The board of Golden Gate Univershitty recently voted to keep the über-toilet law school open for another year, at least.
The über-toilet pledges "to ensure at a minimum that all currently enrolled and entering students will continue to receive their scholarships and be able to receive an ABA-accredited degree". That sounds like an intention to shut up shop. Why else refer to "currently enrolled and entering students"? The faculty have already been warned that layoffs may be in store. Those with brains would have figured that out long ago: a school with major financial problems, trifling revenue, and a rapidly shrinking student body cannot sustain a bloated staff of scam-professors.
ABA accreditation is not within Golden Gate's control. In 2021, the über-toilet was found to be out of compliance with the ABA's low standard for passing the bar exam: at least 75% of those graduates who take a bar exam must pass one within two years, yet at Golden Gate the rate in 2019 was 67%. The ABA notoriously hands out exceptions like breath mints, to the point that its "standards" lose their meaning. Old Guy expects that the ABA will give Golden Gate the usual dispensation if necessary—unless the ABA needs to appear principled and decisive for a change, in which case it may well crack down on this über-toilet, which is headed for closure anyway.
Golden Gate had to bribe its new full-time students, one and all, with free tuition, even while being desperately short of money. Plans to raise operating funds by selling some land in downtown San Francisco failed when prices declined sharply.
The university refused to state the number of students, but the head of the Student Bar Association reported "about 200". That's about 70 per class, which isn't very many: Old Guy has previously estimated a minimum of 75 per year for the long-term survival of a law school.
Since the parent institution "has been fighting to stay afloat in recent years", the last thing that it needs is a money-losing über-toilet law school. Perhaps it would gladly shut the law school down today if not for potential liability. The ABA requires a "teach-out plan" of any law school that intends to close down: this serves to keep the students from being left high and dry in a sudden closure. Über-toilets such as Charlotte and Arizona Summit have suddenly bolted the doors, but they had no parent institution that needed to worry about survival and possible litigation.
Take this bit of news as a shameful admission by Golden Gate that its über-toilet law school will soon join the ranks of Indiana Tech, Valpo, and the InfiLaw trio. Any bets on the next school to close?
Kind of a pitty since it's a really old school like Valpo was if I recall correctly.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should sign up some of the fentanyl enthusiasts camping outside the building.....
ReplyDeleteIf NorCal students don’t
ReplyDeleteHave a law school that will accept them, they can come to the new law school on Maui/Hawaii. We’d gladly accept their applications.
What? If you can't get into law school in California, you're not going to know Hawaii exists.
DeleteIndeed. The last time I counted, there were about 65 law schools in California, including state-accredited and unaccredited ones. California is noted for über-toiletry, and indeed several of its law schools have shut up shop in recent years. The idea that hundreds of people who can't get into any Californian über-toilet will rush off to a bullshit "new law school" in Hawai‘i that doesn't even exist is downright risible.
DeleteWait a second-this is the best solution. Submit a fantasy application for admission to a law school that doesn't exist. Good way to save on those pesky and all too real loans.
DeleteYeah, the funny thing is that "ensuring current students can finish" is pretty much exactly what would happen if they actually were losing accreditation. It's called a "teach out" and usually the ABA lets them either adopt a "last one out turn off the lights" rule and/or other law schools agree to absorb the people who haven't yet finished.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that in either case, such an "opportunity" is actually the WORST thing for students, who should absolutely decline such offers because if they finish up or enroll elsewhere in the same course of study, they lose the right to get a "closed school discharge" which would wipe all the loans they took out to that point. It's a chance for a genuine mulligan most people could only dream of.
But whatever. Point is, it's an odd statement to make because it's the same statement you would make if the ABA actually were shutting you down.
Time and time again we've seen students clamor for the chance to finish their Mickey Mouse degrees rather than walking away from the dreadful mistake because the school went tits up. And when a school does go tits up without a "teach-out" plan, as did Indiana Tech and Charlotte, students flock to other über-toilets rather than seizing the opportunity to wipe their ill-advised debt away.
DeleteMany of these students come into law school with pre-existing student debt from college. By attending law school, they can put off all repayment until graduation--in other words, instead of working for Wal Mart, living with mom and dad, and trying to repay the student debt they took out for their Philosophy degree, they can live large for three more years on even more student loans at law school! If you look at the Law School Reddit, they babble about the social scene at their law school, actual prom-style dances at law school, and how they don't plan to repay their loans post graduation. So yeah, they're going to hang on for the whole 3Y, and some will get an MBA or another graduate degree after law school to continue to avoid their loans, avoid the workplace, and keep the party going for a few more years.
DeleteAbsolutely right, OG. It's probably a combination of four factors: Societal bias against dropping out, failure to make people aware of closed school discharges, not knowing what else they'd do, and unfortunately the fourth factor: The low-information students the really bad schools enroll to begin with. They don't tend to do their due diligence or really research their options because if they did, they wouldn't have been at the closing uber toilet in the first place.
DeleteThat really just means they need outreach all the more. Every time a law school is closing, someone should stand across the street with a a bunch of pamphlets about closed school discharge and the dismal employment numbers and a sandwich board saying "Before you transfer or stay for teach out, read this!"
But, 2:14, can they read? Often they're so pig-headed that there's just no getting through to them.
Deletelol I'm not naive. I suspect it still wouldn't reach a majority of them, or perhaps even a sizeable minority. But if you get even one, that's a life saved. And for the rest, still a noble endeavor which is the premise I like to think blogs like this exist for.
DeleteIt's like a doctor with a patient that won't stop smoking. They tell 'em to quit, they offer 'em resources to help, but even if they don't quit, they don't give up - ideally they still talk about it every visit. And when they come back with cancer they don't just say "I told you so" and wash their hands of it - they treat that too.
So. Tell the people not to go. When they go anyway, tell 'em to drop out unless they get a biglaw summer associate offer at the beginning of 2L year. And when they ignore all of that and come back with 200k debt and no job, make sure they know how to enroll in income based "repayment" (which is often no payment at all if poor enough).
If Golden Gate pledged to close the school after all of the current enrolled and entering students have gone through the pipeline, I would not be against a dispensation from ABA standards for humanitarian reasons.
ReplyDeleteLooks like market factors that this blog have helped produce seem to be taking an effect: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lawyertalk/comments/155tppd/attorney_shortage/ the scam isn't over but 2003 era scammers can't make it work at the same rate anymore.
ReplyDeleteCan you post the text? I went to the link but couldn't find anything relevant to the scam, and its change from 2003 to date.
ReplyDeleteJust how they are running out of suckers for shitlaw because people are more aware now which is finally driving up wages.
DeleteAt the risk of repeating myself, here is how I see the problem. You have lazy kids who spent 4 years partying and living large at college, backed by student loans, awarded high grades they didn't deserve due to grade inflation. When they graduate, the party ends and they move back home with mom and dad, working at Wal Mart with their Philosophy degree, or Film degree, or whatever, and their student loans come due. Presto--go to law school, and all those loans are deferred for three years, in fact while they take out even more debt and again live large, avoid the workplace, and avoid debt repayment for three more years! Sounds great, so off they go, goodbye crummy job at Wal Mart, goodbye to living in Mom's basement, let the good times roll! Thinking that lazy people like that are smart and savvy enough to understand the modern workplace is like trying to teach your dog calculus.
DeleteRight on, 9:17. Of course, they could also avoid repayment by simply signing up for income based repayment. Threshold for zero payment is going up to 225% of poverty line and the amount of the payment is going down to 5% of income over that under the new SAVE plan, so you can bet a lot of these people with wal mart type jobs could easily end up with no or a very nominal payment without needing to hide out in a deferral.
DeleteBut, as you said, that wouldn't provide them with more student loan monopoly money with which to pay rent in whatever (usually super desirable) location the uber toilet law school has chosen to plop itself in. And I know of no other degree that SEEMS so "practical" to parents and whatnot, and yet has NO prerequisites or experience requirements, making it perfect to apply for with a degree in underwater basket weaving.
That's the most fundamental siren song of the law school scam: Loans pay your rent for 3 years in a fun major city while you study big important cases that make your parents proud AND you don't need anything in terms of undergraduate or work experience preparation to get in. And as if all that wasn't awesome enough, there's only one test per class, per semester (except LRW)! So no homework other than legal writing class plus what you put on yourself to try and rank highly or get on journals/moot court or avoid getting yelled at if you happen to get an old school cold-calling professor (though these are getting more rare).
Who cares about the employment outcomes when you can get a 3 year vacation that both makes your parents THINK you're doing something practical AND which you can pay for with "loans" that aren't really loans at all thanks to income based repayment and unlimited borrowing under GradPLUS!
St Thomas SOL closed their race and social justice department due to lack of funds. Maybe a sign of things to come?
ReplyDeletehttps://sahanjournal.com/education/artika-tyner-leaves-center-race-st-thomas-school-law-minnesota/
So much for that all-important commitment to "diversity".
DeleteWell, shutting down not just law school programs but entire law schools actually helps minorities since many of the toilet schools shamelessly target minorities with false hope and saddles them with non-dischargable loans and no job prospects
DeleteI really enjoy reading this blog and I think that you are doing a great service exposing the law school scam. However, I have noticed that in recent years the narrative around law school has changed and has become more positive. I am now seeing a lot of comments online about how law is a great profession and if you stick with it you will make good or even great money. I feel like I am back in the years before the Great Recession when going to law school was all the rage.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else noticed this trend? I see people claim that it is because the Millennials are reaching mid-career and are no longer broke youngsters so they are positive about their work situation. Also, I see a lot of stuff about how the Boomers retiring is opening up more and more good jobs for young attorneys.
I am wondering what people make of this new, positive narrative that I am seeing. Thank you.
We of Generation X have heard that old line "the Boomers are about to retire" for years and years. Many of us are ourselves not too many years from the traditional age of retirement, and starting a career at this late date is unrealistic, even if the Boomers do finally shift their selfish asses and, improbably, positions are made available for us (they tend to go to the millennials instead). Old Guy is of the well-substantiated view that Generation X has been royally fucked.
DeleteSay what? Law is worse than it's ever been. A law degree is a disastrous investment. You must work for a law school.
DeleteYes, exactly. A JD is now a "scarlet letter" that many people remove from their resume because it hinders their job search. At most modern US law schools today, an awful lot of gullible people are taking a three-year vacation from the workplace, and avoiding having to repay student loans, often carried over from undergrad, until they graduate. In fact, using their law school loans for "living expenses". . .something the rest of us have to work jobs for. . .many of them are having a good time! It is kind of hard to feel sorry for them, afterward, when they are unemployed, largely unemployable, and struggling with "Income Based Repayment" to avoid repaying their student loans. There's a sucker born every minute, and law schools love catering to suckers, and squeezing them dry of sweet student-loan dollars.
DeleteReally growing tired of "Boomer Bashing." They constitute a really large group...that's the "Boomer" part. Not having been run through a blender and homogenized-well, I remain unique.
DeleteHaving 45 years of solo practice under my belt, well, I still work to pay off the tuition debt of my kids, all of whom got degrees in much better lines of work than the law. (One's starting salary was 5 times my income after 40 years of practice. Medicine.)
My bar association annually honors those who have 50 years of active practice. Andy why do they have 50 years of active practice?
Because they could never make enough money to survive in retirement.
So they continue to work.
Most lawyers not in big law or government have no pensions. Retirement is funded by Social Security and savings. "Savings" means otherwise disposable income that could have been spent on vacations, etc., but, if prudent, was packed away on the "rainy day" theory. And they never had "benefits." So, had to pay those out of pocket at usually the highest rates.
The structure of FAFSA is interesting. Two wage earners, one self-employed and one working corporate with benefits, earning $100,000 have their incomes equated. That the self-employed has to purchase benefits from their $100,000, while the other has benefits in addition to salary. Yet to FAFSA both earn the same. My health insurance cost for 3 healthy individuals was $26,000 a year, checks out the door. With deductibles, no insurance contribution until I had spent $41,000. Then 80/20.
No one should go to law school.
With 45 years of equity and thousands of clients, I've had firms tell me they'd love to have my practice but would not pay anything for it.
My offer was that I'd provide all the lists, files, do all the accounting, meet with the firm and client for a hand-off, store all the files, for 15% of the fees actually collected for 5 years-after that 100% to the firm. No money in hand, no cost. Declined.
Those folks are likely from your generation, Old Guy.
Second best refusal of an offer I've ever had. In the last 4 months, I've brought in more working part time than I projected I'd make in 2 years under my offer.
Just an Old, Old Boomer, still standing on the field.
I guess I just have to make one more comment. Old Guy, your comments for years have been an academic adventure. You allude to things I have not heard of (library of over 2,000 volumes). Not sure that any commentator, anywhere (national news...) is anywhere close to your perceptiveness. But "Boomers...selfish asses..." is just so beneath your skills.
DeleteAn interesting data point in support of what you said, OG, and it has to do with when people start cashing in social security: https://crr.bc.edu/changing-social-security-whos-affected.
DeleteYou see, anyone can cash in as early as 62, but doing so comes with a hefty cut to your benefits. A full 30%, in fact, if you were born 1960 and later when the "full" retirement age is 67.
So all these policy wonks suggesting that the way to fix social security is to raise the retirement age are missing how regressive an intervention this is, because people in manual labor occupations often simply cannot keep working as long as their paper-pushing counterparts. The people who need it the most are the ones whose ox gets gored raising that age, while people with nice sedentary jobs (which tend to pay more) can just happily go right on working because they have that choice.
Boomer lawyers have no reason they can't keep working no matter how physically frail as long as they remain of sound mind, and indeed social security does the opposite (gives you a bonus) for delaying collecting up to age 70. That bonus can be as much as 24% (8 percent per year times three years between 67 and 70). And not only will that sedentary workforce be better able to delay like this, they are also likely to live longer which is what makes the bonus worth it (obviously no reason to care about a 24% bump in benefits if you don't live long enough to recoup the years you delayed).
So, retire at 62 for a 30% cut, retire at 67 for normal benefit, or delay to age 70 for a 24% bonus. Who picks what correlates very well with the level of physical exertion their career involved, so it's no surprise we see boomer lawyers regularly working into their 70s. And even if they didn't, the law schools have certainly not failed to pump out way more than enough to replace them several times over.
Thanks, 12:59. Indeed, that comment of mine about selfish Boomers wasn't the height of sophistication. But I maintain that it was on the mark. The Baby Boomers profited richly from circumstance—and haven't shared their good fortune at all.
DeleteWhat I said about jobs is true. The Baby Boomers happened to have come of age in a time of prosperity—one that, as I mentioned here a year or two ago, is known in French as les trente glorieuses 'the thirty glorious years' (1945–1974). Well-paying jobs abounded, even for people who had dropped out of high school. Generation X certainly hasn't had an abundance of well-paying jobs: good blue-collar work dried up from 1980 onwards, and there wasn't enough white-collar work to go around (especially when everyone and her pet ferret had a degree or four). And despite profiting from high wages, cheap universities, the housing boom of the 1970s, and government policies that favored them at the expense of others, the Boomers generally didn't save money, so now they're still occupying jobs that in other times would have gone to their juniors. It is a fact that Generation X is the first generation in more than 200 years to be worse off financially than the one before it.
Someone just mentioned Social Security. Part of the reason for the rise in the age of eligibility and the shortfall in funding is that the Boomers and the Silent Generation have been getting far more than they deserve. Anyone should be able to foresee problems that may arise in a system that takes money from today's workers and gives it to today's retirees. Well, those problems have indeed come to pass. Politically it is expedient to overpay the people currently drawing Social Security (or about to draw it)—but overpaying people today means taking from those who will come tomorrow. We of Generation X and subsequent generations pay for the inflated benefits that go to today's retirees but won't get what we have paid for.
It would be foolish to suggest that the Boomers conspired to eat everyone else's seed corn. But eat it they did, and still do—not through conspiracy, but because circumstances happened to favor them. Someone calculated that the best year to be born was 1938: one missed almost all of the Great Depression, didn't suffer much hardship from World War II, grew up in a booming post-war economic period, was too old to be drawn into genocidal US military adventures in Korea and Vietnam, enjoyed pensions…
Is it fair to say that no one should go to law school? Not quite. Rich kids should feel free to go to law school. Everyone else would be wise to stay away.
DeleteI still maintain that it's either rich kids, or it's "top 14 or bust." Granted that may not be perfect, as there are some people who still don't do well out of the top 14. But it captures the majority of the issue and is easy to explain: There are only 14 law schools worth attending for most people and if you can't get into any of them, don't go unless you won't be taking on any debt and are already lined up to inherit daddy's very successful practice or something like that.
DeleteAs to social security, the first thing that needs to be done is to eliminate the earnings cap. Right now, annual earnings above something like 160k are not subject to social security taxes. CBO estimates that even a more modest solution (keeping the cap for the income between 160 and 250 and eliminating it for the portion of your income above 250) would keep the trust fund solvent through 2046, and if you eliminated entirely and also added a social security tax to nonwage income like dividends then that would probably keep it solvent indefinitely. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-benefits-tax-cap-2023/
It really is a problem that can be fixed by taxing the rich, because as the CBO says, the way the social security tax is currently implemented simply is a regressive tax, which flies in the face of our otherwise mostly progressive income tax system.
Off-topic I know, but I don't think the concept of current earners paying the benefits of current pensioners is necessarily flawed fundamentally; it just means that taxes on high-earners have to go up in times when there are more beneficiaries relative to the number of people paying in.
They didn't completely ignore this problem, they just assumed it would be cyclical. It's why the trust fund exists: Build it up when birth rates are high, and draw it down when they are low. But when the "too many beneficiaries" problem persists too long, you eventually have to either (1) reduce the expenses or (2) increase the revenue.
Raising the retirement age goes straight to #1, but why do that (and disproportionately hurt blue collar people who can't work as old) when the ways to do #2 are so obvious? Just tax income above the cap and add a tax to passive income. That's all it'd take.
I was a "contract attorney" at a debt collection mill firm - that is, expendable temp labor sent to hearings the seniors didn't want to bother with - and the number of Boomer lawyers who were broke and faking normal was astonishing. Guys with 30 years experience getting sued for credit card debt, car loans, in foreclosure, penniless, getting divorced, and filing bankruptcy just like the "uneducated deadbeats." They'd file massive pleadings that obfuscated the points of the cases, they'd flash fire and smoke, but in the end, most lost everything.
Delete5:01-I was a new ADA(but not a new attorney) so I was often stuck in docket when nobody else would cover. In our jd the morning was for the PD docket; usually guys in jail, very heavy docket. The afternoon was set for private counsel-defendants not in jail(usually), not as heavy.
DeleteFor the afternoon, we'd occasionally get a big ticket defense counsel, but this was rare. Mostly it was boomer age attorneys...and they were not an impressive bunch. Haggard, poorly dressed, many had clearly been drinking since who knows when-lunch? yesterday? to the point they had to be introduced by me to their client. I had several who had asked for postponements, but literally couldn't string together enough words to explain to the judge why.
Often, I acted as both ADA and DC because hired counsel had no clue what they were doing, having to explain to the defendants their rights, etc.
So some boomer attorneys have done well but others were living the life described by 5:01. It made me realize that even as an older brand-new ADA, I'd better keep my government job.
The condemnation of "selfish Boomers" is more than a little wrong. Yes, the Silent Generation had it good, economically, in the years after WWII.
ReplyDeleteBut the Baby Boom is recognized to be from 1946-1964; that's a lot of territory, especially for those at the tail end of the boom. Again, the initial lot had it good, but things got very tough for the later end. As an example-and as OG points out-the jobs in industry upon which so many relied? Those jobs disappeared in the early '80s.
And law school was a well-established scam by the early 1980s. For many, it was a colossal mistake, with fanciful dreams of full employment for all grads in jobs paying six figures. The difference? It was CHEAP-but this changed as the 80s rolled on, with obscene yearly increases the norm by 1990.
I'm technically a Boomer, having attended law school in the mid-80s. Yes, things were different; law firms hadn't yet consolidated into mega national and international conglomerations. This was important, because at the State U I attended, it was possible for top grads to get federal clerkships and get jobs at the local version of BigLaw(generally a firm with less than 250 attorneys, founded a century ago, which was politically connected, etc etc). But only the top 10% actually had that opportunity.
The rest of us? Well, the lying never stopped(and yes, even State law schools participated-the U of Illinois law school scandal is a perfect example). Back in the 80s was before the ABA standards, as poor as they are, were adopted. And why were these standards adopted? Because our law schools-even state law schools-lied to applicants. Yes, every grad got a job paying $100K/year-and this was back in the 80s when 100K was real money...
The reality-yes, the top 10% of my State U got clerkships/biglaw but the rest of us scrambled, really scrambled. It got to the point by second semester 3L at least 50% of the class was in a perpetual state of shock. We didn't have jobs and nobody even wanted to interview us for the high-paying jobs so frequently discussed: there didn't seem to be any jobs in government, either, or in "small law" or anywhere and the inappropriately named "placement office" didn't care, as it existed only to get the top 10% jobs.
Put simply, we were in shock because we couldn't believe that we had been lied to by people in authority. Specifically, the deans/admin/profs at our law school. And it didn't get better by graduation; I would estimate that close to 50% of our class was unable to find a job by graduation.
But those statistics weren't kept, much less shared with anybody. It wasn't until the lying got so rampant and so indefensible that anybody at the ABA cared, and change only occurred because the press had gotten so bad.
So let's hold off on the universal "old Boomers are bad" accusation. A lot of these boomers are still working because they can't retire because they don't have a retirement-there's no money.
The Law School Scam has been around a lot longer than many want to admit.
How many law schools were in the state where you matriculated? Was that state's population sufficient to support that number of law schools? Here is the thing: law school is definitely a scam, and that has been the case for decades. That said, some states have an absurd number of law schools, and people need to take that into consideration when deciding whether or not to attend one of them. Pennsylvania, for example, has 10 ABA accredited law schools. Realistically, the state cannot provide reliable full employment to the graduating class of one law school each year. So if one is foolish enough to go to one of 10 law schools in 1 state and then pretend to be surprised when they can't find a job there afterwards, whose fault is that?
ReplyDeleteDamn, to think how much the Deans of all these law schools were outright lying about job outlooks or the very least were giving misleading information to prospective students. Yet they demand full transparency from their students who apply and preach the virtue of ethics. By their own double standards they would be tarred and feathered
DeleteBefore assigning "fault" did you bother to read the post? Times were different-no internet, no blogs, just a lot of lies from people in positions of authority.
ReplyDeleteOK. Well, first of all, I too attended law school in a similar time frame to you. I started law school in the early 90's and graduated in the mid 90's. I too was told that everyone would start making 100K, and that was one of the first things I realized I was lied to about after starting law school. Upperclassmen told the 1L's that if they thought Assistant Public Defender's, prosecutors, small firm lawyers etc. made over 100K we were out of our minds. At my school, just like yours, only the top 10 percent of the class got interviews for those jobs, and the Career Services Office catered to them, helping precisely the people who didn't need help secure employment. All of that said, I went to the better of two law schools, in a state with only two law schools and a population of over 6 millions people. Respectfully, one did not need the internet to know how many law schools were in the state you chose to attend law school in, or what the rough population of the state was. When I graduated, from the best law school in the state, I only had to compete for work with one other graduating class of lawyers, from a much lower-ranked school. Literally everyone I knew who passed the Bar Exam and was serious got a job practicing law without much difficulty or time. I did not know one solitary person who graduated from that school, in that time frame, the mid 1990's, passed the bar and was not swiftly employed as a lawyer. Not one. For example, the Public Defender's Office would hire just about anyone in those days. There were jobs at large law firms, small law firms, mid sized law firms, prosecutor's offices, County Attorney Offices, you name it. In addition, paid internships were the norm in those days at law school, so you knew that if people were willing to pay law students to work--even law students with no journal and crummy grades--you knew there were jobs available post-graduation. Now, if you chose to go to law school in a state that had 5-10 law schools, and did not have the population to support those graduates, that decision is on your shoulders. There are lots of gullible people out there attending law school in Pennsylvania as I type this, and they know perfectly well that there are 10 law schools in their state. If they are foolish enough to convince themselves that the state has enough jobs for 10 graduating classes of law students, probably over 1,000 new lawyers every 12 months, that that is on them, and I have no sympthaty for them.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I am trying to say, when it comes to law schools lying to applicants and students: if a store sells penny candy for $10.00 a piece, and you spend $100 on 10 cents worth of candy, whose fault is that? You can certainly say that the store is ripping people off and taking advantage of them, and may even be involved in deceptive sales practices. . ..and you may well be correct--but if you choose to spend $100 on 10 cents worth of candy, whose fault is that? If you drive your car into a crime ridden neighborhood, and leave it unlocked with the keys in the ignition, who is at fault when your car gets stolen? If you go to a law school in a state with 5-10 law schools, that cannot possibly provide jobs to even half of those graduates, whose fault is that?
ReplyDeleteThere were two law schools in my state also, and in the mid 80s it had a population of 4.5 million. I know that because I looked it up on the internet, something that didn't exist in the 80s. I attended the "better" law school.
ReplyDelete12:44, clearly, the 90s were different from the 80s. During 3L second semester, my law school held a risibly named "job fair" and in addition to the usual suspects, both the state public defender office(state office with county sub-offices) and several of the SA offices had desks.
Went to PD desk; guy refused to take my resume. Literally wouldn't take it-and not just mine,anybody's. He said they had zero jobs, and a huge list of applicants already. I asked him why he was there; he told me his boss required him to show up, as his boss had told the law school he'd be there.
Same exact result for the SA offices-wouldn't even take a resume, for the same reason.
So different states are different, and maybe the 80s were a lot different from the 90s, but your experience was not my experience. We had a ton of people unemployed at graduation, which made for some very, very awkward conversations. The most dreaded question "What are you doing after graduation"?
And 12:47-your analogy makes zero sense and ignores the facts. And the facts were simple: the law schools literally lied about salary and job prospects and there were next to zero objective sources of data against which to compare the lies. After all, would a law school dean lie about something like that? Well, yes he would and did.
It is fascinating, though, how those who did not live the experience are so quick to discount it, dismiss it, or decide the "fault" lies with the persons lied to.