Mr. Furious, of the Mystery Men
Third Tier Reality is one of many blogs recently founded by disappointed law graduates who somehow labored under the misconception that a law school degree guaranteed that they would get 6 figure offers from big law firms and then live the life of Denny Crane until they could retire to a Caribbean island at the age of 55. A depressing number of these deluded souls managed to get themselves in hock up to their eyeballs, and when the recession hit and law firms cut back, felt first, like fools, second, angry and desperate, and third, that it was everyone else’s fault. Thus was born the “law school scam” conspiracy theory. Third Tier Reality, like the others of its breed, maintains that law schools intentionally misled scores of trusting students to pay their obscenely high tuitions, knowing that they were pumping out more lawyers than the legal market would bear.
To the extent that the site tries to educate would-be law students that there is no guaranteed gravy-train at the end of three years of law school, the website is, at worst, harmless. “My goal is to inform potential law school students and applicants of the ugly realities of attending law school,” he writes. His message: Do not seek a law degree unless…
“(1) YOU GET INTO A TOP 8 LAW SCHOOL; (2) YOU GET A FULL-TUITION SCHOLARSHIP TO ATTEND; (3) YOU HAVE EMPLOYMENT AS AN ATTORNEY SECURED THROUGH A RELATIVE OR CLOSE FRIEND; OR (4) YOU ARE FULLY AWARE BEFOREHAND THAT YOUR HUGE INVESTMENT IN TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, GUARANTEE A JOB AS AN ATTORNEY OR IN THE LEGAL INDUSTRY.”
That’s all good advice, though it presumes that more people get law degrees under the delusion alluded to in (4) than I believe is true. Nobody ever told me that a law degree guaranteed a high-paying job as an attorney, and if we understood that decades ago when law was booming, I don’t see where the confusion set in. I worked in the administration of Georgetown Law Center, and that school never made such a representation. In addition, Third Tier Reality goes further, as its brethren blogs do, to insist that a law degree from less than a “First Tier” school is actually an impediment in the job market. I hate to kick this particular hornets nest again, but this is a self-serving rationalization for failure.
A good law school education improves your writing, speaking, analytical and problem-solving skills, as well as giving you a versatile knowledge base that is useful in not just many other fields, but every other field. “Third tier” law schools are certainly capable of providing this; it doesn’t have to be a “top 8” school. (If you want a scam, try the law school rating system. As with colleges, there just is not that big a difference between the top ten and the top 50.) If you go to law school and can’t get a legal job or a professional job in another field where a knowledge of law or the skills or a lawyer are useful (which is to say, most of them), then the problem isn’t the law school, or the “scam” or that a legal degree isn’t respected by employers.
It’s you.
It literally drives “Nando,” the author of this website, and his fellow Toys-R-Us clerk/law grads crazy when I say this, which I have said before. On “Nando’s” site, I am accorded full villain status for the post I wrote last October, chiding an Occupy demonstrator for hanging out in the park with a sad, hand-lettered complaining that his law degree didn’t get him the job he thought it guaranteed. Maybe that was Nando. You see, we don’t need conspiracy theories or the sudden, mythical unpopularity of law degrees in the workplace or even the recession to explain why he can’t find a job. All we need is his website.
Nando, you see, is angry. Not Paul Krugman angry, or even Lewis Black angry. We’re talking full-bore, deranged postal worker, Mr. Furious angry. (I wonder…nah. Can’t be.) Here’s a typical passage, and far from the most agitated:
“Conclusion: Steven Davidoff is merely another academic hustler, trying to keep the wool over the applicants’ eyes. Davidoff seeks to use his background from the London Business School as solidify his excrementitious argument. He employs double-speak and false dilemmas to make his “case” that law school graduates are better off than their counterparts in veterinary school. NOTHING could be further from the truth….Veterinary schools do the humane thing and limit the number of seats to match the future need of animal doctors AT THE APPLICATION STAGE. In stark contrast, law school pigs accept and graduate FAR TOO MANY students – meaning that they unnecessarily strap down legions of their graduates with tons of non-dischargeable debt. (Of course, the cockroaches cynically assert that they are opening the doors of the “profession” to historically under-represented groups.)… U.S. “law professors” often attempt to justify the exaggerated costs of “legal education” by claiming that grads can practice law for 40 years. However, they fail to point out that, every year, ABA-accredited law schools produce TENS OF THOUSANDS of grads who never practice law. The dogs also conveniently “forget” to mention that tons of lawyers are out of the “profession” within 5-10 years.”
That’s not all. In addition to routinely referring to others, especially law deans and professors, as “cockroaches,” “pigs,” “dogs” and even more denigrating terms ( I, for example, am “a ball-less, spineless, brainless waste of sperm and egg. The man has no character and no integrity. He bills himself as a purported “ethics guru.” Always be leery of these types; by nature, they are mere charlatans who seek to avoid real work. However, this physically and ethically grotesque pig takes deceit and dishonesty to another level.” So unfair. I have never billed myself as an “ethics guru”!), Nando decorates his site with graphic photographs of various forms of fecal matter, including a particularly nauseating shot of the aftermath of explosive diarrhea.
What is the likelihood that such a pathologically bitter, mean-spirited, hateful and uncivil individual will persuade an employer that he should be trusted to interact with clients or customers? I can assure you that a bar admissions committee reviewing Nando’s application for membership in any jurisdiction in the nation would take one spin through Third Tier Reality and plant a large, red REJECTED stamp on the cover page. This is the great irony of this website: while blaming law schools for the inability of some graduates to find the jobs they want, the writer makes it blindingly clear why he can’t find a legal job, and it has nothing to do with his diploma.
Ethics Alarms 
Your first response clearly leaves out the fact that employers have a strong bias towards certain schools – they are a lot more likely to hire from Yale than Podunk. In your example of the twins, the Yale twin will get many more offers than the Podunk twin.
You dont think the schools setting up these grad employment programs to game the rankings – as they clearly were (they only disclosed them properly when the scambloggers exposed it) ; is slightly unethical? Or is it ok because everyone was doing it, and nobody should believe the rosy figures anyway?
“Your first response clearly leaves out the fact that employers have a strong bias towards certain schools – they are a lot more likely to hire from Yale than Podunk.” You don’t get it. The twin, if she is impressive, from Podunk might get hired faster, too, because the company has a budget, because the General counsel doesn’t want someone on staff with a shinier diploma than he has, and because the company can get the Podunk lawyer cheaper. You are still making the mistake of assuming that all lawyers are fungible, that skills and character don’t matter, and that people hire lawyers based on where they graduated from. Yes, the school can be a plus. But all studies of individuals with similar abilities, background and intelligence in the job market have found that the supposed gap between achievements caused by school prestige/rankings is relatively small, and probably negligible. Schools and degrees are not destiny. Going into debt that cuts off your options and margin for error, unexpected changes in the market and other events IS destiny. I am not arguing that the cost of law schools isn’t obscenely, unconscionably high. Addressing that would be a worthy mission for the scamblogs. Instead, they focus on blaming their career prospects on others, which is, I know, comforting, but still proof of some of the factors responsible for their lack of success.
I don’t know enough about the stats to answer your question. Is it anything but a good thing for law schools to hire recent graduates? Would it be better if they didn’t? What are the jobs? How many are part time? My job with my law school had a title, was full-time, and involved launching a new program. Are jobs like that counted in the stats? Presumably. I don’t know that the fact that the law schools didn’t break out their own hires necessarily has sinister implications. Jobs are jobs.
Tell me: did you careful compare employment statistics at various law schools and the professional generally when you were a college senior? I know I didn’t; my sister didn’t. I have asked several of the lawyers I know, and none of them did. It’s hardly a scientific poll….still: how about you?
You know, I made offers to many of the commenters here on this topic that I would provide some help and advice if they were really in non-professional jobs. I have a good track record on helping people find jobs, and I know areas where lawyers are appreciated in non-legal fields, in management or other roles. Nobody calls, which leads me to believe that either 1) they are more interested in bitching than in actually finding a jobs, 2) they have been unsuccessful because they don’t know HOW to find jobs (rule ONE: if someone says, “Hey, give me a call; I may have some contacts”, CALL HIM, 3) they aren’t really in the dire straits they claim, or 4) they are dumb, and that’s the real nut of the problem.
Ok, let me get this straight.
– Statistics are meaningless! You might as well go to Yale as Cooley! Stats mean nothing. Hey, I think I need to take up smoking – my lungs are an individual case, I dont believe the ‘stats’ I’ll get cancer!
– the law schools were motivated by high, noble principles in hiring their own grads on short term, part time stipends which ended shortly after the reporting deadlines for graduates in employment, (whereupon the candidates were let go) which coincidentally helped them to raise their reported employment rates. This ain’t unethical, because everyone was doing it!
Riiiight!!!
Get lost.
Neither of those statements are remotely accurate or fair summaries of what I have written, and merely confirm my original suspicion, which is that you, like Nando et al, are determined to hold others culpable for your own poor decisions and shortcomings. I have attempted to discuss them with you, and you repeatedly mischaracterize my arguments, distort them or show that you lack the ability or flexibility of mind to consider them.
Actually they sum up your arguments really well. You can’t argue the idiocy of your position that stats dont matter and the law schools weren’t trying to game the rankings, so you just resort to personal abuse.
Far from being a wise all knowing ‘ethical adviser’, you really just serve up a lot of tripe about personal responsibility, your one note answer to everything. When confronted with the bald faced fraud committed by law schools, you deny it, till the stats are presented to you, whereupon you tell people to get lost! You really should get yourself a job more in keeping with your skills; may I suggest working at a marketing department at a law faculty, where you can serve up tripe to alter the statistics (which you claim are meaningless anyway). You could while a few years away here before the federal prosecutions from this scam start flying.
Yes, thank-you Robert; you’ve made your analytical abilities and character quite clear.
There are several individuals from the scamblog world that have made useful and valid observations here. You need to get lost because you aren’t interested in facts, just a manifesto. Your next comment either acknowledges my actual positions…not that statistics are meaningless, but that statistics do not support the silly theory that school prestige counts for more than demonstrated skills and character, and not that the law school hires are OK because “everybody does it,’ but that there is nothing wrong with a law school hiring a grad for short or long term, and that doing so is not prima facie evidence of a conspiracy, whether it is disclosed or not. That’s the starting point: you want to start again from there and argue with me, fine. Otherwise, I’m sticking you in the spam pile.
Sure enough, Robert sent me another comment with the same repeated, stubborn argument, and, as promised, I dinged him. He wrote: “How many BigLaw jobs go to Yale graduates versus Cooley graduates? Which one gives you a better shot at the big time? You tell me.” That’s right, because as a general proposition, Yale Law grads are smarter, quicker, better prepared, with more experience and greater skills than Cooley, which is pretty much the bottom of the barrel (and thus hardly a fair example.) Still, it is those deficits, and not the Cooley degree itself, that is the major impediment. In my twin hypothetical, I won’t say that the Yale degree might not confer an edge in some cases. But my point stands—it is the individual, not the degree, that gets or loses the job.
Well Jack, a simple question. You can get into either Yale or Cooley. Cooley will cost you 10k a year less than Yale. Statistics dont matter, right? What matters is the individual! So you’d choose Cooley, right? Law schools dont care about their USNWR rankings, ok?
You also haven’t answered the simple point that the law schools were hiring grads part time, at lower wages, specifically for the post employment stats then letting them go shortly after.
1) I have never denied that some law schools have falsified stats and otherwise behaved unethically. That wasn’t the topic of any of my posts on this issue. Some day I mat write about it.
2) Since I understand that the purpose of neither college not post graduate school is simply a ticket to employment for big bucks, the premise of your question is inapplicable. All things being equal, I would rather be educated at the best possible school, surrounded by the most accomplished professors and the most talented peers. Cooley’s the bottom of the barrel, and I wouldn’t go there period, even if they had legitimate stats showing the all their grads waltzed into Skadden. I would not go anywhere I couldn’t afford, or that would constarin, rather than expand, my career choices. Because that’s what a law degree is supposed to do.
3) I never said that statistics don’t matter. They aren’t destiny.
You do know you were banned, right? I just pulled this out of Spam Hell because it’s a valid, non-obnoxious set of questions.
Hi Jack,
It’s been a while. Sorry I missed this round. I haven’t had time to read all of the comments here, but I just wanted to address a couple of things in your post:
1) That all unemployed law grads went to law school to get wealthy, is still a straw-man argument. In fact law professor trolls are now using this sort of “argument” around the internet (“So what if we blatantly lied and said that 95% of our graduates found legal employment and made a starting average of $90K a year? They believed our lies so clearly they just wanted to get rich, quick!”). Since when is making 90K a year being “rich,” anyway (especially when you have $200K in student loans to pay back)? Oh well, I digress.
2) Given everything that law schools have (begrudgingly) disclosed over the last year, as well as the things that have been discovered about their actions, I still have absolutely no idea how you continue to view the law school scam as a conspiracy theory. The situation can be summed up precisely as you sum it up: “law schools intentionally misled scores of trusting students to pay their obscenely high tuitions, knowing that they were pumping out more lawyers than the legal market would bear.”
3) Despite what you were told when you were attending and then working for Georgetown, law schools now represent to their applicants and students that they will find work as attorneys. If they didn’t then there would not be this current crisis in legal education, or the ongoing battle over increased transparency.
4) The contemporary legal academy, with its plethora of “academics” who get paid big (taxpayer-funded) bucks to do little more than ask law students endless questions about useless topics, and publish garbage in law reviews that no one reads, has driven legal education towards irrelevance. Add that to the fact that 1) the modern economy increasingly demands skills and knowledge that has never been taught as part of a legal education, and 2) non-legal employers tend to be biased towards applicants with JDs (i.e. lawyers are a flight risk, or must have been a failure in law if they are applying for a non-law job, or will just cause trouble in the workplace) and I don’t really see why it’s surprising that a law degree might be considered not only a waste of both time and money, but also a bar to certain employment opportunities.
5) Nando is employed. Many of us are.
6) Say what you will about Nando’s tactics, but, with perhaps “Inside the Law School Scam” being the one exception, no blog has been more important in bringing this important issue to light. I would even venture to say that, without Nando, the scamblog movement would never have become as powerful as it has over the last couple of years; Campos, Merritt, Henderson, etc., might have never started blogging and talking about this issue; and law schools might still be continuing on in their scheming ways – not imploding and derailing like they currently are (which, by the way, is a beautiful site to see). And without that, we’d all be farther from solving the greater student loan crisis in this country. Some times you have to take the gloves off. And doing so is most justified when your opponents are manipulative, lying, stealing cockroaches (and that’s not a comment on you, or anything Nando has said about you – I’m referring solely to law schools and the Paul Pless-like con artists who run them).
Now you’ll have to excuse me while I take a look at the comments in this thread. Regards.
Saying job statistics dont matter because it in your opinion it all comes down to personal attributes, ignores the fact that:
(a) there are many lower ranked schools, where you can be a very strong candidate, but you just will not get an interview with a major firm, whereas a lesser qualified Yale graduate will. You seem to think its all just a meritocracy, wheras any law student knows they have a much better chance of interviews at a T14 than a lower tiered school.
(b) the employment stats are intimately linked with and influence the rankings, and rankings definitely influence your job prospects. This is why law schools have devoted so much time to gaming the stats with their temporary ’employment’ of grads after law schools.
There’s a world of difference between a school ranked in the top ten and a school ranked towards the bottom of the top 50. Though less and less true, attending a top 8 will get you an interview, if not a job, in biglaw, which is one of the few job options for law grads that will allow them to pay off their absurd debt levels. Attending a top 50 will get your resume thrown into a large firm’s trash can before you ever have a chance to prove yourself, or any such nonsense. Thank God this “profession” is rapidly deteriorating.
Haha… I was just trolling Nando. I’m a scientist, I have zero interest in which law schools will get me jobs, as I’ll never be a lawyer. But I found his immature, ranting antics very abrasive and not “humorous”. and I just thought I’d tell him that his arguments left a lot to be desired and it was probably good that he wasn’t practicing. Well, he’s a megalomaniac with issues. So, just for fun, I locked myself into an insult exchange. He blocked my IP address because I was beating him handily. 😛
That’s our Nando.
Nando directs you to homosexual black porn if he doesn’t like your posts.
So lets keep track here.
1. Fetish with poop
2. Gay porn links known to him by heart.
-It wouldn’t be so sad if he would just admit it instead of putting lipstick on in the closet with a gun waiting to attack school children.
Nando would be wise to stop insulting the physical appearance of others.
Here’s his photograph:
http://www.jolesch.com/csEventPhotoBrowse.aspx?EventID=2133&Group=0&Cat=0&PartID=22
He is a fat, babyfaced young man with a pedophile haircut, a beard which boasts less hair (and less style) than those strands around my anus, and he looks like the typical unemployed lawyer. I would say that his physical appearance was at least 25% of the reason he failed to find a job, the other 50% being the pisspoor attitude and unlikeability that seeps from every word, and the remaining 25% being the fact that he barely even looked for a job before quitting.
What a sad prophet these scam victims have chosen for their leader.
Cowardice alert! Nando appears to have gotten in contact with the photographer to have his name removed from the pulldown list of grads for whom photos are available.
Funny how he’s happy to paste the photos of others all over the internet, but cries foul when it’s his own picture…
I graduated in the top half of my class from a top 20-30 law school a decade ago with a Moot Court competition win and a few other honors such as academic achievement awards for top grades in black letter law subjects like civ pro, trusts, and evidence.
Ten years later I am still looking for my first real “law firm” job, or a government job such as a public defender or county prosecutor, or in-house for a small company. I’d be “very” happy with 40-50K with no benefits.
I have spent the past ten years working more or less part-time on a contract basis for two solo practitioners (4 years with the first making $15/h and 2 years with the latter making $20/hr), for myself (the business crashed after 2 years with debts over $50,000), and a mixture of document review at $20/hr, bartending at $10/hr, and warehouse work at $8/hr.
I’ve never worked a fulltime permanent attorney job and I’ve never earned more than $35,000 in any given year. In fact, I’ve averaged about $20-25,000 per year.
I’m not stupid. I’m well spoken and nicely dressed. I’ve been told by judges’ clerks that I have very good advocacy skills. Whenever I’ve persisted in trying to find an attorney job over the past ten years I hear the same response again and again: “Sorry, your qualifications are impressive, but we’re just not hiring right now, we’ll keep your resume on file.” That’s from the same potential employers (small law firms, medium law firms, public defender offices, municipal prosecutors, legal aid offices etc) who I hit up for an interview about once per year, no matter what the economy is doing.
It’s tough out there, even for a tier 1 grad.
I know it’s tough, and never said it wasn’t. The legal profession is in its own recession. I said 1) a law degree is a versatile degree, if one is in a position to allow it to be versatile 2) it is not the fault of law schools if grads are having trouble getting hired, and 3) blaming the degree, the school, and standing around holding a sign proclaiming as much is neither productive not much of an indication of ability or initiative. Good luck.
I graduated from a top 10 law school twenty five years ago. I was in the top 2% of the class (maybe better), Order of the Coif, and a law review editor on the so-called main journal. I had no debt, as I had an investment job in the three years between law school and undergraduate school and paid for law school out of my own pocket. I was also an All American athlete, so I did not pay for undergraduate school either. Of course, as I look back on it, I was incredibly lucky in all of this, and am thankful I could find my way into the profession without soul crushing debt and with a pretty clear eyed sense of self. No one, and I mean no one, could do what I did then today. The costs have simply spun out of control and have served to enrich an elite progressive class of law school apparatchiks, and the value proposition simply is no longer present, no matter what subjective factors are asserted. For what is worth, i have achieved a considerable measure of success professionally.
When I attended law school in the 80’s at my top 10 school, I was constantly nagged by the thought that law school even then made at best marginal sense from a statistical and economic standpoint. Yes, I concur that law school helps in critical thinking and writing, but honestly, I was already fairly adept at critical thinking and writing, a somewhat self-authenticating proposition given my law school record (I did not do all that much work at law school, by the way). The crucial developmental experience in terms of critical thinking and writing was during my undergraduate years (the school is a top 10 USNWR national school), where I learned to compete against intense academic wolves despite having little time or resource due to athletics. The point here is that one clearly does not have to go to law school to obtain solid critical thinking and writing skills. A corollary might be that spending time in animal house activities in college is more wasteful than perhaps is understood, as that four year post adolescent vacation may be the only time in life in which to develop top rank writing and organizational and critical thinking skills. Moreover, given the overwhelmingly deductive nature of law school training, I think that any truly thoughtful person should be well aware of the narrowing effect that can obtain with legal authoritarian thinking. One must be very careful of overselling the intellectual benefits of law school, particularly given its enormous costs.
I think Nando is of course coarse and vulgar. This doesn’t bother me – I come from poverty and socio-economic nothing so certainly I am used to it, and I am by no means an effete, sensitive progressive type. I can see where Nando can truly offend some others, however. But this does not detract from his fundamental point. Law school is simply not even of marginal value for the vast majority of young people contemplating attending. There is no amount of subjective positive thinking that will turn what is an incredibly expensive and increasingly limiting opportunity into something that makes sense. The mere fact that schools are pitching income based repayments and other such nonsense – programs that by definition ruin one’s credit and life options – validates just how non-sensical law school has become. And since the people who run the schools have never been truly poor (I can attest to this), they are completely insensitive to the fact that they are running a business which destroys a great many of its customers. That kind of thing worked out for a while with sub-prime lenders, but they crashed, and crashed hard, with lots of human misery involved. Utimately, was is not sustainable will not be sustained. No amount of upbeat thinking will rescue an incredibly flawed economic model.
I write to you because it is so easy to gain the upper hand with those who have not played the system well or who have not succeeded. I think there needs to be tough minded, unemotional point of view from someone like me. I don’t like Nando’s cosmetics, but his fundamental premise is frankly unassailable. Ignore his message at your peril.
“The point here is that one clearly does not have to go to law school to obtain solid critical thinking and writing skills.”
I didn’t say it did. I didn’t need it for that purpose, nor did I need college for that purpose. But I was lucky, and had both exemplary parents and home environment and an exclusive high school education. You don’t have to, but it helps. Most, and I do mean most, college grads have inadequate skills in this area.
“Law school is simply not even of marginal value for the vast majority of young people contemplating attending.”
That’s either incredibly ignorant or dishonest. Law school keeps you from being cheated by other lawyers. I helps you know what contracts not to sign. It helps you negotiate. I can keep you out of jail. “not even marginal”? Don’t insult my intelligence…or mislead people. The statement is demonstrably false.
“Moreover, given the overwhelmingly deductive nature of law school training, I think that any truly thoughtful person should be well aware of the narrowing effect that can obtain with legal authoritarian thinking.”
I don’t know what you think you’re talking about. Legal reasoning is sound, supported, critical reasoning. There is noting “authoritarian” about it.
“One must be very careful of overselling the intellectual benefits of law school, particularly given its enormous costs.”
Two different and unrelated issues. The benefits of the training are significant, desirable and valuable. They also cost too much.
“I think Nando is of course coarse and vulgar. This doesn’t bother me – I come from poverty and socio-economic nothing so certainly I am used to it, and I am by no means an effete, sensitive progressive type. I can see where Nando can truly offend some others, however. But this does not detract from his fundamental point.”
Really? So if Justice Roberts writes an opinion that says, “The dissenters are a bunch of turd-sucking trogs” that doesn’t distract from his fundamental point? Lawyers who express themselves like Nando not only don’t get hired, they stink at lawyering, they get suspended or rejected for bar membership, and raise a legitimate question about whether they can make a serious and persuasive argument civilly That was MY fundamental point.
—–
It is a flawed economic model, no question about it. I have never disputed that.
“I write to you because it is so easy to gain the upper hand with those who have not played the system well or who have not succeeded. I think there needs to be tough minded, unemotional point of view from someone like me. I don’t like Nando’s cosmetics, but his fundamental premise is frankly unassailable. Ignore his message at your peril.”
What “upper hand”? What do you mean, “played the system”?
Incivility is not “cosmetics.” it indicates a lack of fundamental skills, character and respect, and undermines the “unemotional” discourse you rightly say is vital. Nando’s fundamental is self-serving, misleading excuse-making. Ignore at MY peril? Gee, my law school education continues to assist me at every turn, in every facet of my life, professional and personal, after 30 years. What “peril”?
Jack – honestly, with a stellar professional track record (trust me, it is the case) and an academic record you likely could not come close to ever realizing, is calling me ignorant and dishonest either remotely accurate or fair? You simply disagree with me. That’s OK. There are numerous pieces of data now that indicate that law school, almost more than any other graduate education, is is an incredibly poor investment in human capital. Even if one agrees with you that it is somewhat unique in terms of its intellectual promise, the opportunity costs in our incredibly changing and competitive global economy are far higher than ever before. Stating this certainly does not make me ignorant or dishonest. At a minimum, the kinds of emotional conclusions you make undermine your views about the coarse nature of Nando’s posts. Insults are fine if they happen to align with your worldview?
Again, I think you are too quick to leap to cause and effect. Yes, it appears law school helped me (it likely helped me more than you, honestly, because I was able to enter very, very rarefied air early on in the profession) but there are lots of factors which lead to success in any number of endeavors. Hard work, focus, a sense of strategy along with day to day tactical thinking – they all matter. Certainly these essential factors can be applied in any number of fields, and a law degree is far from a necessity for success or critical thinking skills, especially given the state of the legal employment market and the significant out of pocket and opportunity costs which should obtain.
Look, here’s the high road approach. The academic industrial complex model is broken. It enriches a mandarin class of progressives who have managed to increase costs of a product which given technological gains should have been radically been reduced. The political focus on the for profit education sector has some appeal because the abuses and the blatant inefficient transfer of taxpayer money are a bit more manifest in the for profit sector, but really, most all of the complex is very culpable. And while education certainly is a good thing, it also has created a class of somewhat entitled educated people who somehow have not become doers (a statement you appear to agree with, I think). The student loan model is also really broken, especially since we are dealing with financial instruments with almost no parallel in our economic system – that being instruments which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and which were issued with absolutely no underwriting or analysis regarding the ability to pay. It is simply an economic and cultural disaster, with smart, capable people living in misery, being in default and having no credit (this is IBR, thank you), not entering into marriages or relationships as before, and frankly, not having babies – and these are the very people we want to have babies,as Darwinian as this sounds!. The problems are real, and will not be solved by mere coaching or an upbeat attitude. (I know of too many young people with no realistic way to get started, and yes, the law degrees are a millstone around their necks). I understand the notion that people should be encouraged to think flexibly about how to use their law degrees, but heck, encouraging them to head into this incredibly broken vortex is hard to accept as the risks bear absolutely no resemblance to what they were 25 years ago. I am not sure myself how to manage to such radical economic and structural change. I do know that it is real, however, and that a mere uptick in the economy will not solve it. And I am also persuaded that calling bright and experienced people ignorant and dishonest will not solve the problem.
Cheers.
What? I absolutely did NOT say YOU were ignorant or dishonest. I said this statement—“Law school is simply not even of marginal value for the vast majority of young people contemplating attending”— an assertion that is flat out false, is either ignorant or dishonest. I suppose it could also be just plain stupid or a mistranslation from a foreign language. What other explanations are there for a statement that has no tether to fact whatsoever? At any rate, I have made many ignorant statements in my time, an occasional dishonest one, and a random stupid comment or two, none of which makes ME either ignorant dishonest, or dumb. The fact that this distinction eludes you is remarkable for one who is such an intellectual and academic giant based on his own assessment.
I will say that anyone who could write—“with a stellar professional track record (trust me, it is the case) and an academic record you likely could not come close to ever realizing”—is either a jerk or acting like one.
I’m not even sure what you think you mean by saying “There are numerous pieces of data now that indicate that law school, almost more than any other graduate education, is is an incredibly poor investment in human capital.” What turgid nonsense. Are there laws? Do people need to understand laws, use laws, and be able to access laws? Do laws threaten to enslave, impoverish, abuse or other wise strangle life’s ambitions when used by the unscrupulous? Is helping people live, settle disputes and avoid catastrophe “an incredibly poor investment in human capital”? Law is a profession that helps people who can get help no other way. Whether it is lucrative or financially advantageous or not, it is still an excellent use of human capital. You don’t even understand your own field, and like many in your position, entered it for the wrong reasons.
Since your starting point for the discussion is that the value of a profession is only measured by how much money you can make doing it, you are by-passing ethics from the outset. I have no problem at all now understanding exactly why your job hunt has not met your expectations.
The author of this blog entry is nothing but crack lint. He is drinking the Kool Aid trying to make you believe that the reason you do not have a job is due to your own inadequacies. If only you obtained a better a GPA, served on law review, received a summer offer at a better ranked law firm, and on and on – then you WOULD undoubtedly have a legal job. Could it be that the reason you are unemployed simply involves a supply and demand imbalance in the legal industry that has been ongoing for at least 2 decades (or more)? Yeah you idiot, cockroach piece of shit, keep drinking that Kool Aid and deluding yourself and others. Please do us all a favor and suck on a tailpipe tonight. Thank you.
Observe, all, yet another self-validating example, a la Nando, of why so many of those complaining loudest deserve their unemployment status the most! In this instance, incivility and flawed reasoning are superbly illuminating. Yeah, this kind of argument style has always been in demand in law firms and legal departments, YM. Must be a bitch to choose a career you are temperamentally and intellectually unsuited for because you think it will make you rich.
You don’t get a second chance to comment here, having received a rare deferred bounce. But this was worth letting through. Thanks, and bye.
And you thought that I was the worst of your troubles, Jack! Crack… lint??
You’re not even close to being the worst of my troubles. But we may have identified a core reason all these law grads aren’t finding jobs–the market is refusing to hire abusive, insulting brats.
It would be nice to believe that professional conduct is regaining favor in the juristic circles!
Jack, I’m glad I found your blog. Considering all the “scamblogs” that are out there, I appreciate your thoughtful and well considered counterpoints.
I am a prosecutor, and I have many cases with many different defense attorneys, which offers me the chance to pick out “good” lawyers from “bad” lawyers. In my experience, and in my market, many of the successful attorneys who keep the paying clients coming through the door did not go to a “top law school.” Instead, they tend to be pragmatic, active listeners, and efficient in how they choose to use the court’s time. They are prepared, attentive, and have a knack for detail. They know how to network with not only the judges, but with the court staff as well.
Certainly, the school one graduates from can limit the number of doors that are initially available to a new attorney. But once a new attorney can get their foot in the door and begin demonstrating the skills set forth above, they will eventually improve their stock and worth to the profession, with success hopefully following not too far behind.
It’s a tough market out there, and there are certainly excellent candidates who do everything right but still can’t find employment. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to keep sending out the resumes no matter how discouraged you become. Take court appointed work if you are able. Watch court hearings so you can become familiar with basic courtroom procedures and the presiding judges. It only takes one offer to make your hardwork and persistence pay off.
Thanks, Joey. That’s realistic, and pragmatic, as well as true. A lot of people will not want to hear it.
Jack, I 1000% agree with you – employers don’t want to hire uncivil brats! These kids think that they can turn off their filth and poor attitude when they step into an interview, that they can act all nice and not like they act online, but they can’t. There is no way that Nando, given his behavior on the internet, could possibly hide every scrap of his poor character from employers. Perhaps it slipped through as a shitty comment in an interview, a touch of arrogance maybe, or perhaps a barely detectable sneer for just a fraction of a second. Just something that showed his hand to the employer, and let the employer know that there is something wrong with this kid. It’s easy to read a person’s character from the undertext of their statements and actions, and I believe that is why Nando failed to find a job. No matter how pleasant and employable he thought he was being in interviews, the employers saw through him and saw the dirty little entitled brat inside, the same brat that has since shown the entire world why he wasn’t employed.
I bet there’s countless employers out there remembering the time they interviewed Nando, now glad that they dodged that bullet.
Oh, and after reading the comments here, the scamblog movement clearly runs on twisting the words of others and deliberately misinterpreting things. I saw no reasonable arguments from any reasonable posters. It’s a movement fuelled by hatred, bitterness, and lies.
Law school is too expensive. There are too many grads. But all these comments about it having no intellectual worth, that it’s a waste of time etc. All of that is just a bunch of bullshit. Cut the cost, cut the number of grads, and all of law’s problems will be solved.
It’s just the entitlement generation coming through. I’m no baby boomer – not even close – but these kids coming out of college today really expect their lives to be handed to them on a silver platter.
For a minute I thought there was really a Scamblog Scamblog, which would portend a trend that could easily get out of hand.
Thanks for your support. The original post that so infuriated these guys was noting that holding a sign in a square complaining about your law school is neither a smart way to get hired nor an indication of the kind of initiative and responsibility an employer wants to see. I have never suggested that the legal market wasn’t much worse than usual, or that law school wasn’t over-priced, or that the plight of newly minted grads wasn’t serious. Nor do I deny that some law schools have played fast and loose with employment stats. But to argue, as the scambloggers do, that a law school education actually diminishes one’s employment prospects is the height of nonsense, as is the argument that a lawyer “can’t” start a solo practice, when thousands do. It is tough, it is a risk, it won’t pay the loans off and it’s far from instant riches, but it sure as hell is a better strategy than holding a whiny sign.
Believe me, there have been many times in the past when I have been moments away from starting something like “Inside the Scamblog Scam”, or “Third Tier Reality Reality”, two blogs that would just post a response to the latest posts on each of those Meccas for disgruntled law grads. Third Tier Reality has demonstrated a history of actively trying to destroy anyone who disagrees – even mildly – with Nando’s childish message, and posting arguments in the comments section of his site is pointless unless you want your computer infected with viruses and forwarded to some of the most filthy porn on the internet (again indicative of Nando’s rather disgraceful character, and again indicative of why no rational employer would trust him and employ him). And Paul Campos and DJM at ITLSS, while somewhat well meaning, have a penchant for allowing the comments section of their site to actively punish and drive away even sensible counterarguments. I suppose their current fame relies on the fact that their blog comments section is busy with little attack dogs, barking away in that insane echo chamber. (And DJM, while the softer blogger on that site, has a penchant for tracking IPs, so be careful – she has more teeth than she’s letting on.) Not to mention the horrific ethical misstep of railing against the system that is paying their own salaries, sometimes even insulting the very victims of the “scam” in the process. ITLSS would be a fine example of another unethical website, but that’s another story, especially the way that they have conveniently brushed over the fact that they are paid by the scam, are blogging while supposed to be working for their students (judging by the times that some of their blog posts are posted), and are blatantly riding the scam to further their own careers as law professors. That’s the real scam.
But I digress. The original point being that the scamblogs themselves, and the frenzy they are trying so desperately (but stll failing?) to whip up about law school being a huge scam. It’s clearly not a scam. There is room for change, yes. But scam? Not a chance, and we – the 99.9% of all law grads ever who don’t post over on those sites – know damn well that there’s no scam.
Surely if it was such a huge scam with so many victims, they’d have thousands of commenters, instead of ten arguing with themselves over and over again (many of which are clearly the blog authors “seeding” the comments sections)? Surely with these 20000 unemployed law grads per year, plus the millions of unemployed lawyers, more than a handful could bother showing up to reveal this scam?
But no, we just have what is still a niche conspiracy theory. Jeez, the guys who think that we’re descended from aliens get more coverage than the scambloggers.
Perhaps we should focus on the victims of the scamblog scam? The people who listened to that depressing message and gave up too soon? The people like JD Painter who publicly descended into madness and misery because Nando convinced them that they were scammed? The people who are now linked to unfortunate and ill-advised lawsuits against law schools?
I’m all for law school reform, but in a positive manner. Law School Transparency is a great start. But scamblogs are just taking this conversation into the toilet, into places that drag people down, cause depression, misery and breed failures.
But then again, I think that scamblogs are just a meeting point for people who were that way inclined in the first place, and if they weren’t meeting on scamblogs, they’d be meeting in other unsavory internet locations where those with weak minds and unfortunate circumstances are led down a path to increased failure rather than being helped up towards whatever success they can achieve.
Ugh. I could write a book on this strange phenomena.
You could write a book, or start an anti-scamblog blog, but you don’t because you’d have no audience other than those pointing out what a moron you are and how ridiculous your “arguments” are. I mean, you’re such an incessant internet troll that this is pointed out to you all of the time anyway; you just try to dismiss this criticism by deeming all scambloggers “crazy” and mindlessly repeating the same drivel you mentioned above. Frankly you deserve to be ignored, but out of concern that some ignorant law school applicant will read your post and think it has any merit, let’s go over your points one more time:
1) Nando is disrespectfully spreading a “childish” message. Yes, fine, he’s disrespectful to pond-scum like you. But you have yet to demonstrate how his central message – that law schools are scamming applicants and students – is childish.
2) Campos and DJM allowed for open but unproductive discussion in their comment sections that drives away sensible counterarguments. Can you provide an example of the “sensible” counterarguments that were driven away by commenters on that site, which isn’t one of your nonsensical “oh come on guys, we all know there is no scam” statements? And what is a valid argument in defense of the current law school mess and why isn’t anyone (especially you) publicly stating it?
3) Those like Campos and DJM are hypocrites for keeping their jobs and thereby benefiting from the scam, and this is “the real scam.” This is complete and utter nonsense. If they did quit their jobs you’d then be all over them for not being able to hack it in legal academia and not knowing what they’re talking about. They deserve credit for actually raising these issues. Meanwhile you actively troll the internet using hundreds of pseudonyms, trying to convince people that there is no scam and that all scambloggers are crazy (though you can never explain how).
4) Law school is “clearly not a scam.” You repeat this often but never actually explain how law school is not a scam. As mentioned above you merely rely on ridiculous appeals to common sense (“come on guys, we all know it’s not a scam!”) and ignore facts that are detrimental to your opinion. If anyone truly believes law school is not a scam, I would suggest they arrange a public debate with Campos or Tamanaha and put this entire issue to rest. But no one does.
5) There are only ten scambloggers and they get no attention. If this (complete lie) is true, then the legal academy is a house of cards that deserves to topple. TEN scambloggers were able to help initiate a serious crisis in legal education that is now regularly covered by MSM?
6) What we should really be discussing are the “victims” of the scamblogs. Fine, then start a blog or write a book about this supposed problem, if it actually exists. Meanwhile we’ll continue talking about law schools using BS stats to lure idiot kids into borrowing hundreds of thousands of taxpayer-funded dollars to waste three years of their lives to obtain an essentially worthless degree, only to be dumped into an over-saturated market built around an antiquated, inefficient and shrinking industry.
Why do you think there are no blogs defending law schools? It’s telling.
I’ve been in the very difficult position of trying to obtain non-legal employment with a JD. I’ve also been in a position of hiring people during which law grads were blatantly discriminated against, So I don’t understand why it’s a “nonsense” notion that a JD might diminishes one’s employment prospects.
Again, I think commenters were just a little pissed that you referred to the guy as “whiny” in your original post when he was actually conveying an important message. And I have no idea how this was a waste of time or counterproductive; in fact the picture didn’t even show him standing in a square. Personally I find time to both work hard and succeed, and also spread the message about the law school scam/scum.
It’s not telling in the least. Who would be the audience for such blogs?
“I don’t understand why it’s a “nonsense” notion that a JD might diminishes one’s employment prospects.”
Because it’s nonsense. It’s a credential that demonstrates skill, hard work and a level of expertise and intelligence. It couldn’t be a detriment if it was packaged as one.
This is the Fundamental Attribution Fallacy. Yes, the reason X hasn’t found a job is X’s degree, not X. (The reason is X.)
Law professors and administrators who want nothing more than to continue the modern system of legal education. They’d love it.
Fine, it’s nonsense. Because you say so? And a JD is a “credential that demonstrates skill, hard work and a level of expertise and intelligence. It couldn’t be a detriment if it was packaged as one.” Because you say so? I have direct experience with it being a detriment to finding a non-legal job and employing someone else. I have little experience with it being anything else. Meanwhile you praise the versatility of a law degree with platitudes. Tell me, where are the hoards of non-legal employers actively recruiting from law schools, or seeking out resumes from JDs? At best it’s a credential that needs to be explained away or at least justified for most non-legal positions.
This is a straw-man. I don’t think anyone is arguing that the reason X hasn’t found a job is X’s JD. They’re arguing that X’s JD is a detriment to finding non-legal employment. And the argument that “[t]he reason is X” is non-falsifiable nonsense.
What? The reason that X can’t find a job is X is “non-falsifiable nonsense”? Tell me another.
I heard a good one over at Ludo Stories about Campos being “over the top” for suggesting that government employers want a demonstrated commitment to public service in law students and recent grads, and that pursuing work with a private firm might be a detriment to finding said job. Apparently because those with established legal careers can freely switch back and forth between sectors (which is true) those looking for their first job can do so as well. And this demonstrates that Campos’s message is always tainted with extremism.
But that one should probably be addressed over at Ludo’s blog.
I agree with you fully. After looking at his blog, all I saw was an enraged madman who prefers ad hominems to actual discourse. Certainly, law school is a risky investment. As someone about to enter it, I know this very well.
But if you’re entering law school with a solely monetary interest, it certainly isn’t for you. My goal is to be an honorable, respected lawyer, regardless if it pays 30k or 300k. If I drown in debt, that was my choice. I made the decision myself, and as the old saying goes, “Caveat emptor.”
It saddens me that people listen to such a sad, angry man. Any point he makes is lost in his callous, heartless verbiage. One of his posts just attacks someone who disagrees with him by making fun of his appearance. I would hope anyone who does such doesn’t get a job as a lawyer, heck, even a job at all. To be so cruel suggests that his true problem is a hatred for people, not the actual problems that come with law school.
Keep fighting the honest fight.
There are plenty of ethical scamblogs and scambloggers. Nando might be childish, but the central points he’s making are not.
I’m all for “caveat emptor” but I am opposed to fraudulent inducement. Hence my criticism of modern legal education.
If you are a lawyer, you know that fraud is a term of art. There have been very, very, VERY few proven examples of “fraudulent inducement.” There have been many example of students going into the law for the wrong reasons, assuming guarantees that didn’t exist, and that no rational person would think existed.
“There have been many example of students going into the law for the wrong reasons, assuming guarantees that didn’t exist, and that no rational person would think existed.”
Well, law schools have been known for recruiting idiot kids. See http://lawlemmings.tumblr.com/ for a frightening look at the intelligence levels of future law school applicants and students.
My opposition to law schools is primarily an ethical one. It’s no different from me disapproving of any business that uses dishonest tactics to generate revenue from unintelligent purchasers.
You apparently regard all advertisng and puffery as unethical. It’s a defensible position—I happen not to hold it. Saying “our product is good” is not a guarantee that any one consumer will find it so. Still, that non-promise will “generate revenue from unintelligent purchasers.” Of course, unintelligent purchasers should not be seeking legal careers, but they have a right to try.
There’s grey area, of course, but I don’t consider manipulated employment stats to be puffery or blatant misrepresentations to be standard advertising. Also, I’d be drastically less concerned if all of this was going on in the free market with idiots buying whatever useless degrees they want with their own money. But the law schools have been running their scheme using taxpayer dollars, and frankly I’m tired of giving them my money.
Talk to our government. I have never advocated or approved of the student loan program or policies. But blaming law schools for accepting the bounty of terrible social policy is like condemning baseball free agents for accepting such large salaries. The student loan mess is exactly like the sub-prime mortgage mess, and brought to you by the same people.
I do what I can (when I have the time to do it). An important part of our democratic process is speaking out, especially in the information age.
If MLB salaries were funded by taxpayers, rather than those like me who freely choose to follow baseball, I would absolutely take issue with them squeezing the system to live a comfortable lifestyle while providing something of very little social value. And that’s why I am opposed to the current law school model.
Also, I’m not suggesting that you have approved of federal student loan policy. In fact I have a feeling that you and I would probably see eye-to-eye on a lot of economic matters.
I think you’re missing the main premise here: That little ‘misconception of 6 figure salary’, is *the* main theme… *the one* that’s been heavily propagated by law schools regardless of the fact. In fact, all (yes, ALL) third tier law schools are guilty of tacitly signalling high salaries upon graduation to prospective students. All the while, knowing full well that the #s are heavily skewed & biased. And despite whatever these kids would say in their application forms, high salary is still their motivation for getting a law degree.
The keyword here is ‘tacit signalling’. Ever seen one of those late-night diet/get-rich commercials with “not guarantee…results may vary…” fine prints? Yes, no different than that. Anywhere else in the world they’d call it scamming. Only in law education that such practice would be staunchly defended – by none other than someone of your stature & background.
And no, I’m not trying to vilify the law schools; they merely behave perfectly as expected under this classic textbook example of an artificially-imposed oligopoly system. But maybe… just maybe… if we rectify this, then our young people can make the most of their brain & potential, instead of getting scammed into 20 yrs of debt servitude.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571141-cheaper-legal-education-and-more-liberal-rules-would-benefit-americas-lawyersand-their
I agree that tacit signaling is unethical, if permitted—diet plans are the classic example, as are fitness machines. But this tacit signaling comes from the culture, the media and the aspiring lawyers themselves, no? Doctors and lawyers are represented in the culture and Jewish mother jokes as synonymous with “rich”…in that regard, it’s like the Gold Rush. But young adults who are supposed to be smart enough to be lawyers aren’t ignorant, illiterate prospectors able to be fooled by some iron pyrite. I know of no school that promised 6 figure salaries…I know of lots of news reports that spoke of them as if they were sure things. I continue to believe that those who entered law, a profession, for riches, the antithesis of what a profession is supposed to be about, scammed themselves. The worst I can say about the law schools is that they didn’t stop them, and perhaps should have.
Sure, the social/cultural prestige associated with being an attorney is still a problem, but I still have no idea how you can make a statement like “I know of no school that promised 6 figure salaries….”
Did you ever look at law school websites or marketing material ten, or even five, years ago? The best I can say about the law schools is that they turned a blind-eye to the rackets being run by their admissions offices, as demonstrated in the discovery phases of the (to quote the “philosopher” troll above) “ill-advised lawsuits against law schools” that weren’t dismissed with nonsense reasoning.
I’m actually sympathetic to the notion that anyone who attended law school for riches scammed themselves. I think this about most people who do anything just to make instant money. That said (once again), as someone who graduated in the last decade, I think that’s a gross generalization of modern law school graduates. Most people that I knew in law school only cared about salary statistics because they were borrowing lots of money to attend law school. It wasn’t an “I’m going to be filthy rich when I graduate!” mentality, but an “I’m going to pay off my loans and then have a useful law degree” one. I think most of the people that I wen to law school with wouldn’t have borrowed a dime to obtain a JD if they knew the realities of employment opportunities after graduation, or the realities of the decrepit legal industry.
“I know of no school that promised 6 figure salaries.”
And neither do you.
Who are you talking to? If me, this is nonsense.
Then again I have a feeling it won’t count unless it’s an express statement from a school, something like “come to our place of higher learning and – WE PROMISE – you will make six figures.” Any successful fraudster knows you can’t run a sustainable scheme this way.
Sorry for asking who you were referring to. When I initially saw your comment it wasn’t lining up below mine.
This comment is specifically to address For Profit Law Schools that have been popping up since the initial economic surge in the mid 2000’s.
Schools such as Charlotte Law, Florida Coastal, and Phoenix Law are all owned by an LLC called Infilaw. Florida Coastal was the first school and the man who calls himself the founder of Infilaw, Dennis Stone, was the person hired to establish the library at Florida. Dennis Stone also established other law school libraries, so how did Dennis Stone become a founder of Infilaw and also the President of Charlotte Law? This is where part of the problems of these new For Profit law schools begin.
The story behind Mr. Dennis Stone is that when he married a black woman he then became aware of the unfairness of blacks being allowed into law schools. As the story was further told to me Mr. Stone was not affiliated with any schools but instead was a successful attorney. Based on his financial wealth, and his newly discovered insight due to his current wife, Mr. Dennis Stone decided to begin a law school for philanthropic purposes of providing those who have been unfairly declined to pursue a career in law. This rosy philanthropic purpose is not true for if in fact it was then the Infilaw ‘trio of schools’ would not be For Profit and the cost to run the schools would be evenly distributed to the cost for tuition. This is not what is actually taking place. Also, Mr. Stones lengthy career establishing law libraries, is not a career as a successful and prominent attorney with the financial ability to be philanthropic. As far as can be discovered, Mr. Dennis Stone was not the force behind the first law school, Florida Coastal, but was in fact the person who established the law library. Thus, how does Mr. Dennis Stone have the ability to claim himself as the founder of Infilaw and these three law schools owned by the Infilaw LLC?
Mr. Dennis Stone somehow knew Mr. Rick (Richard) Inatome, Mr. Richard Inatomes father was the creator of a computer retail store in Southern California. This one store grew into a large store and then multiple retail computer stores. This is possibly how they met; Inatome providing computers for law libraries? Just a consideration or thought. Mr. Inatome has a resume stating many successes, so much so that one would believe this man is a genius and wealthy enough to compete with any of the Apple Founders or Microsoft Founders. In fact, Rick Inatome claims to have a Microsoft office location at the Infilaw LLC office location in Naples Florida. I wonder if Microsoft knows of this office location? Rick Inatome also claims to have an MBA from Michigan and one from Tufts. If this is all true, and Rick Inatome is 59 years of age, then just when did Rick Inatome have the ability to: create the Computer Retail Store Conglomerate in Southern California; be someone special at Microsoft; be on the board of directors of the Michigan Automobile Club (AAA), is now the CEO of Infilaw in Naples Floriday and also a Managing Director of Educational Schools – Programs at the firm Sterling Investment in Baltimore Maryland? Does the ABA know that Infilaw claims an office location at the exact same address as the ABA in Chicago? Does the ABA know that Charlotte Law claims to have an ABA office location in Charlotte on Morehead? All connected to Rick Inatome or Dennis Stones names if the ABA would begin monitoring schools such as those owned under Infilaw and Sterling Investment.
Sterling Investment, of Baltimore Maryland, has somehow partnered with Infilaw LLC. Whether they are partners or investors has not been determined from what has been discovered thus far. But, Sterling Investment put forth a seminar about the importance for private funding companies to become involved in providing Higher Education, Law Schools for example, for investors and potential investors to invest in. Sterling Investment joined Baine Capital (yes, the one that Mitt Romney helped blossom and where he gained his personal wealth) in promoting this investor presentation. So, is this where the true money for these For Profit Schools is coming from? But, are these schools solely focused on Profit? Is there any true concern about the quality of education they are providing or that the education is valuable so that the student can earn an income where they can live above poverty AND pay off their school loans? How much Seed Money is being invested by Sterling Investment, Baine Capital, Mr. Dennis Stone and Mr. Rick Inatome? How much money is being invested by the students via the route of Federal Student Loans? This is your answer and this is the financial burden being carried by the students and by every tax payer in America.
When schools of incompetency are allowed to be created with the sole purpose of financial gain then everyone should turn and run. These schools have already provided a history establishing the low percentage of student success after completion at many of these very expensive private for profit schools. Thus, many of the students are not capable of paying off the Federal Loans, the loans our tax money is funding and the persons such as Mr. Dennis Stone, Mr. Rick Inatome, and Sterling Investment are making a profit, just how big of a profit? What happened to the philanthropic purpose of Mr. Dennis Stones creation of law schools for those who have been unfairly denied the education? Looks to me like that window has always been open and the money is being thrown out the window and into some pockets.
Now Regarding the quality of the education provided by the Infilaw Schools. Charlotte Law School has teachers who have been fired from previous jobs, some teaching jobs and some jobs as attorneys. Charlotte Law is unable to hire additional teachers (notice I am not using the descriptive word Professor) yet they lured over 600 students to come to Charlotte Law for the Fall 2012 Start. 600 students and the Charlotte Law location can’t handle this incoming class, so the administration rented additional space from another college about 2 miles away. Where did the additional teachers come from? They didn’t. Current teachers stated, ‘we can’t hire teachers to come for all these students.’ Charlotte Law could not hire teachers for the Spring 2012 student classes such as Property II. When a retired lawyer states, ‘I have never taught before and the school can’t seem to find anyone to hire’…..’so, we will have to work through this together’….. That is a problem and it is scenarios such as this as to why the students are not receiving a good education and thus the hiring law firms, businesses, and non-profits and not going to offer the graduating students a job. I think this is very clear and if anyone cannot understand what has been written then go to the city of Charlotte and find out what the employers think about Charlotte Law and the students they have met. Go even to the public offices that take interns.
At Charlotte law their first year attrition rate for the Spring 2012 class was approximately 44%! Approximately 70 left out of 125 that began. Most likely well over 90% of the students had Federal Funded loans. Now what? These are supposed to be the students being provided that Special Opportunity – the Philanthropic efforts of Dennis Stone.
The BAR passage I believe is under 50% for first time takers. These students are taking the N. Carolina BAR, not the New York or CA BAR’s which are the toughest.
The Infilaw Phoenix School of Law is as bad.
These schools and others like them is what the problem is, they offer false hope, they provide crummy incompetent teaching staff who are losers in the field of law. The saying, ‘those who cannot do, teach’ is appropriate for many whom I have met and obtained background information. To have a visiting professor take over a class, Lawyer Writing etc., of a problem teacher only to discover that the problem teacher was so bad that the visiting professor had to re-teach the semester one class included in the semester two period defines the problems of Inflilaw Schools and most definitely Charlotte Law.
The ABA is responsible for these teaching deficits as the ABA is giving the blessing of the quality of the education provided by annointing the schools with Accredation. A sin at the least.
The ABA has not established guidelines in which these privately, for profit, new schools must abide by such as: what do teachers have to accomplish before they can be graduated to the title of professor; testing, tutors provided; I can go on and on. Thus the ABA is at fault for the law schools that are shams for if these schools repeatedly failed qualifying for Accredation the schools would expire.
The Federal student loans should not be provided to the law schools that are not Accredited, thus further pressure upon the ABA as to the law school accredation and teacher/professor requirements. Should a fired teacher or attorney in a firm/business be hired at these for profit schools that are newly created and have not proven able to be annointed with Accredation?
These are some, only some, of the points at issue with the law schools and the lack of proper education provided the students, thus the students are unable to find employment. It is not earning a six figure income, retiring at age 55.
The ABA needs to be held by their toes by the Federal Government. LSAC also needs to be held by thier toes, I’m sure the two are connected with webbing between the toes.
Nando is right. You are wrong.
Wow. Well, who can argue with THAT trenchant analysis? I especially was impressed with the way you assembled your data, rebutted all arguments, and made a compelling, substantive case. Nando, of course, can only rebut by abuse, personal attacks and obscenity, which is why his own legal career is an example of self-fulfilling prophesy. My own, on the other hand, supports my objective and flawless assessment.
Nando is a hero, in my opinion. I went to a top 25 law school and worked for a “small firm” (the type of firm Campos correctly points out where law grads make less than 20k a year without benefits.) I’m now looking, because my employer couldn’t pay me when I passed the bar…
When I applied to law school in 2009, all schools only posted the average starting salary and the employment rate 9 months after graduation. For my school, the average salary in private practice was $135,000 and over 95% were employed 9 months after graduation. So, when I decided whether to enroll, I had the firm belief that I would find a job that would at least make 50 to 60k, WORST CASE SCENARIO. This was not an unreasonable belief to have, and many law students fell for these numbers. Had they known the REAL truth, many would have graduated from college and continued looking for work, even if they were unemployed for a year or longer. At least they would have been debt free or would have had minimal debt.
By concealing the true employment and salary numbers and the type of jobs law graduates were getting while KNOWING the market was contracting and their graduates would have dim employment prospects, the actions the schools took is criminal. I am glad Nando has the courage to continue writing about this. And, if you were the victim of fraud and misrepresentation, you would be calling the fraudsters (whose deans pocketed over $500,000 a year off the backs of victims) “mongrels”, “rat bastards” and “law school pigs.” That’s exactly what they are, Harvard, Stanford and Yale included.
Here’s what needs to happen:
1) The Justice Department needs to investigate each and every law school in the nation to see if they are/were cooking their employment and salary numbers. If it is discovered they were/are, they should be fined.
2) Any administrator–lawyer who participated in these numbers (with the goal of inducing students to attend their school) should be disbarred, according to state ethical rules that prohibit misleading and fraudulent advertising.
3) The federal government needs to have a moratorium on the federal student loan program, especially for law schools. The schools either pick up the tab or are forced to cut tuition considerably, otherwise no one but the ultra rich will be able to afford. Again, if only the ultra rich could attend, then Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Columbia will likely be the only schools that will remain open.
4) Most law schools need to close. The applications have not hit bottom, and hopefully will not until a considerable amount of students choose to do something else with their lives. But the damage has already been done. Many recent law grads are not doing any better than the hoochie mamas who dropped out of High School, have three kids and lives in the hood on food stamps. In fact, some are doing better.
Third Tier Reality is not unethical at all. What is unethical are the state bars coming after attorneys who drop a dime on the sidewalk, and yet do nothing when law schools publish false and misleading statistics. Even worse (and like the banks) the rules do not seem to apply to these institutions. They only apply for the “ordinary people”, like the law graduates whose financial lives are ruined by high debt and horrendous job prospects.
So, yes, I can see why many law graduates are furious. No one expected to get rich, but we all did expect to make a living. No amount of rationalizations from these law school administrators (“Network!”) (“Work Harder!”) will change the fact that there are way too many attorneys for the law positions that are available.
“So, when I decided whether to enroll, I had the firm belief that I would find a job that would at least make 50 to 60k, WORST CASE SCENARIO.”
You can stop right there. It doesn’t matter whether the statistics were misleading or not…if you based your career choice and law school choice on stats citing salary averages, you are 1) irresponsible 2) foolish 3) in the wrong profession 4) misguided and 5) asked for your plight.
The law isn’t a business, and going into it to make money is the sign of a future unethical lawyer. Moreover, the stats you cite—and I’d like the name of the school, please—are per se unbelievable. An average starting salary of $135,000? Absurd. If a car dealer tells you that a car gets 10,000 miles a gallon, who is at fault when you buy the car?
And if someone whose means of advocacy is to hurl obscene abuse at anyone who disagrees with his rants is your idea of a hero, thank goodness no law firm is hiring you. Role models are telling.
You make a lot of assumptions about me, which are simply not true. But, instead of any name calling, let’s have a serious discussion.
It does matter if the statistics were misleading because many students still do not have access to accurate market data. This also goes for many occupations, not just the law. Once the ABA compelled law schools to release more reliable employment data in 2011, first year enrollment went from 52,000 to 39,000. That means something.
And, if it was not for the “law school reform movement” (scamblogs playing a role), then the ABA would have done nothing at all.
However, more work needs to be done. The public still does not know what the average starting salaries really are and the percentage of graduates who are on PAYE/IBR.
And yes, the practice of law in the private sector is a business. But, let me say what should not be a business. Higher education and educating our future leaders, should not be a business. Taking care of people’s health should not be a business.
Law school is only the tip of the iceberg as far as what is wrong with the U.S. Higher education, health insurance, wealth disparity (among many other issues), are all things that need to be reformed, but is highly unlikely, given how ‘effective’ Congress currently is.
The system is broken, my friend. Generation Y only sees a broken system, whereas the Baby Boomers have experienced America when it worked. A lot of suggestions such as “college guarantees you a good job”, “more education is key” and “you can make it as long as you work hard” comes from a time when the Yahoo COO did not get $58 million dollars as a severance package for working 15 months and GM paid its assembly line workers the 2012 equivalent of $50 an hour. The middle class was robust and jobs were simply more plentiful. At the same time, housing and rental prices were not prohibitively expensive and the cost of higher education was relative and manageable to starting salaries.
Anyway, I did not base my attendance at law school based on “salary averages”. I went because I still believe a legal degree has benefits…BUT you cannot deny that many students from top schools are struggling right now. Yes, it is due to the economic recession, but law schools knew that the legal market had been contracting for years, and they increased their tuition and class sizes, knowing many of their graduates would not be able to find legal jobs. While indeed some law students do not wish to practice, most who enroll in law school do.
I do agree with you on the fact that there are lawyers who are not the sharpest knives in the shed, but why do you think that is? I don’t blame the applicant here; I believe the ABA is a runaway freight train that would accredit anything. In contrast, the American Medical Association would carefully monitor how many medical schools there were, and we do not hear about a “doctor crisis.” Quite the opposite; there is a doctor shortage.
Do I think a lawsuit will solve the problem of the “lawyer glut”? No. But I do think higher education in general needs to be seriously reformed. College and graduate schools should not be treated as a business. A law degree is not worth $180,000 if starting salaries for most graduates is around $45,000 in the private sector.
I think most of these “scamblogs” would not exist if law school was $4,000 a year, even if starting salaries were around $25,000 a year. In this scenario, the starting salary outweighs the debt. But what we have is a major problem: the debt majorly outweighs the average starting salary. This was not always like this. It’s the amount of loans that students take out, relative to their job prospects and the salary that calls for law school reform.
Public interest jobs are also not plentiful. While PLSF is available for law graduates who want to work in government/public interest/non-profit, the same trend keeps popping up: there’s not enough of these jobs for law graduates and these jobs are super competitive.
So, unless Congress changes the way federal loans and bankruptcy works (or takes away the tax bomb at the end of the IBR/PAYE period), there is a real danger that many law graduates could be facing bankruptcy in their 40’s and 50’s, if the present economic situation does not change. However, what will happen to our society if college students generally cannot afford to buy a house, or do not have the disposable income of prior generations? The income disparity may get worse, and we won’t maintain our national competitiveness if we do not have a strong middle class.
So this is why I think people in the law school reform movement are doing a good service, but as I highlighted above, much more needs to be done in other segments of society as well. No one can survive on $7.25 an hour minimum wage, while executive management (i.e. 10 people) make millions upon millions. Making a living has become progressively tougher since the early 1980’s, but a recession affecting large swathes of super educated people has never been so bad for this extended period of time.
i have no doubt that medical students would be just as angry if doctors could not find work, or medical graduates had to take $13 an hour gigs. With professional school, there is a certain expectation that, while the person may not become wealthy when they graduate, they will at least make enough money to start out to be “middle class.” This expectation is established because most older lawyers (before this recession/depression hit) were middle and upper middle class. And many still are.
Glad you went to law school, Tom – because you’d make a lousy economist.
Care to explain, Arthur in Maine?
And Jack, not sure what you mean by expecting better trained lawyers to come out of a not for profit training system. The same value can be delivered at a lower price, but higher ed in general went up much faster than the rate of inflation in the last 20 years.
I really can’t comment on all of this, because it would take a book, so I’ll let it stand on its own merits…except to say that expecting better trained lawyers to come out of a not-for-profit training system takes an epic leap of faith and an unusual take on how the world works.
Actually, this is an interesting article that goes into the lawyer glut. First, the author points out that social unrest tends to happen when there is “elite overproduction” (i.e. the elite haves and the elite have nots.) Second, the lawyer glut is a symptom of the elite overproduction, with many law school graduates lashing out. So, the scamblogs, Occupy Wall Street and the government shutdown play into the author’s analysis: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-11-20/blame-rich-overeducated-elites-as-our-society-frays