tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6294701730069491452024-03-04T20:55:25.401-08:00Super-Duper: The Non-traditional Law Student Confidence Gamedupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-2492586958974143802013-02-25T06:11:00.000-08:002013-02-26T11:56:34.024-08:00The Only Winning Move is Not to Play<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><em>Even WOPR gets bored doing Document Review.</em></span></div>
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Props to the commenters at ILSS:<br />
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<div class="comment-header" id="bc_0_11M" kind="m">
<span style="color: white;"><cite class="user">Anonymous</cite><span class="icon user"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text"><a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/innocent-grifters.html?showComment=1360598571193#c2372269431120517514" rel="nofollow">February 11, 2013 at 8:02 AM</a></span></span></div>
<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_11MC">
<span style="color: #f1c232;">When I was applying to law schools in 1982 many people cautioned me that the market was glutted. Indeed, I only applied to schools that are now on the USNWR top 20 list, figuring the employment odds coming out of lesser schools were just too bad to justify the risk. After all, I graduated from law school with a whopping $10,500.00 in student loans that I had to pay off! Thirty years later you cannot tell me that anyone teaching or administering at ANY law school doesn't know what the score is.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">And here's more. Last summer 16 graduates of UMass-Dartmouth Law School took the Connecticut bar exam and 14 of them failed it. Of the 16, 8 were taking it FOR THE THIRD TIME and only one of those 8 passed. The overall pass rate for first-time takers was 83% and for third time takers it was 33%. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">UMass has to know this. How can they say with a straight face that they are not luring naive college students of limited abilities into a trap with visions of a glamorous career, knowing that 7 out of 8 might never pass a bar exam? What is their justification? That they are just ruining people's lives in the short term until they build up their reputation and attract better students?</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/innocent-grifters.html" target="_blank">http://www.insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/innocent-grifters.html</a><br />
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<div class="comment-header" id="bc_0_107M" kind="m">
<span style="color: white;"><cite class="user">Anonymous</cite><span class="icon user"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text"><a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-function-of-criticism-at-present.html?showComment=1360688198118#c7253778699179498980" rel="nofollow">February 12, 2013 at 8:56 AM</a></span></span></div>
<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_107MC">
<span style="color: #f1c232;">I'm someone who graduated from law school in the 1970s, and I can say that law school faculty have always been somewhere between utterly indifferent and outright hostile to the fate of the vast majority of their students - only those at or near the top of the class (top 10% .... as they themselves had been) were considered worthy of attention and support. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">But it didn't matter then the way it does now - law school was far far less expensive then, and student loans, to the limited extent they existed, were dischargable in bankruptcy.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">Only a fraction of my class (25%?)went on to make long term careers as lawyers, but no one's life was wrecked as a result of spending 3 years in law school. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">THAT IS NO LONGER THE CASE.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">But law school faculty willfully ignore that fact. From their point of view, the large majority of their students who have never made careers as lawyers don't deserve too. As long as their law school produces a small % of winners, they're doing their job correctly. But the hundreds of thousands of lives wrecked that the current set-up has produced should and hopefully will come back to haunt them soon.</span></div>
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<a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-function-of-criticism-at-present.html" target="_blank">http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-function-of-criticism-at-present.html</a><br />
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<div class="comment-header" id="bc_0_34M" kind="m">
<span style="color: white;"><cite class="user">Anonymous</cite><span class="icon user"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text"><a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/inside-report.html?showComment=1361742519574#c4899916377890188914" rel="nofollow">February 24, 2013 at 1:48 PM</a></span></span></div>
<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_34MC">
<span style="color: #f1c232;">Law schools sell neither practical lawyering skills nor the ability to "think like a lawyer." </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">No, they sell hope. They sell hope to gullible 0Ls. They sell hope to the naive who believe that educators are altruistic. They sell hope to those who believe in the educational establishment. They sell hope to everyone who ever watched To Kill a Mockingbird or Judgment at Nuremberg or Law and Order and thought, "ain't lawyering a great way to make a living."</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">In the last few years, it's become clear that there is little hope for this profession. When the probability of a "good" outcome for a would be applicant falls from 1 in 2 or 1 in 3 students to 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 students, there ceases to be any meaningful distinction between selling hope and outright fraud.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">Law schools, you're selling lottery tickets, very expensive lottery tickets knowing damn well that almost no one will win. And unlike the poor sons of bitches who buy scratch-offs for $1 to $5 each, your lottery ticket costs $100,000 to $200,000 each, and it's backed by the taxpayer.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">You, law faculty, are horrible people. You are shameful parasites who sell lies to the naive.</span></div>
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<a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/inside-report.html" target="_blank">http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/inside-report.html</a><br />
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There is not much to add here, except to sum up: ignore the increasingly desperate pleas of the law schools cartel and related industries (ABA, NALP, USN&WR), as the lies will only continue to compound as their self-interest continues to rise. There will be no educational and financial reform coming in the near future, if at all. Consequently, the only rational response for at least 90% of applicants is to not get yourself mired with an overly-expensive, under-performing law degree, just so university deans and professors can enjoy summer sabatticals, private schools and vacation homes while pumping out make-work. Mutually-assured-distruction, long foretold, has finally come full-circle.<br />
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Heckuvajob, lol skool cartel! Mission accomplished!<br />
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dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-12362975259009413622013-02-05T05:59:00.002-08:002013-02-12T08:55:43.302-08:00The Voice of Experience<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"The problem with you people," says the law school cartel, "is that you have no concept for the value of what we're offering. A JD is a valuable and versatile investment that more than pays for itself. Further, you embark upon a voyage of discovery of legal scholarship while defending liberty, pursuing justice, and being the instrument of change. This is not about something so pedestrian or philistine as a job, but a life-long pursuit."<br />
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Or: "Problems in the legal arena now are due to the Great Recession, and not due to any JD over-production or other claimed systemic issues. Why, back as early as 2005, law-graduates were well sought after and commanded high salaries." <br />
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Some would beg to differ...<br />
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<div class="comment-header" id="bc_0_193M" kind="m">
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><cite class="user">Anonymous</cite><span class="icon user"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text"><a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/01/law-and-economics.html?showComment=1359690702159#c4031062354247122302" rel="nofollow">January 31, 2013 at 7:51 PM</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">As 7:13 PM well put it, "Law is a mirage; there is no oasis there." I speak from what I have observed over 20 years as a patent lawyer. Patent law was a great field, not yet flooded, 20 years ago when I entered, still a veritable ladies and gentlemen's club where professionals treated one another largely with respect. That is perhaps the way the practice of law generally was 50 years ago. Patent law has changed as the field became flooded. It is now not civil, cut throat, mean spirited, filled with lies and deceit as people stumble over one another looking for paying clients.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">Law is a mirage. It has been an illusion that you could long term make a decent living as a lawyer for at least 25 years. I know. I have seen what happens in the long term even to those who get a good start. Moreover, that mirage and illusion has been kept alive by the untruthful, deceitful lies of the law school industry regarding employment statistics. Only a complete fool would buy a law degree at any price these days. The work continues to decline, and the competition for what exists continues to increase.</span></div>
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<a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/01/law-and-economics.html" target="_blank">http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/01/law-and-economics.html</a><br />
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<div class="comment-header" id="bc_0_32M" kind="m">
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><cite class="user">Anonymous</cite><span class="icon user"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text"><a href="http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/2013/01/aba-accredited-toilets-experience.html?showComment=1359694233303#c1193061802413034916" rel="nofollow">January 31, 2013 at 8:50 PM</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Nando, I want to thank you again for soldiering on in this crusade against the plague known as the law school scam. I graduated law school in 1991 and despite having worked in Biglaw, in-house and Midlaw, I consider myself a failure in life. Sometimes I wish I had never gone to law school. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">Let me give you a State of the Union Address on the legal "profession." The market is GLUTTED. PAYING clients are harder to come by. No one wants to pay for legal services anymore. I never imagined 22 years out of law school I would be hitting the pavement hustling for clients who are nickel and diming my fees because the law schools graduate kids who don't know how to practice law and undercut on fees.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">It is harder to make a buck as a lawyer these days. Sometimes I feel like Mad Max and I am in Thunderdome struggling to preserve my life. Is this a way to live? Do the lemmings who read the NYTimes and think "wow, I can sneak into GULC this cycle" believe they have a shot of getting it all? I went to law school at a time when it was cheap. I had no student loan debt. I had excellent credit. I bought nice homes, bought a $90K car and been married three times. Yet the law did something to me. It made me a fucking douche, it made me a monster, it created a hunger for money. The difference between me and a greedy law school dean is that I actually bust my ass 70-80 hours a week to make 40% of what that cocksucking dean at New England Law School makes a year. He gets a raise because he gives Chief Justice Roberts a paid jaunt in Malta for the summer. Did I get a raise? NO, I got Obamacare costs. I got higher payroll costs. I may have to cut staff and their hours to avoid Obamacare liability. Meanwhile these son of a bitch deans and law professors host wine and cheese "lectures" and talk about the state of the legal economy and how it is poised to make a comeback. What do these fuckers know? They are not on the frontlines like I am. They are isolated on their ivory perches and so disconnected from reality.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">I stopped giving money to my law school. Two years ago, the new dean of my law school called me and asked me if I would put $10K on a banquet table to sponsor a fundraiser. I told the dean to go fuck himself and hung up. I never got a call from my alma mater again. I wish I could hit that motherfucker in the snout but telling him to go fuck himself felt good.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">I do not know why anyone would want to be a lawyer today. I would rather be a plumber or a cop than be a hack in a suit. Lawyers are disrespected nowadays by every segment of society. Cops hate lawyers. Judges hate lawyers. Joe Sixpack hates lawyers. So why are people willing to still in this day, become a debt slave so you can hustle everyday to land a non-paying client and get no respect from society? It just doesn't make any fucking sense to throw your future away by subsidizing these motherfucking law school deans, professors and administrators who are living high on hog. Stop the madness and starve the beast.</span></div>
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<a href="http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/2013/01/aba-accredited-toilets-experience.html" target="_blank">http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/2013/01/aba-accredited-toilets-experience.html</a></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Douglas Oglesby Wrote: </span></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">I graduated from a top 10 law school in 1971. I have many years' experience at executive levels in very large corporations and been a senior counsel and partner in major law firms. The legal profession is manifestly in need of major reform and fewer lawyers. Much of the work done by lawyers is routine and, with adequate supervision by an experienced lawyer, could be performed by an accomplished paralegal. Many of the lawyers I have seen in small firms and solo practices are incapable of performing anything other than routine, mundane legal tasks, and indeed, a large number are simply incompetent. The ABA and state bar associations serve little purpose other than to ensure a closed shop to preserve the market for law school graduates. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">The last thing the profession needs are more law schools graduating more mediocre lawyers.</span></div>
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<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323926104578276301888284108.html#articleTabs%3Dcomments">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323926104578276301888284108.html#articleTabs%3Dcomments</a><br />
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Non-trads, the future is bleak, despite the law school cartel's hand-waving and denial of structural changes within the industry. Don't listen to the people who don't actually do the work; listen to those who do and then decide.<br />
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JD's are not worth the price tag, nor is the make-work legal "scholarship" that is funded by it. If you must seek further education, put your hard-earned cash towards something else.</div>
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dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-88045480422979274272013-02-01T05:20:00.001-08:002013-02-01T05:20:36.648-08:00"Go Back to Square One"Paul Campos does a nice <a href="http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/28/sonia-sotomayor-debate-should-unhappy-lawyers-blame-themselves/" target="_blank">rebuttal</a> to Justice Sotomayor's admonition that unhappy law grads should just "go back to square one," as if it's no big thang, like buying a new suit or changing a hair style. He uncovers the fact that her own journey was much, much less rosy, and that confirmation bias and revisionist-history can abound even in the most thoughtful of people who should seemingly "know better," or at least be much more sympathetic, given their knowledge base.<br />
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However, the comment from JoeJones in that article speaks volumes to me, and I suspect to many others:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">"let them eat cake," is the wisdom from Queen Sonia, it would seem.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">Hey, Queen Sonia, can I please go back to square one, back to 2005, when I researched the job and salary stats put out by the law schools and decided that going to law school at the age of 48 was a good decision. Graduated near the top of my class, but could not get an interview. Went solo and lost my life savings. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f1c232;">What about me, Queen Sonia? How can I be made whole after losing everything to the law school scammers?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">By the way, Queen Sonia, have you ever taken money from a law school for, saying, an appearance or for teaching classes? If so, then you are a hypocrite, in addition to being an unelected imperial queen (one of 9) that rules america without having to care about the needs and desires and opinions of us proles.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Let us scammed law grads eat cake, eh. Go back to your palace, Queen Sonia. But I hope someday the crowds will gather outside and give the washington elite what they deserve.</span><br />
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To all the critics, personal-responsiblity types and the law school shills: the problem runs much deeper than you know or care to acknowledge. These are real people, with real lives, who are burdended with real difficulties of whom you make light. As hard as it may be for you to imagine, your "success" stories are the exception, not the rule. If only we all had friends in high places, perhaps we could then also afford to be so cavalier in our responses. <br />
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But, this is always been the attitude of those who receive priviledge in one form or another, as history has borne witness time and time again. The sooner this travesty ends (step one: eliminate half the lol skools so as to avoid further increased collateral damage), the better everyone will be. <br />
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Non-trads, don't take it from me, take it from all the other non-trads whom I quote on this blog as evidence of the real, tangible risk you take by attending law school. dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-44656989801531319542013-01-30T06:06:00.001-08:002013-01-30T06:06:31.679-08:00Student Loan Defaults at 15%Offered without comment:<br />
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<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2013-01-29/overdue-student-loans-reach-unsustainable-15-fair-isaac-says.html" target="_blank">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2013-01-29/overdue-student-loans-reach-unsustainable-15-fair-isaac-says.html</a><br />
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OK, I lied, here's some commentary because I can't not go on about this: The lol skool shills will go on and on about how "this is across all student loans, not specifically law grads" and "law is a lifetime career" and the other old, tired canards.<br />
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However:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“This situation is simply unsustainable and we’re already suffering the consequences,” Andrew Jennings, chief analytics officer of Fair Issac, said in the statement. “When wage growth is slow and jobs are not as plentiful as they once were, it is impossible for individuals to continue taking out ever-larger student loans without greatly increasing the risk of default.” </span><br />
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<span style="color: white;">Wage growth is slow, in the legal industry, no less? Jobs not as plentiful? What? Oh, right, cf. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/CitiHildebrandt2013ClientAdvisory.pdf" target="_blank">2013 Citi/Hildebrandt</a>, for example. Guess the lol skools have been getting that whole "valuable, versatile law degree" thing wrong for some time now. Sure, Deans and profs can point to all kinds of success stories - the "in" crowd always does well. For the average Joe, however, who makes up the other 95% of the class, there's MasterCard.</span><br />
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Out of the billions of dollars of defaulted loans (remember, for those keeping score at home, total student loan debt is at $1 trillion), there are at least, I don't know, one or two law grads in that number. At least. Considering that a law degree costs $150k plus expenses. And that JDs have been overproduced 2-to-1 to available jobs for decades.<br />
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The lol skool cartel's response? Fire groundskeepers and maintenance <a href="http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-crack-in-ttt-foundation-vermont-law.html" target="_blank">staff</a>. Accredit new law schools. Add more to the "ever-larger" tuition bills, every year, at four times the rate of inflation.<br />
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Non-trads, look at the thousands who have gone before you - look at the comments of other non-trads who have been through the wringer on this blog and on other sites. Look at the increasing volume of student loan defaults. Don't waste your hard earned money and savings on something where the law schools are growing ever desperate. The law school scam is going from red-hot to white-hot. Stay away at all costs.dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-85435814940725823022013-01-28T09:41:00.001-08:002013-02-12T08:51:50.142-08:00More and More Students Avoiding Law School<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em><span style="color: #f1c232;">"Work Pro Bono! Defend Liberty! Pursue Justice! Pay tuition! Wait...pay no attention to the employment statistics behind the curtain...! Ignore the Dean/Professor salaries...! Come back, you ungreatful wretches...!"</span> </em></div>
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Well, it was bound to happen. You just can't have this level of bad outcomes and think no one is going to respond to it. The invisible hand of the market works, even in academia.</div>
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And it was necessary. Many, many sites have been calling attention to the ever-increasing rise of tuition, the bi-modal distribution of salaries, the less-than-frank employment statistics, and systemic JD overproduction. Student loan totals kept going higher and higher, default rates increased, large law firms let go of thousands of attorneys. The legal jobs market continues to be a cesspool of too many graduates chasing too few jobs.</div>
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The generalized response to these whistleblowers early on (as is always the case) was that jobless, debt-ridden graduates were entitled losers that needed to buck up and go get a job, for crissakes. Go “network” or something. Move to an “underserved” state, like Nebraska. Be willing to work for free…no one is going to hand you a job on a silver platter (well, unless you know the right people at the start, of course). You have to want it bad enough and be willing to make your own way. </div>
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However, the truth could not be swept under the rug. Then tactics changed…the deans and profs began to write multiple op-eds about how great an investment a law degree was, how “versatile” a law degree was. The theme came back to being defenders of liberty and servants to the community. How law was a long-term vocation that lead to a satisfying life. Of course tuition couldn’t be reduced…you can’t train the next generation of legal saviors on the cheap, you know. But, we’ll play games with LSAT scores, “scholarships,” and what-not to keep the students coming in. Recently, Citi/Hildebrandt opined that structural changes in the legal world are here to stay, with significant downward pressure on firm profits for many years to come, but let’s not pay too much attention to that as it conflicts with the “valuable law degree” and “preparing leaders” worldview. Keep outsourcing that doc review to India.</div>
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<em><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: 'Times','serif';">"Wait, so you're saying that 98% of your graduates have jobs requiring a JD, nine months after graduation. At an average salary of $135k?"</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif';">However, it appears that declines in applications are down anywhere from 10 to 30 percent, depending on the school (we’ll leave the matching of the percent-decline to the school as an exercise for the reader). Apparently, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, even prospective law students. Professor Merritt (Ohio State) states that <em><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: 'Times','serif';">“I would be surprised to see applications go up again, unless there are major changes in the legal industry.”</span></em></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif';"><o:p><a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202585810784&Avoiding_law_school_in_droves__" target="_blank">http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202585810784&Avoiding_law_school_in_droves__</a> </o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times','serif';">What the lol skool cartel can’t seem to understand, despite their tone-deaf attempts to deny the obvious, data-driven truth, is that this not a failure of the students – it is the failure of the entire model of legal education. Upton Sinclair put it this way, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Jungle</i>:</span></div>
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<em><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: 'Times','serif';">They were of the triumphant and insolent possessors; they had a hall, and a fire, and food and clothing and money, and so they might preach to hungry men, and the hungry men must be humble and listen! They were trying to save their souls--and who but a fool could fail to see that all that was the matter with their souls was that they had not been able to get a decent existence for their bodies?</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family:">If a few people get great results, and the vast majority are consigned to debt-slavery, then you are a willing, complicit part of the problem, not the solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span color:="" serif="" style="font-family: ';">Until these “major changes” come along (don’t hold your breath), the only winning move is not to play. Remember, all you “sophisticated consumers,” our learned court system has told us how to evaluate law school claims: caveat emptor.</span></div>
<u1:p></u1:p>dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-82082828995535298902013-01-23T10:24:00.000-08:002013-01-23T10:24:48.910-08:00JD-DisadvantageThis commenter hits the nail on the head, from ITLSS. I share this because the lol skools hammer this selling point hard with non-trads:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><cite class="user">Anonymous</cite><span class="icon user"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text"><a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/01/top-ten-excuses-this-one-goes-to-11.html?showComment=1358963709844#c1731606432794366950" rel="nofollow">January 23, 2013 at 9:55 AM</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">(8) You can do a lot of things with a law degree besides practice law.<br /><br />Let's first redefine "a lot of things with a law degree" to the intended result for an average graduate. You can do a lot of PAYING things with a law degree. For example a law degree qualifies me to do all kinds of volunteer work, which unfortunately does not earn me any money.<br /><br />Let's also subtract graduates of Harvard and Yale law schools from our sample of law school graduates, since such law degrees are much more likely to produce flexable career results, which are not typical for the rest of the profession. i.e. the signaling value from a graduate program from these two Ivy League law programs, is far stronger, then almost all the other law schools, though I suppose people could argue about Stanford or the University of Chicago or Columbia. These Harvard and Yale are approximately 1% of our law school sample. <br /><br />If you apply for a job that does not require a law degree from almost any other law school you then have to deal with the standard question. "Is he more argumentative then the rest of our applicants?" "Is he more likely to sue?" "Is he more likely to jump back into the law". and my favorite, "I don't care what he brings to the table, since my contested divorce I've hated all lawyers!" Given the economy its far easier for the HR department to simply exclude the lawyer from the non-legal job, and instead take no risk, by choosing all the obvious round pegs for the round employment openings they need to fill.<br /><br />Let's collectively call this the JD disadvantage.<br /><br />Now perhaps, in a small minority of cases, Catbert the HR director actually prefers JD holders over non JD holders for a job that does require such a degree. Perhaps there is something in his or her background that influences this choice. <br /><br />However, I do not need to prove that a JD is ALWAYS a disadvantage when applying for a job that does not require such a degree, I am only arguing that the majority of the time, based admittedly on antidotal evidence that JD Disadvantage exists, and that the applicant would have been more likely to have obtained that non-legal job, with a degree other then a JD.</span></div>
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<a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/01/top-ten-excuses-this-one-goes-to-11.html?showComment=1358963854425#c6542607342167347615" target="_blank">http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/01/top-ten-excuses-this-one-goes-to-11.html?showComment=1358963854425#c6542607342167347615</a></div>
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Straight up, anonymous. Be sure you bring copious backing and connections before taking the dive, non-trads. (How the 20-something set is supposed to have these without family money is unclear to me, but hey...versatile JD blah blah blah). </div>
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As the learned courts have told us regarding law school claims: cavaet emptor.</div>
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dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-55301364791190330912013-01-07T08:54:00.002-08:002013-01-07T12:14:25.039-08:00The Profs protest too much...<br />
Sigh. 'Nuff said, really:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">"Looking for a low-stress job? Being a full-time university professor is the least stressful career for 2013, according to jobs site </span><a href="http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/10-least-stressful-jobs-2013" target="external"><span style="color: #f1c232;">CareerCast.com</span></a><span style="color: #f1c232;">. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">"Professors are kings of their kingdoms," said Tony Lee, publisher of CareerCast.com and JobsRated.com. "They tell students what they must do." '</span><br />
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<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/top-10-stressful-stressful-jobs/story?id=18115397" target="_blank">http://abcnews.go.com/Business/top-10-stressful-stressful-jobs/story?id=18115397</a><br />
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Of course, get ready for the legal-ese reply: "But, law professors are not the typical university professor, so this does not apply." <br />
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Nope, they certainly aren't. Considering that they make twice as much as the average professor in the article above, it's no wonder they defend their legal prestidigitations as opposed to say, well, caring about student outcomes. Meh. The former is fun navel-gazing, the latter is, well, what can you do? The market heals <a href="http://www.jdunderground.com/all/thread.php?threadId=39271" target="_blank">all</a>.<br />
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With rare exceptions (e.g. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Failing-Law-Schools-Chicago-Society/dp/0226923614" target="_blank">Tamanaha</a>, <a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/01/diamonds-in-rough.html" target="_blank">Campos</a>), the law profs are certainly more concerned with declining student enrollments and propping up their failed model, where law graduates are overproduced 2-to-1 to available <a href="http://lawschooltuitionbubble.wordpress.com/original-research-updated/law-graduate-overproduction/" target="_blank">jobs</a>. <br />
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Don't get embroiled in this quagmire. Non-trads, cavaet emptor.<br />
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EDIT: Sigh. 'Nuff said, part Deux:<br />
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<span style="color: #ffd966;">"What Is This Really About?</span></h2>
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<span style="color: #ffd966;">There is a very important and distinct difference between "knowing that" and "knowing how," with the crux of the distinction being the difference between this initiative and that vast swath of modern academia. "Know that" is a function of rote memorization of static information, passed down from the Prussian method of education implemented over 200 years ago and still common use today and "know how" is basically understanding of how to get things done...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ffd966;">"Know how" is what has separated the labor intensive low margin industries of the far east from the Intellectual Property rich industries found in the US, at least until now. After decades of toiling in an antiquated teaching system producing a legions of leveraged "know that" recipients who then seek "know how" in the work force (basically asking employers to pay to learn on the job what they should have learned from school) to pay off or compensate for hundreds of thousands of dollars of tuition bills and debt, the US is finally paying the piper for its lackadaisical approach to real education. Asian companies such as Samsung are actually outperforming their sterling US counterparts such as Apple in both product capability, product quality and even market share. In order to stem this tide, true "know[ledge] how" must become - once again - the aim, goal and accomplishment of the education system, similar to the apprenticeships of old."</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-07/how-profit-impending-bursting-education-bubble-pt-2-knowledge-how-diplomas-fi" target="_blank">http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-07/how-profit-impending-bursting-education-bubble-pt-2-knowledge-how-diplomas-fi</a><br />
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Law School is "know that," non-trads, not "know how." Lol skools are scrambling to demonstrate the link between "valued, versatile JDs" and the marketplace, but they just can't come up with it - maybe because the model is 100+ years old. "Know that" is not worth the $150k+ price-tag in today's economy. It just isn't. Thus, the reliance on graduates with connections who can score their own on-the-job training. See? It worked for this handful of students! The rest of you....well...."network," or something.<br />
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Most people assume (understandably) that your legal education is teaching you how to actually practice law, thus the collective head-scratching by the populace-at-large regarding swarms of unemployed or underemployed JDs, who struggle to pay the bills if they even have a job. The Wizard of LOLZ will bellow otherwise about ungreatful JDs and how Law School is not crass vocational training for obtaining filthy lucre, but by all means do not ignore "The Man" behind the curtain. The price tag is just too high.</div>
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<br />dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-9254599525466569512012-12-20T06:45:00.001-08:002012-12-20T06:45:21.970-08:00The Increasingly Impossible Financial Mathematics of Education<br />
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Non-trads, if you are looking at law school, you are likely looking at it through the lens of positive results from your prior undergrad education and/or graduate education. The one that wasn't too expensive on balance, that yielded good returns in the final analysis. <br />
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OK, well, that dream has been dying in the interim:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">"What does the above chart imply? Nothing more than that for the vast majority of people, <strong>college degrees are the modern-day equivalent of very, very expensive snake oil. </strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Yes: colleges are sold to you as the critical stepping stone on the path to wealth and prosperity, but sadly the empirical evidence demonstrates that when it comes to an actual, demonstrable income effect, <strong>only the wealthiest people actually benefit from a degree</strong>! <em>The lowest fifth of household by income see their change in income decline by 10%, while the middle fifth sees an incremental 2.1% drop</em>. Where do incomes rise? When you are already wealthy and belong to the highest fifth of households by income: <strong>there, going to college boosts your income by an additional 15.1%...</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #f1c232;">...And that's just it: if you are affluent, if you had opportunities, you will still and always be successful, and college will merely emphasize this. For everyone else, degrees are rapidly converting into an almost instantly amortizing piece of paper paid for with tens of thousands of student debt which, incidentally, is non-dischargeable.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: #f1c232;">Unfortunately, and just like with "gun-control", the fundamental issue at hand is not education, not even the pursuit of the American Dream (or lack thereof), but the gradual realization that the myth of American exceptionalism is just that. And in a world as globalized and interconnected as ours, breaking from the middle (or, heaven-forbid) lower classes, into the upper strata of society is becoming virtually impossible. [emphasis in original]"</span></strong><br />
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<a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-19/sorry-poor-kids-road-rags-riches-no-longer-goes-through-college" target="_blank">http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-19/sorry-poor-kids-road-rags-riches-no-longer-goes-through-college</a><br />
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Replace "tens of thousands of student debt" with "$150k+" and you have law school. The (Boomer) Deans are on the loose, writing article after article as to how law school is the perfect snake oil for all your ailments, while applications drop and average LSAT scores for admission slide. Again, for the well-connected, it is a winning proposition - this blog and many others have repeated this message that for a select few, the income gains far outpace the debt (if there ever was any debt at all).<br />
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For the rest of us, there's MasterCard. No amount of chasing degrees, so-called hot fields, and STEM-is-the-answer-to-everything gets around the fact that economic class matters, period. And for law school in particular, they need to keep the seats filled as the ratio of the unwashed masses to "your betters" is huge, and there are only so many million-dollar donations to go around. No amount of sugar-plum-fairy, rosy-predictions and "defending liberty, pursuing justice" pep-talks removes the very real financial risk that law schools so blithely try to talk the majority into taking, as if it is no big thang.<br />
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For them, it probably wasn't.<br />
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Law is undergoing structural changes. Full stop. So is higher education in general, and the results and impacts are yet to be determined.<br />
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Non-connected non-trads, don't do this to yourself. The outrageous cost of law school is not worth spinning the roulette wheel. That is all.<br />
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dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-80046249059842030942012-11-29T12:04:00.003-08:002012-12-06T08:43:35.538-08:00Reverse "Entitlement" and why Law School is Allegedly Worth ItWell, the pressure is clearly on, which can only be a good thing. Yet another resounding defense of the legal education industry, and boy, does the lady doth protest too much, lemme tell ya:<br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/opinion/law-school-is-worth-the-money.html?hp&_r=0" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/opinion/law-school-is-worth-the-money.html?hp&_r=0</a><br />
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Counterarguments to these assertions abound within the scam-blog community, and they have been discussed here and in many other places. One of my long-standing favorite half-truths is the assertion that average salaries for law grads are $125k. While that can be technically true, the average tells you nothing about the standard deviation or distrubution of salaries. What confidence interval are we talking about? One sigma? One-quarter sigma? We all know about the bi-modal distrubution of legal salaries (see, for example, <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2010/05/nalp-2010-nalp-executive-director-james-leipold-talks-to-the-lost-generation/bi-modal-salary-distribution-curve/" target="_blank">here</a>). Looking at that chart, the average could indeed be around $125k, but damn few people actually make that (2% according to NALP in 2008, and boy, oh boy, did the economy only improve from there). Oh looky, 50% of grads make under $72k (the median), and a select chunk of well-connected people make $170k. That's about an average of $125k! See?!?<br />
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Who said lawyers were bad at math? All technically true, precise...and heavily misleading. Thanks, you bastions (bastards?) of ethics. $50k salaries could be ok, but for the total cost of law school. To turn a phrase, the tuition is too damn high, let alone the additional incidental costs to attend. It's pretty easy to run up a $150k bill after three years.<br />
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Anyway, the defenders of the law school cartel always like to go on about how entitled grads are, how they have to think long-term, that education is an investment, that grads should be pursuing justice and liberty as opposed to filthy lucre, etc. etc. etc. One thing I've never seen a clear answer to: why are (Boomer) Deans, Law Professors, and other Administrators "entitled" to handsome six-figure salaries? Why are lol skools "entitled" to be revenue-drivers for the rest of the University? They all acknowledge that student debt is a problem, and student tuition is directly proportional to salaries and "special projects". But funny, ever-increasing tuition at rates several times that of inflation is as sacrosanct as Norquist's no-tax-increase pledge. It is a given, and is never to be questioned.<br />
<br />
The real question is: "Law School is Worth It" - but for whom, exactly?<br />
<br />
One thing is clear. Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. Shills gotta shill.<br />
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dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-52499418619180601522012-11-28T09:19:00.002-08:002012-11-28T09:21:13.084-08:00That Sound You Heard Was The Student Loan Bubble PoppingWell, because a law degree is one of the most expensive degrees out there as has been clearly demonstrated, apparently the cost-to-value proposition is not doin' too well. While these charts are for all student loan debt, we also know that 45,000 law grads a year, at ever-increasing tutition, have been pumped out into the marketplace at a rate of 2 to 1 for available law positions for some time now. No matter what hand-waving takes place about how great and versatile JDs are, the simple fact is that thousands of law grads live in these increasing default rates. Many more struggle to stay ahead of the jaws of the default monster. To say nothing of the circumstances of other degree holders.<br />
<br />
Well, never mind the fact that tutition has grown at several times the rate of inflation due to sweet, sweet, Federal loan money. As such, what was much easier to pay off in 1970 is a tad bit harder now. Our Boomer forebears tend to conveniently forget this whole inflation-adjusted-money-expanding-cost-of-living proposition when myopically dismissing later generations for being "lazy" and "entitled." Outside of elite circles, $500, $800, $1200-plus monthly student loan payments are tough to manage, to say the least. <br />
<br />
But, the lol skools got theirs, so who cares? Whatevs. Law grads just need to "network" more and take some personal responsibility. Tuition coupled with diminishing prospects has nothing to do with it, and how dare anyone suggest otherwise. This is a monster solely of the student's own making.<br />
<br />
As the Once-ler once said, "Business is Business and Business must grow, regardless of crummies in tummies, you know..."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/scariest-chart-quarter-student-debt-bubble-officially-pops-90-day-delinquency-rate-g" target="_blank">http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/scariest-chart-quarter-student-debt-bubble-officially-pops-90-day-delinquency-rate-g</a><br />
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<br />dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-79153099975051553042012-10-25T09:37:00.001-07:002012-10-26T06:43:49.800-07:00Trustworthy Data v. Fraudulent Stats and the "Personal Responsibility Brigade"Well, we all knew, down deep, that it was happening - after having been through the law school wringer and confronting the realities of the marketplace. The difficult-to-find jobs, the low wages compared to student loan burdens, the non-versatility of the JD. The complete opposite of what the law schools proclaimed. <br />
<br />
It was difficult to prove, but the circumstantial evidence was there with the anecdotes, the BLS statistics, the skyrocketing legal tuition, the insane faculty and administrative salaries. However, it was dismissed out of hand, relegated to the trash heap, written off as the complainings of bitter, entitled losers - mostly by those who profit from student loans and their apologists. <br />
<br />
But, as seen on LST and other sites, the strongest evidence yet that (allegedly) fraudulent employment stats were published by TJSL, and that "everyone was doing it":<br />
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<a href="http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/2012/10/ex-cso-assistant-director-from-tjls-admits-to-fraud/" target="_blank">http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/2012/10/ex-cso-assistant-director-from-tjls-admits-to-fraud/</a><br />
<br />
And, Professor Campos relates the tale about increasing the rolls of a LLM program for fun and profit, with the uncomfortable question of "is this in the best interest of the students?" being left deliberately unresolved.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-state-of-discourse.html" target="_blank">http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-state-of-discourse.html</a><br />
<br />
<br />
As for the plight of students and professionals who have to live with the consequences? Cue the "personal responsiblity brigade," ("PRB") who will swoop in and say "well, those damn kids should have done their 'research'. Why would any thinking person believe these people anyway? Of course the schools were self-interested. Whiners. Losers."<br />
<br />
Ah, yes, the much ballyhooed "research" canard, the sword upon which many a troubled graduate has fallen upon as the simple answer to complex woes.<br />
<br />
Leaving behind the question of "are you really going to blame victims of fraud in the first place? Rly? That's OK with you?" for the moment, the bigger question is "how does one determine quality data?" Purchasing higher education is not exactly the same thing as buying a refrigerator - in the latter case, there are Consumer Reports, Underwriters Laboratories, user reviews, and a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to turn to, to name a few. Also, a bad refigerator purchase is easy to recover from, while a "bad education" is not - especially in 2012 dollars. It is life-changing.<br />
<br />
From whence does the research data come from, then, in the case of Law Schools? Why, the schools themselves. NALP merely parrots the data. USN&WR merely parrots the data. The ABA looks the other way, doing whatever the accreditation committee does all day. There is no independent review of the data. No uninterested parties. One would think that these non-profit bastions of ethics and future-lawyer-character-formation would feel some sense of fiduciary duty, but you would be wrong - at least to hear the courts tell it. The students "should have known better and suspected the data was fraudulent." <br />
<br />
How about the experiences of other lawyers? Well, that data is anecdotal, and difficult to quantify with any real sense of trend analysis or confidence. "Successful" lawyers will tell you that it is the best thing they ever did, and so should you. "Unsuccessful" lawyers are (wait for it!) bitter, whining losers who should not be trusted.<br />
<br />
Again, what "data" is the prospective student to rely upon with confidence, such that the PRB would be rightly justified in holding the student to task for their poor choice, as they so seem to relish in their self-righteous zeal?<br />
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None, as far as I can see. The PRB's de facto recommendation, then, in essence? "Don't get an education, as no institution of higher learning can be trusted." For that matter, don't do anything, then, that would expose someone to risk of any kind, as the victim will be blamed in full, with no fault lying with the perpatrator.<br />
<br />
I would draw the comparison between Wall Street banks bundling sub-prime mortgage CDOs with Moody's and Standard & Poor's rubber-stamping the quality of the CDOs, and the need for effective regulation. But we already know how the PRB feels about homeowners who struggle to pay their underwater mortgages, or investors who looked at the data and invested in CDOs that were set up to fail. Why should students be treated any differently?<br />
<br />
All I can say is: it must be great to have the omniscient vantage point of the PRB. I wonder what it's like to be perfect in every way.<br />
<br />dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-76634369939865439032012-10-15T08:59:00.000-07:002012-10-15T08:59:02.079-07:00Here is what you're getting into...This poster sums it up beautifully, in a comment at DailyKos regarding the business of "for-profit" education. Which is increasingly becoming the mentality of "non-profit" education (cough cough <a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/10/ive-gotten-three-emails-in-past-week.html" target="_blank">Indiana Tech School of Law</a> cough cough)...<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><span class="cu">No-win for those on the downward</span> <span class="crd ntb">(<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1138308/47930995#c1?mode=alone;showrate=1#c1" jquery15206272767551953834="256">56+ / 0-</a>)</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">spiral slide. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">Can't get a job/a job that pays the bills? If you weren't lazy, you'd go back to college and get the skills you need to be in demand.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Got another degree and now up to your eyes in student loans? Oh, so rather than bit the bullet like everyone else, you went for the luxury life of a grad student and now you'll pay for it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Still can't get a job? Why didn't you get a degree in something in demand? Your bad choice, idiot.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Took out even more student loans to do the extra time to switch fields entirely for your graduate degree and now struggling? You're an irresponsible spender who thinks you deserve to get degrees in <em>two</em> subjects and be a professional student forever; no wonder you're up to your eyeballs in debt—you can't manage your life.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Didn't want to go into debt so you studied part-time while you worked, only to find that because your degree took so long, your skills are out of date the moment you graduate? You're afraid to take risks and take responsibility for your actions; you should have taken student loans like everybody else so that you </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">could get your degree in a timely fashion rather than slacking off.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">Basically: It's always your fault. College has little to do with it. Poor? YOU SUCK, THAT'S WHAT.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">Welcome to America.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.politicalcompass.org/"><span style="color: #f1c232;">-9.63, 0.00</span></a><br /><i><span style="color: #f1c232;">I am not a purity troll. I am a purity warrior.</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">by </span><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/user/uid:87858"><span style="color: #f1c232;">nobody at all</span></a><span style="color: #f1c232;"> on </span><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1138308/47930995#c1"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Sun Oct 14, 2012 at 07:07:30 PM PDT</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/14/1138308/-Corporate-U-Higher-ed-the-Bain-way-part-1">http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/14/1138308/-Corporate-U-Higher-ed-the-Bain-way-part-1</a></div>
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Good luck non-trads, and watch out. As you look at the glossy brochures and the doctored placement statistics, remember that it's always ON YOU. Period. Think twice, or better three times, before you double-down on that oh-so-glamourous legal future. </div>
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dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-24876599504822740492012-08-28T12:38:00.001-07:002012-08-28T12:43:27.556-07:00The Non-Versatile JD, part 7 or 8 or so...I've lost countI was running through this problem in the back of my mind recently, and DJM beat me to the punch. Potential non-trads, take a read:<br />
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<a href="http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/08/jd-not-needed.html">http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/08/jd-not-needed.html</a><br />
<br />
This is it in a nutshell - if you don't land pure legal employment for the various reasons mentioned here and on other blogs, the legally-related jobs that seem to be a great fit for JDs do not require a JD AT ALL.<br />
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Think about this for a minute - the whole premise is that legal knowledge and understanding is valuable. And I would argue that it is. So many times, problems arise due to someone not doing what they are supposed to do via contract. They either do not comply with statutes and governmental regulations, or they default "wrongfully" due to a dispute with another party, or they don't make a good businees decision when looking at the costs of complying with a requirement vs. costs of litigation, or they don't preserve claims on appeal re: a governmental contracting body. <br />
<br />
So, in theory, a JD should be a perfect fit. But no one appears to want a JD candidate, seemingly if for no other reason than the cost to employ a JD is just too high, or that the breadth of the education is not necessary relative to the specific job skills required. In other words, the necessary skills can be learned on the job, so why pay more?<br />
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Lord knows I've tried, myself. I finally landed a JD-preferred job years ago, and it wasn't for lack of trying. I have and continue to look at better jobs and opportunities to leverage my JD (becuase I'm stuck with it, like it or not), but convincing the other party that it's worth it is a huge challenge. A lot of employers can't connect the dots or otherwise see the value of a JD, as evidenced by DJM and the job descriptions that can be easily found. <br />
<br />
Lol skool tuition has essentially shut the doors on a whole generation of graduates who could have gone into non-traditional career paths, but for the salary level they need to survive and service loans. Again, it isn't the 1970s anymore, costs have gone up, competition is even more fierce.<br />
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If your aren't shut out due to predictive coding, funding, or pedigree, then you're shut out due to debt. If you have to go back to school, go for something (1) targeted to the business world job you are seeking, and (2) cheaper. Avoid the non-versatile JD at all costs.dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-56808487143289162722012-08-22T11:02:00.003-07:002012-08-28T09:32:14.900-07:00The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Law School TuitionTo follow up on a prior post. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.abajournal.com/lawscribbler/article/law_profs_ideal_affordable_law_school_not_possible_in_reality_chemerinsky/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_email">http://www.abajournal.com/lawscribbler/article/law_profs_ideal_affordable_law_school_not_possible_in_reality_chemerinsky/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_email</a><br />
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Apparently, you can have precise knowledge about tuition and know nothing about the quality of the education, or you can have precise knowledge about the quality of the education and know nothing about the tuition. You just can't know about tuition and quality with high accuracy at the same time, "in reality."<br />
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So, best to just charge high tuition, then, and know that factor with exceedingly high certainty. Affordability, quality, outcomes, etc. all become murky then, but, hey, whatever. Versatile-JD blah-blah-blah.<br />
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It's un-frickin'-believable what people will say for a buck. <span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: dark2;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span>dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-64113906056259560982012-08-21T11:05:00.000-07:002012-08-22T08:28:16.801-07:00Ten years ago...It just dawned on me today that I began my law school misadventure ten years ago, right about now.<br />
<br />
Yep. My wife and I had packed up and moved. My “old” career behind, going forward in a new direction. New changes, new towns, new opportunities…<br />
<br />
…that didn’t really pan out at all. But I did get a large side helping of new debt, though, that’s for sure. “I went to law school, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt,” as they say. I’m half-way through my private loans, but I still have a long way to go on my debt overall.<br />
<br />
I never was able to work as an attorney in private practice. Full stop. But, I’m not exactly crying in my beer over that one, either. For some that is a sore subject and a disappointing result, and I hate that people who really wanted to have that experience didn’t have it work out of them, or it became something they didn’t want after all in the long term. Shattered dreams are no fun.<br />
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For my part, the “versatile JD” result I was looking for didn’t turn out either, so I can sympathize with my fellow lawyer wanna-bees, at least in the disappointment department. While I can say I am “proud” of my technical achievement as a licensed attorney, in retrospect it was NOT worth the time, the effort, the debt, and the lost opportunity costs. While I have been (gratefully) employed, I wish I could say it was my stellar JD that made “all the difference.” Economically, I would have been better off at my old career, debt-free, no doubt about it.<br />
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My office is full of ex-private practice attorneys, as well as a few like me who "never got a start" in the first place. They are people who were forced out, people who were sick of it and looking for something else to pay the bills, a little bit of everything.<br />
<br />
So I soldier on and try to make the best of it. While I bear some responsibility for my decision, the lol skools had their part to play in their misrepresentations, no matter how they try to deny it and foist the blame on “sophisticated consumers.” <br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.findlaw.com/greedy_associates/2012/08/aba-decides-we-need-a-rule-to-stop-law-schools-lying-about-jobs.html?DCMP=NWL-pro_top">http://blogs.findlaw.com/greedy_associates/2012/08/aba-decides-we-need-a-rule-to-stop-law-schools-lying-about-jobs.html?DCMP=NWL-pro_top</a><br />
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In the “don’t take it from me, take it from him” department, Crux of Law is back blogging about his experience. Apparently, there is at least one other person besides my crazy self who would say lol skool is not for non-trads, despite the tone-deaf trumpeting of deans, administrators, and career services offices about “versatile JDs”:<br />
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<a href="http://cruxoflaw.blogspot.com/">http://cruxoflaw.blogspot.com/</a> <br />
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Nando is three years strong and continuing on, skewering lol skools for our benfit! Just like L4L, Tom the Temp, and others inspired Nando and his message, TTR has helped me realize I wasn’t crazy either and inspired me to speak my peace, FWIW.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/">http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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SubprimeJD is back, too, with a nice little piece about staying positive and moving on, one step at a time.<br />
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<a href="http://subprimejd.blogspot.com/2012/08/dealing-with-post-graduation-depression.html">http://subprimejd.blogspot.com/2012/08/dealing-with-post-graduation-depression.html</a><br />
<br />
So, Gawd bless, everybody. Hopefully, if you are a non-trad (or, heck, regular) student and you’ve turned your back on law school, chances are extremely good that you made the best decision possible, absent money and sweet legal connections. If you took the plunge and/or are out on the other side of the whole experience, live and learn, I guess. Just don’t blame yourself – that is exactly what “they” want you to do to keep you down and out, rather than placing the accountability exactly where it belongs. dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-43535982304195252472012-07-24T09:21:00.000-07:002012-07-24T09:21:13.428-07:00Chemerinsky vs. Tamanaha on Tutition CostsI was reading the latest defense of the Law School Cartel, and had to take a break from student woes for a minute. I remember having to bludgeon my way through Mr. Chemerinsky's con law text book for two semesters way back when, and not surprisingly, I find his defenses equally obtuse now. Ladies and Gentlemen, "You Get What You Pay For":<br />
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<a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202564055135&You_get_what_you_pay_for_in_legal_education&slreturn=20120623185606">http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202564055135&You_get_what_you_pay_for_in_legal_education&slreturn=20120623185606</a><br />
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<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: dark2;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: white;">Some of my favorite parts:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="color: #f1c232;">“Tamanaha is correct that law professors are paid significantly more than university faculty in disciplines like English, philosophy and history. Imagine that a law school tried to pay at that level, say roughly half of current faculty salaries at top law schools. Who would come and teach at a school where they got paid half what other law schools would pay them, and who would stay there when other opportunities arose?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: dark2;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: white;">Imagine!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who, indeed, would deign to teach for such six-figure paltry scraps by slumming it with the Philosophy department?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the way, Erwin, the problem you’re talking about is called “price-fixing”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>UC Irvine could take the moral high road and “lead the way,” or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: dark2;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“</span></span><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">About half of our budget is faculty salaries and benefits, but even slicing these in half wouldn't save nearly enough for a tuition decrease like the one Tamanaha argues for. The only way to accomplish that would also be to cut the size of the faculty at least in half. Increasing the teaching load from an average of three to four courses won't help much, since I and many on our faculty are already teaching four or more courses every year.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: white;">Indeed!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A crushing burden!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might have to actually forego a conference or something, and some people might have to (gasp) look for and compete for a job!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone, stop the madness!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="color: #f1c232;">“Cutting a law faculty in half would require relying far more on relatively low-cost adjunct faculty. Tamanaha's assumption is that relying on practitioners rather than professors to teach more classes won't compromise the quality of the education students receive. Here I think he is just wrong. There are certainly some spectacular adjunct professors at every law school, and they play a vital role. But as I see each year when I read the student evaluations at my school, overall the evaluations for the full-time faculty are substantially better than they are for the adjuncts. It is easy to understand why. Teaching is a skill, and most people get better the more they do it. Moreover, full-time faculty generally have more time to prepare than adjunct professors who usually have busy practices.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: white; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2;">The legal logic here is indeed mighty – “Here I think he is just wrong.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stand back, everybody!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bask in the glory of those high-dollar “thinking-like-a-lawyer” skills everybody touts so much!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: white; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2;">Ah well - the long slide towards the reverse-democratization of (legal) education continues. Let's get down to Brass Tacks: Law School (and most of higher education) is about the feedback loop of educating the well-to-do, so that they in turn support the school. If it were actually about making, say, legal education affordable and/or accessable to the masses, then the "presteige quotient" collapses and well-to-do will not be showing up because they don't really care how much tuition is in the first place. Defending liberty and pursuing justice will always take a back seat to "keeping things in the family," per se.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: white; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2;">A little honesty would go a long way, and would allow non-trads and regular students both to make more informed decisions.</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: white; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2;"> But, somebody's gotta get bilked, you know - how else would the economy function? </span></span></span></div>
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<br />dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-55339965040262422202012-07-09T12:53:00.000-07:002012-07-09T12:59:40.006-07:00This Blog Starts to Write ItselfThe anecdotes keep piling up. Call it hearsay if you want, although I can't see what the motivation to lie would be...<br />
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<span style="color: #ffd966;"><cite class="user">Anonymous</cite><span class="icon user"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text"><a href="http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/2012/07/third-tier-waste-heap-west-virginia.html?showComment=1341684803677#c614782374419938370" rel="nofollow">July 7, 2012 11:13 AM</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ffd966;">Last night, I had dinner with a college buddy who went to law school 12 years after we graduated from college. He went to a T50 on a partial scholarship. Prior to going to law school, he was making $120K as a biochemist. So he decided that he peaked at his former job and decided to become a non-trad law student at the age of 33. Fast forward to today. He is 40 years old, owes $105K in student loans and earns $60K a year in NYC. He went from making $120K 8 years ago with no debt to cutting his salary by 50% and carrying $105K in student loans. He is a smart guy, realizes he will never own a house, get married, have kids or have a bank account (to avoid Sallie Mae's bank levies). I suspect he works using a Tax ID Number instead of his social security number so that Sallie Mae doesn't garnish his wages. I don't consider this guy to be a typical lemming. He had a 2.8 GPA but a 176LSAT score. Today, he probably could have attended Rutgers, sorry, Rowan Law School, for free. But alas, he went to law school during the model and bottles day. Kids, Nando makes no money from this site. He is telling you the cold hard and brutal truth. Do not listen to the law school deans or law professors who are only going to paint a rosy picture to sucker you in and keep the gravy train locomotive running full steam ahead.</span></div>
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One thing is for sure - the lol skools have every reason to keep on lying. Thou$and$ of rea$on$ multiplied by hundreds of students. Caveat Emptor.</div>dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-53389747361797571992012-06-29T12:09:00.000-07:002012-07-02T08:12:53.458-07:00Prestige and "Following the Script"Wow. As followers of this blog will know, this story is eerily familiar and hits WAY too close to home. Comment #15, from "Non-Trad Student", per the following post:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_pedigree_problem_are_law_school_ties_choking_the_profession/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_email">http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_pedigree_problem_are_law_school_ties_choking_the_profession/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_email</a><br />
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<br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;">"15. </span><a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_pedigree_problem_are_law_school_ties_choking_the_profession/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_email#172801" title="permalink to this comment"><span style="color: #ffd966;">Non-Trad Student</span></a><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;">Jun 28, 2012 5:00 PM CDT</span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;">I wish I had known how much of a permanent caste system law is when i chose what school to attend.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;">In law, the choice of school is one that factors in at every step of an attorney’s career, for decades. E.g. people who dared attend a non-Ivy law school decades earlier won’t even be considered to be a Supreme Court Justice; while in some of your lifetimes, one didn’t even have to be a judge to be nominated. </span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><br /></span><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #ffd966;">I began my working career in another industry that had much more of a “what have you done lately?” approach. My undergrad STEM credentials got me my first job, but I had to keep proving myself, and as time went by, my undergrad degree became less of a factor. Where in law, the choice of law school becomes a permanent asset or anchor, regardless of what an attorney can demonstrate once in practice.</span></em></strong><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;">When it came time to go to law school, I let geographic proximity control my choice rather than uproot myself to go to the higher-ranked school that my LSAT enabled. I regret that decision every day because I will be perpetually perceived as lesser and inadequate by the very people who would have been my classmates—all because they ASSUME that everyone going to a lower-ranked school couldn’t get accepted anywhere else. <strong><em>Especially for non-traditional students, factors other than USN&WR; are used in our decision-making process. My highly-ranked STEM undergrad, high LSAT score, and high bar exam score mean nothing because of my mistake in choosing the law school that was least disruptive to my life at the time.</em></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;">Given that reality, it is even more absurd that the lower-ranked law schools charge what they do for tuition. I think #8 is mostly accurate that the education is comparable. But, clearly, the degree that is granted is not as valuable. "</span><br />
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Non-Trad Student, good luck to you; I feel your pain. As for other Non-Trads considering lol skool, if you take nothing from this blog, heed this individual's experience. The study of law is increasingly moving back to "traditional" students with family connections, backing, and/or scholarship potential, if it ever really was open to non-trads in the first place. As I stated in some of my earliest posts, most non-trad students are already at a stage of life that make it even more difficult to succeed and thrive in the gauntlet, let alone find employment worth the opportunity costs. <br />
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Again, if you have the right backing, Godspeed to you. Everyone else, run away as fast as possible. And I would say that to most traditional students, as well.<br />
<span style="color: #ffd966;"></span>dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-52425470171521603862012-06-15T09:00:00.003-07:002012-06-15T09:00:58.769-07:00"You Can Do Anything With a Law Degree..."...until you find out you can't, of course. One data point does not make a trend, but darn it all if data points keep piling up and graphing out to the same conclusion - a JD does not help you outside of the practice of law. <br />
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<strong><em>"Prior to attending law school, she worked at investment firms, so she was hoping to land a job at a securities law firm or another related field that could use her experience. Instead, says Tokarska, the only position she was offered after graduating was a $10 per hour part-time clerkship. Knee deep in debt and unable to find a decent job, she opened her own law office in San Diego in 2008. "I thought if I got a higher degree, I'd have a better chance to get a job, but that's not what happened," she says."</em></strong><br />
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<a href="http://www.smartmoney.com/plan/careers/10-things-law-schools-wont-tell-you-1338933018704/">http://www.smartmoney.com/plan/careers/10-things-law-schools-wont-tell-you-1338933018704/</a><br />
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We can all debate why this is the case - the article suggests oversaturation of JDs, others would say that lawyering skills are not all that transferable to other jobs, what have you. In any event, it turns out that neither law firms nor various "related fields" were interested. This is not to impugn Tokarska, who by all accounts was a nontrad using her JD to make her more valuable in the marketplace and lead to some new advancement opportunity. Just like the Office of Career Services said the JD would deliver, no doubt.<br />
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Sadly, its just not the 1970s anymore, no matter how hard the Law School cartel refuses to face facts. Some would list her graduation date of 2005 as "the beginning of the end," although there appear to be legions who would claim there never was a "Golden Age" of Law regardless. Either way, Law firms were starting to cut back, but the ABA Journal and other publications kept touting the "difficult" stories of law grads faced with too many choices for employment, not too few. And the Law School Deans, Admins, Career Services offices and the like were all too happy to chime in, until 2008-2010 or so when "no comment" became the standard answer to employment statistics.<br />
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Nontrads, here it is again - do not go to Law School for any other reason other than to be a lawyer. Period. And if you must go, make sure (1) you know and understand the business of law, and (2) are capitalized well enough to hang out a shingle after bar passage, after the costs of three years of tuition, prior to ever darkening the door of a Law School.<br />
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Otherwise, that JD will be a $150k (and counting) albatross around your neck. <br />dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-10152252479254008362012-05-01T09:01:00.000-07:002012-05-01T09:01:47.878-07:00Too old, too young, too qualified, too non-traditional...<br />
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-vets-unemployed-20120426,0,2627227.story?page=1">http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-vets-unemployed-20120426,0,2627227.story?page=1</a><br />
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The hypocrisy runs high. Ten years ago, I guarantee that this individual would have been a highly competitive hire due to his law degree, military experience, and the maturity that goes along with these accomplishements.<br />
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Oh, how the winds change. Now, 25 is apparently too young, yet 29 is too old - explain that one to me. Law degree, military experience...it's too "non-traditional." Too different. What was interesting and multi-disciplinary is now strange, exotic, and untrustworthy. While this article focuses more on the civilian arena not appreciating the veteran experience and its (imagined) potential shortcomings, it does raise the question: where or what is this mythical, perfect-fit candidate-for-hire, legal or otherwise?<br />
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One would be lead to believe that there is a person who has run this fickle gauntlet: someone from the right familiy, who went to school at the right time, at the right age, with the right experiences, at the right circumstances of the job market, with the right connections, with the right backing. Who is this individual (besides Mitt Romney)? <br />
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Answer: A theoretical person who does not actually exist. It's a mistake to believe that any person can bootstrap their way through this gauntlet, yet higher education, the work world and even the military will try to entice you that it's possible and is the only way. Don't believe it, as they will all pull the rug out simultaneously as they did for Mr. Pizzo, yet blame him for not being a "sophisticated consumer" prior to good-faith effort and service. <br />
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Non-traditionals, don't believe what they say - do what you need to do, education or otherwise, but make your own path. Immediately distrust any advertised results. Just like the stock market, bank on the fact that past results do not guarantee future returns, and look critically at everything - the establishment is looking out for themselves, not for you.<br />
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In short, in whatever you do, assume they are lying to you.dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-2650991432892132722011-09-27T13:55:00.000-07:002011-09-27T13:55:15.956-07:00The Erosion of TrustI am a child of the 70s, a teen of the 80s – by most definitions, I am firmly planted in Gen-X. <br />
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With the rise of yuppies, “no pain, no gain” culture, be-boppy hair bands and recreational lines of coke in Manhattan penthouses, one message that came through in the 1980s was rugged American individualism. Work hard, play hard. Fight the commies. Make a lot of money. And be happy, because you deserved it!<br />
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One of the working-world truisms was the relentless pursuit of “the top”. Winners job-hopped every few years, took risks, while increasing their income and title along the way. Losers kept their head down, plugged away, never changing anything, and got what they deserved – lower pay, fewer prospects.<br />
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Only now, looking back with more seasoned hindsight, it wasn’t true. Like most mythologies, the risk-taking winner was an anecdote, not the broad norm. Later in life, I saw people leave good jobs to pursue a risk, only to come back years later with their tail between their legs. Or to be never heard from again, destination unknown (one can only presume the results were luke-warm, else you would have heard about it non-stop in good American fashion). Not that there is anything inherently wrong in taking a risk – after all, that is the predicate of our entrepreneurial economy, correct?<br />
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However, the schizophrenic, nasty truth of our economy and culture came through – despite the cultural messages of the 80s, we punish failure. Strongly. Mercilessly. We revel in the hardship and failure of others, if recent political debates are any indication. It’s as if we culturally lead people astray on purpose – create an image that hard work and mettle are all that one needs to achieve the American Dream, when in reality, what matters is connections and backing, period. All I can figure is that by scamming people, it is easy to profit off of their failure.<br />
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Enter higher education, self-proclaimedly free from the bonds and constraints of business and economics. The “non-profit” world of education and ideas, advancing human understanding and knowledge. The noble, ivory tower of human betterment, preparing the future leaders of tomorrow.<br />
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At tuition rates that increase at several times the rate of inflation. That leave most students debt-strapped with few to no prospects. With “innocent” educators, deans, and administrators looking on with well-rehearsed shock and horror when the manufactured statistics don’t square with reality, while simultaneously buying large homes and sending their children to private school.<br />
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I can’t fault anyone for wanting to go to school to better themselves. And I take no pleasure in the difficulties that others face, whether it be a failed business venture or a career chosen “in error.” There is plenty to trip over in this world that you can’t predict, let alone the things that are in plain sight. Why we want to hold the little-people’s feet to the fire for their good-faith American Dream efforts, while the very wealthy and extremely connected get every kind of break imaginable for the exact same behavior, even when they crash the system, is a form of cognitive dissonance and mean-spiritedness I will never fully understand. <br />
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My error, however, was thinking that higher education (and law school in particular) was different than the “truth behind the 80s” of the business world and politics. Looks like I was wrong, and I am now worse off for it. <br />
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Congratulations, higher-ed, your scam worked! I believed in you and what you stood for, yet you were more than happy to take my money and wave your handkerchiefs farewell as I drove off the cliff. Not your fault, of course. How could anyone, with inside information and superior knowledge, have *ever* seen this coming, what with a huge oversupply of law school graduates with no prospects? Just like the investment bankers on Wall Street couldn’t have predicted the consequences of the increasingly tangled web that they weaved. Truly shocking, I tell you. <br />
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One thing is for certain – the continued erosion of trust will only hamper our nation as a whole. One can only be mislead so many times by so many institutions without there being long-term consequences for everyone. Our nation and our world is suffering from the gestalt of this erosion, and it will not recover quickly. <br />
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Another thing is for certain - this “education” I received, this erosion of trust, I will not soon forget. And this is not the kind of result that anyone would have rationally hoped for, either for an individual or for our nation at large.dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-59484336864477384902011-09-08T13:38:00.000-07:002011-09-08T13:38:58.047-07:00Tom Tomorrow And Seeing Into the FutureWhen things go awry, as they will from time to time, what is the typical response?<br />
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"Well, you should have known better." <br />
"Well, you should have tried harder."<br />
"Well, you should never have gotten into that mess in the first place."<br />
"Well, you should have done your research first."<br />
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I'm sure we can all think of others. Regardless, the point is: you should have been able to see into the future and understand exactly how this was all going to play out, even if the odds were stacked against you. Yes, you, an army of one, should have been able to dig through the (questionable) statistics, the (self-serving) publications and the (rosy) anecdotes, and realized that it was all put there to make you bet the farm against your best interests. Yes, you, should have been able to predict the future for you and your career!<br />
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Nope. Despite what the legal shills say, nobody actually has any answers. It is much easier to blame the victim (as usual) rather than admit to any culpability in aiding or abetting the failed processes that led us to where we are today. The good-faith desire to be a journalist, a lawyer, or anything else is irrelevant - you have only yourself to blame, and the sooner you blindly accept what the shills say, the better (as it will get them off the hot seat, and that is all they care about anyway).<br />
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Now, go out there and get a job! People were able to do it in the 1960s, so can you! Whiny entitled brats.dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-39481212472610782762011-04-25T12:46:00.000-07:002011-04-25T12:52:40.851-07:00Hybrid Careers - The Second (or Third) Time is (Allegedy) the Charm<b>http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/04/03/1098436/eyeing-a-career-change-they-look.html<br />
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"Maria Manano, a UNC-Chapel Hill Law School graduate and now director of career services at the law school, finds that older students have an advantage. "As career changers, they can blend their former career and their new career as a lawyer into a hybrid career which makes them more valuable in the job market," she says."</b><br />
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<br />
This is an oft-repeated canard that I am especially sick of hearing. You should be too.<br />
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Going back through the misty shrouds of time, you will see various numbers from various sources regarding all kinds of education and employment statistics. For the sake of argument, grant me that in the 1960s tuition was approximately 20% of family income at a four-year institution. While not chump-change by any means, it wasn’t going to break the family piggy bank, either. It was a stretch, but it could be done. Maybe throw in a part-time job, a grant or some other form of assistance, and you were largely there.<br />
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In 1960, around 10% of the population had a four-year degree. Out of 175 million people or so. When you spread 17.5 million jobs around the country, it isn’t that many on a relative basis. A four-year degree looks like an achievement. Heck, it’s not that expensive to boot. If you got another degree, especially a graduate degree – wow! Aren’t you a go-getter! When you blend, say, a law degree with a CPA designation, you are the bee’s-knees all of a sudden. “You’re the kind of person we need around here at ABC Corporation…!” says the CEO while putting his arm around you, giving you a noogie, and breaking out the brandy snifters. Life is good.<br />
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In 2000, almost 25% of the population had a four-year degree, Out of 275 million people or so. That is four times as many people as 1960, not counting the influence of the 40 intervening years along the way. All of a sudden, that four-year degree isn’t so shiny. In fact, neither is that JD or other graduate degree, because people were getting those in order to stand out. The hybridization effect, so allegedly effective in 1960, seems rather ho-hum now.<br />
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What happened to four-year tuition during that time? Well in 2000, it was approximately 50% of family income. In 2010, it was approximately 80% of family income. Graduate school has largely fared worse (or better, depending upon which side of the table you sit) than yearly undergraduate tuition, as law school tuition in particular has skyrocketed in the last ten years.<br />
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But, as we all know, academia is not all that well-known for venturing outside the confines of the ivory tower. The world is kind of messy out there. Kind of ugly at times. Best to stay in where it is warm and safe. Nonetheless, that old canard, seemingly so-true in 1960, is dusted-off, polished, and re-used in 2011 to entice the next round of prospective non-trad JDs.<br />
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Numbers don’t lie, folks. The world has changed a lot in the last few decades, the major difference being a simple numbers game. There are more people. Check. There are more students. Check. Tuition has increased drastically. Check. What was “unique” is now more “common.” Check.<br />
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Non-trads, do not believe the hype about the value of a JD as a valuable part of a “hybrid career”. It is just not true. With the ever-increasing amount of cookie-cutter resumes out there, employers are looking for a hand-in-glove fit, not a juxtaposed-rarity fit. Your investment in higher education is just too much to double-down on for the whim of someone thinking “Hey, this basket-weaving undergrad with basket-weaving experience, now turned JD, will be a perfect fit for our international bogbite practice! We just don’t see many basketweaver/JDs, and for that reason alone, I will hire this person!”<br />
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Nope, employers are looking for people with the “perfect fit” who can just “jump in” and make money now with little to no training, i.e. no hybridization at all. Outside of the halls of the elite, you go to School A to do Job A. If you go back to School B, you do it to do Job B. Period. It’s as if that prior education and experience evaporated. While I don’t like it, as it gives higher-education the depreciation value of an automobile, such are the times we live in. Any value that hybridization would have conferred, in some universe, has been counterbalanced by the cost to achieve said hybridization, the numbers game/passage of time cited above, and general labor arbitrage overall.<br />
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But the higher-education industrial complex will be blind to the irony of this, and instead of making education more affordable will instead place the blame elsewhere. Like on the backs of their non-achieving graduates, for example. You certainly can’t invite them around to the school fundraisers now, can you? At least not in any serious capacity. Best to advertise the one who “made-it”, a few years ago, as the subject of the fundraiser. See, it worked for that one. Money and pedigree cover a multitude of sins.<br />
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No, because there are so many look-alike "hybrid" credentials out there, so much more then is the need to stand out based on CONNECTIONS, which in turn impart the skills necessary to truly succeed. Which was always true, 1960 or 2010. <br />
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Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-40902531324112323672011-04-05T08:30:00.000-07:002011-04-05T08:30:46.664-07:00Tearing Away the Veil, and in Defense of Mr. RakofskySomething didn’t feel right.<br />
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At first, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the voice inside my head. It kept saying “something is wrong here.” I chalked it up to taking on a new challenge, to taking a big step and changing things. And, going back to school full time, voluntarily, would certainly generate some doubt. <br />
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So I concentrated on what was in front of me. Contracts. Torts. Constitutional Law. Those were the first challenges.<br />
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However, I was looking at the 3Ls, too. I saw their cynical malaise. I saw their insider joking and putting on airs. I figured that was part of the process of law school – it was probably inevitable at some level. The “Band of Brothers” approach. I saw too, however, that it masked a legitimate fear – what do I do next, after the bar exam? Where do I go?<br />
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A select few weren’t worried. These were the ones who came from families of lawyers. They knew law school was just a rite of passage. They also tended to have the better grades, too, in much the same way SAT scores correlate with zip codes. Just punch the clock and get through it.<br />
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Everyone else, though, smoked and drank. A lot. They were worried. I could see it.<br />
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But I was worried too at some level, too. After all, we were all taking the plunge. Things were uncertain, but that is life sometimes.<br />
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As a 2L, the voice got louder. I saw that all that mattered was the crucial summer clerkship that lead to a job upon graduation, and that the competition for the handful of OCI options were few. This was so critical in that there was nothing else out there to mentor students. Nothing to help them learn the ropes and gain some useful skills other than this one narrow path, through the neck of an hourglass. Surely I was missing something.<br />
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Internships/externships? Just a resume bullet-point. Clinics? If you could get in, they were a meager attempt to pass something on, for 10 hours a week during a whole whopping three months at best. Classes? They were preparation for the bar exam (maybe), nothing more. However, all these “choices” lead to one place - NOWHERE.<br />
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No, outside of fantastic pre-made connections you either had to run the gauntlet and be the lucky one that made it through to a firm, or you had to be a self-starter. Hang out a shingle. Network. Meet other experienced lawyers in your field. Drum up business. That’s what other respectable members of the bar did. So should you.<br />
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That would be great, the voice in my head finally shouted, if you ACTUALLY HAD SOME MARKETABLE SKILLS at graduation. <br />
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Take the case of Mr. Rakofsky, an attorney who arguably took the “get out there and make it a happen” approach, which is the lauded path of the self-starter. A non-whining, non-entitlement seeking member of the bar. He was reprimanded by a Judge for being incompetent at a murder trial.<br />
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http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/astonished_judge_declares_murder_mistrial_cites_inexperienced_lawyer_who_ne/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_email<br />
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-superior-court-judge-declares-mistrial-over-attorneys-competence-in-murder-case/2011/04/01/AFlymrJC_story.html<br />
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There will be those who attack Mr. Rakofsky. That he shouldn’t have been doing this sort of case at his experience level. That he should have sought better training. That it was arrogant to think he could handle this sort of thing; that he should be disbarred and that he deserves everything he gets.<br />
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Perhaps he did indeed do too much, too quickly. But the attacks from others will only serve one point – to distract from the real truth that this is the result of the law school machine. That thousands of grads are pumped out into the market who have no business doing what they are doing, except that they have no other choice. That armies of unprepared lawyers are trying to do what they can to survive, most with the crack and whip of student loans behind them. This is the monster that the system has created.<br />
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Then it hit me, all too late. The worry, the fear, the 3L cynicism. I kept waiting for something to materialize. For something I had been missing to become clear. I thought with perseverance and hard work, the light would shine through the clouds. I just needed to keep at it until I saw a path. Surely law school just doesn’t take your money and dump you into shark-infested waters, does it?<br />
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Yep. It does. It is the responsibility of the public/private sector, not law school, to train you, and it is up to you to score that training. Granted, some people will never have to hustle – merely the ones who didn’t come from the right families or are otherwise unlucky. Which is the majority.<br />
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Good luck, law grads. You are the ones turned out there with no skills, in a let-the-market-decide-who-will-succeed system. It will be you who take the fall for your mistakes, and it is you – not your alma mater, not the ABA, not your bar licensing committee – who will be branded with a scarlet letter as insult to injury. They will blame you for trying to earn a living, for trying to “do justice.” Clearly it is not the fault of the law school machine, but YOUR fault. Your sub-standard representation. Your sub-standard service to society.<br />
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Just like the mortgage industry piled circuitous, unintelligible risk on their own investors to make their profits, the legal industry piles that same risk on you for their profits. But trust me…your alma mater will be all too happy to ask you for a donation after you graduate, after all they did for you.<br />
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Godspeed.dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-629470173006949145.post-32758620388414628882011-03-03T11:37:00.000-08:002011-03-03T11:37:45.687-08:00Higher Education = Buying Connections (if only!)This is a post that is not really non-trad-specific, but bears discussion all the same. <br />
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Back in say, oh, the 16th century, the nobility ran the show, and the peasants did all the hoeing and picking.<br />
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Did the best and the brightest of the peasantry go to university? No. You couldn’t leave the confines of your lord’s estate, let alone think about improving your station in life. Neither did you want to, supposedly – God had ordained all things, from King to Pauper, and you accepted your station in life with grace and perseverance.<br />
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While everyone has difficulties to overcome in this vale of tears, let’s be honest: as the immortal Mel Brooks said, “It’s good to be the King.”<br />
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It was the sons of nobility that went to university. In between partying and sowing wild oats, they learned a thing or two before assuming their Dukedom, Earlship, or other letters patent. Ostensibly it made them better able to fulfill their role, or at least keep them occupied until messy succession issues were worked out.<br />
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Fast-forward a few centuries, and we still don’t have education as a fundamental right. We do, however, at least preach that an educated society is the most desirable society. We mandate a public school education as a minimum, and subsequently turn people loose to seek their fortunes. Some career paths require accredited programs from universities that specialize in said career path. All you have to do is get in, use your connections, and a lucrative career with service to society is all yours.<br />
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If you are the son of a senator (SPQR-variety or otherwise), for example, it’s ostensibly easier to get into an elite university and an elite career. Family money and connections go a long way.<br />
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But what if, like most peasants, you have no connections and no family money? What if the government officials that oversaw the leaking sieves that are state governmental budgets ended up firing all your teachers, leaving you with a sub-standard education? Simple – you “buy” your connections by taking out loans and graduating from university.<br />
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<b><i>"Whoa, whoa, whoa, nice shootin’, Tex! That’s a rather harsh indictment of higher education, isn’t it? I can’t wait to see what bitter bias you lather on law school in particular, you legal loser!”</i></b><br />
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Am I wrong? Why, then, do people care what university they get into? Why are children subjected to flash cards and educational tapes while in the womb? Why all this talk of rankings overall? Why are there first-tier / second-tier / TTT law schools in particular? Why is USN&WR changing its ranking system yet again?<br />
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The rationale for rankings is that certain universities are the “go to” institutions for a given field. However, there is also the mythology of “it shouldn’t matter where you go, the point is to go.” Education is democratizing, correct? Knowledge is power, correct? And, with law school in particular, the books are all the same, right? It should all be about the “love of learning” and “passion for the vocation”, not mere financial gain or employment opportunities afterward.<br />
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Until, as a student, it becomes time to pay the piper his $100k+. At that point, you care very much where you went, how respected the degree is, and who your alumni are and what strings they can pull. It becomes critical that the reputation and credentials of the school demonstrate that you are a viable, valuable candidate. In other words, for your “connections” to place you in a job. <br />
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If you have wealth and connections already, there is no need to worry. Higher Education is merely the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket, nothing more. Write a check for your student loans and be on your way. Also, cut another nice donation check to the institution that “opened doors” for you so much – just make sure they put your name on the new building addition or dormitory when it’s built.<br />
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For those without connections, this is where the prestige of the school allegedly steps in to fill the vacuum. Its respect in the marketplace. The rigors of its academic program. The success of its graduates. “See, Large Fancy Institution, you too want the high-caliber individuals from our program!”<br />
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To be fair, while the various Offices of Career Services cannot manufacture jobs out of whole cloth, neither can they help anyone who is not top of the class – there has to be something to barter with. The truth is that even the most respected program only goes so far…what matters is who you know and what business that brings to the table.<br />
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Law is, after all…well…law. Other than “prestigious” professors and “well-respected” programs, there is not a lot of difference between accredited program “A” and accredited program “W” except that “A” is higher up the alphabet than “W”. “A” and “W” are both letters, after all (and make a good root beer). Is “A” inherently more valuable than “W”? You wouldn’t think so at face value. They both have classrooms, libraries, and fax machines, after all. <br />
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Oh, but it matters. Ye shall not mingle the progeny of nobility with the plebeians, nor allow the plebeians to occupy a noble’s spot. The bottom line: if you must go to law school, get into the best program, period. Otherwise, do not go. <br />
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Sadly, these days even the best programs are still no guarantee, but if you are going to spend the money, spend it well. And make sure your have the support of the King and the Lord Privy Seal long before you go.dupednontraditionalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04170022654810216357noreply@blogger.com0