Joan Waldron Shows Everybody How It's Done

Not too long ago, a North Carolina NPR affiliate ran a story that opened the question as to whether or not a Charlotte Law degree is valuable.  Comment warriors raged on both sides of the issue, as one would expect, along ideological lines.

http://wfae.org/post/after-8-years-charlotte-school-law-has-become-ncs-largest-so-whats-value-degree

One thing to notice about the Law School Scam is the tendency of the willing (scammed) participants to dig in and defend their actions and decisions.  This is largely understandable - no one likes to be told they are wrong or to realize they have been played as the fool.  I know in my own case, my sneaking suspicions in my 2L year became warning klaxons my 3L year, but I had no sense of investment to make me doubt my inclinations.  I saw the carnage around me, and once the realization of being scammed took hold, I started to correct, mitigate, and otherwise figure out what the hell I was going to do given the yawning pit of destruction that loomed before me.  I certainly didn't have the social capital, connections, or resources to pull things out of the fire, so on to Plan B.

For others, willful blindness will cause them to persevere, no matter what.  I personally think this is in large part an exercise in trying to save face or prove others wrong.  But then again, perhaps some are truly so motivated that they will never take "no" for an answer, despite the difficult circumstances they are already facing.

As I read, I found the comments of Joan Waldron to be an interesting yet strange combination of the positions of both camps:

I am a proud 2009 graduate of the Inaugural Class of CharlotteLaw. I knew what I was getting into when I began law school, and am glad I decided to go there. The education that the school provides is excellent, and the opportunities for hands-on experience, externships, clinical work, etc., gives graduates an edge whether they are looking for employment with a firm or planning to open their own practice.

When I graduated, I had secured employment with a firm, but was not happy there. So I quit, did document review for a year while growing my own practice, and then dropped the doc review when I had enough business on my own. I now have 2 offices.

The people sitting next to me at doc review were from 1st-2d tier schools, as well as the local ones, such as Elon, Campbell, and NCCU. It appears that the economy was the great equalizer for all of us.

Before going to law school, I worked as a paralegal for a "big law" firm here in Charlotte. I watched these recent grads from the top schools come in, get wined and dined, pampered, and handed 6-figure salaries. Many had little or no law firm or legal experience, and relied on their big law school credentials. Those days are gone, and now we all have to roll up our sleeves. More and more, firms are more interested in abilities and substance and less interested in cronyism. I did not have any delusions about being handed anything. I knew I would have to have some real, practical experience in order to be successful, which CSL provided.

True, I am a "non-traditional" student with 12+ years of paralegal experience; however, I credit CSL's clinics, externships and post-graduate mentoring with my ability to grow my own practice. If someone is motivated enough to take advantage of these programs, work hard, and persevere, they will make it.

I believe everyone should have a chance to try.

At first, there is some pride in one's alma mater, and that's fine.  She immediately secured a "good" position after law school, although she declined to pursue it further.  Fine. 

But then there is the big reveal....she worked as a paralegal at a large law firm for twelve years prior to law school.  Definitely not your standard K-JD, or even non-trad, for the most part.  It seems to me that she had way more practical experience, prior, than Law School could ever provide.   Then, strangely, there is the dripping "ha, ha, they got theirs" comment directed at prior JD graduates that got ground up and spit out by the BigLaw machine where she worked.  Plus, all those other elite school graduates were in doc review too, so there.  All you have to do is "work hard."  Those cronies sure learned a thing or two, let me tell you.

It sounds like Joan was disrespected during her time as a paralegal, and I don't doubt that it happened.  To say that many lawyers look down on their support staff due to credentials and preftige is an understatement.  Clearly, the experience still rankled while it was simultaneously motivating.  Yet, she seems to give an awful lot of credit to CSL as opposed to her own perseverance, which I find odd.

Later, Joan continues:

  

I would not want someone making the decision for me, as to whether or not I should go to law school. If the school does not disclose truthfully, that's one thing. But if a person wants to take that chance, then it's on them. If they aren't capable, they won't last more than their 1L year.

Another interesting comment.  Tacit acceptance of the thesis that blatantly false employment stats are wrong, yet the one true way to employment salvation is through the Boomer Church of Our Lady of Bootstrapping.  And, of course, the further strawman that 1L keeps all the losers out, anyway, so who cares. 

As 40,000 new JDs are minted every year for 20,000 jobs, the 1L year is clearly not doing its job, but that is another story.

So here is the conundrum - if anyone should go to law school, it should be someone like Joan, and the scamblogs have always been clear on this.  If you have strong experience, connections, an understanding of the business of law, and other valuable resources, then yes, law school may be for you.  That is not the case for the vast majority of 0Ls.

Yet, a lot of credit is given to Law School for something it is proud of advertising yet cannot guarantee - direct entre to the profession.  You might as well credit Law School for a BigLaw job that was in reality "handed" to a fourth-generation lawyer by someone else, which was derided by Joan as cronyism.

Yet, the cream will rise to the top (especially where excellent opportunities and experience have already abounded prior to law school) and Losers are Losers, so it's your own fault.  And "pampered" K-JDs deserve their own fate, regardless of false employment stats, or something.

As it stands, the pro-law comments sound like 0Ls are being encouraged to attend Law School not for their own sakes, but to justify the prior choices of these same pro-law students/graduates.  Sadly, the distinct advantages of connections and hard work in prior careers are unfortunately minimized in the process.  "All you need" is Charlotte School of Law.  And if you can't cut it, it's your own fault anyway, you entitled whiners.

While I wish Joan and other graduates well, this position seems to contradict the best interests of many 0Ls as well as Joan's own path and experience. 

I would instead submit the following:  By all means, follow Joan's example - bring your social capital, direct experience and resources with you to law school, as Joan did, or don't go at all.  That may be 10% of any given class; the rest of you run to the hills. 

Or more simply: Do, or do not; there is no try.

The King still reigns!

This blog was supposed to half-fill a void left by Professor Paul Campos of the University of Colorado Law School, who had been posting almost daily at Inside the Law School Scam as LawProf.  After nearly five hundred posts, running from August of 2011 to February 2013, LawProf decided to call it quits, citing that the blog had served its purpose (its core message is now conventional wisdom among most) and the personal price that he had paid, as motivating reasons for doing so.

What you may not have known is that Campos is still posting on the left-wing Lawyers, Guns, and Money blog under his real name.

Now, his posts aren't all about legal education, in fact I would say most of them are not.

However, he still makes many good posts on the current fallout surrounding law schools, and the comments are numerous and often fantastic (and you will see some familiar names, like BoredJD, mack, and dybbuk).

Here are two of Campos' newest posts surrounding law schools.  They are a two-part series "about how law schools are dealing with the sharp decline in demand for legal education."

The first is aptly entitled "Field of Nightmares," because it is dealing with the large decline in the University of Iowa's law school enrollment.  The gist of the article is that the law school seems to be maintaining admission standards (as well as tuition increases) in the face of a declining enrollment.  Inside Higher Ed pegs the newest 1L class at 94, compared with 155 last year.

The second post in the series is called "Dealing with the Crash."  Here Campos unleashes his inner LawProf, opening with this:

I got a particularly glossy and garish bit of law porn in my mailbox yesterday, from American University’s Washington College of Law. It highlighted the school’s current one hundred and something million dollar building project, (a live stream of which can be viewed here), which is erecting a voluptuous and gleaming structure among the leafy streets of northwest Washington’s Tinley Park Tenleytown neighborhood.

In this post he notes that AU has a markedly different strategy than Iowa, in maintaining its class size by slashing admission standards.  Later he notes a trick that AU is pulling with higher LSAT applicants in order to game the rankings system.

Anyways, just a brief Friday post highlighting an individual who has contributed a lot to the "scamblog movement."  In his first post I highlighted he says it might be a series of posts, so here's to hoping there are more than just two!

InfiLaw: A backwater empire of four crappy law schools or the future of the scam?

 

(At Hawk Venture Capital, our goal is to create innovative and lasting partnerships with Rodent Law Schools. We provide committed capital, marketing expertise, experienced leadership, and customized technology to our delicious partners).

Picture a law student walking through the stately common areas of Pretend to be Prestigious School of Law. Enrolling in this school was a terrible gamble, but it could have been worse. At least the school is not one of the three, soon to be four, notoriously scammy for-profit InfiLaw-owned law schools. [1] But the fact that a school is not InfiLaw-owned does not guarantee that it is InfiLaw-free. Even if it cannot own a law school outright, InfiLaw may influence a law school's character and direction via its extensive range of administrative and consulting services, as well as by shaping its distance education.

 

The Scam Is Alive In the Great White North

At region’s law schools, a struggle to get students by C. Ho (Washington Post)
Money Quote: “Things are tougher for us. There’s a pain cascade that can be discerned where I live, that my rich competitors only have to read about.” 

A law degree with added value (that can’t be taught) by C. Albinati (Canadian Lawyering)

Money Quote: "Before a single law student walked through the doors, the university’s administration and the Government of British Columbia had agreed that TRU’s JD program would be a cost-recovery program."

Law schools: Third year is too crucial to lose by R. Aker (Minnesota Daily)
Money Quote: “I would feel woefully unprepared to enter the job market with only two years of law school.”

Paying Off Law School Debt and Changing Perceptions About the Legal Profession

Meet Andrew Carmichael Post, a J.D. with $215,000 in educational debt.

Carmichael is certainly not stupid:

"At 13, when most boys are fretting about the perils of girls and middle school, Post was attending Cal State Los Angeles, working on degrees in computer science and applied mathematics. At 18, Post was entering USC Gould School of Law. At 22, Post became a member of the State Bar of California."

But what holds him back is a $2,756 monthly loan payment.

In Carmichael's words,

"It's like some sort of nightmare where someone gave me a bank mortgage but forgot to add the deed to the house," Post quipped.

Indeed, Andrew, indeed.

Carmichael, who now works as a computer programmer, graduated in 2010 with no job prospects as an attorney. So, he did what every law school tells unemployed and unemployable graduates to do. He hung out his own shingle.

Things were not going well:

"I was never really impoverished," Post said, "just terribly inconvenienced by not being able to collect on a legal bill or a programming bill I'd sent out two months earlier. What little stable income I had wasn't enough to get by on. There were times when I had to decide on whether to buy enough gas to get back to court or buy lunch."

Post struggled to avoid feeling discouraged.

"The last time I went into court, I was wearing something that I got at Goodwill," Post said. "The two lawyers on the other side were each wearing suits worth more than my car."

Post now makes between $80,000 and $96,000 as a programmer, so he is doing a lot better than most J.D.'s. The financial advisor told Post to build up an emergency fund, and throw extra money at his debt, while continuing to live at his parents' place for at least the next six years to pay off his debt in full. Luckily, Post is a child prodigy, so he will only be 30 when he is free of the shackles of debt slavery.

There are a couple of things that don't portend well for future law graduates stuck in Post's position. First, Post has the option of living with his parents and having them subsidize his basic living costs. What will happen to future generations of graduates whose parents are still living in a small apartment, still paying off their own debt? Second, Post has other marketable skills that enabled him to get a well-paying job. Most J.D.s are humanities graduates who go to law school after realizing that an undergraduate degree in Post-War Soviet Literature is not going to pay the bills. What will people without specific marketable skills who have such a huge debt load do when the only jobs available are at traffic firms paying $20,000 with no benefits?

All the while, professors are laughing all the way to the bank, producing increasingly useless "legal scholarship" and getting huge "research stipends" every summer so they can take lavish vacations disguised as research trips. ScamDeans are touting the latest way to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear: "practice ready curriculums".

A large problem arises because a great deal of the public still thinks that no matter what, lawyers can hang out a shingle and make a good living. I was talking to a friend this past weekend who said as much. When I responded that most self-employed lawyers are now trying to fight for bottom of the barrel clientele who will ultimately try not to pay you, he was genuinely surprised.

Many people assume that students go to law school because they solely make the decision to do so. We overlook the great many students pushed into law school by their families or spouses. It is easy to go to law school as a way to extend the inertia many people fall into while in college. When a person you trust tells you, "Go get a law degree. John's kid just graduated and now has a job in [eminent BigLaw firm]", it is easy to just go along with it.

I think that the scamblog movement is important, but we also need to educate the general public about what a cesspool the legal profession in general has been for a while. Until parents are disabused of the notion that Junior can major in anything as an undergrad because he can always buy a ticket to the upper class by going to law school, nothing will change. So the next time you hear someone bragging about their kid enrolling in law school, make a point to try and dispell the myth of the legal professions as golden ticket. It may make you unpopular with those who don't want to believe you. But, stopping even one person from ruining their life by going to law school is worth it.

CommonBond - another example of higher education profiteering

CommonBond is about as different from a typical Sallie Mae private college loan as Indiana Tech Law School is from any other bottom tier diploma mill.  Identical, in other words, despite CommonBond's assertions (and shITLS's assertions) that they are something new and revolutionary, they are just the same old problems wrapped up in a new website.

The basic story at CommonBond is that some finance types saw an opportunity to invest in private student loans.  After all, why should Sallie Mae have all the profit?  So the prestigious folks at CommonBond went to their prestigious alumni at their prestigious schools and said, "Hey guys, you want in on this racket?  Lend money to students at top business schools at rates that are only a fraction better than the government, but with none of the perks of government loans, and you can profit from this rock steady investment."

CommonBond lends money (right now) only to MBA students at the top business schools, and it's not a bad idea.  Those students are most likely to get the top jobs and repay their loans.  Forget all the idiots at the diploma mill MBA schools - they can stick with their government loans.  (Although I think that CommonBond has missed the true core of profiting from student loans, which is making it as easy as possible to allow student defaults, generating fees, penalties, and all manner of other increases to loan balances.  Sallie Mae has got this down to a fine art.)

The idea is sold on prestige.  The web site oozes prestige, basically telling students, "Hey, you're better than relying on a government program, which sounds a bit like food stamps or some other welfare.  We offer a super exclusive, super prestigious opportunity to show everyone how prestigious you are by borrowing from us, a prestigious and exclusive lender that only lends to the most prestigious students ever.  So what'll it be?  Food stamps, or filet mignon?"

Yet looking under the cover, the loans from CommonBond are a bad dead.

First clue: first page of the borrower section.  Here's their graphic:

 

Looks good, right?  From that graphic, you might assume that CommonBond's rates are what, about forty percent of the government rates?  How deceptive!  Here's the chart as it should be shown (lots of scrolling required, and I had to reduce the scale to make it fit):

 



Yes, by showing only the tip top of the chart, CommonBond is telling a massive lie right off the bat.  Their rates are only slightly lower - a fraction, in fact.  Not the sixty percent discount that its graphic implies.

So how do they get their rates low?  Well, you give some stuff up over the regular government loans, like access to Income Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness.  Aren't sure that you'll graduate into that high dollar job with McKinsey, and you might be working for you local supermarket chain?  With CommonBond's loan, you'll be paying it back in full, rather than being able to use the IBR program offered by the feds to protect those with high debt and low incomes.  Want to work for your local government or in a federal job?  Again, with CommonBond's loan, you're out of luck when it comes to public service forgiveness.  In essence, with CommonBond, you're taking a gamble - you're betting that for a miniscule interest rate benefit, that you'll be sure to have a high-paying job that lasts at least a decade or longer, however long it takes to pay the loans off.  Need extended repayment plans?  Out of luck with CommonBond, which makes you pay it all off in ten years.

Sound familiar?  Law schools being so expensive, and countless students trapped when the jobs of their dreams didn't appear and they were saddled with massive debt?  But of course, that would never happen to those prestigious MBA students at such prestigious schools, right?

Not content with the vomit-inducing borrower profiles (like Grace, who was president of the Wharton Food Club, or Andrew, who was Captain of the Cross Country Club, or Dan, whose post-MBA life is merely "New York City!"), few of whom actually stand out as anything particularly successful or interesting, CommonBond tries additional tricks to get borrowers through the door.  Their "Social Promise" section states that for each fully-funded MBA degree, they'll donate a year of schooling to a kid in Africa.  Sounds good, but it's a gimmick.  A year of said schooling through the African School for Excellence (which is the institution CommonBond supports) costs a mere $600.

How much is $600 compared to the interest CommonBond will be reaping from its borrowers?  Let's take a look.  A year of tuition and fees and incidental living expenses at a top business school is around $80K per year as a conservative estimate.  So a $160K loan from CommonBond over two years.  According to CommonBond's own calculator, the total repayments will be $241K, over $80K more than was borrowed.

So CommonBond's "social promise" is to return a mere 0.75% of its interest income to social issues.  Wow.  How generous.  (Of course, it's better than nothing, and I'm all for supporting programs like ASE, but it's clear that CommonBond is not interested in supporting social issues - they are interested in using social issues as a means to show what a harmless, helpful, benevolent PRIVATE STUDENT LENDER they are.  Rather like President Assad of Syria comparing himself to Saddam Hussein and saying, "Look how nice I am!")

CommonBond, if you want to make a difference, then make a BETTER private student loan, not just ANOTHER private student loan.  Invest in your borrowers by allowing your loans to be discharged in bankruptcy if the student fails after five years.  I'm sure many would happily pay a higher interest rate for the privilege.  Invest in struggling students here in the US, the ignored millions who go to elementary school hungry each day, and invest more than $600.  Stop commoditizing borrowers, stop profiting from the higher education system (which is rotting away because it's now seen as a business, not a social good.)

CommonBond is a private student lender.  It suffers from the same issues all private student lenders do, no matter how hard it tries to differentiate itself from the predatory debt traps like Sallie Mae and Access Group.  It's just another way for private individuals to make a buck, wrapped up in as many misconceptions and half-truths as it's allowed to get away with in order to hide what it's really all about.  Just like law schools are now exposed as being.  And just like MBA programs are.  Cost of attendance at $80K or more per year?  That screams "scam".

Here's the most informative quote from CommonBond, tucked away on its website: "CommonBond affords access to an entirely new asset class that is historically low risk."  There you have it, students and borrowers.  That's how you're seen by student loan lenders.  An "asset class", not individuals.  An investment opportunity, not a human being trying to get a foothold on the middle class.

Regardless of CommonBond's glossy new product, the same old truths apply:

1.  Borrow as little as possible.
2.  Borrow it from the government if you have to, and never from private lenders.

Note that 1 and 2 can be very easily accomplished by just not attending law school or an MBA program in the first place.

The most silent voice of all?

Sorry for the lack of posts from me, but I've been rather busy at work.

But there's a thought I've had for a while now, and I think it's worth a few minutes of my time to share.

We've heard from countless law school applicants, law students, law professors, and practicing attorneys.  We know their standard arguments for the status quo or for change.  But there's one group that has stayed remarkably silent - professors outside law.  Those PhD mathematicians who studied their subject for a decade after high school, contributed to original research (rather than the regurgitated drivel of most law professors), and earned their titles.  Those PhD engineers who are legitimately choosing the relative poverty of academia over industry.  The linguists who are teaching the next generation of diplomats and Peace Corps workers, all of whom spent countless years living and working abroad to master their chosen field.  The biologists who work at the forefront of genetics and microbiology in university labs, the chemists, physicists, and social workers who are making our lives better each and every day?

You, and just about every other professor outside law, put in a massive amount of effort into getting to where you are today.  So why are you not outraged over the fact that a group of privileged, arrogant, unqualified and overpaid colleagues of yours over at the campus law school are gold plated treatment while you play second fiddle?

Why are you not screaming at your provost about this?  You earned your right to be called a professor.  The law "professors" took a three year extended undergraduate degree, proofread work for a judge for a year or lived the life of Riley in a Wall Street law firm for a year, and consider themselves on the same level as you?  After your years of undergrad study, your five years for the PhD, the late nights, the research, the writing, the five years you spent as a postdoc?  And you're being overtaken by a twenty-five year old who just happened to buy his way into an Ivy law school for three years?

Personally, I would be disgusted.

So where are you?  Why have you all stayed so silent?  Why do you accept the bar being set so low for law professors?  Most of you are lucky to get an office, some are thankful for enough chairs in a decrepit classroom for your oversubscribed classes and a whiteboard marker that works.  Why are you not disgusted by the oak-paneled luxury of the law school?  The new carpets in the law school every two years?  (Carpets?  Yes, they have carpets, not dirty plastic floor tiles.)  The spending on the law library while you're struggling to get standard texts in the main library?  The million dollar high-tech renovated moot court room while you can't even get a television that was made later than the 1980s?

Why are you content to be second class citizens?

What has your academic administration told you?  That you need the law school because it pays for your new computers in the math department?  That you'd be taking pay cuts if it were not for the profit generated by the law school that is fed to your second-class subjects like computer science or psychology?

Because if so, if you've been content to let the law school "professors" call the shots over the past twenty years because of their prestige and ability to bring in high-paying students, then why are you now still silent while the prestige of your university's law school plummets below that of the janitorial department?  Law schools are rapidly becoming an albatross around the neck of many colleges.  The tables are turning, and soon the law school will be begging for money at the door of your department.  Are you prepared to give them money?