On BigLaw Hours

If you can stomach Elie Mystal's self-absorbed prose, I encourage people to check out this piece on Above the Law about a Skadden associate in Los Angeles who died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 32 after working 100-hour weeks and suffering visible signs of stress "under intense pressure."

80+ hour stressful workweeks are the type of shit people used to protest in the mines and factories, and there's an argument that manual labor is healthier than mentally-taxing, obesity-inducing office work. No one in an industrialized county should work 100 hours a week. Your mind and body are not built to do it, and no pharmaceuticals can truly make your body amenable to the process. Your mind functions better with sleep and relaxation and contrary to popular myth, there is no necessity or personal accomplishment in working that much.

Frankly, in an industrial world of high unemployment, there's rarely good cause work more than 60 hours a week. This doesn't make me a slacker, entitlement-whore or a pussy; it makes me a rational individual not blinded by an inflated ego, undo machismo, or survivorship bias. Most of western Europe realized long ago that society benefits greatly when its people try to work rational hours and take generous vacations. In fact, while fear of lazy socialist boogie-men has controlled American labor discourse, places like Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden are arguably in better economic shape than the U.S. (and it's almost indisputable that a poor person is better off in northern Europe).

Since the 1950s, our blue-collar and hourly work force has seen a decrease in hours worked, while white collar professionals have seen working time per person increase, despite massive improvements in efficiency. It's madness when one stops and ponders it: some of our most educated, accomplished young employees (lawyers, doctors in residency, graduate students, finance types) wind up working the longest hours by far. Meanwhile, their peers work normal schedules in their 20s and early 30s, reproduce younger and more often, and can actually enjoy and fuel the leisure economy.

Karoshi is a real phenomenon. As the BigLaw model continuously weakens and the partner track gauntlet becomes more grueling, I won't be surprised if more cases like this arise, with people trying to one-up each other on how much they love the company through billable-hour dick size. A better future would be if everyone actually behaved like rational human beings with self-respect. Unfortunately, our system seems skewered towards fear-driven megalomaniacs.

The pay of BigLaw is obviously good (note: many prostitutes and pornstars are paid well, too), even if it's greatly reduced working 80+ hours a week (it translates to about $30 an hour, which you can easily make in a number of blue-collar areas with experience), most students have to siphon off $1k+ a month for loan repayments, you often have to live in expensive large urban centers, and you're expected to have a professional wardrobe. But is it really worth it when you'll almost certainly be unemployed before the loan is paid back? When your industry has a long-term trend of slashing costs? When you're expected to be on call 24/7? When you have to sacrifice much of what older people reflect upon as positive?

Granted, not all BigLaw is bad or that stress-inducing. But twenty years ago we made fun of the Japanese for working nonstop. Their economy went into zombieland and yet, today, we have people claiming that it's normal and justifiable that our "best and brightest" regularly work 80+ hour weeks.

They, and anyone who signs up for this boat ride, are fucking crazy.

So as we head into Fourth of July, be thankful that you live in the land of Jefferson and Lincoln, of democracy and plutocratic capitalism, a place where your right to speak and believe whatever loony things you want is protected. Know that our Founding Fathers would likely gawk in horror at much of what goes on, and be thankful that there's no fat, rusty, constipated parter making your Blackberry go wild.

EMSI Updates Report + An Extrmely Rough Picture of How to Balance The Numbers

A few days ago, Economic Modeling Specialists posted a survey showing that there was an oversupply of new graduates in all but 3 places: Wisconsin, Nebraska, and D.C. The study had the obvious flaw of using bar exam passages, where people often waive into D.C. and Wisconsin law graduates do not generally have to take the bar.

EMSI has updated their numbers here.

The two states (plus D.C.) that originally looked to not be oversupplying the market — Wisconsin and Nebraska — are most likely producing too many after all.

There's still the thorny issue that some people take more than one bar exam, or, in the alternative, may not represent a uniform class (e.g., people who put off taking the bar).

This problem, I think, is handled by the "Completers" numbers. Nationally, it looks like there were 1.2 bar exam passers for every student who completed law school. In other words, unless almost half the graduating class of '09 put off the bar exam, we can safely assume there's an oversupply.

More to the point, the intrastate numbers clearly show an oversupply without even considering the number of "Completers." If I'm looking for a job in Minnesota, I don't care who's licensed in MN/WI or MN/ND. I care only about who's licensed in Minnesota, because that's who I'm competing with for jobs, that pool of 888 at a minimum. And with only 378 annual job openings, a pool that large is a problem, even if some of those people can get jobs in Wisconsin.

Note, also, that the numbers aren't recessionary, as the projections go to 2015.

To show how big the gap is, I'd like to show what might be done to solve this discrepancy, to illustrate how drastic the situation is. I'm not going to do the exact math right now, but if you did all of the following:

ALABAMA
Close Jones/Faulkner and the two state-accredited schools.

ARIZONA
Close Phoenix School of Law

ARKANSAS
Reduce Arkansas-Little Rock entering class size to 80 or so.

CALIFORNIA
Close Thomas Jefferson, Whittier, Golden Gate, UC-Irvine, and all 42 non-ABA-accredited schools.

CONNECTICUT
Close Quinnipiac

DELAWARE
Close Widener

DIST. OF COLUMBIA
Close U. of DC, cut enrollment at the remaining DC schools in half.

FLORIDA
Close Florida Coastal, Barry, Florida A&M, and Ave Maria, slash enrollment everywhere else except UF.

GEORGIA
Close JMLS-Atlanta, slash enrollment at Georgia State and Mercer

HAWAII
Cut U. of H enrollment to 80

IDAHO
Stop Concordia now.

ILLINOIS
Close JMLS-Chicago, NIU, SIU, slash enrollment at DePaul, Kent, and Loyola.

INDIANA
Stop Indiana Tech now, close Valparaiso.

KANSAS
Close Washburn.

KENTUCKY
Close Northern Kentucky or slash enrollment at all three by 1/3.

LOUISIANA
Close Loyola-NO, slash enrollment at remaining schools.

MARYLAND
Close Baltimore, slash enrollment at U. Maryland.

MASSACHUSETTS
Close Suffolk, New England, Western New England, Northeastern, and the two state-accredited schools.

MICHIGAN
Close Cooley

MINNESOTA
Close St. Thomas and Hamline, cut enrollment at William Mitchell

MISSISSIPPI
Cut enrollment at two schools by 50%

MISSOURI
Close St. Louis U., slash enrollment at Wash U. and UMKC.

NEBRAKSA
Close Creighton

NEVADA
Cut UNLV enrollment by 1/3.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Cut UNH enrollment to 80 per class.

NEW JERSEY
Close Rutgers-Camden and Seton Hall.

NEW YORK
Close Pace, Touro, Brooklyn, Hofstra, NYLS, St. John's, and CUNY; slash enrollment everywhere else by up to 1/3.

NORTH CAROLINA
Close Charlotte, Elon, and Campbell.

NORTH DAKOTA
Slash enrollment at UND to 40 or merge with U. South Dakota.

OHIO
Close Capital, Dayton, and Toledo.

OKLAHOMA
Cut Oklahoma City enrollment in half.

OREGON
Cut enrollment at all three law schools by half.

PENNSYLVANIA
Close Villanova and Duqusne, slash enrollment everywhere else.

RHODE ISLAND
Cut Roger Williams enrollment in half.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Close Charleston School of Law.

SOUTH DAKOTA
Cut U.S.D. enrollment to 40 per class or merge with U. North Dakota.

TENNESSEE
Close three non-ABA schools, slash enrollment at remaining three schools.

TEXAS
Close South Texas and Texas Wesleyan, slash enrollment at St. Mary's by half.

VIRGINIA
Close Liberty, Regent, and Appalachian.

WASHINGTON
Close Seattle U.

WEST VIRGINIA
Cut enrollment at WVU by 1/3.

WISCONSIN
Cut enrollment at Marquette and UW by 1/3 each.

WYOMING
Cut enrollment at U. Wyoming to 40 per class.

...you might be able to balance things out.

I am not advocating that we do this, nor am I under any delusion that anyone has the power to do this. But, under rough estimation, this is about what would have to happen for the numbers to balance in the next five years, assuming the projections are accurate. Maybe later I will do the precise math on this.

In theory, the market should have sorted this out by now, and many of those schools (especially the ones from the old-school industrial states, like New York or Ohio) would have closed. Instead, we had new schools scrambling to open and jump on the pile. Ask yourself how and why that happened. In my opinion, it's strong evidence that the schools as an industry were profiting from hiding product information from J.D. applicants.

Maybe closing 104 institutions and slashing enrollment almost everywhere else would be drastic, but what other solution is left? There's a massive market failure that goes well beyond the temporary effects of a recession, partly because of the law schools' incentive to keep customers to their profitable business in a dwindling field, and partly because the mostly-unsophisticated customers have the easiest access to credit in world economic history.

But that's how bad it's gotten, not unlike the proliferation of medical schools in the pre-Flexner days, although you'll never get administrators to see the similarities.

California Students Answer if Law School is Worth the Cost

CalBar.org (well, its e-journal for Cal. law students) asked the question whether law school was worth it to six California law students.

Two gave respectable answers. Four failed. Yes, I get that these are opinions, but they failed.

Three of them give some variation of "law is what I want to do, therefore it's worth the cost:

• Brandon Lewis (Chapman): "Law school is worth the cost to me because I want to do the type of work that lawyers do."
• Elisa Gibellini (U.S.F.): "[L]aw school is necessary to my goal and thus worth the cost."
• Onell Soto (San Diego [listed as "San Diego University School of Law"]): "[L]aw school is worth the cost because it's the path to doing what I've set out to do."

The fourth gives an even more ludicrous answer:

• Kuscha Hatami Fard (Cal-Western): "Law school has given me the opportunity to become part of an elite group who are some of the highest educated people in the country."

False and poorly-written is no way to go through life or present one's "high educated" status.

Going back to the reasoning of the first three, we as a society need to come to grips with the idea that career dreams can be overpriced such that the cost makes them unworthy of pursuit. People have no problem abandoning other dreams when the cost becomes too high. Why is it so difficult to understand that being a litigator or doing "lawyer work" may cost too much? Is it because if we acknowledge that some professions are just out of reach to non-wealthy people that the Emperor's merito-democratic clothes come flying off?

Look, folks, I really want to eat lobster every week and spend my afternoons banging a trophy wife. I really want that. But right now? It's not worth the cost. "But wait!" you say. "Those are 'things,' not investments. A law license gives you earning power!" Okay - sure - I really want to own a restaurant in the middle of New Mexico called China Ye-Haw! that'd be just like Casa Bonita only with a Chinese-meets-Western USA theme. There'd be a railroad running through it and everything. It's a dream, but there's no way in hell I should actually embark on it due to the high cost and low return on investment. Happy now?

Debt. I really don't think my generation understands debt, and why should they? Their parents obviously know jack shit about it, having lived their entire lives beyond their means to keep up with the imaginary Joneses in the advertisements, all while their public representatives piled liability on top of liability. And of course, most people, places, and things can get out of their ridiculous debts with bankruptcy, so people have been trained that erring on spending is acceptable, socially-beneficial even, as we just gotsta keep the economy going skyward, so you can screw up buying clothes or furniture or cars or houses or vacations or hookers or utilities and can generally scratch it out if you have to. In the select group of people where errors are discouraged is student lending. Try to figure that one out.

Which brings me, in a rambling fashion, to the Los Angeles Dodgers' bankruptcy filing. Here, Frank McCourt is using the United States Bankruptcy Court as a tool to maintain his stranglehold on a beleaguered, but still profitable, franchise, play white-collar chess with MLB, screw up his divorce proceedings, and correct a cash flow problem caused in part by his own abuse of the company (i.e., withdrawing money from the business for his lavish lifestyle).

While there's little risk that salaries and contracts won't be paid, I find it egregious that the moneyed elite can use a bankruptcy court to fix their multimillion dollar mistakes with asset-rich, profitable companies to better subsidize their swanky lifestyles while a college graduate who, for whatever reason (illness? honest miscalculation?), cannot pay back an education loan is deemed unclean and unfit for court.

Worse - you address these injustices to people and they say things like "well, it's too big to change" or they pretend that student loan debt is something it isn't, or that the risk of nonpayment is higher than with other unsecured claims. Much like the standard responses to the law school bubble, they're ground in complete fiction or a wholly pessimistic attitude towards reform and a callous disregard for social injustice.

Finally, looking over these students answers, I'm mildly bothered that many of the same people who think law school is a good investment now are the ones who may, in the future, be weighing possible settlement values against the cost of trial or further proceedings. Think about it. Are these the same type of people who will overvalue a trial victory in court? Ones who force their vision of the future, come hell, high water, or six-figure debt?

Associates v. Staff Attorneys, and Another Example of Thomas Cooley Reasoning

Crain's Detroit has an interesting article about the trend in large firms to move associate positions to lower-paid staff attorneys (and, occasionally, to move work from staff attorneys to partner-track employees). It gives a nice overview of the differences between the two, why firms prefer one or the other, why they switch, etc. It's fair, even-handed, and informative, probably because it was written from the business side and not by some hack academic.

But at the end of the article sits this odd remark from Thomas Cooley dean John Nussbaumer:

[R]ecent graduates are under increasing pressure to consider alternatives to partner tracks if they want to enter private practice. But he is convinced that trend is cyclical and the tide will turn again soon.

Keeping in mind that about 10,000 Americans will turn 65 every day for the next 19 years, he said: "That group includes the majority of current equity partners. The median age of attorneys today is 52 years old," he said.

"So while the short term is rough, we think the long-term picture is those people retire in increasing numbers. And they won't be retiring from second-tier or career associate positions."

Yeesh.

Is there a written rule that partners are replaced on a one-to-one basis? No. There's no preordained ratio of partners-to-proletarians in the legal community. Sure, when partners leave the profession, their clients have to go somewhere, and so there's a pool of available business that younger attorneys may take.

But recent large-firm behavior suggests the big boys aren't too worried about a leadership/partner-class drain, and are perfectly fine consolidating the ranks of the elite. And this leaves out the rise of non-equity partnership as an alternative way for firms to build loyalty and keep clients while consolidating the real wealth.

As an aside, to even get in those positions, one almost always has to have an associate position with the firm or build up a practice worth taking. In other words, why is a Thomas Cooley dean even thinking about these things?

Furthermore, have they even sat down to do the math on this?

Let's assume that 10,000 people will, in fact, hit 65 every day for the next 19 years. Let's further assume that the lawyers per capita rate is currently 1 per 285 and (for giggles) let's assume that the per capita number is a constant across all ages. Let's also assume (for even greater giggles) that attorneys, along with the rest of the population, will retire or die at an average age of 65.

10,000 people x 365 x 19 = roughly 69 million retiring adults. Of those 69 million, roughly 240,000 would be retiring licensed attorneys.

Currently, there are about 45,000 people graduating law school every year, with approximately 28,000 full-time jobs that require a J.D. available. In all likelihood, these available jobs fully account for work that trickles down as a result of a partner retiring, but for the sake of argument, let's say it doesn't. Let's pretend that the current number of job openings reflects only economic growth and non-partner departures and that the 65-year-olds Mr. Nussbaumer speaks of are a completely separate phenomenon.

The overage is currently about 17,000 a year. The vacancies created by retiring baby boomer partners would be 240,000/19 = roughly 12,000 a year. There'd still be an overage of 5k (>10%) per year, i.e., there'd still be an oversupply, and all its attendant problems, and there'd still be no rational reason for Thomas Cooley to exist.

And that - 95,000 extra attorneys with no place in the economy - is the best case scenario, barring drastically reduced enrollment. I imagine the attorneys-per-capita ratio may be lower for the 45-65 crowd than it is for the 25-45 crowd (I'm not sure where he's getting his 52 = median data; maybe practicing and practice-eligible?). And the number of boomer partners - few of whom will likely retire at 65 - is lower still. And all this, again, ignores the idea that the current labor market already factors in aging and departing attorneys quite well. Successful large firms aren't stupid, and they aren't just going to sit by and watch a generation retire without protecting the firm and the existing partnership, nor are they going to call up a Cooley grad and give him a share because they need a warm body in an old partner's office.

Nussbaumer does, however, exhibit a common argument by the interested educators: that it's all cyclical; that when the boomers retire, someone has to be in their place; that current graduates should all be optimistic for eventually getting their pickings off the money tree, etc.

Bull. We're already producing enough graduates to absorb boomer retirement and then some (like 25% extra). We could shut down all law schools for two whole years and still be in fine shape without any question. Likely much more, as there are a lot of non-practicing JD holders who have been shifted into other professions.

Growing Demand for Minority Lawyers?! Say What?

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Florida law schools are fretting drops in minority enrollment.

Scholars say more minorities need to study law at a time when many are pursuing careers in health sciences and business.

There's a growing demand for minority attorneys, as many members of the public seek lawyers in criminal and civil cases who look like them and can relate to them through cultural backgrounds and life experiences.

In addition, law firms want to diversify so they can better compete globally and build trial teams that can make effective cases before racially diverse juries.

I have little doubt that there's a real demand for attorneys with multicultural language skills. But the barrier there is purely communicative, and may actually inhibit access. It's not merely ethnic or racial.

It's really, really stupid to claim that there's a "growing demand" for a racial subset of a profession when the profession as a whole is producing a 40% excess every year without proof of abnormal consumer behavior.

I'll concede that people would prefer to be represented by people who look like him, and I'll also concede that given candidates with equal qualifications, firms in many areas would take a minority for diversity reasons.

But there's scant proof that either (1) minorities bypass legal services that they would purchase if they had a minority to fill their need or (2) minorities pay more for services by someone who looks like them. In other words, my casual observation is that the value of minority representation is greatly overvalued by the media and the academic elites who have no real conception of what actually happens at ground level. It's an ivory tower fantasy; in fact, in some cases, I would suppose minorities would want a white representative in court if they truly feel the court is prejudiced. And nevermind that a 40k-a-year "shit"law lawyer has more in common with most blue-collar minorities than an east coast elitist biglaw washout, but I digress...

The point is that there really isn't a "growing demand" unless a minority could theoretically open up shop and immediately siphon off business merely by being a minority who looks like his clientèle. Given the current legal climate, I just can't see that happening. No unsourced article premised on interviewing unnamed law school administrators about the unspoken wishes of a population can change that.

Sure, in an ideal world, the bar would reflect the population and people could choose among experienced lawyers of all racial and socioeconomic compositions to find the perfect person for them. In reality, we live in a world where experienced, competent attorneys happen to be disproportionately white and male. New entrants, minority or not, have an uphill battle going against that establishment, and consumers know the difference, or find out rather quickly. Minorities may find it easier to nab associate positions at bigger firms, but it's not like corporate clients are going to change firms because someone found a black guy to hire, which means there isn't any more job security for minorities than the white males. Both have to pull their weight. And let's not forget that minorities are coveted by most corporations if they have the right business credentials.

To me, telling minorities to give up business and healthcare to study law is nothing short of irresponsible. Healthcare has signs that it's a durable career of the future. Law will still be around, but it's the weakest and least versatile of the three areas. Any non-white/Asian minority who can score higher than a 160 and get into a top 50 school, I would encourage to go to law school if they wanted to be a lawyer and could find a reasonable tuition price. But no way, no how, should "weaker" parts of the applicant pool be heading to law school on the supposition that there's an untapped market out there that wants a minority face to represent them. For a kid who gets a 150 LSAT, minority or not, law is a bad idea. There's no two ways around it, and fantastical dreams of ivory tower six-figure dorks can't change that.

My opinion on this would change if the article actually bothered to have statistics that minorities were in demand in the labor market. Instead, it does nothing but spout admissions figures at Florida law schools, as if that really matters. Hopefully, no one will read the "growing demand" line and actually take it to mean "growing demand" in the economic sense.

Friday Quotes on Higher Education

From Bill Gross, Chairman of PIMCO:

“A mind is a precious thing to waste, so why are millions of America’s students wasting theirs by going to college? All of us who have been there know an undergraduate education is primarily a four-year vacation interrupted by periodic bouts of cramming or Google plagiarizing, but at least it used to serve a purpose. It weeded out underachievers and proved at a minimum that you could pass an SAT test.”

From Gil Weinrich at AdvisorOne:

The medical profession may be no better than law from a financial perspective, according to Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff. Crunching the data for Forbes, Kotlikoff found that a doctor comes out only slightly ahead of a plumber in terms of lifetime earnings once you factor in the physician’s many years learning instead of earning; tuition; loan interest; and taxes paid. For all his effort, the doctor comes out with just a $500 a year advantage over the plumber.

But...but...but... my guidance counselor had a chart that said I'd make way way more going to college! How could it be wrong?!?! It was laminated and colorful!

As far as I'm concerned, people who still claim blindly that one should go to college - even graduate school - to make more money in the future are little better than strict creationists, "no plane" conspiracy theorists, numerologists, UFO watchers, objectivists, trickle-down economists, the jackasses who try to "fix" homosexuals, the anti-vaccination crowd, etc.

What worked in 1980 clearly doesn't work today. Wake up, people.

Response to San Diego Student Who Wrote In

Almost two months ago, I wrote a post critiquing the views of future University of San Diego student Marisa Mittelman as displayed in an article she wrote here.

Marisa apparently made a comment on my blog entry that was unfortunately eaten up by Blogger's aggressive spam filter, meaning I didn't see it until today. Here is the response in full (note: because blogger removed any paragraph breaks, I added some for clarity):

Firstly, I would like to congratulate you for being the first person ever to create a blog in which the sole aim is to spread negativity and pessimism! There aren't any other blogs like yours-- and most certainly not any with better layout, better writing, and better content.

That being said, I would like to clarify a few points:

1) You do not know me. Please do not presume that you know my financial situation, my geographical preferences, or what type of person I am.

2) I will proceed to provide you with some actual information, as opposed to pointless assumptions, about myself:

A) I intend to settle in San Diego. This has been my plan for some time. San Diego is an incredible place to live, and I cannot wait to move there. Since 25% of lawyers currently practicing in San Diego went to USD School of Law, more than any other school (Loyola comprises 1.8% and Pepperdine 1.1%), I stand by my statement that, for someone who intends to live in San Diego, USD is an amazing school (Source : californiabar.globl.org).

B) I am not taking out any more loans than I can handle. USD has provided me with a significant scholarship, and my family has been incredibly generous. Going to USD is in NO way, shape, or form a "catastrophic financial decision" for me, personally. I am not saying that is the case for every USD law student, but your promises of buyers remorse and my 20's being lost are unfounded.

C) I would have to argue that family law is a fantastic area for an eternal optimist. I am confident that IF that is the focus I choose (which, if you read the article, I note that it may not eventually be), that my bright outlook and sunny perspective will be great tools in helping couples facing difficult familial challenges, and children going through one of the hardest situations they may face.

So, while I deeply appreciate your condescending paternal advice, in this case I would have to question your failure to consider any alternatives to your decidedly depressing viewpoint. All the Best, Marisa L. Mittelman

I had a point-by-point response written out, but I think the situation calls for generality.

I don't write this blog for my health, or to show off my pessimism, or even to give advice. I write this blog because at one point in time I was in Marisa's place. I soon found that the system - not just law schools, but the whole legal ball of wax - is not what was presented to me (or what I perceived it to be), that hard working students are getting squeezed out of the market, that salaries are far lower than what's advertised, that being an attorney is not really prestigious, etc. I started this blog because I thought it could be part of a positive change that I feel needs to take place.

It's quite possible Marisa will have great success, both in law school and as attorney. Although she misread parts of the original entry, she seems to have the right attitude (ignoring sarcasm): she researched schools thoroughly, zealously defends her reasoning, sounds like she understands finances and the risks, etc. She's going in with her head up, and I won't be surprised if she does well at all.

But in the end, law school is an odds game in so many ways (some you don't even realize when you sign up), and the odds are far bleaker than any 0L ever calculates. Hard work is by no means a guarantee of anything, nor are good grades unless one is at a top school.

I would love for Marisa to review these posts in two to three years. Hopefully she'll look this up and beam with pride that she's got a sitting offer from the perfect San Diego firm/office, on the road to a satisfying legal career, carrying an investment in her education that reaps dividend after dividend.

Save for the San Diego part, I'd still like that for myself.

But the odds seem against it. And in any event, she'll certainly have classmates, those whose hard work she witnessed first-hand, wind up struggling, and maybe then she'll understand these blogs then, and that maybe all those unemployed students worked hard, after all, and that we don't exist just to be depressing.

Overpriced Education Is a Moral Issue

Inside Higher Ed has a respectable write-up of the small shrinkage in law school enrollments coming this fall to at least three campuses. This quote, from California law professor John Yoo (originally posted here back in March), struck me as rather naive:

The decision to reduce the size of a law school class has little to do with morality (though it may have a lot to do with moralizing) and everything to do with economics. Education is a product in the market, like any other. The producers (law schools) sell a service (a legal education) at a price (tuition) to consumers (students). If there is an oversupply of the product, or the demand falls, then the price should drop and eventually the quantity will fall until the market clears. I don't see anything so moral (or immoral) about it.

While his economic analysis is technically correct, education is absolutely not "like any other [product]." I probably should be baffled that a professor at a "top" university is grossly oversimplifying a situation to cleanse his own guilt, but I'm not.

When someone buys almost any other product or service, any liability created by the purchase can be removed by filing a bankruptcy petition. Providing normal credit is an example that would fit into his model. Because consumers can declare bankruptcy and erase the transaction from being a burden, there's nothing "moral" or "immoral" about a credit card company that raises or lowers rates, or creates new cards/marketing pitches to give the illusion of scarcity, etc. The bank retains some risk in the transaction, so economic principles can entirely guide their actions.

Conversely, some jackasses in Congress decided that student loan debt should be treated differently than all other debts. The schools - like Yoo's University of California - sell a product, often with gross exaggerations fueled by fantastical myth-making - with absolutely no risk on the credit side of things, either to the school or the bank.

Because student loan debt is non-dischargable with a standard bankruptcy petition, the risk of a education being a bad investment falls entirely on the students and their parents when they need to use credit (which 90+% do).

At that point, a school's decision to enroll students takes on a moral element. Unlike normal producers, who either have an incentive to sell to those who can pay or can only provide services to credit-worthy people, the schools' abilities to draw in any consumer and saddle them with debt-for-life gives the school a position of power divorced from economic reality. The fact that Yoo even suggests that the market can or will "clear" is perplexing; the market has been willfully prevented from "clearing" for decades by the ABA and the law schools, including his employer.

Plus, educational institutions often invite moral disapprobation by marketing themselves as leaders, subtly vilifying corporate America, justifying their high costs as "good" debt, holding themselves up as prestigious institutions and community-based institutions, etc., which gives them more culpability that Joe the Auto Mechanic, who's at least honest when he says he just wants to make a living.

My gut reaction to Yoo's comment is that he's too enmeshed in the system - and therefore a party to stockpiling some students with unsustainable debt loads - to see a moral issue and moral culpability where it's obvious. After all, if you admit that ruining innocent parties financially is a moral issue, a whole lot of people need to trudge their way to confession tomorrow. Can't have that, now, can we?

Almost every immoral event and practice can be explained in basic economic terms. Slavery's rise and fall, for example. Or teenage prostitution in Thailand. That doesn't make them non-moral issues. A professor of law should know better.

Law in Nebraska Crowded; Creighton Downsizing Law Class

Remember when Prof. Sara Stadler pompously suggested that Emory law students pack the wagon and head for Nebraska?

Well, as it turns out, ain't no jobs there! From the Omaha-World Herald:

Current students say the competition is fierce even for summer clerkships, internships and other steppingstones to post-graduation employment.
...
[S]ome students who graduated at the top of the [U. of Nebraska] class of 2011 are still hunting.
...
Area lawyers said Omaha's legal job market hasn't been as hard hit as in other areas. Although they still make most of their hires from area law schools, law firms are getting more applications from across the country as new lawyers scramble to find jobs.
...
Omaha lawyer Hal Daub...said he would not discourage students from seeking law degrees, which he described as a versatile education that prepares students for a variety of careers.

Nonetheless, Creighton's strategy has merit, Daub said.

“For a small state, we are graduating way too many attorneys. There just haven't been the opportunities that students thought they would have four or five years ago.”

Emphasis mine. Obviously, Daub is a mouthpiece/idiot for suggesting that someone go to law school for the "versatility" of the degree, but I take him at his word that there is overproduction with a whopping two law schools in the state.

The article's main point is that amidst this atmosphere, Creigton is lowering their class size by 13-15%. As I gave hesitant applause to the New York schools who did the same thing, I salute Creigton for acting somewhat responsibly and forgoing almost $600k in revenue even as they could fill every seat.

The article goes on to state that the Universities of Iowa and Nebraska have responded to the lack of jobs by beefing up their career services staffs. I have no idea what the bleep that's going to accomplish in actually creating jobs, but I suppose it's something. Maybe they can improve contacts with non-legal employers, but frankly I'd rather see them slice down their class sizes as well.

Nebraska is a fairly insular place, as far as U.S. states go. People live by UN-L football in the fall, and I imagine the the state school's network mops the floor with anything else. Omaha has a respectable business climate, but it's big enough for the top national schools to have a serious influence.

The fact that there are top graduates from Nebraska who can't find full-time work is scary. Of all the "guaranteed" resumes, I would think finishing near the top of a state flagship where there are no other big-name options would be just below doing well at a T-14. If I were from the state, I'd rather be at the top of the class at Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. than be at the top of similarly-ranked private schools.

I'm also curious how this will affect Creighton's USNWR rank. In theory, it shouldn't. I mean, if you went to Creigton and ranked 60th/155 or 60th/135, what the hell is the difference to employers, or your employment prospects? You'll sit through the same class, same teachers, etc. But the LSAT and GPA medians may rise a tick or two, and the student-teacher ratio may drop. And the after-graduate employment percentages may rise. They're currently ranked 127th. Let's see what happens when a flawed ranking system encounters shaving from the bottom.

News Roundup: Saturation in Iowa, Crappy Advice from New Jersey, and a Dose of What the Hell from Indiana

1. Message Saturation

From the Des Moines Register, Rekha Basu asks if we need an "explosion" of law students when tuition escalates and job prospects diminish. It's elementary stuff for regular readers of the blog, but the key point here is just how standard these types of articles are becoming. By the end of the year, I imagine it'll be common knowledge for anyone who tries to keep up with news. I'd also like to point out this part of her editorial:

[O]nly 14 percent of college students are majoring in science, technology, engineering and math, according to President Barack Obama, speaking in Durham, N.C., last week. He said while demand for most jobs exceeds supply four to one, the opposite is true for science and high-tech jobs, where skilled workers are in short supply. And those are the jobs of the future.

Although I'm slightly skeptical that this sound advice (I've heard the engineering field is now requiring a master's degree to thin out the pool), herein lies, perhaps, the biggest problem of the law school industry. It's a common refrain amongst petty and jaded people that lawyers aren't smart enough to be scientists, engineers, medical technicians, etc. This is entirely false. Almost anyone who scored a 160 on the LSAT or higher has the mental aptitude that allows for success in so-called "high tech jobs."

In theory, the market should have directed labor where the society's needs were. If the society needs scientists and engineers, those starting salaries would be higher, tuition at the schools would be higher, etc. The market would signal to young people to study those fields.

Conversely, if there's limited or no demand new entrants in a field, the market should signal to prospective students to avoid it, either through low salaries or lowering tuition prices, etc. But even though law became oversaturated long ago, this didn't happen. The institutions (law schools, ABA, US News, etc.) kept reporting rigged statistics to induce talented people (and their higher LSAT scores) to come to law school instead of exploring other career options.

Because here's the truth: very, very few people genuinely love the law or find legal work particularly exciting or life-affirming. No preschooler, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, says "lawyer." Many say relatively non-prestigious careers, like teacher or firefighter or park ranger or construction worker. The shift for my generation was long and slow, but systematically the "bright" people ruled out being a teacher or a firefighter or a park ranger or a construction worker, most often because of the salary and prestige associated with the relative positions. Law only remained an option because people though it was a profession for the affluent and intelligent.

People are, on the whole, rational actors. Most in my generation were presented with blatantly false information from the educational institutions that claimed we would be be able to make some type of living on a liberal arts degree. And in the event that we couldn't, we were virtually assured that by getting a law degree or a master's or an MBA we would make a good living. The institutions willfully engaged in these type of distortions and as a result kept intelligent and hard-working people away from fields like technology where the real demand might be/might have been!

The problem is exacerbated by the duration of education. Law grads are already invested 7 years. When the screwed ones want to "correct" the saturation, they have to take community college classes and then try to get in a master's program, a process that adds another 3+ years. Ten years down the drain, a waste that could have been mitigated if only the schools were required to publish accurate, audited information about their offered investments.

Guaranteed loans haven't helped the situation, of course, but the truth is that our higher educational institutions have completely screwed up the labor market by pushing people towards more profitable options (liberal arts, law, generic business) than more costly - but socially-beneficial - ones (sciences, technology, medical). Everyone suffers as a result of this massive labor misallocation, so I'm truly baffled when people side with the universities when someone has the audacity to use the court system to fix the problem.

2. Hey, Unemployable, Apply for a Clerkship! Speed date!

I started out thinking this article about law students "find[ing] ways to beat out the economy" would be worth it, but after a nice discussion about how saturated the market is, the article boils down to the following:

• Law grads need to be creative
• Law grads need to network (including "speed dating" local attorneys!)
• Look at soloing
• Apply for a clerkship
  

Wow. That'll sure fix the problem, won't it? There's not enough legal work to go around for all the barred lawyers, but hey, you should spend thousands setting up a practice! There's a finite number of clerkships that have never been in want of applicants, but hey, you should apply!

3. Indiana Saturation + 1

Finally, note that in Indiana, public defender gigs for recent graduates dropped slightly when the state reinstated the license of a convicted tax fraud. A former Teamsters attorney, Eric Evans lost his law license a decade ago. I would've thought he would have found something else to do, but apparently he plugged away, did a lot of community service, and now has a law license in an oversaturated market after receiving many letters of support from local judges, politicians, etc.

[One] testified that he wished Evans had been reinstated sooner, because he is "an excellent" attorney and there is a shortage of attorneys, especially local public defenders, in Blackford County. [He] called the crime "an act of omission" and added that Evans probably felt trapped at the time.

The people in Blackford County are either lazy, naive, or lying. All it would take is a drive to Valparaiso or Dayton or Cincinnati or Indianapolis - or even a simple craigslist advertisement - and their shortage would be over in a matter of weeks.

Instead, paid work is going to one who clearly screwed up earlier in his career. Meanwhile, lawyers who have completely-clean records cannot find work as their student loans escalate.

I'm all for rehabilitation, but shouldn't this guy have found an alternative career in the last decade? And shouldn't the state Supreme Court ideally be an active watchguard of the profession? And if there are numerous lawyers in good standing, especially recent bar admissions, who are struggling for work, shouldn't it avoid reinstating convicts?

Just my two cents.

A Rant on Thomas Cooley's Advertising and Budget

I've previously mocked Thomas Cooley's absurd marketing techniques, but I didn't realize the true depths of the demonic awfulness in their hokey solicitations until today.

Sometimes, those who comment and write on these issues luck into finding a graph, a picture, or a table that speaks for itself. This is one of those times.

From Guidestar.org, the following represents the amount of money this set of relatively-comparable schools (private, non-profit, unaffiliated, ABA-accredited) spent on advertising and promotion in 2009 (Form 990, Part IX, Line 12):

Thomas Cooley: 2,167,925
New England: 669,677
Ave Maria: 323,259
William Mitchell: 263,907
Vermont.: 158,475
John Marshall (Chi.): 124,000
New York L.S.: 122,470
South Texas: 89,567
(note: Thomas Jefferson and Brooklyn's numbers were unfortunately not available).

$2 million. If you went to Thomas Cooley that year, you, individually, paid almost $600 so that the school could con someone else into going there. You could have enjoyed a shopping spree, eaten fifteen to twenty top Lansing dining experiences, bought a night with an std-free escort, etc.

Instead, you paid for advertisements so the worst law school in America - North America, in fact - can try to convince people that Cooley is a worthwhile use of six figures and three years.

In 2009, Ave Maria packed up its entire school and moved to a completely different region of the country. It spent a mere 15% of what Cooley did.

Granted, much of Cooley's number might come from its absurd stadium naming-rights deal, but that didn't take place until early 2010 and it still begs the question why a quality professional school would ever need to buy naming rights to a minor league baseball stadium. And they do have the highest enrollment in the country, which may justify some additional promotional costs.

But $2 million? When John Marshall barely spends six figures?

Think of all the superior ways that money could have been used. Cooley could have made a donation to the Lansing public school system, bought an elementary school or something. It could have founded programs for troubled youth, disease research centers, good ol' legal aid foundations: the sky's the limit for the truly munificent.

Nope. A baseball stadium name. And $2.1 million spent on advertising.

And it's not like they're getting a quality product for the money, either. This is some pretty watered-down stuff. God-awful would be one description for their advertising. Hysterical would be another.

Take, for example, Cooley's laughable NFL comparison:

Yes, you read that correctly: Cooley is trying to convince doe-eyed 149ers that because NFL quarterbacks come from places like Miami-Ohio, using prestige in the law school business is as silly as a Matt Millen draft.

I actually like the analogy, but not for the reason Cooley wishes. It's a beautiful illustration of cherry-picking with anecdotal evidence, a really common logical flaw in law school advertising (if not the world at large).

Here's the reality for football players: a high school quarterback who wants to get to the NFL has the best chance to get there if he goes to USC, Texas, Florida, etc. Likewise, A college graduate who wants to work at Cravath has the best chance to get there if he goes to Harvard or Yale.

Ultimately, the concern isn't with the few Cooley graduates who make BigLaw or the few NFL players who hail from Miami-Ohio. It's about the odds of a a random person at Cooley, or at Miami-Ohio or similar football school, to make that end destination. The population isn't the end population (BigLaw or NFL), but the starting one (all people at Cooley or a lousy football school).

To illustrate the analogy, let's say Cooley is the 200th best law school in the country (this is generous, as it excludes some non-ABA accredited schools that may be finer institutions). Last year, Jeff Sagarin's rankings listed Fordham, Bethune-Cookman, and the Citadel as the 199-201st best college football teams in the country.

So how many Fordham, Bethune-Cookman, and the Citadel graduates are in the NFL right now? 1 for Fordham, 3 for Bethune-Cookman, and 1 for the Citadel.

Those teams have roughly the same number of overall players and alumni as schools like Texas (41 active pros), LSU (40), and Miami (40). See a difference in the odds? A random player at the "more prestigious" colleges was 24 times more likely to make the NFL.

This is why top high school talent continues to go to Texas, LSU, Miami, etc. and not Fordham, Bethune-Cookman, or the Citadel. The same principle is why budding lawyers would never, ever dream of going to Cooley when Columbia is an option.

Kids, the analogy works, from the school's own fire-breathing mouth: if you go to Cooley, your odds of making the big leagues are the about as good as a random football player from Fordham, Bethune-Cookman, or the Citadel making the NFL.

The differences? Most of those schools offer scholarships to their football players. At Cooley, you have the privilege of paying $200k for a glorified lottery ticket from a school that's basically conceding that everyone thinks it's a piece of crap. And there are opportunities for the low-level college football players to show off their skills. No such thing exists in law.

You could theoretically be the second coming of Louis Brandeis, but if you go to Cooley, your odds of getting anywhere prestigious in the law are worse than the 65th percentile graduate at Cornell, even if you ace everything and edit enthralling editions of the law review single-handedly. Yes, this is a dumb system, but it's wrong for Cooley to portray it as otherwise and act like its stellar graduates may actually have a good chance.

Of course, anyone with moderate logical ability figures all this out rather quickly, which speaks to the utterly poor quality of the propaganda at issue. Only the least-sophisticated consumer could fall for this shit, meaning Cooley's LSAT median probably isn't going to rise any time soon.

As an aside, their own advertising shows a distinct lack of college football knowledge. Note in the following how Stanford is a more prestigious football program than Virginia Tech, Texas A&M, BYU, West Virginia, Clemson, Boston College, and Michigan State (heck, national title game aside, I don't even Oregon is top 20 yet).

One has to wonder if Cooley used the same formula as their proprietary law school rankings to rank college football programs.

In any event, that $2 million is clearly paying for the best Madison Avenue can offer. It makes one wonder why, instead of naming stadiums and putting out ridiculous Soviet-level propaganda, the administrators don't just hire their own graduates at 20k and have them do it. Surely, a group of Cooley grads could come up with something better than a horrendous NFL analogy that doesn't work in the school's favor for anyone with three brain cells.

Cooley is clearly in a league by itself. As bad as LaVerne or Thomas Jefferson or Florida Coastal may be, they've got nothing on the multi-campus money-sucker of Cooley. It is the 5th tier, the 6th, the 7th; no matter how many tiers of legal education hell one wishes to construct (or deduct...), Cooley is at the bottom of the barrel, the slumpbuster of law schools, the scenic vacation in northern New Jersey, the menu item no one but a drunk would order. As far as I can tell, it's worse than the for-profits, worse than the state-accredited schools, worse than the LLMs in International Donkey Saddle Arbitration.

$2 million isn't going to get it any respect, but rather make sure its place at the bottom of the toilet is firmly cemented. Is there any scenario where such a figure can even possibly be justified? In a world where LSAC and resources like US News are more than happy to advertise for free?

The cherry on top is that when I logged on right before posting this, there was a google ad for Cooley at the top of my page. I find this hilarious and fitting, and it only slightly diminishes when I think about the long-term consequences of having student loan with a low return-on-investment paying off this small part of a $2 million pool.

Law Grad Wants FTC to Investigate Law Schools

The only surprising thing about this article is that the ABA Journal actually ran it.

Joel Murray, a recent graduate of the University of California at Davis law school, posted a paper outlining his conclusions at the Social Science Research Network, the National Law Journal reports. "Many law schools are violating the FTC Act by reporting false and misleading employment statistics,” he writes. "The FTC should begin an investigation into U.S. law schools."

Apparently, Murray must not have "networked" enough at the 23rd-best law school in the country to get a job that would compensate him enough to not think of writing this article.

We also have quotes from professors Gerald Thain and Paul Campos, the latter noting that "schools are, essentially, lying to the federal government for the purposes of getting benefits."

Not that I have much faith in the FTC, but it's nice to see people showing some creativity in finding ways the law schools have done wrong. Some day I would like to compose a compendium of all the possible laws, rules, and common sense public policies violated by the law school system, but frankly that task seems more herculean by the week.

Bob Morse, Champion for Change

The most passive journalist on the planet is at it again today, where he discusses the latest ABA jobs data changes.

U.S. News had been among those urging the ABA to take action to improve the credibility of the important consumer information.

Yes, "urging." See, kids, this is how reform works. Figureheads like Bob Morse are a position to change the system immediately, and yet they do nothing. Then, when the people who actually care about reform show up and make a self-evident point, the coat-riders like Morse join the chorus. Then, when they write the history, they were a full-fledged member of the justified opposition, even though they refused to enact any reform steps for years.

But that's not all the magic from Bob's hand.

If the new ABA rules are implemented, U.S. News will use our own law school statistical surveys in fall 2011 to collect and eventually publish the entire new richer and more detailed set of employment and jobs data from each law school for 2010 J.D. graduates. When we gather this richer data set, we will be able to make a more exact determination of how our ranking methodology will change.

Think about this for a moment. The new ABA guidelines already make clear what information will be collected. Granted, Morse and Co. don't know what the response rates will be or how reliable the state-wide surveys will be, but you'd think they could be working with the methodology prior to getting the data itself. After all, statistical methodology should be theoretically-sound independent of the data.

Is Morse being ambiguous and as commitment-free as possible so he can make methadological adjustments to keep the T-14 the T-14, or the T-6 the T-6? I'll leave you to speculate, but it's hard for a cynic like me to not make that assumption given the nature of the propaganda business.

From Profession to Factory Worker: the Rise of the Contract Attorney from the WSJ

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today that should be mandatory reading for anyone considering law school, although it's nothing new for those already in the know. It's about contract attorney/doc review gigs and how experienced attorneys have turned to these temporary gigs to pay their bills.

This new "third tier" of the legal world illustrates the commoditization of the legal profession, which once offered most new entrants access to prestige and power, as well as a professional lifestyle. It also shows how post-recession belt-tightening is permanently altering some professions.

For 10 to 12 hours a day—and sometimes during graveyard shifts—contract attorneys such as Mr. Aponte sit silently in a big room, at rows of computer monitors. Each lawyer reads thousands of documents online and must quickly "code" every one according to its relevance in litigation or an investigation.

Supervisors discourage talking and breaks are limited. The computer systems count each lawyer's speed...

About 10% of all private practice jobs accepted by last year's law school graduates were reported as temporary, a steady increase from 5.4% in 2007...

The article notes that many of the 3rd-party companies have seen surges in their business this year from large white-shoe firms that used to actually hire more associate attorneys (or summer associates or clerks) to do much of this grunt work. The article's only mistake is thinking this is a recessionary phenomenon. It's not - doc review has been growing since before the recession.

And consider, young law aspirants, that the ever-expanding pool of unemployed attorneys will continue to drive wages down in these monotonous, soul-crushing, factory-type environments. That 40-50k cited in the article (note: that's not even worth the law school tuition price) will likely drop as a function of market dynamics. Oh, and don't forget that what they're doing is easily off-shorable, moreso than all the factories that easily packed up and abandoned the U.S. in the 70s. (for more on outsourcing, see this recent post from Brett Clark at Minnesota Lawyer).

No one in their right mind would spend three years of their life and a six-figure investment to do this type of work. Yet it was the destination for a few thousand graduates of last year's class, and will likely be the destination for even higher numbers until the the Indians can do it. And those are graduates who get to be counted as "employed."

LaVerne Denied; Others At Risk? Not Really.

As has been widely reported, the ABA has formally denied LaVerne College of Law full accreditation citing its low bar passage rates. I've already written extensively on this topic and have noted that the many of the current students may suffer most, so I'll not regurgitate those feelings here. That said, I'm happy the ABA took a stand against a mediocre institution and only wish they would do it in areas other than bar passage (which, let's face it, can be taught with an intensive study course and can be gamed like any other standardized test), like actual attorney employment [x] months after graduation.

Now that the hammer has fallen on LaVerne, should anyone else be sweating?

According to this link, Thomas Jefferson, Whitter, Western State, and Southwestern were all at least 15% below the California State average in 2010. But all of them are already fully accredited, and they didn't do nearly as bad as LaVerne, so I don't expect any action here.

What about the nation's other four provisionally-accredited law schools? Well, none of them provide an easy out for the ABA.

The Charleston School of Law had a 72% bar pass rate last July, -4% against the overall, and -11% compared to the University of South Carolina. The previous exam was similar. Although there's no compelling reason to have more than one law school in South Carolina, they're in almost no danger on this front, and they're in the worst shape.

Drexel had an excellent year in 2009 and posted the state's best result in Feb. 2010. Elon has done well, and Charlotte isn't doing nearly as bad as LaVerne.

So unfortunately, I fear this will just be a one-time thing. The other new schools apparently have learned how to emphasize bar pass rates and teach to the test so that the ABA won't have a good reason to reject them. Not that being a graduate of Elon will be any easier for a prospective student than being a graduate from LaVerne, but I suppose one less school in the mix is a net positive.

EDIT: Looks like Charlotte and Elon both gained full accreditation (the title of the article reads "earned...") at the most recent vote despite graduates from either having little to no chance at meaningful legal employment. Way to go, ABA.

Viva Reform! ABA Adpots Some Changes to Reporting, Industry Shill Objects

The ABA Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has adopted more enhanced reporting standards. Law school transparency has a good write-up of the changes, and I encourage readers to just go there, but the basics, and my minor criticisms, are as follows:

1. Job placement: Will be divided into (1) employed in position w/ JD; (2) employed w/ JD preferred; (3) another professional job; (4) non-professional job; (5) student; (6) unemployed, seeking; (7) unemployed, not seeking; (8) unknown.

I really dislike keeping the "unknown" category, and believe those students should be presumed unemployed, seeking. I also dislike the "professional/non-professional" dichotomy and feel a generic "non-law" category with salary data would suffice. My fear is that schools are going to count legal and administrative assistants and anything "sales" as "professional" jobs.

A very welcome change is that schools will now apparently be required to disclose if they are funding any of the positions. The type of job (firm size, government, etc.) information looks the same, but they've added an "employment location" section, so prospective law students can know where they'll likely wind up, how they have no prayer at practicing internationally, etc.

2. Salaries: As far as I can tell, this is the biggest change. Salaries are now going to be divorced from the institution. They seem to be doing away with school-specific salary information, citing the unreliability of the surveys, the lack of available data, the granularity of the data, etc. Instead, they're going to look at it by state.

I think this is still subject to being confusing (e.g. Syracuse and SUNY-Bufallo are going to be advantaged by higher New York City salaries, right?), but it's a step in the right direction, because it at least seeks to address the "skewing" that takes place that allows schools to report median private practice salaries in the six figures.

LST has a summary of the other minor concerns. Also on their entry is a comment by Linda A. Spagnola-Wendling, assistant dean at N.C. Central, who whines for far too many paragraphs about the "statistics beast."

Law School Career Services Offices (CSO’s) cannot mandate, coerce, bribe, or otherwise direct their new graduates to answer the annual questionnaire. It is a completely voluntary exercise which only goodwill and nagging manages to elicit responses.
....
Compounding this stress now is US News & World Report’s new method of calculating the overall employment rate used in their ranking system. Instead of using the number of graduates whose status is known as the denominator, they are using the number of total graduates. What this does in practical, mathematical terms is calculate all unknown graduates as unemployed. Regardless of the reason that the graduates failed to respond, to presume that they are unemployed is inaccurate, misleading and extremely detrimental to all the constituencies that rely on this information.
...
Calculating the employment rate based upon the known statuses of graduates who have responded supplies us with a representative sample – a well-known and widely accepted statistical practice. To deviate from this simply counters good reporting practices.
...
The statistical beast does not serve any master, either; merely its own greediness. Prospective law students will not get any more accurate information from this process, in fact it may be worse than before. The new ranking system races full steam ahead without notice to the law schools and without a plan of guidance or tools to help them reach the same point.

I've read a lot of dumb comments in my time blogging on this field, but this woman might take the cake in terms of unabashed, lazy inanity, and it appears that her poorly-written whine-fest was copied-and-pasted from elsewhere to boot.

First, she is statistically retarded. Voluntary "opt-in" responses from a diverse population never provide a valid sample when the variable affects the likelihood of response! To even use the term "representative sample" when the survey participants have the option to respond or not borders on statistical blasphemy. This is taught during the first week of any self-respecting college statistics course. But apparently this nimrod didn't learn basic statistics on her way through Rutgers (Bachelors) and Seton Hall (J.D.).

As I've explained previously, there was no basis for the previous U&S News assumption that 25% of the unknown graduates were employed. What that baseless assumption did was promote the unscrupulous to ignore graduates that they might have otherwise known to be unemployed, or to be more aggressive in contacting those who graduated at the top of the class.

No one is "presuming" that anyone is unemployed. But what I and the new U.S. News ranking will not do is presume someone is employed without proof. That's what the old system did. That's why it's changed, and why career service shills are the only people who favored it.

Second, Linda, no one is asking you and your crappy little office to be perfect and collect a response from every single graduate. But what I expect, and prospective law students need, is an accurate portrayal of that data. Notice in the standards that no one is really asking your office to work harder; I'm sure you work hard already. The crux of the changes is on the presentation side.

Her stringent efforts to oppose it with distortions of basic statistics and clumsy, heavy-handed metaphors suggest that she prefers the old, demonstrably-flawed system to the changes being made, which are being unanimously met with approval from groups like LST (although they say they don't always go far enough; I obviously concur). Gee, I wonder why that is?

Is this not a blatant admission that the old system distorted reality in favor of the law schools and the people who benefit from them? Is this not a strong sign that the changes are closing some oft-used loopholes to make the sky appear more blue?

Third, did y'all notice her use of words? "The statistical beast does not serve any master, either; merely its own greediness." This brazen piece of human waste is a law school administrator accusing industry reform advocates of greed, truly a ballsy approach. Linda Spagnola-Wending makes $75,000 a year working a relatively cushy administrative job (stable work week, light summers, etc.) in a low-rate state school whose tuition has increased 90+% for in-state residents since 2005 (hint: that's far more than the flagship university...), all in a state that has seven law schools and no major metro areas (unless you count Charlotte or Raleigh, which you shouldn't).

And yet we - those who want to better illuminate the collected data so that the numbers reflect reality instead a marketing narrative - are the greedy ones. I would have thought her Seton Hall legal education would have given her a better term, but I suppose not. In any event, this is truly Orwellian: those who want to enhance consumer protection and prevent consumer regret are greedy.

The real tell that this woman is an insufferable education-sector bureaucrat comes in the last paragraph of what I've quoted: "The new ranking system races full steam ahead without notice to the law schools ...."

Because, you see, to a career services person, the endgame isn't actually employing students or even getting accurate data, it's gaming the rankings. Don't take my word for it. Take hers. Why else do you think she feels the law schools need "notice" of how a 3rd-party "journalism" outlet ranks their institutions? Why should they be entitled to notice, and what self-respecting journalist outlet would actually give it to them? And if all the law schools are on an even playing field with respect to presentation, is it really a problem? And why, regardless of what the journalist outlet decides to do with the data, does that have anything to do with how the ABA collects data, which, one would assume, would have more to do with accreditation concerns?

In this ridiculous and ill-conceived letter, Spagnola-Wending wants us to believe that transparency is important, but not worth the extra effort for her office; that data collection issues are the same as data presentation issues; that the ABA somehow has authority over third-party ranking systems that should give schools notice so they can be more quickly manipulated; that we can assume many students not responding may "be indeed employed but merely too busy working in fulfilling and demanding legal jobs to respond" (yes, she actually wrote that); and that the ABA/state bars need to put another mandatory hammer on recent law graduates, as if non-dischargable debt isn't enough ('cause, you know, everything should be blamed on students and graduates; note how in this industry the previous customers are the bad guy...think about it).

Again, no one is asking career services offices to track down every last graduate. But if they do present the information, it needs to be an accurate portrayal of the class rather than a misleading presentation where half the class is in private practice making six figures when, in reality, 50+% are working jobs no one would ever go to law school to take. That's what these reforms get at, and that's why I think they're a positive step.

In fact, almost anything is a positive step when the previous methods of data collection have led to complete retards like Arthur Snyder ignoring the brutal job market while he builds a useless law school. The time for the ABA to stop being complicit in the misrepresentation of the legal reality has long passed. It's nice to finally see an attempt to correct some of the loopholes.

MBA USNEWS Flawed Numbers, Kansas Applications Down Big, and Duke Finds New Way to Grab Tuition Money

1. Grad School U.S. News Fraud:

From BusinessWeek:

The Gainesville Sun last night reported that the University of Florida Warrington College of Business supplied the magazine with inaccurate job-placement data, resulting in a higher ranking.

An anonymous complaint made through the university’s ethics hotline in August alleged that 37 percent of UF’s 2009 MBA graduating class had jobs at graduation, while 53 percent had jobs three months later. The figures supplied to USNWR indicated 53 percent placement at graduation and 79 percent three months later. UF was ranked 39th in 2009, falling two spots from the year before; in 2010 it fell to 47th.

An investigation found no evidence of willfulness, but you can't help but wonder at the similarities. Does any school ever drop as a result of submitting false numbers? Gee, I wonder why that never happens. In any event, the article gives us another look into the askew, dullard mind of Bob Morse, the laziest journalist/statistician on planet Earth:

[Morse] said he thought data accuracy was not a widespread problem, but it's one that should be addressed by organizations such as the American Bar Association and the MBA-CSC in their capacity as standard-setting bodies, not by the media outlets that conduct rankings.

"It's not my problem" is just about the shittiest possible answer a bona fide journalist or statistician can come up with. People who are actually interested in finding the truth - rather than serving as a press agent for the official organizations that supply them - actually get off their asses and find the truth, ensure accurate data, stop official manipulation where it's suspected, etc. I think at this point any illusion of U.S. News being anything more than a puppet with no journalistic or mathematical intentions is shattered by Morse's own admissions.

2. Kansas Applications Down

From the K.C. Star:

The University of Kansas Law School says its applications declined 23 percent for this year compared with last year.
...
About 850 students applied to the law school this year, down from about 1,100 last year.

They're still far from being underwater (they only admit about 350-400 each year), but this is a state flagship university. If you want to ultimately practice is Kansas or the Kansas City metro area, you can't find a better school to attend. I wonder how the quality of their applicant pool is, and I wonder what this kind of drop signifies for places like Washburn and UMKC that are 2nd-choices for KU applicants. I imagine we start seeing sub-150 LSATs more prevalently and schools have to reach further than they normally would.

3. Duke Innovates in Ways to Leach

From the Nat'l Law Journal:

The school announced this week that it will launch a master of laws program in judicial studies geared specifically to judges....

The LL.M. program will open during the summer of 2012 to 10 to 15 sitting judges. They will take intensive four- to six-week sessions over the course of two summers. The curriculum will include classes and seminars in which both judges and scholars look at the history of the judiciary and judicial decision-making. Participants will examine topics including judicial independence, bias, the selection process and use of specialized courts.

Tuition for this four- to six-week program? $17k. For roughly 1/6 of the normal school year, with a guaranteed small class size and what surely will be the lightest teaching, lowest resource demand in academic history, the school is charging over 40% of its full-year tuition price.

Ca-ching! I'm sure Duke justifies this by some inflated beliefs that the judiciary could use the advanced training, but let's be real: most courts are overworked and, frankly, the judges have better things to do than take classes at Duke for $17k and a worthless L.L.M. If a judge in my district went to this thing and was subject to election, I'd vote against him/her on principle.

But hey, you have to hand it to Duke. If kids are going to start turning down law school to find better uses of their money and time, the law schools are naturally going to move to pushing education for existing practitioners, more than they have already.

That's the Two-Tiered System I Know!

I bet St. Thomas (Fl) is proud to claim Judge Barbara McCarthy as an alumnus, but after reading this article, I have to wonder what the hell she learned there in three years.

To sum up, this wealthy 36-year old "suburban brat" had over 50 previous moving violations and was on probation when he was drag racing his Porsche, killed two businessmen from Britain, and fled the scene. Florida law provides for up to 45 years in prison for this sort of reckless manslaughter. His sentence?

[He] was sentenced by Judge McCarthy to a mere two years of house arrest — in one of his wealthy parents’ luxury oceanfront condos — after agreeing to write big checks to the victims’ widows.

In clearly defining that the rich have their own criminal laws in this country, Judge McCarthy had this to say:

The need for restitution does outweigh the need for prison.

That's a record-scratching admission from a criminal judge, isn't it? Apparently, the guy made a deal with the widows to pay them off immediately so they would go to the judge and ask her to only give him house arrest. The judge's job in this case is to laugh, politely decline, and actually put people like in jail. If restitution outweighs the need for prison, why don't we just saddle people with non-dischargable civil judgments and call it a day? No jail at all - just pay back whatever victims!

Because there is and was no need for restitution to have anything to do with the criminal sanction. They should generally have much to do with each other. We put people in prison to incapacitate them so they can't do this reckless shit to anyone else. We put them there as non-monetary punishment for bad behavior, to deter others from doing the same behavior.

Besides, there was less risk of the victims' families not getting paid here than there normally is. If he doesn't settle the civil suit immediately and the judge throws the book at him, the widows grab a contingency lawyer and sue the shit out of the guy. It will, of course, take more time and may prove difficult to collect, but that's why you buy life insurance. In any event, the guy's family has an incentive to settle the civil case since he's the heir to a jewelry fortune and I can't imagine they'd want either the bad publicity or the hassle (clearly, they didn't even want the hassle of actually raising a child).

What was really needed here was social deterrence, not restitution. This idiot had already spent six months in prison for drug charges and violating his probation. Looking at this, what, exactly, is going to stop the wealthy from trampling on the peons? What about the societal value in having a justice system that applies equally? We have criminal law to help control anti-social behavior. The entire purpose is blown if we let the elite buy get-out-of-jail free cards. That, Judge McCarthy, is worth more than restitution to two families who have a clear and obvious remedy in the civil system.

So to sum up, if you're poor, you will treated like dirt and often sentenced to prison for lower crimes, like petty theft, low-level drug charges, prostitution, etc. One reason California's prison system is so overcrowded is because their "3 strikes law" is a convenient way to saddle poor people with long jail sentences for habitual "lesser" crimes.

But if you're rich, you can rack up minor violations, drug charges, etc. and mow down people while driving a Porsche and YOU, because your family is loaded, get to watch TV for two months in mom and dad's crib instead of going to jail for 5 years. Maybe play a little X-box, too, games like Grand Theft Auto (Why play the game? He could probably do the real deal and get like a year, max).

It begs the question why Florida even wasted public resources prosecuting the guy when they could have been hammering those evil, evil pot dealers and hookers who can't make a good living doing anything else. Why not just let this Thomas Crown wannabe write a check to the officers?

When McCarthy ordered LeVin at his sentencing hearing to take the gum out of his mouth and make a statement, he turned red and blubbery and said he felt shame, but he never actually apologized.

Why would he? Obviously, the elite parents here didn't know how to teach this jackoff how to act responsibly and in 35+ years nothing has made him figure it out. What does he have to be sorry for, exactly? Judge McCarthy's sentence basically endorsed his extreme recklessness so long as there was restitution. Because he killed two people acting like an asshat? So what? If he hasn't gained many socially-positive virtues in 35+ years, do you think he has any appreciation for the value of human life?

Honestly, what use does someone like that have for the criminal laws if they have no teeth to them? Meanwhile, you, I, and the other schlubs will be subject to the other set of rules. Of course, most of us never act like complete asshats because we know if we do, we'll actually go to the slammer.

It'd be nice if the hyper-wealthy could feel exactly the same way.

Young & Rich, J.D.: One Gignatic, Hilarious Fail

Normally, I don't like linking to blogs/sites that are delusional or full of propaganda or illogical conclusions. But today I'm making an exception to give you the epic fail that is Young & Rich, J.D. Reading it makes for high comedy. I can only hope it's an elaborate joke, but sadly, I'm not sure that it is.

The premise of the blog can be explained by the absurd About Me section:

Young and Rich self-made millionaire with a JD from a third-tier law school. A law school referred to by so called "scambloggers" as a 3rd-tier toilet (TTT). Such law schools are often blamed by the students for their own misfortune. The inspiration for this blog was the class action lawsuit against Thomas Jefferson Law School by a graduate who couldn't find a job. Young&Rich, JD is meant to be the antithesis to the typical law school scamblog. We talk about success. We talk about making it. We talk about money and what it buys. We are inspirational yet condescending. We tell the truth even if the truth hurts. We are real.

Sloppy writing aside, I encourage my readers to check it out. Whether it's ironic or earnest, it's genuinely hilarious. It reads like some back-room administrative assistant at a law school decided to make stuff up on a blogger account, complete with god-awful writing ability.

The icing on the cake is that yesterday's entry celebrates Carson Block, a guy who:

• became truly successful by leaving the law;
• graduated top 10% from a T-2 back in 2005 (I don't think any of us would argue that him getting a gig at Jones Day was a surprise)
• left the law to become a researcher for his father, who is an investor wealthy enough to hire someone in this capacity;
• has done nothing post-law that required his law degree; and
• runs a company that engages in extremely shady behavior by short-selling companies they issue public, sometimes-dubious research on, e.g. when they buried Orient Paper's stock price on what turned out to be mostly false allegations. Just today, their recent target, Sino-Forest, is up 16% on an article that rebuts some of Muddy Waters' recent allegations.

To whomever is behind it, it's very entertaining. Like The Onion of legal field blogs, only there's a chance that some anonymous "millionaire" buffoon actually believes this stuff.

More on Thomas Jefferson Suit

When will Beth Kransberger learn to stop talking to the media? From 760 talk radio in San Diego, she first called the suit "bewildering" (seriously?) and then added this:

"We have always followed the system given to us by the ABA," she told News 8. "We have always reported accurately and as thoroughly as humanly possible."

Emphasis mine. Does she really want to argue that their employment numbers have been "as thorough[] as humanly possible?" I about died laughing when I read that. Really? (note: as far as I can tell, this page is not linked to their most current website; it makes one wonder why they're not advertising the '08 and '09 numbers anymore). Here is how they used to present their '09 numbers:

First, note the disclaimer at the top: the sample size is only 86%. So the "total employed" number should actually be given as 72.8% if it's any kind of fair representation (they can't seriously assume that respondents and non-respondents are equal, can they?). Otherwise, one might assume the 84% means 84% of the total student body. Same with the private practice figure, and one is only left to guess whether the missing 14% is factored into the "average salary" figures. I imagine not.

Second, note the conspicuous absence of any category labeled "non-law jobs." What is "business," exactly? Technically, all law firms are businesses. But in the context provided, "business" doesn't seem to be a catch-all to cover waiter gigs, but rather implies working as in-house counsel somewhere, which wouldn't be implausible to someone not familiar with the legal world. Given that "business" is between private practice and government and judicial clerkships, the logical assumption would be that "business" refers to corporate jobs requiring bar passage and not similar to, say, "continuing studies." But the ambiguity of the term itself reveals a major flaw.

Third, why are salaries not provided for academic, public interest, or clerkships? It seems incongruous to list them for the other categories, but not those. Maybe it just wasn't "humanly possible."

Oh, here we are: "Salary information is only provided below where at least five salaries were reported." Ah-ha.

New question:

Fourth, what was the response rate on the salary figures provided? If 36% of respondents in private practice didn't state how big their firm was, how many actually gave their salaries? With how many grains of salt should we take that 90k+ business salary? Did only 7 people respond? Because one could look at this and get the impression that TJLS is a hotbed for filling high-powered business positions in San Diego (and I suppose LA). Is that really the case, or is the data presented not as "thorough" as claimed? This is a major omission and one entirely in TJLS' hands.

Fifth, the use of the phrase "job offer" implies a professional job, something more than landing an hourly retail gig. Mentioning that an "offer" came before or after the bar suggests that the bar was a necessary part of the process.

Sixth, related to the first point, the percentages given seem to be percentages of the employed number and not percentages of the student body. The numbers between private practice and pursuing advanced degree add up to 100% if clerkships are omitted. That leaves the 11% as a percentage of the class as a whole (and one must wonder if "seeking employment" was an option for the employed). So we have a scale problem that's not readily apparent: employed sub-fields are presented as a percentages of a subset, while unemployed are presented as a sub-set of the whole. In other words, from the chart, it appears its twice as likely to wind up in "business" as it is to wind up "seeking employment." Au contraire.

All in all, here is a better presentation of what was known about the Class of 2009, dubious industry practices aside:

Known: 86%
Unknown: 14%

Known to be in private practice: 42.3% of class
Known to be working for the gov't: 6.4% of class
Known to be working in public interest: 5.0% of class
Known to have clerkships: 0.9% of class
Known to be working in academia: 0.9% of class
Known to be continuing studies: 3.0% of class
Known to be working in business: 15.9% of class
Known to be unemployed, seeking employment: 9.5% of class

The numbers wound up a little off (I assume the gap is "unemployed, not seeking"), but you get the general idea. Thorough presentation would clearly define the categories and provide a consistent baseline for the percentages that make the numbers comparable to each other. It would attempt to factor in non-respondents instead of trying to hide the very real possibility that they're overwhelmingly unemployed.

I recognize my presentation is different than the NALP method, and indeed a disclaimer at the top of the page tells us that TJLS' "annual employment statistics are compiled in accordance with the National Association for Law Placement's Employment Report and Salary Survey."

I guess prospective students are supposed to become mini-experts in statistics and look through the NALP's guidelines and realize its crucial flaws before relying on the numbers at all, even though TJLS was obviously doing "everything humanly possible" to report data accurately and thoroughly. I wonder if anyone in the administration ever questioned the use of the NALP standards as being too lax and open to number shaving.

And I hasten to note that the NALP also directs law schools to "establish and implement practices to ensure the fair and accurate representation of students and the institution in the employment search process." I have to think that includes charts as these, even though they're directed at 0Ls.

Truth is, instead of questioning the simpleton NALP rules, they were probably too busy trying to figure out to best soften the data. You can't tell me the placement of "business" and the lack of a non-law category is just a happy accident. They, and most schools, probably had a meeting long ago to decide just how to present people they wanted to call "employed" but they couldn't put in the private practice or government or the other categories.

To claim compliance with NALP is one thing. To claim that you "have always reported accurately and as thoroughly as humanly possible" is a whole new level of audaciousness.

Speaking of audaciousness, check out these quotes from a San Diego "career counselor":

"Even if they keep totally valid statistics, that doesn't say anything about what's going to happen to you personally," said career counselor Judy Kaplan Baron.

Kaplan Baron added that schools are in the business of educating, not finding its graduates work.

"It is the responsibility of the person who is paying so much for an education to figure out what they're going to be able to do with it," Kaplan Baron told News 8. "That is going in with your eyes open: I guess it's a very expensive life lesson."

And what if the school is purposely obfuscating the view when one's eyes ARE open? And why does it matter what eventually happens to one person four years later when the allegedly-fraudulent transaction occurs well before the result is known?

The issue here is inducement. The school doesn't have to do anything to find its graduates work. That isn't the issue. The problem is that the school open advertises solid employment and good salaries for its graduates. Once it does that, it has a duty to be honest if individuals only buy the education with reliance on those numbers.

I reiterate: if this takes place in any other industry, we have no problem enforcing class-based consumer protections and placing the responsibility on the company to have truthful advertising and avoid misrepresentations to consumers. Auto, cigarettes, real estate, foodstuffs, furniture, you name it, even intangible goods and services. Almost always, we place the most stringent burden on the company for a variety of reasons. But you cross over into buying and selling educations and suddenly it's back to caveat emptor.

"Very expensive life lesson," my butt. How about we actually provide consumer protection befitting the scale of the investment and the collective action problems, as we have with real estate, securities, automobiles, and every other product that may cost someone six figures.