I'd like you all to meet Randah Atassi through the eyes of Chicago Sun-Times reporter Francine Knowles.
There was a time when being a new law school graduate pretty much assured you of quickly landing a good job.Twenty-five-year old Chicagoan Randah Atassi, who graduated from [John Marshall Law School] last May after clerking for two judges and completing an internship at the Cook County Public Defender’s office, has learned that’s no longer the case.
At first, I thought I would like this article, as it looked like it was clearly going to debunk the myth that law school is a wonderful place to send your children. But then I read the brief article and realized that the article, by a professional business journalist, is:
- Limited to this one individual and lacking in any discussion of the systemic problems (no discussion of "...there are [x] number of people similarly-situated..."
- Couched in terms of the recession rather than inherent problems in the education system ("She thinks it’s going to be a couple of years before the job climate improves dramatically," the article says, as if it's an inevitability.)
- Optimistic rather than objective.
Furthermore, Ms. Knowles chose a rather poor subject to garner sympathies. I don't automatically discredit John Marshall because it's in the 4th Tier, but some would. It would have been infinitely better if she could have found a Northwestern grad that wasn't living in a penthouse somewhere - heck, even a Northwestern grad who's only making 40k. That would have done far more to shoot down the stereotypes that need to be slaughtered than showcasing a mediocre school graduate struggling in a struggling economy.
And Ms. Atassi doesn't really come off as that bright. To wit:
“I think there are jobs out there, but what people don’t realize is there’s a huge number of unemployed people all fighting for the same jobs, and the competition is just so fierce that it’s kind of hard to make yourself known and stand out in a crowd of people regardless of how well qualified or how overqualified you are for the job.”That means there are "no jobs." And then there's this whopper to end the article:
“I know a lot of friends who graduated (in 2009) who it took them a really long time to find a job, but eventually they all did,” she said. “There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It might take a lot longer than it did in years past, but we’re not going to be unemployed forever.”Okay, even if they "all" found jobs, what are they making and where? Is it enough to cover the 150k in loans one needs to pay tuition at John Marshall?
The fact that this article - in a major newspaper by a so-called business reporter (shouldn't a business reporter be skeptical of claims of inevitable employment or job creation?) - ends on a note of optimism, as if this is a Great Depression story written from hindsight 50 years from now ("There is a light at the end of the tunnel") shows exactly why the blogs need to exist.
The media, by and large, still views these issues within their chosen frame of a recession human interest story. Their overwhelming desire to write within that preordained narrative (well, that and their laziness) means that they will not ask the necessary questions or do the necessary research. They will not realize that this is not a recessionary issue but a systemic one that is much deeper than one otherwise-"qualified" individual not being able to find a job.
The Sun-Times website generates 455,000 page views every single day. Third Tier Reality is under 200k for the entire time it has publicly tracked page hits. Furthermore, the Sun-Times has the masthead of one of Chicago's flagship papers and carries with it credibility, even if that credibility is misplaced.
The sad truth is that someone apparently uninformed like Francine Knowles has infinitely more power to shape perceptions among prospective law students and their families than the so-called "scamblogs," no matter who is actually "correct" or "right." That reality isn't inevitable - it can certainly change over time - but it's only a fragment of evidence to show the uphill battle the bloggers face in exposing the problems in the legal field.
Saying students are "on notice" because they should have done their research is silly in a world where information is so skewed and dominated by parties that always end things with "there's light at the end of the tunnel." A prospective law student who had been reading Third Tier Reality or First Tier Toilet or BIDER or JJD or SMS may have put credence in their words and may have been prompted to ask additional questions.
But when he sees that the Sun-Times found a 4th tier student who claims all her friends from '09 have jobs and that there's definitely light at the end of the tunnel and that the job climate will improve dramatically "in a couple of years," what's he going to think? He's likely going to think that it's all recessionary, and that if he goes to law school, the economy will have turned around in 3 years and things will be back to the 2005 state. For many people, rebutting the essential claims of the so-called "scamblogs" is that simple, and that's why continuing to spread awareness about the extent of the problems in the legal field is imperative, even if it is repetitive, and why law students may not actually be "on notice" even if they do what research they can.