute chutzpah rather then mere institutional public relations? The answer lies in the details of the ABA Protocol for Reviewing Law Graduate Employment Data and, perhaps, in the backgrounds of the quoted ABA worthies.

Consider that stage 1 of a random employment audit consists “solely” of a review of all Graduate Employment Files for completeness. A Stage 2 or Stage 3 audit, which involve independent verification or confirmation of some of the reported data only takes place at the discretion of a three-member ABA committee that includes Adams, and a Stage 1 audit is all that has taken place so far. Moreover, an employment file is “presumed” to be “complete, accurate, and not misleading absent credible evidence to the contrary.”

Therefore, the “good news” that the ABA did not identify any “evident” problem with the underlying accuracy of data is due to the fact that so far, and in accordance with the protocol, no effort has been made to independently verify or confirm the presumed-to-be-true underlying data. You know, you tend not to identify instances of possible misconduct when you do not look for them and presume that they do not exist. (This is putting aside the fact that the ABA’s weak review did stumble upon prima facie evidence that two schools fabricated documentation, which Currier did not deem sufficiently significant to acknowledge as grounds for concern in his good news pronouncement).  

In fact, given the absence of verification and the presumption of accuracy, I wonder how blatant the scamming must be for an ABA audit at first stage to even theoretically uncover misleading data. Maybe ABA alarm bells would go off if some fourth tier pit reported that 4.9% of its recent grads were employed as Associate Justices on the US Supreme Court. But wait, I do not think that that alone would suffice given that the protocol specifies that a school is not out of compliance unless “more than five percent (5%) of the Files” are found to be “incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading.”

It may be unkind to mention, but Currier and Adams came to their current high-level ABA managerial jobs after holding deanships or professorships at some truly awful law schools. Currier was Dean of the privately-owned and non-ABA accredited Concord Law School (2004-2010) and before that of fourth-tier Samford (1996-2000). Oh, and in between his deanships, Currier held an ABA post as "Deputy Consultant on Legal Education" (2000-2004). Adams was Dean of privately-owned fourth-tier Western State (2009-2014), and was a long-time Professor at fourth-tier Nova Southeastern (1989-2009). Currier and Adams’s respective backgrounds raise the question of whether they harbor a certain unconscious bias in favor of marginal law schools.

Most shockingly of all, an OTLSS audit has discovered that both Currier and Adams have the words “Regulatory Captured” and “Revolving Door Access” tattooed in money-green lettering across their buttocks.

Okay, that I simply invented, but do not call it incorrect for that reason. While I have no data to authenticate the existence of the tattoos, I do have a self-created protocol that presumes that my unverified and self-serving assertions are accurate and not misleading.

U Mass Dartmouth accredited; students are worth $53 per hour

Don't accuse the ABA of letting ink encrust its rubber stamp of approval. Just months after accrediting Indiana Tech (only to see this internationally esteemed center of law & hip-hop shut its doors forever), the ABA has done the same for the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. See this puff piece that U Mass Dartmouth—call it "You Ass" for short—published yesterday:

http://www.umassd.edu/news/abaaccreditation.html

U Mass Dartmouth rose like a phoenix (the University of Phoenix?) from the ashes of an entity called the Southern New England School of Law, which dumped its ass(ets) onto the state in 2010. The state, in exchange, felt compelled to set up its ninth—yes, ninth—law school.

Now, the establishment of law schools at Indiana Tech and possibly soon in southernmost Texas has been justified in part by the great distance that the fine denizens of Fort Wayne and McAllen would have to travel in order to attend the nearest law school. Weak as it indubitably is for Indiana and Texas, that argument seems downright risible for Massachusetts, which can be traversed from Pittsfield to Provincetown in only four hours—even more quickly if a Masshole is behind the wheel. So that argument wasn't even proffered in support of U Mass Dartmouth. Instead, the upstart academy was justified as the state's only public law school. Eight private ones, evidently, just do not meet the needs of the Bay State. Why stop at Harvard when you can have U Mass Dartmouth?

Like every other toilet school, U Mass Dartmouth claims a special mission: "to diversify the legal profession and expand access to justice for citizens". Ho-hum. Where have I heard that song before?

The puff piece proclaims that "UMass Law had the most diverse entering class in New England in 2015 (35.5%) and the rate is 33% this year". Rate of what, exactly? Apparently the reference is to racial diversity, as if no other form of diversity existed. Thirty-three percent is the proportion of students not identified as white. It includes those in the category "Race and Ethnicity Unknown" (4.9% of the entering class in 2015), since of course the very failure or refusal to answer an intrusive question about race proves that the person is not white, just as failure to answer a survey about employment after graduation proves that the person is employed—no doubt in a corner office at a big law firm in Manhattan.

Does this "diversity" reflect a conscious effort by the admissions office, or is it an accidental consequence of the racialized nature of the pool of applicants? U Mass is far from selective, admitting as it does two applicants out of three. (Just imagine the quality of the people that it rejects.) And although it doesn't descend quite to the depths of Cooley ("UMass Law’s 25th percentile LSAT is already higher than 40 out of the 205 ABA law schools in the country"—what an achievement!), U Mass bears all the hallmarks of a toilet, especially its dreadful median LSAT score (148). Like so many other toilets, U Mass preys upon people who shouldn't be in law school, all the while congratulating itself for its "diversity".

What's this about "access to justice"? Just four days before announcing its accreditation, U Mass published another puff piece, this time about its students' volunteer work:

http://www.umassd.edu/news/umasslawsevicerelease.html

"Since the UMass School of Law was established at UMass Dartmouth in 2010 to serve the public interest, its students have delivered more than 87,000 hours of service to the community. This service has been valued at more than $4.5 million."

Pardon me? How can the "service" of students at a then-unaccredited toilet be worth that much? Because the bulk of the work, falling in the legal field (though what the students actually did is not clear), is assessed "[a]t $53 per hour (the amount paid to District Court-appointed lawyers in Massachusetts)".

Yes, the admini$trators of U Mass Dartmouth have the unmitigated gall to equate the work of their dipshit students, most of whom scored well below the fiftieth percentile on the LSAT, to that of court-appointed lawyers. Why, those godlike students should be licensed forthwith! Why encumber them with such bootless chores as finishing law school, passing the bar exam (only half of the candidates from their alma mater passed the exam in Massachusetts this past July), gaining admission to the bar, and maintaining a license when already they are performing at precisely the level of court-appointed counsel?

Paradoxically, the juridical colossi of U Mass Dartmouth don't ordinarily bring in $53 per hour after graduation, by which time they should certainly have attained barristerial nirvana. See these data from our friends at Law School Transparency:

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/umassd/jobs/
https://www.lstreports.com/schools/umassd/sals/

Ten months after graduation, 20.7% percent of the previous year's graduates were "Non-Employed"; only 34.5% were "known to be employed in long-term, full-time legal jobs". How much do they make? As usual, we don't have full data: only two-fifths of the employed graduates reported salaries. But the median salary reported by that group was $45k per year, and the salary at the 75th percentile was $67k. What happened to these graduates, whose volunteer work just a few years earlier was worth $53 per hour ($106k per year at a full-time job)? They must have lost their Midas touch when they left the nurturing embrace of U Mass Dartmouth.

It turns out too that the students had a motivation for their "service": U Mass Dartmouth "make[s] pro bono and experiential learning service a graduation requirement". Never mind: their time is still worth every bit as much as a lawyer's, even though employers are too blind to see that.

Texas legislators contemplate yet another law school

Scant weeks after the notorious law school at Indiana Tech announced its closure, legislators in Texas proposed the opening of a law school in the southernmost part of the state:

http://www.themonitor.com/news/education/valley-legislators-file-bills-asking-for-a-law-school-in/article_fcdfcaec-b2b7-11e6-ba7c-63883362be4f.html

Why? Because "everybody [else] has a law school". A perfect reason! Why shouldn't every half-ass town in the state get its share of the pork barrel?

In addition, "[t]here are some great, very talented young professionals who for financial reasons or reasons related to family cannot travel to San Antonio, which is our nearest law school". (Wrong: the nearest law school is at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.) The same argument was deployed at Indiana Tech: pity the many "great, very talented young professionals" (even though actually most of the students there were well past 30) who are so poorly served by the mere four other law schools in Indiana and the thirty-odd within a four-hour drive of Fort Wayne!

Not a word is said about demand, quality, prospects for employment, or even the experience of so many failed or failing law schools, including some in Texas itself. Such paltry considerations should not scupper the latest hackademic boondoggle. After all, who gives a flying fuck about the students or the public? Just open the goddamn law school and ask questions later.

The Con-Man Denominator

Per the Faculty Lounge:

Today, the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar announced it is placing Charlotte Law School on probation for non-compliance with ABA Standards 301(a), 501(a), and 501(b).  The remedial steps ordered include...

At the same time, the ABA Committee censured Valparaiso Law for non-compliance with Standards 501(a) and 501(b).  The notice is here.  The remedial steps ordered for Valpo were similar. 

This got me thinking: we here at OTLSS have discussed Charlotte Law and Valpo Law several times, so it was interesting to see both of these schools pop-up as having run afoul of ABA standards.  Interesting that these two schools should show up at the same time.  Whatever could be the cause?  How did this happen?  If only there was only some thread of commonality in these stories...

Ha, who am I kidding?  An astute commenter at TFL who uses the handle "fyi" had already connected the dots, as I am sure long-term readers of this blog have as well. 

Friends, 0Ls, non-trads, it pays to look beneath the surface of the Law School Scam.  So when you hear terms like "practice-ready," and "service," and "liberty," and "justice," remember who is saying it, and why.  Is it being said to provide needed legal services to your community?  Or is it being said to finance vanity projects at your expense?

University of Michigan Law Turns to Play-Doh Therapy

One of the things OTLSS has striven to avoid, by my view at any rate, is partisan politics as regards the Law School Scam.  Yes, we have mocked and criticized various claims, causes, and positions put forth by the Cartel, but we mock them as to how they hinder development and growth of students into graduates who are able to pass the bar exam of their choice and become functioning members of legal society.  While we may debate the utility of various "Law and X" classes, for example, or other areas of personal, idiosyncratic interest to particular LawProfs, it is all done through the eye of "Does this grossly and unfairly increase the sticker price for a JD?  Does this help students obtain relevant theoretical and practical skills?  Are you merely preaching the values of liberty and justice as a pretext for just getting asses in seats, because times are tight?"

I think this particular election cycle has been difficult for all concerned, regardless of one's own political spectrum.  And while we are all exhausted and ready to move on for the most part, the cynical Gen-Xer that I am can only express pure disbelief as regards the following coping and recovery strategies proffered by institutions such as the University of Michigan Law School:

Total Frat Move reported Thursday on the event, titled “Post-election Self-care with Food and Play,” hosted by the law school’s “embedded psychologist” Reena Sheth. Here’s the description:

Join us for delicious and comforting food with opportunity to experience some stress-busting, self-care activities such as coloring sheets, play dough, positive card-making, Legos, and bubbles with your fellow law students.

Writer Dillon Cheverere said the event does not appear to be “a joke”:

I want it to be a joke so badly, but it is not a joke. It’s real. Students have the chance to “post-election self-care” by decompressing and enjoying snacks and playing with toys designed for toddlers.

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/29922/

To be fair, when I graduated from law school in 2005 with a ton of debt and no prospects, I too probably wanted to play with Legos and binge on comfort food - to escape the mind-bending reality of having ruined not only my own career trajectory and earning potential, but the financial well-being of my family as well.  Instead of offering me coloring sheets and toys, however, I was told to "get a job" while the Cartel laughed all the way to the bank.  "Sorry, you can't use the law school computer lab resources because you are a graduate, and we can't have you loitering around here and spooking the lower classes.  Sorry, it is your fault you actually believed the employment statistics in our brochures.  Sorry, ultimately your employment status is not our problem."

Until it became their problem due to declining enrollment, of course.  But these overall trends have been detailed on this site and others.  

Eleven years later, what does it say when a law school proffers a response such as this to difficulty and disappointment?  Who at UMich Law is proud of this (as the event has been "scrubbed", I guess not many)?  What students think this is a good idea?  One wonders how future lawyers will deal with difficult clients, to say nothing of the stress of juggling pre-trial calendars and trials themselves.  Or other real-life responsibilities in general.  I also find it disturbing that a recommended Law School response to student difficulty is to retreat into infantilism.  How will jilted students respond later, when some or many of them cannot find employment?  Temper tantrums?  Funny, that has been the previous accusation by the Cartel against the Scambloggers...

At least according to LST, University of Michigan Law grads probably have less to cry about than many other schools on average.  In any event, this continues to show the stark difference between educational-value-provided and cost, and the difference between real-life and living in the academic bubble.  LawProfs, Deans, and Admins get paid, yo, regardless of your own personal results.  Here is a coloring book to help you feel better about getting scammed.

Prospective students, is this the enviroment you are looking for when it comes to your legal education?  Is this kind of "help" and "support" worth $60k-plus a year?  Are you really looking for Day-Care for Adults?

If you answered yes, then I submit you are in for a rude, rude awakening as regards the long-term effects of the Law School Scam and the market it will ultimately vomit you into.  Law School should be actually be equipping you for the world, not helping you retreat from it.   Perhaps that is too much to ask for in these turbulent times.

BREAKING NEWS: Indiana Tech School of Law to Close

From the News-Sentinel:

Indiana Tech Arthur Snyder said the university has lost $20 million on the law school and, given projected enrollments, expected the deficit to continue. “This was an extremely difficult decision for all involved," Snyder said. "Over the course of time it has become apparent that the significant decline in law school applicants nationwide represents a long term shift in the legal education field, not a short-term one. Specific to Indiana Tech, the assessment of the Board and our senior leadership team is that for the foreseeable future the law school will not be able to attract students in sufficient numbers for the school to remain viable.”

Indiana Tech Law School currently has a total of 71 students, and Snyder said they will have the option to complete the year, with those in their third and final year having the ability to graduate from the law school in May. First and second year students will have the option to transfer to other law schools at the start of the January 2017 semester, or to complete the year at Indiana Tech Law School and then transfer for the start of the fall 2017 semester.

Chris Mackaronis, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing one of the faculty members affected, said the university’s Board of Directors had recently voted unanimously to close the school at the end of the academic year in June 2017. The vote, he said, conflicts with years of representations to the students, faculty and the American Bar Association regarding the university’s commitment to pursue full accreditation and long-term success for the law school.

http://www.news-sentinel.com/news/local/Indiana-Tech-Law-School-to-close-next-June--losses-at-million

Preliminary ABA Employment Survey Audit Results: Half of the Law Schools Selected for a Random Audit Presented An Excessive Number of Deficient Files and Two Schools Tried to Deceive the Auditors

This year, the ABA finally began auditing some of the data in the annual law school ten-months-after-graduation employment surveys. Law schools have been required to conduct these surveys since 2012, following revelations that they had been routinely and brazenly misrepresenting their graduates' employment and salary outcomes in promotional materials and to US News. The ABA audits are obviously a welcome development, though it is remarkable that auditing has only been initiated this year, the fourth year of the mandatory survey. At least the audits have been conducted by an independent firm, the Berkeley Research Group (BRG).  

Of the ten law schools that were randomly selected annually for an audit (i.e. a "Random School Review"), five presented the auditors with deficient employment files in sufficient number to violate the requirements set forth by the ABA, and four of these five schools were significantly or flagrantly noncompliant. Moreover, of these four schools, one school apparently tried to create supporting documentation after it had been selected for an audit. So did one other school that was not selected for a full-blown audit, but only asked to submit a couple of files pursuant to "Random Graduate Review." (See Section B)

A.  The ABA Protocol for Reviewing Employment Data

This section summarizes the key features of the ABA's 11-page "Protocol for Reviewing Law Graduate Employment Data, and Statement of Procedures for Collecting, Maintaining, and Reporting Law Graduate Employment Data." (hereafter: "protocol"). If too boring to read in its entirely, just note points 2 and 4.

1.  Schools act at their own risk when reporting data that have not been adequately confirmed or when supporting documentation is lost or not maintained.  

2.  A law school employment data audit has three levels, of which only the first level is mandatory. At Level 1, "Documentation included in the Files will be presumed to be complete, accurate, and not misleading in the absence of credible evidence to the contrary." 

3.  Only at Level 2 and Level 3 is there verification or independent confirmation of submitted data. A Level 2 audit consists of verification of employment outcome data for 20% of the class.  At Level 3, a law school must hire an independent firm to review and confirm all of the school’s reported employment data.

4.  An audit may proceed to Level 2 if "more than 5%" of the files are found to be incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading.

5. Not every ten-month-out JD fills out the written placement survey. Law schools are permitted to obtain employment data from these grads by calling them up and asking them (i.e. "indirectly completed employment surveys"). Failing that, they are allowed to guess the employment status of non-responsive grads from comments related to employment status that the grad posted on social networking sites or elsewhere (i.e. "employment information from sources other than the graduate").  

6. Information gleaned from "telephone or other oral communications," must be committed to writing as soon as it is obtained and before the reporting deadline. Documentation of oral communications must include the date of the communication and the parties involved in the communication. (Obviously, in appropriate recognition of the potential for fraud as to alleged data obtained in this manner). 

7.  As noted, ten law schools are randomly selected each year for an audit of their employment result data. Other schools may be subject to an audit if they are red-flagged for credible reports of significant inconsistencies or inaccuracies in their data reporting. Schools that are not selected for a full-blown audit may be asked to provide a very small number of randomly selected files for "Random Graduate Review." If any of the files submitted by a law school pursuant to Random Graduate Review is deficient, the law school is subject to an audit-- starting at Level 1, and if warranted, proceeding to Level 2 and Level 3, as described above. 

B.  ABA Memo: The Preliminary Findings from the Initial Stage of Employment Data Auditing and Review. 

On August 5, 2016, Bill Adams, Deputy Managing Director of the ABA Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (and former Dean of bottom-of-the-barrel for-profit Western State College of Law) sent the Council a memo entitled "Employment Data Review Update," which contained preliminary findings from BRG's initial review of law school employment data. According to Adams's memo:

• "Five of the 10 schools randomly selected had compliance rates of 95% or above. Another school is at 94.8% and two are at approximately 86%. The remaining two schools had file compliance rates in the mid-50’s. BRG is conducting follow-up discussions with the schools that had more than 5% of their files to determine whether some of the files that appear to be deficient are actually deficient. One of these schools also appears to have created its supporting documentation after it was notified that it had been selected for a file review. After this further review of the schools with a compliance rate below 95%, the review committee will determine which of these schools may warrant a Level 2 Review.""

• "For the Random Graduate Review, 382 files were selected from 156 schools. Of the 156 schools that had files randomly selected, 16 appeared to have a potential problem with missing items or supporting documentation for an item. Of these 16, 8 had minor issues regarding documentation of an item and probably will not warrant further review. . . .The remaining 8 may have issues requiring heightened review, but BRG is engaged in discussions with the schools to seek clarification about documentation or ambiguities in the file.  In regard to one of these [other] 8 schools, it appears to have created its documentation for its files after it was notified that its files would be audited."

C.     Analysis

In the one-paragraph long summary section of his memo, Adams puts an unwarranted happy spin on the preliminary results.  He states that "[t]he good news is that the overwhelming majority of schools subjected to the data review have both accurately reported employment results and provided credible documentary support of what they have reported" and he goes on to commiserate with the law schools over the "complex" documentation requirements imposed upon them.

Adams's attitude is especially troublesome in that he is one of a three-member committee that will determine which of the schools with discrepancies will get elevated levels of review.  (In fairness to Adams, he at least recognizes that "the two schools that appear to have created their documentation after the fact raise more serious problems").

Adams's "overwhelming majority" comment is obviously inaccurate as to the 10 randomly audited schools. As to these schools, only five out of 10, a decided non-majority, achieved compliance rates of 95% or above, as the protocol requires. I would not be a stickler about the school that provided 94.8% file compliance, but four schools fell drastically short of the 95% requirement.

Though enjoying a generous presumption that its files are not incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading, two of the ten schools selected for a random audit nonetheless provided incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading documentation as to 14% of their files, or nearly triple what the protocol allows. Two other schools provided incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading documentation as to almost half of their employment files, or almost ten times what the protocol allows.  

Suppose that these results are representative of all 205 accredited law schools. That would mean that 82 law schools (40%) would be unable to provide the requisite percentage of non-deficient files and that 41 of these 82 (20%) are sitting on so many incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading files that their reported employment data must border on fiction. These are shocking results. The ABA's protocol for reviewing law graduate employment data should be immediately amended to require a random audit of far more than 10 schools per year, and to require verification of reported data at the initial review stage.

Otherwise, we will be left to wonder whether a school's employment survey results are really just lies in highly granular form, a whole bunch of numbers that represent not actual jobs for recent grads so much as a school's success in hoodwinking the ABA and its prospective students.  

Wendi Adelson's criminally lousy novel, "This is Our Story"

A former Florida State law professor named Wendi Adelson is in the public spotlight because members of her family have been implicated (though so far uncharged) in hiring a pair of hitmen to kill her ex-husband, a fellow Florida State law professor and prominent legal blogger named Daniel Markel.   

According to her CV, Adelson obtained her first academic job in 2006, the same year she graduated from law school, as a Staff Attorney/Clinical Fellow at the University of Miami Center for Ethics and Public Service. In 2007, she moved on to the position of Program Director of Florida State Law's “Center for the Advancement of Human Rights,” and became a Directing Clinical Professor in 2010. 

How did Adelson nab faculty posts fresh out of law school, leading to a Florida State law professorship only a few years later? It probably did not hurt that she graduated cum laude from the University of Miami, indisputably a praiseworthy accomplishment. It also probably did not hurt that in 2005, while still a law student, she married Markel, a Florida State lawprof. (This blog has covered the blight of spousal hiring in legal academia).

A few months ago, Above the Law published recordings of Adelson’s presentations to a writer’s workshop, held some time after Markel’s murder. Adelson complained, inter alia, that her “late ex-spouse” (a phrase Adelson creatively punned as her “latex spouse”) did not care for fiction  and did not read her book. (Podcast, 9:42-9:47, 10:28-10:33) I found this plaint to be unfair because, whatever his private misgivings, Markel extensively promoted Adelson’s debut novel, “This is Our Story” on his popular academic blog “Prawfsblawg.” (The novel was published in 2011, about a year before Adelson walked out on Markel, with infant children, bank accounts, furniture, and Markel family heirlooms in tow).

In spite of the intense publicity generated by the lurid murder mystery starring herself, I do not believe anyone has yet explored Adelson’s novel as a possible window into the self-perception of its enigmatic author.

Even at the risk of death by Prius-driving hitman, I am compelled to endorse the latex Markel’s decision not to read his wife's novel. This is Our Story is inartful, shallow, clichéd, oddly bland given its human trafficking theme, and terribly self-important. Interestingly though, Adelson states that her book purports to tell, in substantial part, her own story. In an afterword to her novel, Adelson states that “I, selfishly, wanted you to know a bit about my story, which has much – but not all – in common with Attorney Lily” (i.e. the main character in the novel). Adelson, Wendi (2011-09-12). This is Our Story (Kindle Locations 3948-3949). Kindle Edition.

This is Our Story consists of three first-person narratives, that of the aforementioned young female lawyer Lily Stone nee Walker, and those of two of Lily’s clients, Rosa Hernandez from Jujuy, Argentina, and Mila Gulej from Bratislava, both lured to the U.S. under fraudulent work or work-study programs, and then subjected to forced labor as well as to physical and sexual abuse. Mila and Rosa are “composite characters” embodying “many of the stories” of Adelson’s clients. (Kindle Location 3945)

There are 46 chapters in the book, each of which is entitled “Mila,” “Lily,” or “Rosa”. The structure of Adelson’s novel consists of a chapter entitled “Lily” and narrated by Lily, followed by a chapter entitled “Mila” and narrated by Mila, followed by a chapter entitled “Rosa” and consisting of entries from Rosa’s diary. The chapters follow in strict Mila-Lily-Rosa order, with the single unaccountable exception of a Lily-Mila-Lily sequence at Chapters 30-32.

In the novel, Lily, a lawyer in her early thirties, gives up a thriving corporate practice in DC to follow her seemingly bright and sweet, if exasperatingly blunder-prone, new husband Josh Stone to “this Godforsaken place”—namely, “North Florida State University” in “Hiawassee Springs,” where Josh holds a professorship. Unfortunately, Josh installs Lily in what he describes as an “adorable, cozy” country house that he has just rented without realizing that the place is infested with cockroaches. Lily overcomes her disgust at her new digs and the boredom of small town life by hooking up with a nonprofit and becoming a pro bono immigration attorney specializing in helping trafficked women, the only one in a 300-mile radius.

You would think that the tales of Mila and Rosa would be emotionally harrowing. However, the Lily chapters are written with a bite that is lacking in the Rosa and Mila chapters, even though the narrative of a neophyte immigration lawyer adjusting unhappily to married life would seem less naturally compelling than those of two young women seeking to escape from an intercontinental sex slave ring. Mila comes off as vain and disconnected, while Rosa is devout, innocent, and sweet to the point of mental deficiency. Both are endlessly gullible and stupid, thus easy prey for the novel's collection of exploitative villains.

The Lily chapters are notable for the character’s increasing contempt for her husband. Lily criticizes Josh for his short stature (“He is my same height, which is something I had never considered pre-Joshua, because I had already determined that my dating window extended only from 6 foot two to 6 foot 4”), his pouting, his habit of calling her “Lilybillygoat” under the misimpression that it is endearing, his insincerity in asking what she wants him to make for dinner when he had already begun preparing spaghetti and pasta sauce (“I think dinner’s going to be really good, sweetie. . . Josh looked really proud of himself, like he just climbed an icy mountain in winter time instead of preparing a simple meal like I do for him every single night”), and his stupid career advice, often delivered in the infuriatingly triumphant tone of someone who “had just invented a solution to global warming.” But Lily especially resents her husband’s constant pressure for children, which Lily herself finds perplexing in that she wants children too.

I think Donald Trump would enjoy this novel, a rarity for a text written by an academic do-gooder who supports migrant rights and bristles at the term “illegals.” The numerous villains of the novel are pretty much all Latino males, and all are such sleazy, swaggering, sadistic, treacherous, violent and gangsterish pimps and molesters that one would think they came from the imaginings of a paranoid nativist. 

For instance, one macho baddie, “Carlos,” snarls at Mila, and I quote, “Chico tellz me you are prosteetutes, jes?. . .  Well, you still owe Chico a lot of money, Mila. You and your friend here can work off your debt togeder. You weel start tonight. And don’t eben theenk ov trying to get away, seelly Mila. Ju know I weel find you whereber you go.” [sic] (Kindle Locations 2355-2357)

Doesn’t that mocking pidgin caricature of Spanish-inflected English sound a bit racist?  Oh, don’t be seelly, for our heroine purports to share the same cultural identity. In Chapter 32, the pale-faced protagonist decides, for no apparent reason, to reconnect with her Spanish ancestry on her maternal grandmother’s side, even though she had “never really identified as being part-Latina, given my translucent skin, reddish hair, and the fact that no one ever guessed that I was Hispanic.” (Kindle Locations 2850-2851) Lily joins a spirited local female Hispanic encounter group to “discuss our common Latina heritage” and is enthusiastically accepted by the old ladies in the group as family, I mean as familia.  

Mila and Rosa are eventually rescued by Lily and the John Wayne-esque local sheriff she teams up with (an inarticulate but courageous aw-shucks-ma'am white savior dude who comes complete with leathery sun-toughened skin, big cowboy hat, and service in ‘Nam). Lily utilizes her legal skills, resourcefulness, and deep humanity to counsel the women, obtain shelter and asylum on their behalf, and reunite Rosa with her family. In turn, Mila, Rosa, and Lily’s other clients treat their “Attorney Lily” with worshipful awe, showering her with humble yet heartfelt gifts, such as homemade enchiladas and a teddy bear with angel wings and painted green eyes "to look like me."

In the final chapter of the novel, Lily adopts a baby that Mila conceives post-rescue and then abandons. (Even after all that Mila has been through, she still wants to pursue her dreams of Hollywood stardom).  Lily only informs her husband of the adoption after the fact. Though, as noted, Josh badly wanted children, Lily informs him that she adopted the kid in her maiden name and did not want him in her or her child's lives.

As I peered through the smudged glass on the door I could see that Josh had already arrived, shaggy hair and slim shoulders slumped over his book. “Same old Josh,” I thought to myself, surprised and saddened that I didn’t feel much of anything when I looked at him. 

* * *  

“So, she’s yours now, officially?” he asked.   

“Yes, name changed and all.”   

“Anna Stone?   

“No, Josh. Anna Walker, like her mom.” 

I said the last sentence slowly, and with as much kindness as I could muster. Josh and I had separated, but we hadn’t talked about anything official yet, like name changes or divorce. “Josh, I am going to change my last name back to Walker, once we’ve finalized…” 

“So, that’s it, Lily? It’s over, and I don’t even get a say?” He looked equal parts sad and combative. I tried to be gentle. . . 

I reached across the table to take his hands in mine, but he pulled them away and folded his arms defiantly instead. I took a breath and tried again, “Josh, my life is going in a different direction now, and Anna and me, well, we have to forge our own path. I hope, with time...” 

“You hope what, Lily?” Josh had venom in his voice and tears in his eyes, “You hope we can still be friends? Please don’t even…” Josh grabbed his hooded grey sweatshirt from the back of his chair and fled the diner, wiping his eyes with his forearm on his way out. 

(Kindle Locations, 3904-3932)  

My interpretation of the breakup scene is that author Wendi Adelson was signaling through her fiction that she not only wanted to divorce Markel, but that she also wanted him out of the lives of her kids. The naming question in the novel foreshadows Adelson's real life behavior, post murder, in changing her children's surnames from Markel to Adelson and removing the middle name of one son because it referenced Markel's deceased grandmother.

I think it is also likely that Adelson wrote the novel in order to promote herself as the public face of the morally unimpeachable cause of female antislavery, notwithstanding her lack of literary talent, her relatively meager academic credentials, and her relative inexperience as a practicing lawyer. This is Our Story was chosen as featured reading for the thousands of incoming freshmen at Florida State, and was also enthusiastically profiled in the Florida Bar News. 

In this vein, Adelson stated, in her interview with the Florida Bar News and in the novel itself, that her purpose in writing the novel was to encourage kids to go to law school and become public interest attorneys like herself. In the author’s afterword, Adelson declares her hope that “if you are one of those lucky people who has the luxury to spend many years focused on higher education, you will think about law school, and you will consider spending your life as an advocate for those whose voices have been taken from them. I wouldn’t be half the attorney, or person, that I am today without having met people like “Rosa” and “Mila,” and so many of my other clients, whose stories I can’t share with you.” (Kindle Locations, 3949-3952)  

The obvious drawback to Adelson's career advice is the stiff competition for entry-level public interest law jobs, sometimes from persons with structural or insider advantages, such as coming from a wealthy family or being married to a law professor. Aside from which, I do not think that even the most zealous law school recruitment tout would be inclined to recommend law school in order to follow the life path of Wendi Adelson.

In the novel, Lily’s heroic work is obstructed by a clueless and condescending husband whom she has outgrown. Hubby Josh whines and snivels, but ultimately accepts his marching orders. However, discarding Josh’s real-life model seems to have been a messier proposition. 

The Toxic Jobs Factor

Often we discuss full-time jobs requiring bar passage in two dimensions: whether they exist and how much they pay. More granular sources may try to obliquely describe quality by looking at the type of job setting (i.e., government, large firm, small firm) or maybe subject area (corporate v. ID, for example).  But mostly, we and the law school sycophants alike have kept the numbers portion elementary, which is good from a simplicity standpoint, although simplicity can aid and abet fraud by ignoring crucial nuance. But for most schools, the basic employment and salary numbers are bad enough as it is to warrant caution.

But here's a research question for the entrepreneurial law profs snooping around the page:  what percentage of full-time jobs requiring bar passage, even when they exist, are toxic?

Definitions vary - this isn't a category used by the BLS, although it probably should be.

By toxic job, I don't mean one with low pay, per se, or where you work 50-60 hours a week or even where there's an asshole partner or two.  What might be toxic in the advertising industry already might be ho-hum routine in law.  By toxic, I mean roughly the following:

1. Frequent turnover, like the average associate tenure of less than two years, with many departing after a few months;
2. Culture of unethical or immoral conduct;
3. Incredibly poor organization with respect to files, billing, and scheduling;
4. Objectively abusive superiors (or clients, for that matter) who often have legitimate personality disorders or substance abuse problems;
5. The salary is so low and/or the overtime is so high that the practical hourly wage is under a level that makes the investment of law school worthwhile, say $15-20/hr.
6. Instability to the point where one's job could constantly vanish in the next month.

You know, shit that makes colleagues say "you need to get out of there." The prime example would be the small law practitioner(s) whose competence, ethical compass, and emotional well-being are shaky, but they have enough business to need additional help, or enough fluke past success to have a book of business or a war chest.  But it is by no means limited to those scenarios.  Large law firms can develop a toxic culture despite the classy environs, and for mill-style law firms, toxic might be the default setting.  Firms once well-run like a vintage Cadillac can quickly become a sputtering jalopy, particularly in a field where investors are virtually limited to skilled practitioners who give a shit.  Even government can become toxic in the age of budget cuts and convoluted rationalizations about case-load size.

It's not quantifiable, but it's arguably more important than a salary number.  If you start at a toxic job, you will almost certainly be looking to lateral within two to three years (if not months).  And aside from certain tells, it's not like toxic jobs always advertise themselves as such; Lord knows the career services office isn't going to red flag them.

I suspect a large portion of lawyer unhappiness comes from the fact that a relatively high percentage of law jobs are toxic in ways that would make most non-lawyer business and government employees recoil with horror.  Of course, there are also few industries where the overwhelming majority of workers have to run their own shop eventually one way or another, or where financial success can be so perversely disconnected from genuine skills of production.

A lot of older lawyers may brush off toxicness as some sort whiny millennial-inspired complaint about standard-issue work conditions, particularly when it comes to wet-behind-the-ears lawyers "cutting their teeth," which seems to be a perpetually en vogue justification for pissing on the Golden Rule.  But it's a serious issue that should not be easily dismissed.  Toxic labor conditions distort the labor market by creating a lot of entry-or low-level positions that simply re-open every two years with no prospect for advancement, which is generally an assumption for "good" jobs - at least for 0Ls.

Crucially, clients (and opposing counsel and judges) benefit from having healthy, ethical, experienced lawyers. Very few clients are truly served by retaining a toxic law firm, whether they realize it or not; after all, if a principal lawyer is willing to exploit the labor force, what's to stop him or her from cutting corners with clients?

When prospective students look at employment statistics, it's hard to imagine them assuming that their first job may only last a year or two before getting thrown back in the chasm. 

It would be nice if there was some way to quantify and express that concept in a simple table.  Unfortunately, I fear optimism bias isn't limited to assuming that everyone winds up on the right side of the curve, and those with the resources to perhaps work on correcting the information distortion seem to oddly have priorities that don't involve negatively categorizing potential organizational donors at the expense of truth, fairness, or transparency.

The Bar Exam and "Math."

Florida, we have a problem.

Shots were fired over a year ago as to this topic. On the one side was Dean Allard of Brooklyn Law School, leading the charge - "the bar exam is too hard! It's unfair!" On the other side was the NCBE - "current students are 'less able'! Buckle down!" If anyone should be on the side of mathematical analytics, is would be Bloomberg.

As is often the case in many things, the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. Given my own participation in the debate over the years and my own leanings, it is safe to say I am still in the scamblog camp - this is, I believe the charges of bar exam difficulty are heavily weighted in the "hey, this affects my livelihood so stop looking at the data so hard" direction, not the more-politically-palatable proclamation that "diversity is super-important, how dare you try to interfere with that using an arbitrary test" direction. When the Law School Cartel has gone from laughingly-dismissing the scambloggers to calling them demons over the years, especially in the face of falling bar passage rates, I get a bit cynical. Then again, I am a product of the self-same system, so the Cartel reaps what the Cartel sows, I guess.

That said, let's talk about the major rejoinders from the Cartel, and what I find to be a fascinating debate over at the Faculty Lounge. Per my reading, they fall into three basic categories:

-more below the fold-

C-minus: University of North Texas turned down for accreditation

One word in the language seems so coarse that even many people who indulge in profanity shy from it. Chaucer bowdlerized its spelling when he had his Wife of Bath say "For certeyn, olde dotard, by youre leve, / Ye shul have queynte right ynogh at eve" ('Yea, certainly, old fool, if you'll believe, / Tonight your fill of [*censored*] you shall receive'). Shakespeare hinted at it many times, from Hamlet's talk of "country matters" to Malvolio's recognition of his darling's handwriting from "her very C's, her U's and her T's". With a number of notable exceptions (Burns, Joyce, D.H. Lawrence), later authors have not been so bold.

Yet one institution calling itself a university has adopted a name that practically begs to be associated with this primus inter pares of the obscene lexicon. The University of North Texas even goes by its acronym, UNT, and proudly displays these letters where an enterprising vandal with a taste for verisimilitude could fill in the gap with a pen or a can of spray paint or any other suitable implement. Third Tier Reality recently featured a photo of a mug marked "UNT" whose handle, mounted on the left, supplied the missing letter through its shape.

The latest little stUNT in the law-school scam is the opening of (grUNT) yet another toilet law school, this one at UNT. Needless to say, the rUNT of the litter is a Different Kind of Law School, just like all others. It claims two redeeming features: an allegedly low cost of tuition (about $17k per year) and a mission to serve candidates whose horrible LSAT scores and abysmal grades somehow mask their aptitude for the legal profession.

Last month, however, the ABA's accreditation committee set down its rubber stamp long enough to recommend against accrediting UNT:

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/new_texas_law_school_not_recommended_for_aba_accreditation

Reportedly the committee objected to the quality of the student body: "[T]he committee was troubled by the number of students with low LSAT scores. Last fall, one-fifth of students from the first class landed on academic probation. UNT also admitted 17 students in 2014 and 2015 who had been dismissed from other law schools. Most of them had poor grades." Specifically, according to the report, "[i]t appears that the law school is admitting applicants that do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its program of legal education and being admitted to the bar":

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20160808-unt-dallas-law-school-in-danger-of-not-getting-accredited.ece

So it appears indeed. UNT's admissions function "rel[ies] less on GPA and LSAT scores ... in favor of recommendations and life experience":

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/18/new-law-school-right-reasons_n_5170124.html

Now, "life experience" is the hallmark of a diploma mill. For decades, commercial services posing as universities have sent out diplomas for a fee without requiring any academic work, supposedly because the buyer's "life experience" alone justifies a PhD.

Using "life experience" as a factor in admissions is different but little better. While "life experience" might justify giving a chance to an academically capable candidate who grew up in trying circumstances, UNT seems to be using it as an excuse to admit academically incapable applicants. Even the bar exam, simple though it is, requires a minimum of intelligence and literacy—traits not readily compensated by "life experience".

Rachel Hawkins, a 3L at UNT, defends her unaccredited law skule. She considers it "too big to fail" and seems to think that it deserves accreditation for that reason. "This is UNT. This isn't Jim Bob's law school", she says:

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20160808-unt-dallas-law-school-in-danger-of-not-getting-accredited.ece

Sorry to be blUNT, Ms. Hawkins, but yours is indeed Jim Bob's law school. It's an unaccredited dump that admits large numbers of people who haven't a prayer of passing the bar exam, or for that matter completing UNT's own curriculum.

Royal Furgeson, Jr., dean of UNT, intends to fight for accreditation. He insists on "a fair hearing" at which UNT can "tell the council that there’s a giant need for affordable law schools like us":

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/new_texas_law_school_not_recommended_for_aba_accreditation

Furgeson is so far up his own cUNT that he may come out the other end seeing daylight. Even if there is a giant need for a law school like UNT, it does not follow that UNT should be accredited. In particular, UNT admits huge numbers of students who just aren't smart enough even to graduate and pass the bar exam, still less to succeed as lawyers. The committee has pointed that out, yet Furgeson goes on prating about the mission of his stUNTed law school.

Should UNT lose its bid for accreditation, Ms. Hawkins may go to California, where her father practices law. Why? "[B]ecause in California, unlike Texas, you can graduate from an unaccredited law school and still take the bar."

Oh, Ms. Hawkins, are you in for a surprise! California does allow for taking the bar exam on the strength (such as it is) of a degree from an unaccredited law school—but only if the school is registered with the Committee of Bar Examiners. Only unaccredited law schools in California are eligible for registration. So, no, with your degree from UNT, you won't be able to worm your way into the bar in California. Too bad, Jim Bob.