Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Lawrence Sager: Pied Piper of NYU's Forgivable Loan Schemes

In a recent article by Texas Watchdog, it was revealed that former dean and current faculty member Lawrence Sager charged more than $400,000 over 4 years as law school dean to a credit card provided to him by the University of Texas Law School Foundation ("the Foundation"). Sager was eventually forced to resign after it was revealed that he gave himself a $500,000 forgivable loan from Foundation funds. By itself, this is unremarkable news. It's well known that law school professors and deans are shameless in their pursuit of money and other perks. But, I found it interesting that Sager came to UT by way of NYU Law.

This site has published articles about a similar scheme at NYU Law. Like an evil version of Amway, Sager seems to have franchised the forgivable loan scheme and brought it with him to Texas. Sager described it as a way to entice academics to come to Texas. It's not like UT Austin is Cooley. I'm sure many academics would jump at the chance to teach there. But no, what Sager meant is that he needed to attract academics from Harvard and Yale. Like Louis Vuitton bags, it doesn't matter if the academic is any good. Just that they have the right pedigree.

If you read the articles referenced above, Sager never once expresses any remorse for using the Foundation's funds to enrich himself and members of the UT faculty. A report from a deputy attorney general that lays out the scheme in full, ugly detail. At one point, Sager settled a lawsuit by a professor that threatened to expose the whole scam he and his cohorts were running. He regularly charged over $100,000 per year on a Foundation credit card. His predecessor only charged around $6000 per year to the card. Who footed the bill for Sager's folly? The taxpayers of the State of Texas and donors to the Foundation.

Sager has a sense of entitlement that shows how divorced he and most other members of the law school industrial complex are from reality. He says it's common practice to offer these types of loans as enticements. He also states that higher ups were fully aware of his own loan. Sager displayed nothing but extreme self-entitlement through that whole saga. His attitude was "Everyone does this. Why are you looking at me?" My jaw is still on the floor.

We need to keep spreading the word and preventing law school charlatans from continuing to believe that they deserve perks for being so special. The fact that Sager still has a job at UT Law shows how little accountability law professors and deans have to students. Law schools pound the need for lawyers to be ethical on one hand. On the other, professors and deans engage in cash grabs like summer stipends and forgivable loans. It is all made possible by student loan money. How is Sager's conduct ethical in the least? And what does it say that he still has a job at the institution that he essentially defrauded, 4 years after the fact? The foxes have full control of the hen house here.

When the money dries up, where will law professors and deans end up? Law professors do not have much value in the lateral market. Being an actual attorney requires brevity and the ability to make actual recommendations to clients. Law professors who spend their time writing 60 page law review articles about the effect that Justice Marshall's breakfasts had on the Marbury v. Madison decision don't have such skills. The law professor job market is all smoke and mirrors, propped up by the misery of millions of law graduates who were lured in under false pretenses. We need to keep hammering away until there is no money to effectuate schemes like Sager's. Law professors need to be shown what their true value to society is.

34 comments:

  1. I trust Professor Sager reported the forgiven loan as income and paid taxes on it.

    Clear case of COD income. And private benefit/inurement for the nonprofit.

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  2. My guess is he did not. Somebody should take these articles and send to his local criminal investigation division of the irs. They will look at his returns and if the income is not reported may begin an invetigation. Irs loves to prosecute bigwigs.

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  3. Boomer Law Deans gonna Boom.

    GenX and Millineals, on the other hand, need to get off their entitled, whiny, lazy asses and work for a living...! Go "network," and maybe move to an underserved area to make $35k on $200k worth of non-dischargeable loans. Sheesh. Do Boomers like Sager have to spell everything out for you...?

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    1. Wrong again, you boomer-baiting idiot. Sager was born in 1941.

      Although they're self-serving and absolutely wrong, law deans and professors can always salvage a fraction of their credibility by pointing to the laziness, ignorance, and prejudice that runs rampant on the scamblogs. Please don't give them that opportunity. It took me literally 5 seconds to learn that Sager is not a boomer.

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    2. In the OP's defense, Sager's Afro and his attitude were clearly born in 1962 - one of the latter years of the Baby Boom. [You can check the base of his skull where the artist has signed and date.]

      Quasi-legal theft and disregard of the consequences of such on the victims is the hallmark of the Baby Boom. Yes, Sager is a Boomer and Boomers gonna Boom.

      Fret, if you must, but remember, if you're a Boomer you're a dependent on the largess of subsequent generations. Be nice to us, or else! :)))

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    3. If boomers had to rely on you whiners we would all be in trouble.

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    4. I guess 1:59 is splitting hairs and trying to say that Sager is "Silent Generation," because we all know generational lines are rigidly set in stone by God Almighty Himself?

      According to Wikipedia (yes, I know), "While there were many civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Robert F. Kennedy and writers and artists like Gloria Steinem, Andy Warhol, Clint Eastwood, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Ray Charles, Jimi Hendrix and the Beat Generation, the "Silents" are called that because many focused on their careers rather than on activism, and people in it were largely encouraged to conform with social norms."

      Heh, Sager certainly "focused on [his] career rather than on activism," amirite? Sager certainly is no MLK, Malcom X, or JFK in any event.

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    5. @ 8:39 AM Oh, but you do, that's the way you decided to write your laws. Your pension and medical care come from the labor of subsequent generations as you failed to pay into them the amount you would take out of them.

      I guess Sager was just being self-reliant when he stole a half million dollars on behalf of himself, and then more from the University to settle sex discrimination pay claims that involved him doling out stolen loot to his 'OLD boys' network...

      So, that clenches it, theft is self-reliance to the Boomers.

      What's Sager been doing since he "retired"? Nothing. He had no skills or value once thrust into a FREE MARKET.

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    6. Spot on, 9:58. Young people are supposed to pay FICA and Medicare on the one hand, while their jobs are being reduced, outsourced, or otherwise killed by the retiring generation making the self-same demands on the other (making it quite difficult to pay the reqired said FICA and Medicare). No irony there, no sir. But per 8:39, "teh young peoplez are whiney luzer bratz, ha ha ha!!11111!!1"

      I had a Boomer Law Prof who was this crazy, eccentric guy who got to do a lot of cool things and had a sweet career, frankly. In spite of that he read the same notes for thirty years to as many law school classes, and it was a well-known joke. The outline for the class was legendary. He was even in on it, and laughed at the irony of being paid huge sums to teach three hours a week from thrity-year old material. Straight from the horses' mouth!

      When he passed recently, my first thought was "damn, that's how you play the game. Get in early, live a sweet life, get out before it all collapses, leave everybody else with the tab. Buy low, sell high, all to the nines."

      Good luck, everybody.

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    7. the whiniest generation ever. Compare and contrast your generation to the great generation. Incredible we could fall restpride so fast. Thankfully, there are some still among your generation who are not self victims and who have pride in themselves and their work. But not many.

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    8. @ 6:10 AM You've gone off-topic and are speaking self-refuting gibberish.

      Between the Great Generation - of which you and no Boomer is a member - and those born in the 1980s-1990s, the mantel of the vote and policy-making fell to Boomers.

      There's an 18-year lag between birth and political participation, in case that is a fact not known to you. The youngest millennial turns 18 this year.

      And what have the Boomers wrought?

      A nation that is quite literally worse than broke, thanks in no small part to the vast expansion of New Deal entitlement programs. $18 trillion in debt, engaging in 'unconventional' monetary policy to stay afloat, rife with fascist corporate-private sector alliances that bleed the economy and the ordinary person dry.

      A fiasco, the microcosm of which is higher education.

      Oh btw, surprise, the Department of Education ran $21.8 billion in the red last year!

      But, I do not envy Boomers. The young can survive better than the old in times of scarcity. Good luck, Old Man.

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    9. the Boomers are a generation filled with the greedy and the narcissistic. The Millennials are a generation filled with whiners, malcontents, and victims. Which generation would I rather have been a member of? Gee, that is a tough one.

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    10. The boomers—and, yes, the Silent Generation—have eaten the seed corn of the subsequent generations, most notably Generation X (into which I had the misfortune of being born).

      A professor of mine in law school, herself born at the tail end of the baby boom, confided that she hated every damn one of the baby boomers. I fully concur. Incidentally, even though she has tenure, she thinks that she may end up working at a mindless retail job. And this is at an élite law school.

      Old Guy

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    11. A professor of law hates "every damn one of the boomers". Sounds like just the type of person to be a law professor . . . irrational and possibly mentally ill.

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  4. Amway is an evil version of Amway, but whatever.

    Amway is in many ways similar to the law school scam. Although law schools would not qualify as pyramid schemes (at least not yet) the basic premise is the same. Lure naive people into a trap by holding out images of wealth and success, then get them to start funneling their money to you. (For the unenlightened, an Amway distributor can sell something and not only receive no profit but actually go out-of-pocket on the deal.) The people at the top get rich, the people at the bottom piss away the kids' college money in the hope of far greater riches. At least no sane banker would ever give a loan to finance an Amway distributorship, although I'd imagine many people have taken out second mortgages to do just that.

    It is also interesting that Amway promotional materials feature "successful" distributors just like law school admissions materials feature current students chirping about their bright futures.

    Both scams depend on the same thing, a steady supply of lemmings.

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    1. "Amway is an evil version of Amway, but whatever."

      My poor aunt tried to work the Amway system for years, and eventually my dad quit buying stuff from her. I live in a subculture with lots and lots of MLM activity, and I really feel sorry for anyone who tries to make money that way.

      Success in Amway is measured not by how much you sell, but by how much you order from the company, supposedly to resell. If you order enough stuff and dump it in the nearest sewer, you're a superstar as far as they're concerned. Lots of people go into further debt as they try to rise up the ladder and eventually make money from their own downline. It's so much like becoming a law professor that I'm surprised it's even legal.

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  5. This graft happens in the private sector all the time. The difference here is that UT is a public money recipient institution, beholden to a concept of appropriate use of funds and this is also a non-profit college. At financial institutions you see the same B.S., "We need XX million dollar compensations to draw the best talent." Lol, like a doctor or lawyer doesn't work X amount of hours per week??

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  6. "It's not like UT Austin is Cooley. I'm sure many academics would jump at the chance to teach there."

    But not Brian Leiter!! Always too good for what he's currently doing, Leiter jumped at the chance to leave UT Austin. He was so desperate, in fact, that he gave up his position as a professor of philosophy. Given the shock and outrage at his thuggish behavior towards actual philosophy professors, it's a position that will remain forever outside his reach.

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  7. What an "honorable profession," huh?!?!

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    1. Someone should compile the list.

      I found out that a major source of funding for my law alma mater - located in a downtown major metropolis - is parking fees. Only trouble is the funds to build the structure were stolen by a prior dean from state-given funds earmarked for student scholarships.

      When this was uncovered, the dean was forcibly demoted to law professor! The school then had to come up with funds to replace those stolen...which it did...by raising tuition.

      I do not know why exactly, but the whole enterprise is filled with conscienceless people. I guess one gets ahead by being willing to do ANYTHING for money.

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  8. But I thought the conventional wisdom among you all was highly ranked schools = good, anything else = "toilet." So now you're complaining about things schools do to play the prestige game well?

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    1. What in the heck does the first sentence have to do with the second?

      It's better for applicants to go to highly ranked schools, so highly ranked schools can engage in shenanigans with impunity? What is malfunctioning in your head to make you think this?

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    2. That was more or less the conventional wisdom a few years ago (the difference being that the conventional wisdom has never focused on rankings). Today the number of non-toilets can be counted on the fingers of three hands, and possibly just one. Even Harvard and Yale are questionable propositions for anyone who can't pay the bill in cash.

      Old Guy

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  9. Competent governance would have prevented at least the "loan". Never should Sager have been able to lend himself funds from the law skule's coffers—particularly on a "forgivable" basis.

    Old Guy

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  10. I looked at Sager's CV that is on the UT-Austin website. He's never held any sort of non-academic job; he began teaching at UCLA the same year he graduated from law school, and he's been a law "professor" ever since. I can't help but wonder if that accounts for his unethical behavior, his utter lack of remorse, and his shocking sense of entitlement. He has spent his entire life in legal academia, exploiting students and churning out worthless "scholarship." In his world, the rules that constrain ordinary people don't apply, and it is not viewed as improper for people who make a negligible contribution to society to receive outrageous financial compensation.

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  12. Dr Ray Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.

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  13. He does not list any bar affiliation or membership on his CV. All law professors should be required to take the bar exam, obtain a law license and become a member of the bar in the state where they teach. When their conduct runs afoul of the professional and ethical conduct required of practicing attorneys, there should be an investigation by the bar and if found to be in violation, they should lose their law license thereby making them ineligible to teach.

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    1. Excellent suggestion, but that would get in the way of fleecing trust funds, students, and taxpayers. According to Sager, we should all go back to sleep, now, and let the watchmen watch themselves.

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    2. I got a question: How come these types of loans are forgivable for the 1% law profs and their ilk while loans for struggling, life-indebted 99% JD graduates are not?

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    3. Excellent question. Now if there are no more questions, class is dismissed.

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  14. And the thing is spending all this money to lure "top talent" didn't even improve the profitability of the school. Most prospective students don't care who the professors are. Even the impact on UNS ratings would be minimal. This was purely for the sake of the professor's prestige, so they could boast to each other they had the trendiest young academics from Harvard or whereever.

    This is the Bennett Hypothesis in action. Colleges will find ways to spend every bit of money they can get their hands on, even if they have to completely waste it on stupid crap.

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    1. No student or employer gives a rat's ass about so-called "top talent" measured only by subjective impressions of pedigree and unread, illegible hackademic articles in law reviews. "Top talent" is just an excuse for funneling money off to yet another satin-breeched shitheel from Philips Andover and Princeton.

      Old Guy

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    2. It ain't just the colleges. Many years ago, here in my small New England town, I was asked to moderate a public forum on the municipal budget. Someone asked about the need for the business manager they had hired for the local school system at $50,000.00 a year. A Board of Education member, who was a union thug public school teacher in a neighboring town, said "The business manager paid for himself." When asked to explain how, he said that the business manager had found $50,000.00 that they hadn't spent and they managed to get it all spent before the end of the fiscal year when it would have reverted back to the town's general fund.

      That is the mindset of "educators."

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