tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post8262933789188379464..comments2024-03-28T10:56:31.720-06:00Comments on Outside the Law School Scam: Guest Post: Brave Soul Avoids the Sunk-Cost FallacyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-74371951630159200682014-04-02T08:56:05.441-06:002014-04-02T08:56:05.441-06:00Loved this post. I have a similar story - I dropp...Loved this post. I have a similar story - I dropped out of law school in 1994 halfway through the first semester. I was a paralegal in a big firm who was encouraged by most of the attorneys I worked with to go but I should've listened to the ones who told me not to go, that the job market was saturated (20 years ago!). I chose a part-time evening program so I wouldn't have to quit my job (thank God) but after a couple months, when I realized I was bored out of my mind, and I added up the loans I'd have to take out to complete the degree (of course the part-time program was four years not three), I quit. I still remember the brief feeling of failure followed immediately by total relief. It took about a year to pay off the loan I had taken out (kicking myself with every check I sent) but I do feel I dodged a bullet.<br /><br />I'm still a paralegal, now at a government agency. I've never regretted dropping out of law school, especially when I see how many JD's are applying for paralegal jobs in government agencies, including mine.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-59947583935531775332014-04-02T08:21:12.723-06:002014-04-02T08:21:12.723-06:00Excellent point re cost, but it's also importa...Excellent point re cost, but it's also important to remember that back then, student loans, to the extent they existed were dischargeable in bankruptcy.<br /><br />And that's why law school has gone from a perhaps wasted 3 years into a life-destroying experience for a huge percentage of students.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-5111117381638351512014-04-01T20:47:37.567-06:002014-04-01T20:47:37.567-06:00Great post. A similar story myself - though I wen...Great post. A similar story myself - though I went to law school almost 25 years ago. The employment picture wasn't much different really - only a few got real lawyer jobs. The rest might have practiced a bit and then petered out. Very few of my class are still practicing and they all went big law initially. Like yourself, I played the 1L game and lost. I wanted big law because that is the kind of law I wanted to practice. I didn't want to do divorces, criminal or small time law. There is nothing wrong with those practices but it is very different. I wanted to work with corporations. So I did something else working with corporations. The big difference - I think the tuition was around $1,800 a year. Nobody went broke going to law school even if they didn't practice a day in their life.ConcernTrollnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-32153959706833127362014-03-31T23:25:30.285-06:002014-03-31T23:25:30.285-06:00Better yet, don't write your damn article at a...Better yet, don't write your damn article at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-54863908241188615362014-03-31T19:58:54.652-06:002014-03-31T19:58:54.652-06:00@ 2:06 PM
Agreed. This industry is all about gett...@ 2:06 PM<br /><br />Agreed. This industry is all about getting in the middle of a market transaction and driving up the price so the middle man can take his cut. Labor arbitrage. It's the legal industrial model for law schools and large law firms. Law school and big law have hit the monopoly rent ceiling and are losing market share hand over fist. Foregone consumption and legal process outsourcing are tearing the carcasses to bits. <br /><br />Scam blogging pulls mostly on only one thread (enrollment), but there are a myriad of threads, each of which is an existential threat all by itself. None of the actions schools are taking to boost enrollments are risk free. The tail risks of slashing admissions standards while hitching tuition are obvious: less savvy, less prepared grads, who are less likely to land jobs, less likely to pass the bar, and who will definitely be economically destroyed. <br /><br />Some people are skeptical that many, if any, law schools are going down. I'm not. I think it will be many and loudly. They're shitting where they eat. They can't even stay afloat at revenue neutral; they need revenue growth at the same time they're losing one expensive little lemming after another. Add to this, the federal government backstage which might yet alter its "stimulus! stimulus!" lending mantra. <br /><br />Some school out there is Lehman Brothers. Somebody's got high, fixed overhead costs and can't pay the bills, and cannot borrow to stay afloat with eroding metrics...tick, tick, tick, BOOM. I'm popping a $3 dollar bottle of Andre when the first one goes down. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-86809957242687348862014-03-31T18:43:22.733-06:002014-03-31T18:43:22.733-06:00Hear, hear. Most of what I learned in law school,...Hear, hear. Most of what I learned in law school, I also learned on my own. The fact that you must pay for a bar preparation course in order to pass the bar examination clarifies what a joke law school really is. I learned more in the BARBRI preparation course than I did in law school. I came away from BARBRI saying "why didn't they just teach the law in law school."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-88799444877725688092014-03-31T15:06:23.086-06:002014-03-31T15:06:23.086-06:009:15 PM - excellent post.
The absurdness of most...9:15 PM - excellent post. <br /><br />The absurdness of most tenured law professors is highlighted by the use of adjuncts, just as the very existence of bar prep courses highlights the absurdity of law schools' 3 year curriculum.<br /><br />Law school is an exceptionally pernicious medieval guild system that, since student loans became non-dischargable, has gone, to switch analogies, from being a fairly low grade fever to a disease with a survival rate of around 20%.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-65739829689224698182014-03-31T12:35:02.838-06:002014-03-31T12:35:02.838-06:00You don't need to go to the adjunct model. Law...You don't need to go to the adjunct model. Law schools need to explain why they can't adopt the business school model where full time non-tenured lecturers work along side the tenured faculty.<br /><br />The problem is that for law schools there is no reason why the faculty can't teach three classes a semester, thus significantly reducing faculty cost which is the most substantial part of law school overhead. Write your damn article in the summer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-12351909947705993082014-03-31T06:51:05.409-06:002014-03-31T06:51:05.409-06:00"I have friends in other industries. Their ta..."I have friends in other industries. Their talents are rewarded regardless of how they gained them. Its not greener for them. Just very different as to how the job market reacts to their actions. They take a risk to work with a small company and the result is everyone says "wow, great experience!" A lawyer does the same to gain great experience. The reaction of most lawyers: Wow you didn't work at Cravath. What's your experience?"<br /><br />I'm willing to bet that this lines up 100% with the labor market. In a tight labor market for a particular profession, they'll look upon 'honorable failure' as 'honorable'. In a slack labor market, 'honorable failure' is 'failure'.<br /><br />When an employer can pick and choose, the employer will pick and choose, frequently for arbitrary reasons.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-72871842155044494382014-03-30T22:15:24.075-06:002014-03-30T22:15:24.075-06:00@2:26 PM: Yes, an ABA school could.
501(c)(3) edu...@2:26 PM: Yes, an ABA school could.<br /><br />501(c)(3) educational institutions do not pay typically owe/pay property taxes under state law. Obviously, they pay no corporate income tax. 501(c)(3) educational institutions do not owe/pay property taxes in my state...When a school is sloughing off 50%-75% of the teaching load on adjuncts who teach a course for $5,000. a pop already (just ask them!), can one argue with a straight face that the tenured leaches are necessary? Are deans, who don't teach at all, with 6 or 7 figure salaries necessary? Law schools either have to admit that some significant portion of their curriculum is sub-par by reason of being taught by adjuncts, or that they're price-gouging like motherfuckers. It's the latter.<br /><br />Why are students each paying 5k for three credit hours for a course taught by an adjunct? If you've got 100 students in such a class that costs 5k to teach, the fair market value for the course begins at $50.00/ student!! Why was my University of California NOT charging $16.00 per credit hour for a course taught by an adjunct (real lawyer), and instead charging $1,667.00 per credit hour? GREED supported by a MONOPOLY, and there's nothing else to it. <br /><br />Most of the adjuncts I had were far better teaches than the tenured leaches. After all, the adjuncts self-selected to teach at cost to them, usually because they had a passion and talent for it. I found the same to be true of tenured faculty only in the ultra-rare instance. Many tenured faculty were horrible; so notoriously horrible that they could only attract those students to their courses who needed the credit/ class and took it for scheduling reasons! <br /><br />Also, btw, some "educational" institutions are known to use their 501(c)(3) status to operate tax-free real estate investment acquisitions firms...funded with federal student loans, baby! See, for instance, the Art Institute of California. Or, maybe take a gander at Brooklyn Law School. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-85434896189704055532014-03-30T15:26:19.982-06:002014-03-30T15:26:19.982-06:00$25k per year fixed is a step in the right directi...$25k per year fixed is a step in the right direction. However given the likely employment outcomes for most graduates, most law schools should be charging $10k-$12k. However could any ABA law school make a profit charging that much?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-14675926220530025422014-03-30T12:08:30.089-06:002014-03-30T12:08:30.089-06:00Most of what I learned in law school I learned on ...Most of what I learned in law school I learned on my own.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-34078346302012219182014-03-30T06:35:46.933-06:002014-03-30T06:35:46.933-06:00I suppose we should focus primarily on the financi...I suppose we should focus primarily on the financial benefit to the student who drops out. That's consistent with the broad humanitarian mission of this site. Let me point out that there are also some secondary benefits to society when a student drops out of law school, the earlier the better...<br /><br />Each student who refuses to borrow any further is cutting off funds from academic impostors who badly need to be cut off. He or she is sending a powerful economic signal to law schools that their product is seriously overpriced, and in some cases worthless. Most importantly, if professors get fired and law schools close, the institutional pressures to prey on ignorant and unqualified students will almost disappear. Once the morbidly obese cost structure has been reduced to a somewhat normal size, law school deans and professors can start to act like mature and responsible human beings again.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-59927741649188650782014-03-29T22:37:32.757-06:002014-03-29T22:37:32.757-06:00Perhaps they mean that you will spend a lifetime i...Perhaps they mean that you will spend a lifetime investing in law skule in hope of getting a pay-off in the afterlife.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-2941517396674302632014-03-29T21:09:08.976-06:002014-03-29T21:09:08.976-06:00"Law school is a lifetime investment in your ..."Law school is a lifetime investment in your future." (Sure is, because you'll be paying for it for the rest of your life.) That first sentence says it all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-76973736465557564472014-03-29T19:40:21.912-06:002014-03-29T19:40:21.912-06:00You are indeed a brave soul, and far more intellig...You are indeed a brave soul, and far more intelligent than most of the "good" students. They have little chance of achieving the dreams that lured them into the snake pit known as law school.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-47258826492687753652014-03-29T14:41:05.808-06:002014-03-29T14:41:05.808-06:00Also, it's pretty much impossible to fail so p...Also, it's pretty much impossible to fail so people think, well I didn't fail, I guess I'll stay because I'm doing OK and I"m getting through it. The thing is, if you're not in the top third AT THE LEAST, you're pretty much screwed.<br /><br />It's impossible to fail a law school class. It's also nearly impossible to get an A, or even a B+ in a traditional curved course. Everyone gets a C+/B/B-... It's not good enough anymore to stick it out... This isn't the boomer generation. The market is flooded with law grads, if you can't hack it just leave you'll be happier and you'll have more F'ing money than your peers trying to "make it" in the law.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-8973634437151224502014-03-29T14:35:29.618-06:002014-03-29T14:35:29.618-06:008:58 again-- I didn't say I was clever or succ...8:58 again-- I didn't say I was clever or successful, and per my clarification, was not trying to denigrate one branch of law vs. another. My point was that I did get some benefit from LS in that I was able to relate better to my lawyers when the need arose, and also that more practice-focused training would have worked better in that regard. Re-read comments above.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-80396770743726158422014-03-29T14:13:46.865-06:002014-03-29T14:13:46.865-06:00Yeah start with 75k for tuition. Add loan origina...Yeah start with 75k for tuition. Add loan origination fees, accruing interest for 3 years, undergrad debt if any, plus 3 years of living expenses in So Cal and you are well over 100k in loans. Only 34.6 percent of 2012 grads from this dump got real attorney jobs nine months out.BamBamnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-21041300513904874272014-03-29T12:13:18.710-06:002014-03-29T12:13:18.710-06:00I completely disagree. Law school may well be a v...I completely disagree. Law school may well be a very bad bet, and it does little for teaching how to practise law, but I personally learned a lot from my legal education, and it helped me become a much more critical thinker. Is it worth the cost? Not in today's tuition. But a blanket statement discounting the Socratic method and the education itself is likely from those who just never got it. If you don't have an aptitude for the law or the capacity of critical thinking...definitely avoid law school.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-30715994832580029712014-03-29T09:31:59.120-06:002014-03-29T09:31:59.120-06:00Reading between the lines, we get this: "La V...Reading between the lines, we get this: "La Verne & Shirley Law Skule is positively desperate for your application! Just last year, we were soaking people for $40k in annual tuition. Now that people are staying the hell away from our stinking toilet of a law skule, we've slashed that rate by a third. We hope to appeal to those morons who will see this change as a great opportunity to save money rather than as a shameful admission that $40k/year was a monstrous rip-off. Let's just hope that people won't notice what a rip-off even $25k is."<br /><br />There is nothing we won't try;<br />Never heard the word "impossible".<br />This time there's no stopping us.<br />We're gonna do it…<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-37834658523240031082014-03-29T09:20:46.480-06:002014-03-29T09:20:46.480-06:00Many law schools award a prize to the two or three...Many law schools award a prize to the two or three students with the highest GPA. The difference between these students and the next one down is indeed nothing but statistical noise, yet it is treated as having great significance. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-85373795377401893462014-03-29T09:05:30.893-06:002014-03-29T09:05:30.893-06:00JESUS.
"...lifelong investment in your futur...JESUS.<br /><br />"...lifelong investment in your future..." Oh wow, so what you're saying is when I'm 98, I'll still be investing in my future with a La Verne law degree!? That's amazing! Some old people just retire, enjoy their grandchildren, and die! Not me! I'll still be "investing"! The sweat of my [borrowed] capital will be returning me dividends untold, because it's an investment!<br /><br />"...that doesn't have to mean racking up years and years of student loan debt..." Are 3 years, "years and years"? What about 10 years - the standard repayment period? Are 10 years, "years and years"? What about 20 years or 25 years on IBR? Are those years, "years and years"? Now I'm confused. >:( Is this a (fraudulent), materially misleading statement?...What's going on here, La Verne? <br /><br />"And you're right -" Almost lost me La Verne, but you really pulled it back from the brink with this daring sentence fragment! <br /><br />"$39,000, with students eligible for various scholarships"...and we all know you, Dear XXXXX, would not have been getting a scholarship, so it's a discount to you!! But hey, we still love you! *wink, wink* *love pat*<br /><br />"But unlike an outright tuition drop, the new, no-discount La Verne Law 'True Tuition Model'...fucks everyone equally! What you really need to focus on is the equall-ality, because we're not really sure how this isn't an "outright tuition drop." Look, the point is, equall-ality is good! It's American! Possibly Soviet, actually, but mostly neo-American! How is this relevant to you?! We have no earthly idea!...Why not go have a test-scamper on that level playing field! <br /><br />"In the absence of need-based aid..." You see...try and follow this now...what we used to give you for being poor, we now require you to borrow for being poor! This is an exciting opportunity!! Why aren't you excited??? Come on, baby, we've got this nice, hard degree, all rolled up tight with your name on it. You're going to be a lawyer! <br /><br />Come here...bend over.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-46007544840923859242014-03-29T07:19:13.379-06:002014-03-29T07:19:13.379-06:00That's only $75k plus SoCal living expenses fo...That's only $75k plus SoCal living expenses for a law degree. That is a bargain given the expansive opportunities in the California job market for La Verne graduates.Law School Truth Centerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13166092871374037640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3660083024919144793.post-29070634343066782562014-03-29T07:17:11.328-06:002014-03-29T07:17:11.328-06:00Law school, by its nature, teaches you to a be a l...Law school, by its nature, teaches you to a be a law clerk. Most of the jackwads who teach have never themselves been good lawyers or learned from good lawyers, so they have nothing of use to aspiring lawyers in terms of how to practice on a day-to-day basis.<br /><br />Actually working in the legal field (like, in positions other than an appeals clerk or a dungeon-office memo-writer) is eye-opening at how deficient and worthless law school is. A three-month bar course and an intense course in legal research and writing (taught by someone who actually knows what they're doing) is about all that's useful.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com