Saturday, October 12, 2013

Indiana Tech Law School's Most Important Innovation.

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about the upcoming Indiana Tech Law School "Oath of Professionalism" ceremony. The Indiana Tech class apparently spent the first several weeks of their One-L Professionalism course collectively drafting the oath. On October 10th, the whole Charter class [1]  assembled in the moot courtroom, where the oath was administered by a federal District Court judge, William C. Lee. As a token of this, uh, achievement, the students received scales of justice pins.

My initial take was that this was a silly gimmick-- a time-wasting exercise by lazy professors, or a half-baked brainstorm by some administrator or professor, maybe based on a childhood memory of a ceremony at a Cub Scout jamboree. Just some official nonsense that was implemented only because it was not thought through, and to be remembered afterwards with an embarrassed smile.

But I will say this for Indiana Tech Law: they are quite serious about their ridiculous posturing-and-pinning ceremony. According to an Indiana Tech Law press release: "Law School Dean Peter C. Alexander said the Oath Ceremony is one of the most important innovations in Tech’s law program. "It reflects an earnest decision by the students to become not only lawyers, but also great examples of professionalism and ethics," he explained."

Think on this phrase: "One of the most important innovations." Indiana Tech Law's innovations are the purported reason for starting a brand new, and unaccredited, open enrollment law school in a State with a particularly high lawyer saturation, a State where even the well-regarded first-tier flagship school, IU-Bloomington, only manages to place 53% of its grads in full-time law jobs. So you would think that the innovations would have to be pretty astonishing, like maybe a pedagogical miracle machine capable of transforming any dim bulb law student into Clarence Darrow. But, no, the Dean ranks the "Oath Ceremony" as among the school’s most important innovations, and even enlisted the participation of a venerable federal judge.

Fortunately, the Fort Wayne journalgazette.net published a four minute long video excerpt from the ceremony, which included the full oath. Here is a transcription of the Oath (and it is a pretty long-winded Oath).  The buffoonery comes near the end-- I bet you didn't know that taking pride in your law school, while supporting its faculty and administrators, was part of professionalism. 

We the Charter Class of Indiana Tech Law School

To the Best of Our Ability Pledge That

We Will Live Our Lives In a Manner That Will Inspire Respect and Good Faith in The Legal System.

We Will Set an Example for Society by Respecting the Law and the Profession

And We will be an Example for Our Colleagues and the Legal Profession

By Treating All Individuals With Honor and Integrity.

We Will Conduct Ourselves in A Respectful and Trusting Manner

Both Professionally and Personally

And do Nothing to Bring Disrepute to the Profession.

We Shall Put Forth an Effort to Promote Civility

Among Those In the Legal Profession

By Governing Our Own Actions and Inspiring Our Colleagues to do the Same.

We Will Represent Our Clients in a Knowledgeable, Competent, and Prepared Manner

By Being Dedicated and by Providing Clear and Regular Communication.

As Indiana Tech Law Students, We Take Pride in Our Profession and Our Institution.

We Shall Support and Have Compassion for Our Fellow Classmates, Administrators, and Faculty

While Respecting Boundaries and Adhering to the Strict Ethics of Student Life.

We Take This Oath Not Only For Ourselves But Also as an Example for Those Who Will Follow.

At the conclusion of the oath, the Judge said, "And with that, congratulations." It may be my imagination, but he seemed to pause for an instant-- as though he felt he should congratulate the students on something, but couldn't think what.

After all, this oath did not accompany any change in status, or elevation in rank, or new office undertaken. (The journalgazette.net titled its post "Indiana Tech law students sworn in," leaving unanswered the question: sworn into what?) Nor did the oath involve a binding and verifiable duty, such as a witness swearing to tell the truth. Rather, the Indiana Tech oath is just a string of platitudes and general pledges to be all goody-two-shoes. Indiana Tech calls this stuff an oath because of the form and accompanying ceremony-- the recitation, the raised right hand, ect., and because of their desire to dress the platitudes in solemnity. This can be deemed oathiness (adopting Stephen Colbert's great phrase "truthiness")-- which, it is fair to say, is a genuine innovation, an innovation in scam.

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note:

[1] In the video, Dean Peter Alexander states that "This is our first year as a law school and I think we are off to a really terrific start. We have 27 intrepid law students. . . " 
 
In an interview on August 20th, Alexander stated that 33 enrolled.  Now, seven weeks later, there are 27, an attrition rate of almost 20%, and barely 1/4 of their goal of 100 students. In the interview, the Dean also stated that "I think the fact that there are 30 or more students willing to take a chance on this type of education even before we are accredited suggests we have a product that has some interest."  Well,  Dean, now you have fewer than 30 students.  What does that suggest about your "product"?


36 comments:

  1. Interesting that the dean referred to the students as "intrepid." There was a post on Above the Law earlier this year that discussed Indiana Tech's attempts to find what it sarcastically called "one hundred intrepid souls" for its initial class. Freudian slip?

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    1. He probably doesn't know the word.

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    2. "Insipid" would be a more accurate word to describe these marks, I mean, students.

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    3. decrepit souls.

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  2. That joke of a kum-ba-ya festival is one of Indiana Tech's most important innovations? One that justifies opening yet another shitty law school—one lacking accreditation—at a time when most graduates even of established, well-respected law schools cannot find relevant work?

    Is some dipshit "oath" going to help those 27 dim bulbs to find jobs as lawyers?

    What did that judge get for presiding over their stupid "oath"?

    Those 27 ninnies spent five weeks—about 6% of their time in law school—writing that stupid "oath". Presumably the ABA will dutifully confirm its importance as an element of the curriculum.

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    1. There is no way that's all they did for the 5 weeks. If so...that's beyond laughable. A fifth grade class could write that oath in an afternoon. I have to believe this was just part of their stupid mandatory 1L ethics class and not in place of civ pro or torts or other normal (if questionable in their practical value as taught at most law schools) classes. If not then this school is officially just a performance art piece about the emporer has no clothes nature of modern higher ed.

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  3. Hmm. The credulous part of me thinks this is a good exercise because the students drafted it themselves and presumably had to think about what they wrote and parse the words carefully. The world-weary part of me realizes that not only was this a colossal waste of the students' time -- they should be focused on black letter law and legal writing -- but also an intentional distraction by the administration. I've seen similar where the first order of business was to draft a "mission statement" and the drafters had zero authority to bring anything to fruition. Almost like they're being indoctrinated into a cult.

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  4. Does anyone want to purchase a bunch of doublewides so we can establish our own law school? We could come up with better innovations than that silly "Oath" and pin nonsense.

    For instance, we could come up with law school yearbooks. Or perhaps we could hold monthly arts and crafts sessions for the lemmings. At Indiana TTTTTech Law Sewer, this would consist of coloring books and Lego blocks.

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    1. We need a gold star system for not peeing in your seat during torts class. 5 gold stars equals extra time at recess.

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    2. "As Indiana Tech Law Students, We Take Pride in Our Profession and Our Institution"

      Uh, they don't have a profession yet.

      "While Respecting Boundaries and Adhering to the Strict Ethics of Student Life."

      I have no idea what this means.

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    3. "We shall support and have compassion for... faculty while respecting their boundaries."

      Must mean: We won't ask Professor Lamparello about his drugs and hookers memoir.

      http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/09/indiana-tech-law-prof-adam-lamparello.html

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    4. And we won't spell Pondscum's name with capital letters.

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  5. Anyone dumb enough to go to this dump will be by definition marginal. I bet a lot of these students simply disappear as the year goes on. Looks like its already happening. Down to 27 and its still October.

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    1. The big news has to come in January. How many skip out when they get worse grades than they ever imagined?

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  6. I assume that they had a torchlight ceremony before distributing their pins...

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    1. Great Ceremonies of Our Time

      3. Freemasons' Apron Ceremony

      2. Bachelorette Rose Ceremony

      1. Indiana Tech Law Oath Ceremony

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    2. I saw a great Jim Carrey fantasy movie yesterday. He'd be good in a comedy about Indiana Tech, perhaps as the dean or as adpc.

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  7. What percentage of the 27 (or however many are left after winter break) are going to be selected for law review?

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  8. The real test will be if they can somehow find 20 or more suckers to show up next year.

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    1. I agree.

      They found a few ignorant, repressed, desperate, overaged wannabe attorneys this year, but it takes years to get to that point. I think Indiana Tech has saturated its market--the Fort Wayne market for desperate rebound fantasies--after just one year.

      Next year offers no hope for the scammers.

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    2. Even prospective applicants to that dump are not so stupid, I should hope, to notice that filling only 30% of the spaces in the inaugural class is a very bad sign. There's a real chance that the school will be out of business before it can issue its first diplomas.

      Cooley and Valpo (horrible name, by the way) look attractive by comparison. At least they're unlikely to shut down the day after tomorrow. More's the pity.

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    3. (Sorry, I meant "not *too* stupid … to notice".)

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  9. "respecting boundaries" = don't ever ask any questions about your institution

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  10. All of this stems from a difference in perception as to what is wrong with the legal field. For all the recent graduates, I am sure they would say that what is wrong in the field is a lack of ethics and honesty by legal educational institutions (ie: law schools being allowed to publish misleading employment statistics with nothing more than a light slap on the wrist.) They also would say that the cost of legal education is too high and is a substantial barrier to entry into the field, particularly for individuals from low or middle income families.

    Of course, the deans don't wanted to be painted in such a light, because that would clash with how they see themselves and would force them to confront a not-so-pretty picture. So, to avoid that unpleasant reality, it is much simpler to believe the story to be a different one: the problem isn't that schools aren't accurately portraying reality (oh no, there are plenty of jobs!), it's that the recent graduates lack the moral values necessary to compete in this market and are motivated by greed.

    By believing this simple untruth, it allows the deans to avoid confronting the truth, which would require introspect and a painful change in the way things are done. When one believes that the problem is the honesty and integrity of the graduates (as opposed to one's own integrity and one's institution's integrity) the end result is actually believing, as Dean Alexander does, that the pin ceremony will actually change things. With the pin ceremony, things will get better, because Indiana will actually be creating a new type of graduate - one that actually doesn't exist right now - a law graduate with integrity who isn't focused on monetary compensation. This should be an insult to every current student and recent graduate as this reflects the belief of some, who, in order to avoid unpleasant introspection, find it much easier to believe that it's the moral values of the graduates that is the problem, not the values of the legal institutions who are responsible for instilling values in the professions newest members.

    And so the problem continues. In a few more years, we will still have a flooding of the market, except that instead of just mere normal graduates, we will have graduates with shiny pins who can't get jobs, who can't pay back their debt, and who certainly can't serve the general public because a shiny pin doesn't prevent one from incurring massive debt to become a lawyer.

    In short, the problem won't be solve, because few people actually want to solve it and those that do have little power to change it.

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    1. That's a very astute comment. Never forget the evasions and justifications in the minds of the scammers. Sure they're greedy and pretentious, but what they seek more than anything is comfort.

      They want to think they're good human beings who deserve success. They want to condemn some shadowy group out there, some group without ethics, whenever anything goes wrong for them. And they never, ever want to view in an honest way the consequences of their actions.

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  11. So a bunch of scammers actually got their victims to recite a promise to be ethical and to respectful towards them. Got them to actually compose the oath themselves. That's sick. Has to be a first.

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    1. You're a tru!y successfu! scammer when you can not on!y b!ame the victims with impunity, but actua!!y get the victims to b!ame themse!ves.

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  12. I'm dying to have this question answered:

    Did the deans and professors take the oath? Or was it just the students?

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    1. No, their oath was different: "We solemnly undertake to promote ourselves at others' expense, to secure permanent employment for ourselves, to run law schools for our exclusive benefit, to resist any change that would jeopardize our privileged position, and to disregard the interests of law students and of society."

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  13. What a fun post that was. There's no doubt that the opening of Indiana Tech has been a great bonding experience for the reform movement. If characters such as Peter, Adam, and andre didn't exist, I might have invented them on my own, just to make some very obvious points. But they do exist, and they're way, way stranger than fiction.

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  14. TTT2- The Valvolune Deans Strike Back

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  15. "We Shall Support and Have Compassion For Our . . . Faculty."

    Translation: don't come crying to the dean's office in three years when you have worse job prospects than a graduate of University of Phoenix.

    The whole oath is like a disclaimer at the end if an infomercial. I can imagine someone reading that at twice the normal speed, right after the half hour of utter lies about how great this toilet is.

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  16. I spoke to an Indiana Tech faculty member on Friday and he said 15 students.

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    1. is this true? if so, why hasn't this story been picked up? 15 students!

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  17. "So you would think that the innovations would have to be pretty astonishing, like maybe a pedagogical miracle machine capable of transforming any dim bulb law student into Clarence Darrow." lmao

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