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.
This Joel Murray has a great idea. It's time we actually start doing something other than ranting. Maybe we can bombard the FTC with mail to convince to investigate law schools.
ReplyDeleteFTC employees: TJSL is violating the law.
ReplyDeleteFTC commissioners: String them up!
FTC employees: Duke, Virginia, and a bunch of other schools are doing the same thing.
FTC commissioners: Uh, never mind.
PresTTTige:
ReplyDeleteI get it, the world sucks and it is very unfair at times. I just think that Scambloggers have gotten their point across; people know about them, and the media has covered their stories. I believe it is time to turn up the heat and take you cause to the next level. Otherwise, you can scamblog all you want, eventually, like others in the past (Subprime JD), you'll just get bored or overwhelmed and move on without really having accomplished much. I believe your efforts now need to be focused into something greater than just informing because you have already accomplished that quite successfully.
@1:26
ReplyDeleteI calls them as I sees them. Law is the only industry where the litigants, regulators, and judges are all part of the same system.
Imagine sheep trying to sue wolves, in a court of wolves, where the wolves met at the country club last month for a dinner honoring a wolf.
I agree with you that something needs to be done, but I'm not sure the court system is the correct way to accomplish this.
Sorry RDTL for using your blog to communicate. I am sure you don't mind.
ReplyDeletePresTTTige:
At the very least all of you guys should file complaints to the ABA and/or the DOE.
I am sure you are familiar with Law School Transparency. One of their founders (observationalist) wrote this the other day in TLS:
"Of course, nothing is preventing people right now from filing an official complaint with the ABA Section of Legal Ed against a particular school. The problem is that nobody has bothered. There are basically two ways a law school can be investigated: either someone files a complaint which initiates a fact-finding and potentially full-out investigation, or a Site Evaluation Team reports an alleged violation of one or more standards during their site visits (which usually only happen once every five years). One can certainly argue that the ABA Section of Legal Ed hasn't been doing its job by delegating investigations to Site Evaluation Teams, but the fact remains that not a single complaint has been filed alleging violation of Standard 509, going back for at least five years. We fully encourage the filing of complaints where people believe their school has violated Standard 509, as it will help keep the regulators true to their mandate and can lead to an investigation, sanctions, and accreditation probation."
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=157641
How can it be possible that NO ONE has filed a complaint? I think scambloggers should start moving the ball. You guys have the power of your blogs/sites, and we would support you.