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.
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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.
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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.

Thoughts on the Thomas Jefferson Law School Class Action

As many of you likely know, Thomas Jefferson College of Law, brand new campus and all, has been sued in a class action lawsuit:

According to the complaint, plaintiff Anna Alaburda graduated with honors from the San Diego law school in 2008 and passed the California bar examination, but has been unable to secure full-time employment as an attorney. She sent more than 150 resumes to law firms and received only one job offer that was "less favorable than non-law related jobs that were available to her."

...

She accrued more than $150,000 in student loans during her law school years, the complaint says.
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Beth Kransberger, associate dean for student affairs at Thomas Jefferson, said that the school does not misrepresent its employment statistics.

"The school has always followed the guidelines established by the ABA. We've always been accurate in what we report, and we've always followed the system given to us by the ABA," Kransberger said. "This lawsuit is very much about a larger debate. This is part of the debate about whether it's practical to pursue a graduate degree in these difficult economic times."

Others have already covered this fairly well (see First Tier Toilet, PresTTTigious, and SubprimeJD) and I have skimmed the complaint and I don't wish to go on a point-by-point review of the merits, suffice to say that: (a) I'm happy that someone finally did this; and (b) it will be very interesting to see if the fraud claims can get past a motion for summary judgment. My opinion, devoid of any knowledge of California law and not exactly experienced in fraud, is that there are a few hurdles that might prove tricky to clear (e.g., reasonable reliance). It will also be very interesting to see if the USNWR or the ABA become involved somehow.

But I would like to point out a few things from the National Law Journal's write-up.

First, this student attended TJLS from 2005-2008, when the cost of attendance was around 43k (LSN currently lists the 2006-2007 number at $42,948). Her $150,000 in debt may seem obscene, but consider that in the 3-6 years since she's been in law school, tuition alone has risen to over 40k per year. The TJLS website does not list a total cost of attendance with this figure, but it has to be around 60k. As bad as the complaint looks with respect to Ms. Alaburda, students entering in the fall of 2011 are going to significantly worse off.

Second, Beth Kransberger is.... well, wrong. That's about the nicest way I can put it.

As far as I know, compliance with standards established by one's own industry almost never can completely relieve an industry participant of liability when they're dealing with an outside party; at an absolute minimum, it shouldn't. For example, if every participant in the automotive industry uses the same style of brake pads because the brake pads are endorsed by the safety committee of the industry's trade association, the automotive manufacturers may (and should) still be possibly liable in tort for brake pad failures. Why? Because it's possible that the entire industry has the standards wrong, for whatever reason.

Another example of this is in accounting and securities fraud. If I'm not mistaken, a company can comply 100% with standards set by FASB in its financial reports and still be liable for misrepresentation under various fraud provisions. Compliance with the existing standard is positive evidence for the company, but it's not dispositive because the standard itself may not completely align with the other area of law (here, fraud).

There's no perfect alignment between the ABA's reporting metrics and the California fraud statutes, and I doubt that the California legislature has ever endorsed compliance with ABA rules as a safe harbor against fraud claims. Fraud ultimately isn't about forcing companies to comply with their own industry's practices. It's about forcing companies to be honest with the public at large. So TJLS' compliance with the ABA's guidelines should have very little to do with whether their admissions presentations were deceptive to the average consumer.

Furthermore, this idea that this action is merely part of a "debate about whether it's practical to pursue a graduate degree in these difficult economic times" is laughable. This has nothing to do with "difficult economic times" and nothing do with general graduate degrees.

Am I skeptical of graduate school - and higher education - in general? Yes. But not all graduate degrees are cut from the same cloth. Medical school and dental school live by their own rules. Liberal arts PhD programs often have an intrinsic, non-economic value, and the market in those areas has been tight dating back decades (and has relatively little to do with the economic cycle). Advanced degrees in the sciences and engineering are more dependent on the economic cycle, but are generally still in demand (or so people say).

What is spelled out in this complaint is unique to law and exists independently of the economic cycle. Indeed, the complaint itself mentions that TJLS supposedly increased its graduates' employability in the 2007-2010 years. If Beth Kransberger insists that this is really about a JD possibly diminishing in value solely from external economic forces, why was there no drop after the recession began in earnest?

The numbers cited in the complaint say that TJLS law graduates weren't terribly effected by the recession. Dean Kransberger suggests otherwise, that it might be "impractical" to get a JD because of the rough economy. Well, which is it? Either Kransberger is lying and it has little to do with the economy or - gasp - the numbers were misleading.

But this is a side issue about an administrator who apparently didn't think through her words. The real point is that this isn't an economic issue at all, but rather something that has gone on for years. The complaint itself goes back to the early 2000s and if the student enrolled in 2005, the recession was non-existent when she chose TJLS, which is the time point truly relevant to the fraud claim.

And as others have pointed out - including our favorite Emory speaker - the changes in the legal field are not temporary adjustments of scale to account for a revenue shortfall, but rather systemic changes that affect the number of laborers needed in the field. Law firms are continuing an ongoing change that drastically reduces the need for new law graduates. Kransberger and others use the recession as a salve, a sort-of "get out of jail free" card that can relieve them of their failure to adjust to the brave new world where menial tasks are sent to India, partner tracks are non-existent, and paid work for young attorneys generally evaporates.

We're at a very interesting point in the law school bubble with the commencement of this suit. Rumors are circulating about possible class actions in New York, California, and Michigan (please see the message on Nando's page if you attended law school in one of those states). I imagine someone, somewhere, is researching the Florida schools, the Massachusetts schools, and perhaps even the Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, or Texas schools. If this class action against TJLS is successful in any way whatsoever, about 180 lawsuits will be filed the very next day.

It's an interesting time period, and although I'm skeptical and not sure what will happen with this particular case, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't more optimistic for the future as a result. It's uncertain, and there are all sorts of hurdles and pitfalls and complications, but no one ever said undoing and correcting a lousy system was easy. The fact that there's now a professional, non-pro-se complaint written by a decently-sized Los Angeles firm filed against a law school is a huge step from where we were just a year ago.

Edit: I just found this article on Miller Barondess' website that makes Kransberger look like an even bigger fool than I thought she was. Choice quotes:

Kransberger said student debt involves complex class issues, since those without inherited family wealth will almost certainly have to take out loans. Thomas Jefferson’s students are 35 percent first-generation college students, 25 percent first¬generation U.S. citizens and 40 percent students of color, she said. The school is one of the least expensive in the state, with annual tuition at $40,100.

Yikes. If I was an attorney for TJLS, I'd put a muzzle on this woman and attach it with superglue. She basically admitted that the school targets poor minorities, who, one should note, are less likely to find legal work sufficient to pay off the debt than those who have preexisting connections. Sorry if I'm not being politically correct, but to be honest, the legal field isn't, either. Diverse law schools are only a good thing to academics concerned with what the working world sees as a frivolity. Surely the school knows this, since it's a training ground for the legal profession and all. Given that TJLS is alleged to be a bad investment engaging in deceptive practices, admitting that you were targeting an abnormally high number of minorities, poor people, and new arrivals (read: less-sophisticated parties) seems like a very ill-advised move. And the school being "one of the least expensive" is a tallest dwarf competition, or a purest hooker competition. You get the idea, even if Kransberger doesn't.

Kransberger said Thomas Jefferson doesn’t cater to the rankings and that she’s been appalled by reports of other schools’ misdeeds.

You mean like building a new campus while your honors graduates are unemployed or working as waiters?

“A law degree remains an amazingly versatile degree, and that continues to be what drives us.”

No, what "drives" you is abuse of federally-backed loans, you lying sack of garbage. Versatile, my ass. Does anyone believe that crap anymore? And note that she's countering a fraud allegation with a bald-faced lie. Stop and think about that for a second.

Journalist of the Day: Brad Kane

Today I want to feature two articles from the Hartford (CT) Business Journal, both written by Brad Kane.

First, we have Lawyers' Debt Hits All-Time High:

Today’s law school graduate has more debt than ever before, and is facing a market where getting a job is an extensive, grueling process. First-year lawyers are leaning on clerkships and part-time legal work, forced to abandon — or at least delay — their dream jobs to make their monthly debt payments.
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The large debt is what sets this recession apart from all others, said James Leipold, executive director for the National Association for Law Placement.

That quote isn't completely correct, and I wish he had focused on someone broke and unemployed rather than the cute blonde who landed a job two weeks after the bar exam by "networking," but at least people might start to understand that the law school bubble is different if mainstream journalism keeps repeating these types of articles.

With that need for repetition in mind, Brad is the journalist of the day for publishing a second article on the profession as a whole on the same day, which I haven't seen posted anywhere else:

The message from Connecticut’s attorneys is clear: Unless you love the law, you’ll hate being a lawyer.

That’s the message more lawyers are telling their children.

And that’s a concern for an industry that finds itself in turmoil. The price of admission is up and interest in being a lawyer is down. The passion that once marked the profession is fading in the face of business pressures as law firms race to be the biggest and most comprehensive, judging lawyers’ value on the revenue they generate.

This is obvious to many of us who have already paid the for the boat show ticket, but ordinary people (and businessmen, like the readership of this newspaper) cannot hear it too many times: law is not what's on TV, and it's not what it was even 30 years ago.

And in this article, we get an actual anecdote of failure:

Avon native Daniel Lindenberg graduated in 2009 from Albany Law School in New York. . . .

Over the next 15 months, Lindenberg interviewed for 80 jobs. With $200,000 in deferred law school debt looming, the riches weren’t flowing. He moved back into his parents’ house. Connecticut bar exams, he started his job search.

Over the next 15 months, Lindenberg interviewed for 80 jobs. With $200,000 in deferred law school debt looming, the riches weren’t flowing. He moved back into his parents’ house.

He finally got a full-time job in January. The article talks about cutting costs, disbanding summer programs, and generally how the shift from profession-first to a business-first has fallen disproportionately on new lawyers.

All true, and I wish every newspaper in the country ran a story like this so the masses could see the major problems in the legal field.

I Should Be Optimistic Because . . .

This is from Larry Ribstein, who has written previously about the slow collapse of biglaw and the future of the legal profession in general:

"I think the horizon for what you can do with a legal education hasn't shrunk, but has actually expanded," said Ribstein, the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law. "Change can be bad for some people, especially for those who have a stake in the current system, but it can also be good, and I think the future is going to be much more complex than envisioned by some critics."

When you say "those who have a stake in the current system," are you looking the mirror at all, Larry?

Regardless, I'm really intrigued by this idea that legal education is now opening more doors than it has in the past, what those doors are (I'd love to find one), and how the educational industry created those doors.

Unfortunately, none of those pesky details made it into the article. They must have been left on the editing room floor. Instead, the writer gives us a rather incoherent stream of reasoning including the following in an unconnected fashion:

• Law schools should focus on meeting global demand.
• Legal education hasn't changed much in the last century because of rigid accreditation standards.
• Biglaw is dying.
• Outsourcing is just a temporary stop-gap until the machines improve efficiency domestically and lawyer work becomes more exciting ("I think this is going to lead to an era of lawyers doing even more interesting things than they're doing now.")
• Most of the professors working now will be dead or retired when these changes really change the profession (as opposed to them being affected by the scores of unemployed recent graduates).

But, yeah, there's room for optimism:

"The plus side for entering law students is that their future is much more wide open than that of their immediate predecessors," he said. "So that's a cause for optimism."

In the future, I hope we have law professors who actually back up their ridiculous statements with actual proof. Frankly, I think a law school graduate in 1960 had it much, much better than a law school graduate of 2010. That is, unless Ribstein can actually show us where these mystical doors that make the J.D. a versatile instead of a one-way ticket to attorney licensing.

The caption on the picture instructs the reader to be skeptical that the future of the legal profession is dire. If baseless statements like "you can do more with a legal education now!" are cause for optimism, I find my healthy skepticism is best used in the opposite direction, especially since people like Prof. Ribstein the marketers with the vested interest in keeping the system pumping.

In the meantime, I'll continue to consider statements like "the horizon for what you can do with a law degree hasn't shrunk, but has actually expanded" no better to the crap spewed by liberal arts advisers selling sociology degrees to future retail workers. Way to aim high, legal education.

Widener Dean Not Working in Hypotheticals Anymore; NY Bar President Living in Reality As Well

First, I can't believe I hadn't yet posted on this, but Widener professor Lawrence Connell, who, as I noted previously, got into trouble for what seemed to be a routine law school hypothetical, has now actually brought a lawsuit against the dean for her statements in the post-incident administration hearings.

Lawrence Connell contends that dean Linda Ammons falsely characterized him as racist and sexist in administrative proceedings when she sought to oust him from his job of 26 years after he used a hypothetical involving her murder, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The complaint was filed last week in Sussex County Superior Court, in Delaware. Connell, who is white, and his lawyer, Thomas Neuberger, contend that Ammons, who is black, targeted him because of his conservative beliefs, according to the Associated Press.

I'm frankly surprised that this came back up, because usually when people threaten lawsuits, they're just blowing smoke out their butt, but this is interesting to say the least.

For what it's worth, Dean Linda Ammons spent five years as a television personality and worked in public relations for four years. I wonder if it ever crossed her mind that bringing formal proceedings against a long-tenured professor was the best step for Widener's reputation.

Also, after law school, it appears she went directly into administrative service (and after six months jumped into the governor's service - anyone could do that, right?) and never really worked as a lawyer. Not that I think that's a requirement, but aside from her administrative position with the state public defender, I don't see anything that actually requires bar passage.

Definitely a story to watch. In one corner, a long-tenured male conservative. In the other corner, a black female ladder-climbing administrator transplant from Ohio. Race, gender, politics, career trajectories - this is so scripted it seems like a law school hypothetical for teaching kids about libel or academic freedom, or maybe a final exam question.

In happier news, I encourage readers to check out this report from the New York State Bar Association president. It basically points out four areas (firm structure, training, work-life balance, and legal technology) and how those areas will change and it's spot-on on pretty much everything. Aside from a few dumb ideas (e.g. requiring public service), there's some good stuff in there:

The Task Force recommends that the State Bar Association examine potential licensing reforms, such as . . . sequential licensing, which would permit limited practice for new attorneys pending further training and examination; [and] adjusting an applicant's score on the bar exam to reflect the successful completion of skills courses. . . .

As the economy recovers, it is apparent to many observers that the legal profession will not return to business as usual. Competition for legal work will be intense. Law firms that do not understand and address these changes will have difficulty competing in the emerging marketplace.

Yup. Hopefully other state bar associations continue to catch on to the "new normal" and they can spearhead the changes necessary to meet tomorrow's demands of this "profession" before it loses all marks of an actual profession.

Rutgers-Camden Draws Faulty Conclusions, Case Western Students Show Some Fight, and Reminder Re: Program on April 7

For all those of you who may think rankings and lists are benign tools, I give you this nauseating press release from Rutgers-Camden:

In the midst of a challenging economic climate, the Rutgers School of Law–Camden is emerging as a smart investment for strong career preparation.

What is their proof for this high-flown, completely contrary statement that spending $200k in real cost on a legal education is a "smart investment" when it may yield only a negligible increase in earning power for the majority of graduates?

Oh yes - surveys! First, they cite the flawed US News and World survey I've already discussed (even if the survey were accurate, it wouldn't necessary mean that Rutgers-Camden is a "smart investment" given that there's no discussion of alternatives). Second, they cite some meaningless Forbes survey ("The Best Law Schools for Getting Rich;" no, I did not make that up) that tracked mid-career earnings of people a generation or two above the current class of applicants as proof that Rutgers-Camden will bring the current class the same piles of lucre.

Folks, if that logic worked, people should forget law school and invest every dime in IBM, GE, and Microsoft. After all, if it worked for people in 1980, surely it'll work for today's kids.

Given how ridiculous such a proposition is for ordinary investing, it's preposterous that (a) anyone serious argues that because going to law school [x] made some 45-year-old rich, it'll do the same for today's 22-year-olds; and (b) anyone actually believes it.

But don't worry, Rutgers-Camden is obviously a very special institution that is clearly different than its peers on multiple levels:

“The true measure of the Rutgers School of Law–Camden is in the success of our students and graduates, the excellent scholarship of our faculty, the friendly service delivered by our staff, and our ability to help the citizens of New Jersey through our highly effective pro bono and clinical programs. Rutgers–Camden excels in each of these important areas.”

Additionally, the Rutgers–Camden law school is included in the 2011 Princeton Review Best 172 Law Schools.

Whoa, can I still transfer to this magical, unique place? I'm convinced I'll be rich in 10 years.

In other news, Case-Western has been without a real dean for a while, and now one of the finalists, former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith, is coming under fire as some of the Case-Western community has launched a website opposing him:

"CaseAgainstSmith.com seeks to inform members of the Case Western Reserve University community about Smith's radical views and history," says an unsigned press release on the web site. "Smith has been described as the intellectual powerhouse behind efforts to roll back Watergate-era campaign finance reforms. . . . We are concerned that the appointment of a radical such as Smith to Dean of the Law School could distract from the many strengths of Case Western Reserve University."

You can view the actual website here. Basically, Smith was amicus curae for the very unpopular side of Citizens United, has connections to the Koch Brothers, and has a murky ethical history when it comes to corporate-political-judicial entanglements. Frankly, I understand the concerns. It's simply impossible to separate some people from their politics when their views are so radical and antithetical that it detracts from their ability to lead a large organization, especially one like a law school that is (supposedly) committed to educating students in ethics, fairness, collegiality, and all the traits that should make the profession and its social function worth a damn; they may fail much of the time, but that's the ideal. And if students have no respect for the people running the system, the school's mission is undermined (which is another reason why schools' misleading of students is so nefarious, but I digress).

In addition to claiming the Supreme Court's adoption of his views relieves him of being a radical (need I remind him that the S.C. once adopted pro-slavery views?), Smith has responded that "One doesn't seek a deanship to advance a political agenda, and the school isn't choosing a political leader." I find that highly disingenuous and an absurdly narrow view of what "political" means, or what a deanship symbolizes to a school.

In a final piece of news, I'd like to promote the upcoming panel "JDs in the New Economy." It's going to be this Thursday April 7, 2011, at 12 eastern/11 central. Third Tier Reality's Nando will be participating along with a number of esteemed people (including Dean Closius of Baltimore, whose contradictory statements in the NYT article I discussed back in January). The group will specifically discuss the value of a law degree and law school curriculum. Unfortunately, I won't be able to listen in but it looks to be fun, it's free and I encourage my readers to do so if they're available.

Yale Applications Down; William Mitchell Goes Transparent

As Above the Law reports today, Yale applications are down nearly 16.5% this year. Naturally, this doesn't quite make sense to Elie Mystal:

The NYT says “stay away from law school,” and applications to Yale drop. But if you read Above the Law, you pick up nuances like “stay away from crappy law schools.” See how much more subtle and informative that is? I know, I know, it bothers me too when the print media sensationalizes things.

No, Elie, you elitist T-14 marketing shill, the point is that it's so bad that even going to awesome schools may be a losing proposition. See, for example, you! People who went to T-14 schools, did well, scored at BigLaw, and were spit out 3-5 years later are a dime a dozen. In a world where even Georgetown has to fudge numbers, you know something's up with the game itself.

But Elie found a "more plausible" reason why there was a catacylsmic drop: Yale decided to start requiring a "dean's certificate" from one's former school:

Ah, now that’s an explanation that comports with what I’ve come to know about prospective law students. For many of them, it’s their first important professional decision; why would they put in the extra work required to apply to the very best law school? Paperwork? Bah. “I don’t want to do no paperwork, I want to be a lawyer.”

Look, I know it seems like I want there to be fewer law students by any means necessary. But really I just want people to be making intelligent decisions.

Not applying to Yale just because it requires more paperwork is not smart. But I suppose the kids not applying to Yale for that reason weren’t going to be Yale Law School material anyway.

Does this idiot honestly believe that otherwise-serious applicants strayed from a tip-top law school because they had to a dean's certificate, something that some other law schools already require, if I'm not mistaken? Seriously?

I know this might be a shock to people like Elie, but it wasn't just the 155 LSATs who are affected by the legal profession's down-turn. Those with 175 LSATs and shiny credentials are less likely to go as well if they understand it (properly) to be a giant crapshoot. If anything, the B.A. holder with the 170+ LSAT is more likely to be able to score a lucrative job absent law school than the 155 LSAT holder. Thus, Yale's prospective applicant pool might drop, as the 165 LSAT kids may not think themselves good enough to even bother.

It's all about alternatives. The kid who can get into Yale often has many of them, meaning there's no reason to take the (increasingly-higher) risk that law will not pan out. Kids lower on the academic totem pole may not have those alternatives and may keep applying to solid schools hoping they can secure a job down the line. Above all else, it's downright stupid to assume that high-achievers are not applying to a top law school because it involved an extra step when the LSAC process is already a bunch of hoop-jumping and the high achievers are more likely to jump through hoops, anyway. How condescending, yet entirely unsurprising.

Elie would, I suppose, rather propagate his elitist worldview that there's something magical about Yale ("Yale Law School material," blech) and the other top schools that somehow immunizes them from a lack of interest in law school unless students are being lazy and irrational.

___________________________________________

In happier news, William Mitchell has decided to be more transparent and has published a wide array of helpful information of its website to better diagnose the school and its propensity for producing quality graduates. Check this out:

• 67% of reporting employed 2009 graduates hold a position where bar admission is required.
• Overall average salaries range between $39,000 and $75,000, although there was a steep decline in the number of 2009 graduates reporting information.
• The 2009 overall average of $58,687 for 176 people includes at least 15 salaries of $100k or more.
• 11 graduates are working in publishing (Westlaw is in Minneapolis, if I'm not mistaken)
• 21 are in "solo practice," a dramatic rise from the '06-'07 numbers.

I still think there's some creative accounting going on here (they get 93% employed by discounting people who went back to school and are not seeking work, which to me presents a chicken-egg problem), but overall it's wonderful to have more informative numbers about what is going on.

Clearly, they're still oversaturating the area if only 2/3 of their employed graduates actually need a J.D. The salary information seems far more reasonable, even if it's still on the high side for 50-70% of graduates. I also find it curious that they used to focus on medians and now they're doing averages (I wonder which one is higher...).

The bottom line is that there's no way in heck I pay 50k a year plus interest to have a chance at a job averaging 58k with all sorts of strings attached.

Hopefully more schools will put out detailed information like this, even if it's buried deep on their side. I'll snoop around and see if I can find some others, and I encourage readers to email me if they spot any that I can dissect here.

US News and World Report Torn Between Shilling and Journalism

I get that US News and World Report has little actual news or commentary to offer aside from being known as the publication that helps market colleges by ranking them, but at least they could have a consistent editorial view.

For example, this article describes how law schools are adjusting to a "suddenly dog-eat-dog job market" (Really, David van Zandt? "Suddenly?") and a changing BigLaw model.

Starting salaries are flat or down, too, according to NALP—the Association for Legal Career Professionals in Washington, D.C. The median starting pay at firms with more than 700 lawyers in New York and Los Angeles was still $160,000 in 2010, but markets like Boston and San Francisco dropped from that level back to $145,000. Overall, the median starting salary at private firms dropped to $115,000 last year from $130,000 in 2009.

Belt-tightening at larger firms has had a ripple effect, pushing grads to pursue government and nonprofit jobs they previously wouldn't have considered. "I feel that I'm competing with everybody, for every job I've applied for," says Jeremy Wolff, 31, a 2010 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law in Boston who left a technology career to focus on civil rights or social justice work. He currently is working as a research consultant with a team of professors from his law school, covering his living expenses but not providing enough to begin paying down his six-figure debt. "If I knew then what I know now, I would emphatically not go to law school," he says. "I think the legal job market has fundamentally changed."

Okay, so overall, nationwide, starting salaries at private firms have dropped 11.5% in two years. That's big, as is the fact that the graduates now denied BigLaw compete with other graduates for all those other jobs, like whatever work there is at the DA's office, MidLaw, or legal aid foundations. That trajectory should be a priority concern for anyone contemplating applying for law school now.

Now let's head to US News and World Report's Law Schools: Tips and Stats:

First year associates at large private law firms can expect to make $160,000 in metropolitan markets including New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., according to the Association for Legal Career Professionals, known as NALP, in its 2010 Associate Salary Survey. In other markets, such as Boston and San Francisco, salaries can range from $110,000 to $160,000, with a median of $145,000.

First of all what a "large private law firm" is to a prospective law student is probably different than what a "large private law firm" is to the NALP. And wouldn't it be responsible to mention that the $145,000 is a falling median? And isn't it irresponsible to suggest applicants now - i.e., job seekers in 2014 - "can expect" to make $160,000 when salaries have fallen in other markets?

And overall, the "article" seems to be a blatant advertisement for going to law schools, e.g.:

If you are set on a career in public interest law, don't let finances stop you.

You mean like the "finances" that there's very little actual work in public interest law?

Intellectual property and energy law continue to be lucrative—and competitive—specialities [sic].

If it's competitive, it's likely not going to be lucrative in the future. See the other article your same news organization put out the exact same day.

My big question to US News is this: Why did the first article I cite espouse a view that there has been a fundamental change in the job market, while the second article sold law school on the premise that the job market is pretty much moving right along, i.e., getting back to the pre-recession normal? ("many partners at large law firms agree that the market has nearly stabilized.")

All these articles seem to show is US News' apparent hypocrisy. On one hand, it feels beholden to its journalistic routes, finding it necessary to report truth and - gee whiz - cite its sources. On the other, it realizes its existence is dependent on the college industry continuing to sell the idea of education as the path to a dream job. To hell with journalistic integrity (Who at the "large law firms" are agreeing with this? Who knows! Just say "Many").

I appreciate their attempt at journalism. The first piece is insightful and should be required reading for those contemplating attendance. But it's hard to take that piece seriously when the same organization trumpets law school as the land of public interest saviors and $160,000 salaries as if it were reading from a admission's department brochure.

NLJ Report Shows Contracting Proportion of Graduates Going to Top 250 Firms

The National Law Journal has conducted a survey of hiring at its top 250 law firms.

I'm not going to copy the list, suffice to say that many of their results match up with the similar small-scale study I did awhile back on this exact same subject. Stanford did more poorly than you'd expect; Howard, BYU, and Rutgers-Newark did better than expected. But there are also some surprises. Yale finishing only 15th is a surprise. Same with Wake Forest, Seton Hall, and Maryland being more highly rated that I'd expect.

But what's really noteworthy is not the order of the schools, but the percentages. Texas is 20th on the list and only a quarter of its grads land jobs at these firms. By the 50th school, the number drops to 10%. It's not just conjecture: you really do have to be in the top 10% for the jobs most of these schools portray as what the median graduate does.

The most noteworthy result is the comparison to 2009, most notably how more exclusive legal hiring has become:

[T]he top two schools on the list supplied nearly 3% more of their graduates to the nation's 250 largest law firms, compared with 2009. But overall, this year's Go-To Law Schools sent fewer graduates into the big-firm market. The percentage of 2010 graduates taking jobs at NLJ 250 law firms was 27.3%, compared with 30.3% of 2009 graduates.

With 45,000 graduates, a 3% drop translates into 1,350 people who are looking for jobs elsewhere. But if the top schools' numbers are increasing, that means that 1,350 deficit is coming disproportionately from lower-tiered schools. In other words, it seems big law firms are being more exclusive in their hiring practices and taking fewer chances on kids from second- and third-tier schools.

Thus, when the job market fully turns around, it looks like there may be a trend towards elitism instead of away from it. With fewer big law jobs to go around, big firms may be more reluctant to "take a chance" on no-name school graduates, instead making certain that they fulfill their "prestige" quotient. So when you third-tier career services' offices claim the job market is turning around, even if it's true for Cornell graduates, it's not necessarily true for everyone else.

Few Jobs at KU, but Legal Industry "Doing Just Fine"

From the Lawrence World-Journal:

After entering law school with designs on graduating to a job with a six-figure salary, Geri Hartley found the job market a bit more daunting....

She had designs on graduating with her J.D. and M.B.A. combination and becoming a general counsel for a large corporation. Instead, she was unemployed for awhile, and briefly took a position at H&R Block that didn’t require her to have passed the bar exam....

Many of her classmates are having a difficult time. Almost none has stayed on their original plans when they went to law school. One is working behind the cosmetics’ counter at Macy’s, she said. Another creates websites for a living.

A J.D. AND an M.B.A. and she wound up in a non-bar position.

And it's not like the University of Kansas is some 4th-tier obscure private school. It's the flagship public in a state of 2.5 million with two cities over 300k. There's only one other law school in the state and it's a semi-obscure, lowly-ranked private. UMKC, just across the river, lacks the prestige of KU.

In other words, if KU grads are doing this poorly, where a J.D./M.B.A. has to take a job in Paola after being unemployed for awhile and working at HR Block, how are Washburn grads doing?

Here's the kicker. Many people claim that once the legal industry "turns around" and the recession ends, hiring with fire right back up. Uh huh.

Bill Modrcin is a 1978 KU law graduate now working as an attorney in Overland Park. He’s worked for several large Kansas City-area firms, and he’s seen the drop-off in recent years.

On the whole, the industry is doing just fine, he said. Established lawyers in large firms are doing well. But entry-level positions are extremely hard to come by, he said.

If the "industry is doing just fine," why Earth would it go back to paying overpaying entry-level workers? Will the entire history of business management suddenly do a U-turn contrary to all empirical evidence?

News Roundup: Technology and Burnout; Lawyers' Lack of Self-Awareness

This morning I have two sobering stories for your weekend.

The first is from the ABA Journal about a recent report that cited technology and the changing BigLaw model as sources of significant stress and burnout in the legal profession. Kids, if any of you still think the Perry Mason model of legal services is what is common, you need to read this:

“Electronic communication has fueled a culture in which clients want more legal information, answers on the spot, and lawyers who can interpret, rather than simply provide, information,” the report says.The result is more specialization and an emphasis on ability to deliver higher quality services at a lower cost and in less time.
...
“Work settings which do not address stressors of the modern practice of law will continue to produce a significant number of lawyers who are depressed, dissatisfied with the quality of their lives, spend too little time with their families and communities, continue to be isolated and show increased levels of depression and addictive behaviors,” the report says.

While the reaction of many who read this may be "no shit, Sherlock," the real question is whether the professional organizations who are supposed to regulate the attorney profession actually do anything about their industry slipping dangerously close to being the white-collar equivalent of a 19th-century textile mill.

Our second article today may point out why so many lawyers may be "depressed, dissatisfied with the quality of their lives, spend too little time with their families and communities, continue to be isolated and show increased levels of depression and addictive behaviors" and not wish to do a damn thing about it.

In his Sunday Reflection (published on a Friday), attorney Glenn Harlan Reynolds delves into the argument of whether America's problems are in having too many lawyers, or in just plain having too many laws. Although I find that a fascinating question (can you say "yes" to both?), what I found most interesting was his discussion of a new book, which I need to find, called "The Lawyer-Judge Bias in the American Legal System" by Ben Barton at Tennessee. This is interesting:

[Barton] notes that in America, pretty much all judges (except for a few justices of the Peace and such) are lawyers. And, after examining the work of judges in a number of different areas, he concludes that judges systematically rule in ways that favor lawyers, and that make the legal system more complex. (And legislators, mostly lawyers themselves, aren't much better).

Barton tells me that his thesis gets two very different reactions depending on the audience: Non-lawyers find it painfully obvious, while most lawyers and legal academics find it shocking and offensive.

"Shocking and offensive?"

Are lawyers - at least the type Barton interviewed - really that incapable of self-criticism? As a lawyer, you have to realize that your entire job is dependent on problem-solving being a byzantine endeavor out-of-reach for normal people who have better things to do than learn the intricacies of American law.

It is "painfully obvious" that one of our government's chief accomplishments over the last sixty years is to make law more needlessly complex; even though there's been minor movements to streamline and make uniform certain areas of the law (like the UCC), often the arrogance of each generation wanting to have its own voice has made multiple conflicting editions (why did we need a 3rd restatement of basic Tort law?) and the federal government's ability to (and stupidity in) drafting 2,000-page laws has created entire armies who do nothing but interpret ERISA or the tax code. And our Supreme Court, supposed to be the exemplars of the legal system, has cast aside brevity as a goal and turned the once-pragmatic exercise of jurisprudence into a labyrinthine exhaustion of bombast.

Lawyers find this "shocking and offensive?" What do you think you get paid for, except to untangle the massive knots? Could there be any less self-awareness than by grown professionals who have no idea why their field has more work than their French or Spanish peers? That don't understand why their profession has expanded exponentially over the last fifty years?

This doesn't make lawyer work any less "valuable," unless you take the absurd position that work has to have some innate value.

But self-awareness is the first step in correcting a problem, in being a contented human being at peace with himself and the world. If lawyers can't even recognize the most basic conditions and causes of their profession, how can they be expected to realize when their work lives resemble that of sweatshop workers? Will they continue to convince themselves that their 75-hour workweeks are more of a normative benefit to society than work that only exists because their predecessors made it for them?

Lawyers, like everyone else, are self-interested. They make more work for themselves and others; fundamentally, they're no different than auto mechanics who find new things wrong with every car that comes in. The only difference is that they do it on a much larger, more damaging scale. Until lawyers realize that fundamental truth about themselves and their peers, I don't see how it can ever be entrusted to self-regulate.

The New Normal; Can "Entreprenurial" Dayton Adjust?

Great article from Claire Zillman at AmericanLawyer.com:

After two years of turmoil, the nation's largest law firms are settling into a new normal.
...
"The loss of leverage is not a short-term reaction, it's a significant long-term change," says Bingham McCutchen chairman Jay Zimmerman. "We're hiring selectively and using paralegals and staff lawyers for more mundane tasks." He's not alone: A little more than half of our respondents (55 percent) said that their firm had used contract lawyers, up from 44 percent a year ago.

Moreover, few firm leaders worried that a smaller class size would leave them short-staffed in the event of a sudden uptick in work. With so many recent law school graduates looking for jobs, firms can staff up quickly if the need arises, says Perkins Coie managing partner Robert Giles.

However, the law schools continue admitting students by the thousands even when their most notable practitioners have full cognizance that there is a massive oversupply of labor, so much so that elite students no longer have leverage.

And yet law school administrators, charged with instilling ethics in the next generation of lawyers, continue to place a premium on advertising. For example, Dayton just hired SIU Law Professor Paul McGreal as its new dean. What drew him to Dayton?

"This is a law school that's been entrepreneurial in looking at curriculum and the recruitment of students."

"[E]ntrepreneurial in . . . the recruitment of students?" It's hard to tell what exactly Dayton is doing that is so "entrepreneurial" since it's attracting students with a median LSAT of 152. Perhaps it's in the slick marketing as evidenced in their 2010 Viewbook that drew McGreal's attention. Let's see some samples:


For those who cannot read the small type (or cannot avert their eyes from the egregiously-hilarious large type), on this second page Dayton boasts of having a 94% job placement rate for the class of 2008 within nine months of graduating and having 90% of graduates pass the bar on the first time.

This is curious, to me, because their 2005 numbers were only 85.4% employed and 81% bar passage. Given that the school obviously has no scruples with lying ("the world definitely needs more lawyers?" "Long hours in the law library" will make someone NOT want to call Dr. Kevorkian?), my healthy skepticism is running at full blast. Perhaps this link for the Class of 2007's data better explains why the school can claim 94%:

					Job Type
					Bar admission required or anticipated (e.g., attorney and corporate counsel positions, law clerks, judicial clerks)		83.0%
					J.D. preferred, law degree enhances position (e.g., corporate contracts administrator, alternative dispute resolution specialist, government regulatory analyst, FBI special agent)		11.0%
					Professional/other (jobs that require professional skills or training but for which a J.D. is neither preferred nor particularly applicable; e.g., accountant, teacher, business manager, nurse)		5.0%
					Nonprofessional/other (job that does not require any professional skills or training or is taken on a temporary basis and not viewed as part of a career path)		1.0%

Right. 2007 was before the "new normal" fully set in and 17% of your grads did not need a Juris Doctor. Tell me again why the world needs more lawyers, please. Tell me why I should invest 3 years in a field where the "new normal" means the labor supply is so grossly oversaturated that firms believe they can hire good talent quickly if they need to.


Ah, yes. Dayton, that city of my dreams. To think someone actually wrote these pages and didn't collapse, instantly dead of a laughter attack, is astounding.


I agree completely.

Dean McGreal, if the outright dishonesty at work here is what you call "entrepreneurial," I think you need to brush up on your ethics. This is a moral issue, and viewing prospective students the way large retailers view poor people with welfare checks is unethical behavior.

As the survey and article cited above point out, there is a "new normal" in the legal world. Telling your students or prospective students the old one will return is no more based in rationality than believing Santa Claus will show up with a bag o' jobs this Christmas. The world does not need more lawyers right now. It needs better lawyers, and even better models of doing things, but raw fourth-tier graduates are not likely to be the former or do the latter.

Law firms no longer hire in increasing class sizes and raise fees every year. As they are now run like businesses, they track every associate's financial contributions to the firm in ways not present under the old model. Your job as an educator should be helping whatever students you have navigate a world where they will not only be attorneys, but also salesmen and debt collectors. If you have a model that you think will train students to excel in this world, by all means, continue it. But under no circumstances is it ethical or moral of you to charge tuition as if the old model were still in place at large firms and 90% of your students had hopes at attorney work. They don't.

McGreal plans to assess . . . ways to keep tuition affordable. Fundraising will be a key aspect of his new job. "We have to think about ways we can address the increasing cost of law school," he said.

Considering that most law schools are highly profitable cash cows for their larger universities, how about you start by slashing tuition across the board and lowering salaries in line with the reality that there is an oversupply of attorneys able to teach at your law school?

Just a simple suggestion, but maybe it's not "entrepreneurial" enough for Dean McGreal.