Infilaw: A New JDHOPE

Those were NOT the Law Schools I was looking for...

 

UPDATE (10/11/2013):  Paul Campos was kind enough to provide some clarification - JDHOPE27 was admitted to the AAMPLE programs at the Infilaw schools.  While this does not change the basic argument here, in an effort to be as factually correct as possible I make this amendment here.  Discussion on the AAMPLE program can be found here.
 

Much has been said about the Infilaw system already.  In short, it represents a possible "future," of sorts, for the law school education industry: as enrollment declines due to skyrocketing costs and grim prospects, organizations like Infilaw swoop in to consolidate individual schools into its member consortium (currently three, possibly four very soon).  Presumably they all gain access to shared resources and management, which in turn makes them more efficient and effective in their mission, or something.  I'm not entirely certain about the so-called benefits.
 

What is disturbing about Infilaw is that it is a for-profit enterprise, as detailed in the links above.  Not "for-profit" in the standard public/private law school way (as in "no, really, we're non-profit, see, really, just ignore the fact that we pay ourselves outrageous salaries and are exempt from income taxes and build new, giant buildings to attract new students and pay tithes to the larger university"), but "for-profit" as in "no, seriously, we're here to generate shareholder value, damn the student outcomes" sort of way.  While some for-profit schools in other disciplines have been vilified for charging high tuition and leaving their graduates with few to no prospects, nothing quite approaches the debt load of law school, for-profit or not.
 

Exhibit A of this brave, new world would be the case of JDHOPE27, which was brought up by a commenter previously and was, in my opinion, worthy of a separate post.   
 

A huge disclaimer up front: I'm not knocking JDHOPE27.  When looking at his background he appears to be a non-trad, which if anything only makes me more sympathetic to his plight, as I too, once, was in similar shoes.  I wish him and others like him nothing but the best.  But, he does serve as an example as to what Infilaw is all about.  Below is a screen capture from Law School Numbers, as I wanted to preserve this particular case should anything be changed or deleted post October 1 2013.

 

 

 

My point is a simple one: note that JDHOPE27 applied to twelve law schools.  His acceptances came from Florida Coastal, Phoenix, and Charlotte.  For those keeping score at home, these are the three Infilaw-affiliated law schools.  If you observe the profile for yourself, you will find that JDHOPE27 is now attending Charlotte School of Law.
 

There is really no way to comment on this further without it sounding like I am taking a swipe at JDHOPE27, which is not my purpose here.  I am, however, taking a swipe at Infilaw, in that the "non-profit" sector clearly made one decision, while the "for-profit" sector clearly made another.
 

If JDHOPE27 graduates, I hope he or she makes the best damn lawyer possible.  At the same time, 0Ls, beware.  As fewer and fewer students choose law school, realize that the law school cartel will begin to take on anyone who has a social security number, whether it is in the student's actual best interest or not. 

I certainly count myself in among the "shouldn't have gone" crowd, and that was long before the for-profit law schools came to town.  Watch out.

The Fantasy of the Socratic Boredroom

From the way-before time (2010):

Business leaders and corporate headhunters agree that the JD is once again an alternative to the MBA as the degree of choice for CEO candidates, and that the trend is very likely to increase over the next decade.

If this happens some time soon, please let me know.  I've got me one of them JDs in a waterlogged cardboard frame and I'd like to nab one of these CEO positions.  I hear they pay well.

Meanwhile, today the good folks at JDUnderground pointed me to this windbag:

Look at the CEOs of all successful companies and you will see most have law degrees.... 

Guess what degree your boss' boss has? A law degree. He doesn't have one you say? Look further up the pyramid and I guarantee you will see one up there.

You guarantee, eh?  Like that 97% employed guaranteed non-guarantee?

Because, apparently, mental children like to opine about these issues online, I'll refrain from saying what I'm thinking, which is "holy mother of titty-fucking juniper berries pouring out your ass," which makes much more sense than that comment about JD CEOs.

I decided to take "InflatedSnake's" advice and actually look at the CEOs of successful companies. I just started scrolling down the Fortune 500 list and marking down the CEOs I could quickly find educational information on, and occasionally skipping around or over companies that don't make drugs, bombs, or food.  I got bored fairly quickly, but got enough to make some general observations.  And by general observations, I mean "duh, derpity, duh tiddly tum."

Close Encounters of the Third Tier: Cleveland-Marshall Law Prof. Mark J. Sundahl touts career opportunities in Space Law.

(The green alien looks friendly, but it is about to say that the galaxy is glutted with JDs, and that no reputable Space Law firm in the Universe would hire out of a black hole like Cleveland-Marshall).

Cleveland-Marshall College of Law includes among its faculty a smarty-pants named Mark J. Sundahl. As noted on his CV, Sundahl has a Ph.D. in Classics from Brown (2000), and a JD from UC-Hastings (2001). Sundahl became a law professor in 2004, following a couple of years in Big Law, and is now Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. When he is not professoring, Sundahl serves on various important-sounding advisory boards and is "of counsel" for a small local firm that represents aerospace and defense clients.

 

In general, I deplore the routine practice of law schools in offering law professorships to persons with extremely limited practice experience-- to persons who were, in fact, law students only a couple of years earlier. But I have to admit that Sundahl's combo of specialties--space law and ancient Athens--is pretty freaking cool. That is why it is a shame that Sundahl is a scammer.

 

In a promotional video for Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Sundahl states that there is a "great deal of opportunity for employment in the law of out outer space." He also asserts that the study of space law provides practical "skills that are transferable." Here is a link to the video, and a transcription of the most obnoxious of his comments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om5j8IAA7vc

"The job opportunities [in space law] can be found both in governmental organizations, you could work for governmental organizations, agencies within the US government, you could work for nonprofit organizations that, for example, set best standards, best  practices, for companies that are active in space, and governments that are active in space, you could work for any number of companies that manufacture space assets, for example manufacture satellites or launch vehicles or any of the many components that are integrated into these launch vehicles and satellites. And so there is a great deal of opportunity to find employment in the law of outer space and that is exactly what we’re are trying to prepare our students for. Because suddenly there are far more opportunities than there had been in the past. And we want to make sure that our students are trained in the field of space law so they can take advantage of these opportunities." 

(Video at 2:46-3:42) 

                                               ***                                            

"The study of space law provides students with skills that are transferable. It seems like a very exotic, esoteric area of the law and many students might think it doesn’t have a practical application to their future career as lawyers, but that’s not the case. There are a number of transferable skills. Because in the course of the class students have the opportunity to read treaties and interpret international treaties and also navigate complex domestic regulations... but the ability to read, interpret, and apply those regulations can serve a student well regardless of what field they go into."

(Video at 4:17-4:57) 

Throughout much of the video, Sundahl maintains a weird half-smile. So enigmatic, like a Mona Lisa of law school scam. Is he trying to be ingratiating? Is he just that pleased with himself? Is it an unconscious signal not to take him seriously? 

Sundahl knows perfectly well that very few, if any, Cleveland-Marshall law graduates are going to "find employment in the law of outer space." In fact, Cleveland-Marshall's abysmal placement record establishes that most will not obtain any sort of full-time legal employment. A mere 76 out of 176 total graduates of the class of 2012 (43.2%) obtained bar-required full-time long-term nonsolo jobs within nine months of graduation--only 16 of whom joined firms with more than 25 lawyers, and none of whom obtained an Article III clerkship. [1] And though Sundahl yaps about job opportunities with "agencies within the US government, "it does not appear that Cleveland-Marshall's renown for training space law regulators, or regulators of any sort, has reached our nation's capital. Of the class 2011, only three graduates got jobs in DC, as opposed to 143 who remained in Ohio. [2] In 2012, fewer than three graduates landed jobs in DC. [3]

Would it be so terrible for Sundahl to tout his elective course in Space Law without suggesting that it leads to lucrative jobs or constitutes practical skills training? You know, just say that space law is an interesting thing to study and learn about, and that it involves international and administrative law, areas with which a law student should gain a certain familiarity. 

There are a lot of deep, and perhaps insoluble, structural problems with our system of legal education. But there is one thing law professors could do right now, on their own, that would make an important difference: they could respect their students enough to address them in an honest and straightforward manner about career prospects. Or if that is too tall an order, just keep quiet and don't affirmatively deceive them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
notes and additional links.

[1]  http://www.lstscorereports.com/?r=other
       http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=clevelandstate&show=ABA
(Cleveland-Marshall's 43.2% is way below the ABA average of 53.9%. However, there are no fewer than three law schools in Ohio with even worse placement numbers (Capital University, University of Akron, and University of Toledo) and one (Case Western) that is about the same.  Even the best of Ohio's nine law schools-- Ohio State-- did not crack 59% in either 2011 or 2012. So the advice that scambloggers provide to most college kids-- Don't go to law school-- should probably include the addendum "especially in Ohio").

[2]  http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=clevelandstate&show=aba&class=2011

[3] http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=clevelandstate&show=ABA

10-1-13, News Roundup

-Campos' third post about specific law schools antics in response to the crash of applications.  This time Hofstra is under the cross hairs.

-TaxProf blog posts fresh 1L enrollment figures for 20 California law schools.  Best tidbit?  La Verne went from 165 in 2010, to 44 in 2012, up a tick to 54 in 2013.

-Cooley's suit against bloggers and the law firm Kurzon Strauss failed as the court gave summary judgement to the defendants.  In the opinion, Judge Jonker (I love that name) wrote that "the statement that 'Cooley grossly inflates its graduates’ reported mean salaries' may not merely be protected hyperbole, but actually substantially true."

-Finally, some good news from Matt Leichter at Law School Tuition Bubble.  He found that the amount of educational debt taken out by students from the government has dipped from the 2011-2012 school year to the 2012-2013 school year.

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.