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.

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.
...

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.

Today in Lower-Tiered Law School News: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good: the University of New Hampshire is freezing its law school tuition. While 39,900 is extremely high, especially for a school that is basically the only option in the state, "good" is relative and it's nice to see the Dean admit that law school tuition "must be brought under control."

The Bad: Thomas Jefferson School of Law not only just built a brand new campus downtown, but now it's branching into the student housing market.

While normally I would welcome a school that provides affordable housing to its students, this paragraph made my jaw drop slightly:

Law school officials plan to charge market-rate rent for the apartments. In some cases, they will offer need and merit-based housing grants to students. About 90 percent of Entrada's units are studios with rent ranging $900-$1,200.

$1200 for a studio? San Diego is a nice place, but seriously?

And why is the school charging market-rate? Property owners charge market-rate because they want a profit that makes ownership and management worthwhile. A law school has (or, rather, should have) no such motive; it's purpose is to provide quality legal training, not to charge market-rate in an apparently-expensive downtown area. And why would a TJLS student choose to live there if there's no price advantage and you know the service is probably going to better somewhere where they want to build long-term relationships rather than with temporary transients?

The ugly: Concord's Online Law School is celebrating 117 recent graduates Feb. 26 at 10 am. The guest speaker is an MBE expert who "lectures to recent law school graduates across the country as they prepare for the exam." What do you say to them? Something like "congratulations, folks, even if you get a perfect score on the California Bar Exam, the odds of you practicing at all are slim at best?"

Meet Mary Cheney, #3 in her Class, Retail Clerk

For those of you who automatically think people who go to lower-tiered schools and can't find work don't work hard (or if you think that the legal profession is, in any way, promoting an efficient use of human resources, I encourage you to read the testimonial of Mary Cheney on IPWatchdog:

First-year law students are told to study hard, earn that invitation onto law review, become involved in extracurricular activities, obtain real-world experience through legal externships and graduate at the top of their class. They are told that if they do these things, they will land that Associate Attorney position at a reputable law firm. I followed this advice. I earned those honors, and I am currently working, not as an attorney but in the retail industry for about minimum wage.

Mary has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from UC-San Diego. She graduated #3 at Thomas Jefferson Law School (now with new campus!), where she also served as a Law Review editor. She also has multiple items of legal experience, including an intern stint at Pfizer.

If you read this, or her resume, and your first response to her working in minimum wage retail is "she should have gone somewhere like UCLA," you need to have your god-damned head examined.

Thomas Jefferson's New Campus: Few Jobs, But They Do Offer a 50s Diner!

Thomas Jefferson Law School is christening a new campus tomorrow. This is apparently what charging $35k+ in tuition can allow you to do:

The 178,000-square-foot campus will have two outdoor terraces and a student lounge that looks like a round 50's diner. Meeting rooms, a cafe to open this spring and a law clinic will be available to the public.

"Open to the public" is often a concession made by the facility when taxpayer money has been leached somehow. But for a 50s diner, I'd gladly suffer through the homeless of San Diego who figure that out. Imagine not just reading Brown v. Board, but getting to do it in a place that looks like it should be abuzz with Pleasantville kids chatting about the latest sock hop and the "swell" TVs mommy and daddy just purchased.

Sounds great, doesn't it? For just $13,500, you can experience it as a part-time student!

"This is the most extraordinary law school campus in the nation," said Rudy Hasl, a school dean. "It is designed to facilitate interactions between everyone on campus in a comfortable, collaborative setting. That is the key to success in law school."

"[D]esigned to facilitate interactions?" "Comfortable, collaborative setting?" Does this mean it has ROOMS in VARYING SIZES? What an inspired miracle of design!

Also, it has a chevron roof, it's going for gold-level certification by the U.S. Green Council Building, and "is sure to be a landmark in San Diego’s vibrant, exciting East Village where it sits just a few blocks from Petco Park."

For the price of a Cadillac luxury sedan, this fantasy can be yours for two full-time semesters.

On Advertising, Law School v. Medical School

When I run a simple google search for "medical school," I don't see any legitimate American medical schools advertising, not even for lower-regarded, lesser-known ones. The only advertisements I see are for places in the Caribbean (like this and this) or Mexico.

Even if they were allowed to (I'm not sure that they are), I'm not sure medical schools would advertise on the internet. They really have no need to.

But law schools? I wasn't surprised to see Thomas Jefferson advertising on this site, or St. Thomas advertising on other sites, but some of the following surprised me. Even when Thomas Jefferson advertises, it amazes me that they don't censor what articles their advertisements appear on better:


Extremely dignified, isn't it? Advertising on an article about law school being overpriced, right below the "sympathetic" family law people?

In case you cannot read it, the one on the lower right is Hofstra, a top 100 school; upper left is St. Thomas, a Catholic law school in Minnesota.

But if I had to guess who the real high-roller on google ads would be, it'd be Syracuse:

Yes, if you run a search for law schools near ARIZONA, Syracuse Law comes up. I'm pretty sure you have to pay quite a bit of last year's tuition money to get a placement so absurd.

If salaries really were in the stratosphere and being a lawyer really was the cat's meow, would school really have to take such steps of desperation, the same routes as countless "get-your-degree-now!" places?

You expect cheap ads from lawyers trying to pull in mesothelioma clients or pushing for father's rights, but for law school?

That's some pathetic, desperate penny stock advertising for a $100k+ investment that alleges a high rate of return. Medical schools don't (and don't have to) do this.

Just some food for thought.

Administrative Hypocrisy Rampant in NYT Article

Wow. For those who haven't seen it, the NY Times (David Segal) has done a seven-page article on the problems with law school (the law school "scam"). Special recognition to Kimber at SMS is owed for her presence and role in the piece. BIDER and JJD have already commented on the article, and there's little I can add to either their commentary or the article itself on its basic idea.

But I do want to call some of the administrative hypocrites in the article out for what they are, as it seems that part of the article may get lost in taking in the whole seven pages while people digest the enormity of having the problem showcased in the NYT. Considering the administrators in isolation shows why change to the current system must come from the outside, as the law school administrators become too biased in maintaining the status quo that benefits them. I think this is a point that needs to be made explicitly.

I greatly respect the work of Mr. Segal, so I'm going to borrow as minimally as possible to make my point, and I encourage all my readers to go to the Times and read the entire article; it's absolutely worth it.

First up is Beth Kransberger, associate dean at Thomas Jefferson School of Law (one of the law schools who occasionally advertise on this site via cheap google ads), who offered this:

[She] stands by [their 92% employment] figure, noting that it includes 25 percent of those graduates who could not be located, as well as anyone who went on to other graduate studies — all perfectly kosher under the guidelines....

“You need to take the high road,” she said. “Schools that are behaving the most ethically want students who come to law school with their eyes open."

Ms. Kransberger, you know very well that less than 25% of the non-respondents are employed, don't you? And you realize that graduate school is not the same thing as a remunerative job, right? So if you really want to "take the high road" and give students enough information to keep "their eyes open" as they enter law school, why are you adding them in?

No one cares about the "guidelines" except the USNWR people and the ABA. Students need to know how many of your respondents are actually employed as lawyers or at work similar in prestige and pay. "Schools . . . behaving . . . ethically" do not include an arbitrary figure of non-respondents as "employed" merely to boost their numbers, regardless of what the guidelines say what you can and can't do. You also should not be including baristas at Starbucks to behave "ethically." As a lawyer (I presume), you should know that law and ethics do not always align. As a legal educator, you should not be mistaking compliance with the law with moral behavior.

Next up is Phillip Closius, now dean at the University of Baltimore School of Law, who manipulated where low-LSAT students were placed to cause his former employer, Toledo, to shoot up in the rankings. He gets on the list with one paraphrased, self-explanatory sentiment:

In his estimation, a dean who pays attention to the U.S. News rankings isn’t gaming the system; he’s making the school better.

...as if the average student could tell one lick of difference in the education he or she received because the school's USNWR rating shot up 50 spots. On the previous page of the article, Dean Closius had said there were fallacies in the USNWR rankings; now he says following them makes the school better, which is an admission that they have value, which would suggest they are not based on fallacies. Make up your mind.

Next is Dean Yellen at Loyola, who gave this revelation:

...I do know that a lot of schools are hyping a lot of misleading statistics.

Yes, Dean Yellen . . . LIKE YOUR OWN!

Finally we have Yellen's cross-town rival David Greenberger, associate dean at DePaul, who added this:

I think [prospective students] should have all the info, and the info should be accurate, but saying once they know that they shouldn’t be allowed to come, that’s predicated on the idea that students are really ignorant and don’t know what is best for them.

Dean Greenberger, if this is what you believe, why does your school not give "all the info" and why is it not accurate?

Take a look at the following, directly from DePaul's prospective student profile in its admissions department:

Employment & Career Services Information

In 2009, 92.8% of the graduating class reported employment within nine months of graduation. While most DePaul graduates choose to stay in Illinois, specifically in Chicago, many choose to practice in other states. Popular employment locations for 2009 DePaul graduates include California, Indiana, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Washington, DC, and Wisconsin..

Employment Categories

Private Practice	50%
Business	26.1%
Government	12.1%
Public Interest	4.4%
Judicial Clerkships	1.5%
Academia	4.4%
Unknown	1.5%

Salary Statistics

Average Starting Salary in Private Practice	$97,056
Average Starting Salary in Business	$74,267
Total Starting Salary Range	$25,000-190,000

That's it for the website. What in the hell does any of this tell the average prospective student?

Anyone who's taken even an elementary course in statistics knows that an average is not a good measurement for data like this, as they are more susceptible to being skewed by outliers (like the $190,000 graduates) than a median.

What does "business" mean? Is stocking shelves at Costco "business?" How does one know anything by knowing the "average starting salary in business?" Is that all non-J.D. positions, or is it consulting and sales gigs? Is it J.D.-required jobs serving as inside counsel for major corporations?

What does it mean to say "92.8% of the graduating class reported employment within nine months of graduation." Is that permanent employment or do temporary gigs count, i.e., if they were employed for a 2-week gig during the nine month period? Is it really ALL graduates, or just survey respondents (ABA guidelines would suggest it's just survey respondents). Is it legal employment or non-legal employment? How many people even responded to the survey about their salaries? Obviously, if you had at least 7.2% unemployed, your salary range should be 0-$190,000, right?

To Dean Greenberger, I have no problem with the attitude in the latter half of your quote, but the students must have sufficient information first. Unless people like you and Dean Yellen start at home and have your own schools providing accurate, helpful information, your words are meaningless. It's one thing to talk about full and accurate information; get off your butt and do it. Set an example for your peers and the rest of the legal community and push for change in the ABA.

Until then you are nothing but another hypocrite spitting out empty buzz-words and platitudes trying to thrust blame on someone else. You have the power to change the system.

But unfortunately, as the article suggests (notably by Prof. Henderson), change is not likely to come from that quarter. There are at least six law school administrations mentioned or quoted in the article (including Georgetown's) and not a damned one of them comes off as defending anything of virtue. The quoted non-administrator professors all know what they're talking about and as far as I recall, each one puts a hammer to a nail. Something must change when you become an administrator; either that or the wrong people get promoted to that type of work.

These are the people who are to lead the next generation of lawyers, a field where ethical considerations are paramount. If they cannot perform their jobs without blatant hypocrisy or a confusion of ethics with following some silly guidelines, it speaks volumes about the state of legal education, as well as the ability of the profession to self-regulate.