What I dislike about Above the Law is its penchant for encouraging distaste and resentment between various groups of people, such as students from different schools or those with jobs and those without. This can be seen in posts such as their “Douchiest Law School” competition, in which students presumably with very little knowledge of schools other than their own vote on which law school they think is the “douchiest.”Encourage you to go and read the whole thing. Great stuff. I don't really disagree with it, and I don't really have much to add.
...
[A] large percentage of the posts on Above the Law displaying this sort of ignorant obnoxiousness seem to be penned by Mr. Mystal, who, in another post, claims that he and his wife’s combined salary of nearly $250,000 does not provide him with enough money to buy a decent computer. Although I’m normally not very sympathetic to those who complain about money troubles while simultaneously admitting to living “as far above their means as possible”, the idea that Mr. Mystal doesn’t have a 42” Mac desktop on which to write this fecal matter posing as language really brings a tear to my eye.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Virginia Law Weekley's Dan Gocek on Above the Law
Dan Gocek at Virginia Law Weekly has an interesting rant on Above the Law:
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The "Market" Does Not Drive Law Professor Salaries High
A few days ago, someone a level-headed, but misguided, anonymous comment on my post about the UNLV budget cuts:
Second, and more importantly, the "market" is not what dictates that law professor salaries are some of the highest in the business. If normal market forces were actually applied to legal education, professor salaries would drop immediately. Why? Well, the system has been producing an excess of 10k+ people each year who are qualified to teach the subject matter. In some cases, the excess actually being more qualified in the particular subject matter because they've recently passed a stringent bar exam that actual law professors have not.
Law is not brain surgery. There are thousands of people, many of whom are unemployed and have otherwise-great credentials, who are perfectly qualified to teach torts, property, legal research, and anything other than the most sophisticated courses. In normal supply-and-demand terms, there is a massive oversupply and fairly low demand. The nation only needs about 650-800 people who can teach contracts or torts or civil procedure each year, but there are literally thousands upon thousands of qualified people who would gladly take those jobs.
And it's not like people don't want the job. Tenure, even at a fourth-tier toilet, is a career landmark. Elite-graduate BigLaw associates regularly run back to academia after 3-5 years, sometimes because they aren't working out and other times because they'd just rather work a relatively easier schedule for a very handsome wage than work a mind-breaking schedule for a slightly handsomer wage. Assuming it's true that law professors could make more in private practice, many of them would regularly turn down the lucre for allegedly-lower salaries teaching law school. But that is NOT a valid reason to keep law professor salaries high. If anything, it provides a reason why law professor salaries should be lower, namely that, apparently, there are job perks that compensate the attorney for the lower salary.
But we don't even have to address that logical fallacy because there's a bigger one before it: most law professors would not make what they make as faculty members in private practice. Many of them became law professors solely because they couldn't make bank in private practice. It's not uncommon to have law teachers who aren't even members of the state bar. And the option to be an adjunct professor seems to cut out any possibility that tenured law professors are regularly leaving large sums of money on the table. Honestly, human nature being what it is, no one is going to leave 500k+ on the table to take a law professor job for "only" 200k, especially when the professor could make the 500k+ and teach a class or two in order to meet their desire to educate the next generation. A lot of good teachers do just that, and for the most part those not affiliated with BigLaw aren't making it rich.
Above all, the schools' only actual task is to teach its students how to be lawyers. Law professors generally have no requirements beyond having a J.D., and very few law schools require that their professors were actually successful in practice. Nor did they have to take - or do well - in the class they now teach. As the market for legal services shrinks and the number of bar members increases, it's simply absurd to continue paying professors $150k+ for a job that would have no shortage of qualified applicants if it listed for $65k and benefits.
But as we all know, there are forces that distort the market at play. First is the tenure system, whose place is secured by the ABA and the AALS and ensures that certain members of the old guard will be back next year. Second, there's this absurd emphasis on "prestige" driven mostly by things like the US News and World Report rankings. There's no natural need for law professors to have studied at a T-14 and yet, for the most part, those are the people who wind up on the faculty rolls. This focus unduly narrows the labor pool, which is a factor is having higher salaries. This is, of course, ridiculous. No real business operates this way. If you need a plumber, you don't care who went to the best trade school. You care only who can fix the damn pipes. Teaching torts should be no different.
And yet it is. The schools can get away by being thriftless and overpaying people who have relatively cushy, low-stress jobs because they themselves are exempt from normal market forces. Specifically, demand becomes artificially inflated because loans are more or less guaranteed. Meanwhile, the law schools have a monopoly that limits supply only to those who agree to their principles regarding things like professor tenure. This allows the schools to raise prices and force consumers to essentially subsidize their professors' unduly high salaries.
Thus, it is only because there are significant market distortions that law professors are paid what they are. The market is not dictating anything; on the contrary, the powers that be prevent the market from actually functioning properly.
Third, I'd like to reiterate the problem with UNLV's budget proposal. Whereas the dental school decided to cut faculty salaries - even though there is a much lower supply of dentists than there is lawyers - not one law professor was going to have his salary decrease as a result of the cuts. Not one, even though an analogous professional trade school with stricter entrance requirements willingly cut faculty salaries. That is blatant fiscal irresponsibility by the university. It's also a disregard for their moral duties as educators and a slap in the face to any notion of "social justice."
If the UNLV law professors can make more money in private practice, they should quit immediately. But I don't believe that, and neither should anyone else. And even if it were true, it would be best for everyone if they went to private practice and let the university hire others at lower salaries.
After all, like I said, it isn't like there's a shortage of people who can do this work; this isn't quantum physics. Throw a rock on the strip and you'll probably hit an attorney who can teach legal writing. The fact that current law professors have set up a white collar union that has suckered people into believing they're worth the cost doesn't change that fact.
(2) Law professors are indeed paid more than virtually any other professional/grad school instructors --- because the market provides that. Med School instructors earn a lot, too, for the same reason. They can go elsewhere or go into the profession itself (practice medicine, practice law) and be paid better than they are as professors. The world might well be a better place if the dedicated professor of whatever stripe were paid the same, be that person a teacher of philosophy, art, literature, or law --- and if all those professors were paid the same as someone who practices as an attorney --- but the market isn't that way.First, this is a straw man - I never advocated that all professors be paid equally, nor would I.
Second, and more importantly, the "market" is not what dictates that law professor salaries are some of the highest in the business. If normal market forces were actually applied to legal education, professor salaries would drop immediately. Why? Well, the system has been producing an excess of 10k+ people each year who are qualified to teach the subject matter. In some cases, the excess actually being more qualified in the particular subject matter because they've recently passed a stringent bar exam that actual law professors have not.
Law is not brain surgery. There are thousands of people, many of whom are unemployed and have otherwise-great credentials, who are perfectly qualified to teach torts, property, legal research, and anything other than the most sophisticated courses. In normal supply-and-demand terms, there is a massive oversupply and fairly low demand. The nation only needs about 650-800 people who can teach contracts or torts or civil procedure each year, but there are literally thousands upon thousands of qualified people who would gladly take those jobs.
And it's not like people don't want the job. Tenure, even at a fourth-tier toilet, is a career landmark. Elite-graduate BigLaw associates regularly run back to academia after 3-5 years, sometimes because they aren't working out and other times because they'd just rather work a relatively easier schedule for a very handsome wage than work a mind-breaking schedule for a slightly handsomer wage. Assuming it's true that law professors could make more in private practice, many of them would regularly turn down the lucre for allegedly-lower salaries teaching law school. But that is NOT a valid reason to keep law professor salaries high. If anything, it provides a reason why law professor salaries should be lower, namely that, apparently, there are job perks that compensate the attorney for the lower salary.
But we don't even have to address that logical fallacy because there's a bigger one before it: most law professors would not make what they make as faculty members in private practice. Many of them became law professors solely because they couldn't make bank in private practice. It's not uncommon to have law teachers who aren't even members of the state bar. And the option to be an adjunct professor seems to cut out any possibility that tenured law professors are regularly leaving large sums of money on the table. Honestly, human nature being what it is, no one is going to leave 500k+ on the table to take a law professor job for "only" 200k, especially when the professor could make the 500k+ and teach a class or two in order to meet their desire to educate the next generation. A lot of good teachers do just that, and for the most part those not affiliated with BigLaw aren't making it rich.
Above all, the schools' only actual task is to teach its students how to be lawyers. Law professors generally have no requirements beyond having a J.D., and very few law schools require that their professors were actually successful in practice. Nor did they have to take - or do well - in the class they now teach. As the market for legal services shrinks and the number of bar members increases, it's simply absurd to continue paying professors $150k+ for a job that would have no shortage of qualified applicants if it listed for $65k and benefits.
But as we all know, there are forces that distort the market at play. First is the tenure system, whose place is secured by the ABA and the AALS and ensures that certain members of the old guard will be back next year. Second, there's this absurd emphasis on "prestige" driven mostly by things like the US News and World Report rankings. There's no natural need for law professors to have studied at a T-14 and yet, for the most part, those are the people who wind up on the faculty rolls. This focus unduly narrows the labor pool, which is a factor is having higher salaries. This is, of course, ridiculous. No real business operates this way. If you need a plumber, you don't care who went to the best trade school. You care only who can fix the damn pipes. Teaching torts should be no different.
And yet it is. The schools can get away by being thriftless and overpaying people who have relatively cushy, low-stress jobs because they themselves are exempt from normal market forces. Specifically, demand becomes artificially inflated because loans are more or less guaranteed. Meanwhile, the law schools have a monopoly that limits supply only to those who agree to their principles regarding things like professor tenure. This allows the schools to raise prices and force consumers to essentially subsidize their professors' unduly high salaries.
Thus, it is only because there are significant market distortions that law professors are paid what they are. The market is not dictating anything; on the contrary, the powers that be prevent the market from actually functioning properly.
Third, I'd like to reiterate the problem with UNLV's budget proposal. Whereas the dental school decided to cut faculty salaries - even though there is a much lower supply of dentists than there is lawyers - not one law professor was going to have his salary decrease as a result of the cuts. Not one, even though an analogous professional trade school with stricter entrance requirements willingly cut faculty salaries. That is blatant fiscal irresponsibility by the university. It's also a disregard for their moral duties as educators and a slap in the face to any notion of "social justice."
If the UNLV law professors can make more money in private practice, they should quit immediately. But I don't believe that, and neither should anyone else. And even if it were true, it would be best for everyone if they went to private practice and let the university hire others at lower salaries.
After all, like I said, it isn't like there's a shortage of people who can do this work; this isn't quantum physics. Throw a rock on the strip and you'll probably hit an attorney who can teach legal writing. The fact that current law professors have set up a white collar union that has suckered people into believing they're worth the cost doesn't change that fact.
Labels:
economics,
labor supply,
law professors,
oversupply,
salaries,
tuition
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Is Reverse Auctioning Coming to Legal Profession?
It appears so-called "reverse auctions" are entering the legal field, where prospective clients can present their case and attorneys can bid to do the service for them.
This is from the ABA Journal:
By way of example, I'd like to discuss the sports card market's collapse in the early 90s. For example, in 1990-1993, a Ryne Sandberg 1993 Topps rookie card was "worth" approximately $35-40 in mint condition according to price guides that monitored the market. By the late '90s, the price had dropped dramatically (to $15 or so) and today - even after Sandberg has been inducted into the Hall of Fame - one can buy a Sandberg rookie card for about $4.00 on eBay. Sandberg's career trajectory cannot explain that by itself, as the same phenomenon can be witnessed in the value of other cards from the 70s, 80s, and 90s (e.g., this card once went for $100+). Factoring in inflation, that's a major collapse.
Why did it happen? The initial knee-jerk reaction might be that the strike of 1994 and the steroid era forever ruined baseball's popularity. But the same effect can be seen in other sports as well (see this, for example). Rather, what happened in the mid-90s was that the development of the internet (specifically eBay) destroyed the supply/demand illusion that previously dictated prices. See, prior to eBay, sports card values were set by price guides (like Beckett), who purported to monitor sales. People involved in private one-on-one transactions had no idea what the true supply of these cards was, and often the demand was overstated; such is very easy to do with there is limited information about the supply and demand of an object.
When eBay came around, it destroyed that market illusion by showing the market that the supply was much greater than anyone thought and the demand was actually much lower than anyone thought. It provided a superior means of determining supply and demand (ergo price), ultimately benefiting consumers at the expense of those who had been stockpiling sports cards on the false belief that these things would be valuable at some point in the future.
Now apply to law. What does good legal representation cost? Aside for the more "routine" services (simple chapter 7, llc drafting, basic real estate transactions, etc.), no one has a damned clue. Indeed, the ambiguity involved in legal representation - the fear that lawyer costs may skyrocket - inhibits a lot of people from seeking attorney aid. And when someone sits down with a lawyer in a one-on-one setting after a consultation, the potential client lacks any power to bargain if the lawyer says his services cost $200.00 an hour.
This set-up is a market illusion, just as the baseball card market was before eBay. The consumer (client) has no idea what the actual supply of legal services is. The lawyer is thus in a superior position to argue that his particular services are in high demand and short supply, even if they aren't.
If there were a reverse auction site set-up - not just this Shpoonkle thing, but also LawyerBid is in the game - prices for everything worth taking except the most complex litigation will drop. Why? Because lawyers are a competitive bunch and there are more licenses floating around than are necessary to service the current demand for legal services. People are, overall, cheapskates. If one barred lawyer can represent someone for half the price of another - and the individual can see the cost savings in black-and-white - that consumer isn't going to care who went to Harvard and who went to Cooley.
This is the nation of Wal-Mart and McDonalds. Prestige has nothing on cost savings, and not even Fortune 500 companies will turn down lower legal fees if they're clearly being overcharged. Right now, there's a market illusion that keeps people from seeing that they're being overcharged. If an auction site were set up, that illusion is gone.
This, of course, would be great for notions of "justice" and providing access to new parties, but, you see, the people at the high end are obviously worried. Or just ethically-minded attorneys in general. From Simple Justice:
And yet, attorneys at the top of the food chain still make a very good living, both the BigLaw partners and those working is solo firms at so-called "boutiques." There are absurd inefficiencies and market illusions harming consumers while the practitioners most burdened by the oversupply of attorneys is carrying a disproportionately heavy amount of non-dischargable debt acquired by entering the "profession."
Real professions don't set up situations such as that. Instead, they regulate who can enter the profession in order to ensure that there are few licensed professionals who struggle to make a living or pay off the costs of join the profession. The legal profession discarded that principle when it opened law school to any Joe and Betty with a 150 LSAT and a federal loan application. It cannot now hide behind professionalism as a shield to keep normal business conditions for penetrating every inch of the "profession" in a veiled attempt to keep billable hour rates unduly high.
At some point, something has to give.
I don't think this site will be a success. Indeed, as Simple Justice points out, other sites like this have failed previously, and I see too many ethical hurdles that may kill this site, especially if bar associations start looking after their interests and prohibit participation in these sites to maintain illusive values.
But people can't live in the dark forever, and you can't keep pumping out attorneys (i.e. supply) without prices, and therefore salaries, collapsing at some point. Maybe reverse auctions won't do it, but something will accelerate the race to the bottom that can already been seen in some areas.
This is from the ABA Journal:
[Robert Grant] Niznik’s graduation musings led him to contemplate the plight of indebted law students struggling to find a job in a bleak economic climate as well as the expensive and largely inaccessible nature of the legal profession. His answer to both issues is at once goofy and serious. The New York Law School student founded Shpoonkle, a playfully named website that allows attorneys and law firms to bid on legal requests submitted by clients. The service is free for now, but Niznik said attorneys may be charged membership fees in the future."Shpoonkle" is a horrible, horrible name, and I think there are numerous potential pitfalls that have to be overcome (e.g., the clients' incentives to lie seems higher than if they're in a one-on-one initial consultation, and if the lawyer's aren't allowed to ask questions before bidding, I could see the site becoming a platform for misrepresentation). However, the fact that people are developing such technologies should surprise no one, and I think this is a positive sign that the real dangers of lawyer oversupply may become present.
By way of example, I'd like to discuss the sports card market's collapse in the early 90s. For example, in 1990-1993, a Ryne Sandberg 1993 Topps rookie card was "worth" approximately $35-40 in mint condition according to price guides that monitored the market. By the late '90s, the price had dropped dramatically (to $15 or so) and today - even after Sandberg has been inducted into the Hall of Fame - one can buy a Sandberg rookie card for about $4.00 on eBay. Sandberg's career trajectory cannot explain that by itself, as the same phenomenon can be witnessed in the value of other cards from the 70s, 80s, and 90s (e.g., this card once went for $100+). Factoring in inflation, that's a major collapse.
Why did it happen? The initial knee-jerk reaction might be that the strike of 1994 and the steroid era forever ruined baseball's popularity. But the same effect can be seen in other sports as well (see this, for example). Rather, what happened in the mid-90s was that the development of the internet (specifically eBay) destroyed the supply/demand illusion that previously dictated prices. See, prior to eBay, sports card values were set by price guides (like Beckett), who purported to monitor sales. People involved in private one-on-one transactions had no idea what the true supply of these cards was, and often the demand was overstated; such is very easy to do with there is limited information about the supply and demand of an object.
When eBay came around, it destroyed that market illusion by showing the market that the supply was much greater than anyone thought and the demand was actually much lower than anyone thought. It provided a superior means of determining supply and demand (ergo price), ultimately benefiting consumers at the expense of those who had been stockpiling sports cards on the false belief that these things would be valuable at some point in the future.
Now apply to law. What does good legal representation cost? Aside for the more "routine" services (simple chapter 7, llc drafting, basic real estate transactions, etc.), no one has a damned clue. Indeed, the ambiguity involved in legal representation - the fear that lawyer costs may skyrocket - inhibits a lot of people from seeking attorney aid. And when someone sits down with a lawyer in a one-on-one setting after a consultation, the potential client lacks any power to bargain if the lawyer says his services cost $200.00 an hour.
This set-up is a market illusion, just as the baseball card market was before eBay. The consumer (client) has no idea what the actual supply of legal services is. The lawyer is thus in a superior position to argue that his particular services are in high demand and short supply, even if they aren't.
If there were a reverse auction site set-up - not just this Shpoonkle thing, but also LawyerBid is in the game - prices for everything worth taking except the most complex litigation will drop. Why? Because lawyers are a competitive bunch and there are more licenses floating around than are necessary to service the current demand for legal services. People are, overall, cheapskates. If one barred lawyer can represent someone for half the price of another - and the individual can see the cost savings in black-and-white - that consumer isn't going to care who went to Harvard and who went to Cooley.
This is the nation of Wal-Mart and McDonalds. Prestige has nothing on cost savings, and not even Fortune 500 companies will turn down lower legal fees if they're clearly being overcharged. Right now, there's a market illusion that keeps people from seeing that they're being overcharged. If an auction site were set up, that illusion is gone.
This, of course, would be great for notions of "justice" and providing access to new parties, but, you see, the people at the high end are obviously worried. Or just ethically-minded attorneys in general. From Simple Justice:
By no means does the need for money make this a justifiable mechanism. It is anathema to what the legal profession is supposed to stand for, implicates a wide variety of unpleasant ethical considerations and reflects a further step, maybe giant step, away from excellence toward commodity. Yet my fear is that the lawyers who would sign up for this mutt couldn't care less.That's my gut reaction as well, but let's face some facts. Law's professionalism went out the window a long time ago. The profession is now over saturated with 15k excess graduates every year in a market that is threatened to shrink by both outsourcing and technological advances.
...
I find it hard to blame some anonymous entrepreneurial law student from putting together this horrible idea. He's just trying to make a buck, and the creation of this new concept doesn't compel lawyers to sign up, lawyers to outbid each other to see how low they can go, lawyers to try to glom up cases in areas where they lack competency or lawyers to provide less than stellar services. It doesn't require that things go horribly wrong. But we all know they will.
And yet, attorneys at the top of the food chain still make a very good living, both the BigLaw partners and those working is solo firms at so-called "boutiques." There are absurd inefficiencies and market illusions harming consumers while the practitioners most burdened by the oversupply of attorneys is carrying a disproportionately heavy amount of non-dischargable debt acquired by entering the "profession."
Real professions don't set up situations such as that. Instead, they regulate who can enter the profession in order to ensure that there are few licensed professionals who struggle to make a living or pay off the costs of join the profession. The legal profession discarded that principle when it opened law school to any Joe and Betty with a 150 LSAT and a federal loan application. It cannot now hide behind professionalism as a shield to keep normal business conditions for penetrating every inch of the "profession" in a veiled attempt to keep billable hour rates unduly high.
At some point, something has to give.
I don't think this site will be a success. Indeed, as Simple Justice points out, other sites like this have failed previously, and I see too many ethical hurdles that may kill this site, especially if bar associations start looking after their interests and prohibit participation in these sites to maintain illusive values.
But people can't live in the dark forever, and you can't keep pumping out attorneys (i.e. supply) without prices, and therefore salaries, collapsing at some point. Maybe reverse auctions won't do it, but something will accelerate the race to the bottom that can already been seen in some areas.
Labels:
debt,
economics,
ethics,
online auction sites,
oversupply,
salaries,
schpoonkle
Monday, March 14, 2011
Quinnipiac to Retain Felon Administrator
Yesterday, I reported on Mary Ellen Durso, who, despite being found guilty of fraud and tax evasion to the tune of $126,000, was only getting three years of probation.
Today, we find out that Mary Ellen Durso will get to retain her job as Registrar and Dean of Academic Affairs.
Today, we find out that Mary Ellen Durso will get to retain her job as Registrar and Dean of Academic Affairs.
Mary Ellen Durso will stay on board as Quinnipiac’s Law School registrar after being sentenced to three years probation for bank fraud and conspiracy, according to Law School Dean Brad Saxton....“I have conducted a careful review of the situation and continue to have complete confidence in Dean Durso’s ability to perform her duties here responsibly,” Saxton said in the e-mail, sent out to law students, faculty and administration.
Pardon my French, but what the fucking hell. Quinnipiac is running an organization whose sole purpose is to groom future professionals who have to pass a character and fitness test and maintain standards of responsibility. If a lawyer did this, it would be a one-way ticket to disbarment and job loss. There is no forgiveness when a lawyer commits a felony, especially one that requires dishonesty as an element of the crime.
For Quinnipiac not to terminate this woman immediately is hypocritical and absurd. Quinnipiac's students - many of whom have a very hard time finding jobs even if they are ethical saints - may be rejected for character and fitness reasons if they have something as benign as consumer debt. I have no doubt that Quinnipiac would waste no time kicking a student out of school if that student conspired to commit $126,000 worth of fraud. But this administrator not only gets to keep her job, but gets to retain a prestigious title and is left in charge of student enrollment.
Labels:
administrators,
character and fitness,
criminal law,
hypocrisy
Sunday, March 13, 2011
This Week in Law Professor Justice
Three stories today about teachers in the legal profession getting into disciplinary matters.
First up, we have Quinnipiac assistant dean Mary Ellen Durso, who was "sentenced to three years of probation and six months of home confinement for her role in a scheme to defraud a mortgage lender and for filing false tax returns." The damage? $126,000. That's right, kids, if you're black and you deal a few thousand in drugs, you're going to prison. If you're an executive or administrator and you defraud people for ten times as much, you get home confinement. Brilliant.
Second, we have Widener professor Lawrence Connell, who I wrote about last month when he got in trouble for apparently doing what professors every do when he used the dean's name in some absurd hypos. Thankfully, it appears the faculty committee has some sense as they've recommended against firing him.
In an interesting twist, it seems Prof. Connell is actively investigating and plans to go after the students who denounced him:
Third, we have George Washington adjunct lecturer Richard Lieberman, who was arrested by U.S. Customs authorities on six counts of child exploitation:
First up, we have Quinnipiac assistant dean Mary Ellen Durso, who was "sentenced to three years of probation and six months of home confinement for her role in a scheme to defraud a mortgage lender and for filing false tax returns." The damage? $126,000. That's right, kids, if you're black and you deal a few thousand in drugs, you're going to prison. If you're an executive or administrator and you defraud people for ten times as much, you get home confinement. Brilliant.
Second, we have Widener professor Lawrence Connell, who I wrote about last month when he got in trouble for apparently doing what professors every do when he used the dean's name in some absurd hypos. Thankfully, it appears the faculty committee has some sense as they've recommended against firing him.
In an interesting twist, it seems Prof. Connell is actively investigating and plans to go after the students who denounced him:
"We're trying to figure out who those two students are right now. We've got it narrowed down to three," [Connell's attorney] said. "We can sue the students for defamation in state court immediately. We're not going to sit back and be a punching bag on this."My desire for morbid entertainment has me hoping this will continue. Third-tier professor v. a few third-tier students who were probably annoyed they got B-'s on the curve. Has promise.
Third, we have George Washington adjunct lecturer Richard Lieberman, who was arrested by U.S. Customs authorities on six counts of child exploitation:
According to the charges, between Aug. 11 and Aug. 25, 2010, Mr. Lieberman used the Internet to sexually entice those he believed were two different girls under the age of 16 years. In fact, the charges said, he was engaging in online conversations with two undercover agents in Florida posing as 10 and 13-year-old girls.Mr. Lieberman is accused of sending the “13-year-old girl” an image of a naked man, engaging in a sexually explicit conversation with the “10-year-old girl” and sending her website links to images of male and female genitalia.
GWU has already deleted his faculty profile (innocent until proven guilty, eh?), but if you go soon enough, you can see it on google cache.
Richard D. Lieberman is a principal in the Washington, D.C. firm of McCarthy, Sweeney & Harkaway, P.C., and has been a government contracts attorney since 1988, concentrating on counseling government contracts clients, claims, bid protests, criminal investigations, audits, contract compliance programs, Federal Supply (multiple award) Schedule contracts and debarment proceedings. He is a former deputy inspector general and assistant inspector general of the Department of Defense, where he was involved in the planning and execution of internal auditing, contract auditing, investigations and inspections. He also served as a professional staff member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee and a budget analyst in the Office of the Department of Defense Comptroller.Emphasis added. Again, innocent until proven guilty, but I'm not exactly sure what you can argue if the feds have transcripts of you sending 10-year olds to dirty websites.
Here's to hoping that if his guilt is proven, he gets something worse than three years of probation.
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Power of Anonymous Speech
Among other claims that struck me as odd in the most recent Down by Lawcast, the suggestion was made that anonymous speech (which I'm going to equate to pseudonymous speech for this entry) is limited in what it can do, that credibility is lacking, etc. This is an often-spouted view that has some appeal, but is ultimately wrong.
Let's start with a lesson in history and basic theory:
Anonymous speech can be worthless, of course. But it can also move mountains.
The whole point of using anonymous speech is partly for protection against backlash, true, but in a less cynical description, one may describe the purpose as completely removing criticisms unrelated to the content. A true wordsmith, or believer in a worthy political cause, would want the focus to be on the content and not the speaker.
A signature, however, is irrelevant to content unless some type of expertise, inside knowledge, or personal experience is claimed. In the alternative, one may include a signature in order to gain regard for themselves or to try and bolster their credibility by attaching their name to it. In trying to build and use goodwill for his name, an author is ultimately engaging in a business move, but 95% of the time, the attachment of the name is irrelevant to the content therein.
Rather, attaching one's real name is an authorial decision as significant as any of the substantive content. It binds one's own personal characteristics with the speech and invites both ad hominem attacks and for the listener to give more credence to the words by who's speaking them.
In other words, because this choice alters how most people perceive the speech, it's wrong that we expect everyone to give their name to content before completely discrediting it, just as it's wrong to mandate that everyone say "God bless America" at the end of their speech. That reaction - to discredit anonymous speech when all other variables are equal - is driven by the power-elites who always want someone to hold accountable, to prevent whistle-blowers and others who want to speak truth without having their words unduly jeopardized, either by ad hominem or by their own persecution (at which point the speaker becomes the issue and not the content of his words - see, e.g., the HUAC hearings as an example of this).
Of course such a view invites fringe lunatics to write anonymously, but as the judge noted above, readers are not stupid. If someone writes "buy Microsoft stock, will shoot up 200% tomorrow," no one would believe them, but that's not because it was anonymous, but rather because there's no grounds to believe what it says. The quote could be "Joe Hargish says to buy Microsoft stock, will shoot up 200% tomorrow" and the result would be the same. If it's "Joe Hargish, analyst at Goldman Sachs, says to buy Microsoft," now we have a grounds for credibility.
But the point is that a name is not the only grounds for credibility. You can also gain credibility by having incredibly rational arguments or by presenting a volume of verifiable facts. And a name isn't grounds for credibility itself. For example, let's say you read this:
In so-called "scamblogging," anonymous speech has been central to propagating the message. To my knowledge, only two hardcore "scambloggers" have been front and center with their real identities: Scott Bullock of the now-defunct Big Debt, Small Law and Kimber Russell, who, if I recall correctly, "came out" late summer or early fall of 2010. Nando at TTR neither hides his identity nor expressly posts it to the world, but it can be found fairly easily. Other than that (someone correct me if I'm wrong), the scambloggiest of scambloggers remain more or less unknown. Loyola2L, Esq. Never, JD Underdog, Exposing the Law School Scam, Fluster Clucked, Jobless Juris Doctor, "Angel" and "Hardknocks" at BIDER, Jobless Juris Doctor, and Knut at First Tier Toilet, I'm pretty sure these are all anonymous.
I will posit here that, contrary to what Kimber suggested, the scamblog movement only has had its successes because the latter group chose anonymity as a theme.
Law is notoriously elitist, tiered, and approached with a view that "I am better than that person." When people found out Scott Bullock was a Seton Hall graduate, the response was that he should have gone somewhere nicer. But such allegations can't hit someone like Jobless Juris Doctor without making a series of assumptions, and indeed the assumptions become more difficult when (a) the number of anonymous angry bloggers increases and (b) some of the bloggers, like Knut and Angel, claim to be first-tier graduates.
The anonymity thus gave a solidarity and an ambiguity about what class of people was being affected by the "scam," and because a broad range of personalities had been adversely affected by going to law school enough to make blogs about it, the shared claim - that law school is a losing investment - became more credible. You didn't need names to achieve that effect, which is clearly shown by the number of people who have been deterred from going to law school as a result of reading them. And that, after all, was the point.
This is precisely the type of situation that calls for anonymous speech as a powerful tool for change. And it did bring change.
Law school applications dropped 12%. LSAT takers were down by a similar amount. For both of those, you generally prepare at least two or three months in advance. So anything influencing change needed to be present earlier, in November and December.
The much-ballyhooed New York Times article came out on January 8. But because early admission deadlines are generally December 1/15 or January 1, that can't have affected early admission, and the odds that people read an article and suddenly dropped applying to law school when they'd already done all the work seems remote.
Rather, that precipitous drop from the mid-2010 highs had to come from somewhere, and that "somewhere," seems, to me, to come from saturation of these blogs. Whether they have a name on them or not seems irrelevant, since blogs like TTR regularly link to news articles and connect them together with the common thesis: that law school is a losing investment.
If Kimber wants to believe that her 2-3 months of being "out" prior to the number of LSAT takers dropping had a disproportionate effect compared to her anonymous peers, I suppose she's free to do so even if there's no proof that such is true.
But looking at a simple causal chain, the only reason that administrators and other institutional players are willing to talk about change - including giving Kimber the time of day - is that law school applications and LSAT takers are down. If law schools were still pulling in customers at the click they were a year ago, it would be much easier for the ABA to say nothing was fundamentally wrong or in need of change. But because the "scambloggers" created awareness, which caused a drastic drop in customers, now everyone is all-too-willing to change. Law School Transparency was a decent idea, but it would have accomplished nothing without the angry anonymous crowd corroborating its claim and actually deterring people from applying for that $160k job track.
For Kimber to now claim that anonymous speech can't change things is disingenuous. It already has, and it will continue to do so. For if the law schools won't publish accurate data, the most believable perspective may actually come from the collective knowledge of anonymous bloggers, That, if given enough time, will cause actual law applicants to weigh the risks of going to law school where they would if they had accurate data from the schools themselves. And with that, the number of qualified applicants will continue to drop and law schools will be forced (by capitalism, a force greater than personal identity) to lower tuition, lower class sizes, or close. Likewise, USNWR is not changing anything because they got a pleasant phone call from a real person or because LST made a request; they're changing things because their integrity as a news magazine has been under under assault by their collusion with law schools' "Enron-like accounting standards." You can talk to them until they're blue in the face, but until their goodwill is jeopardized, there's no incentive whatsoever for them to do anything.
Those results can come about entirely from well-written, well-placed anonymous speech and it is simply wrong to claim otherwise. Anonymous speech helped convinced a nation to adopt our Constitution against considerable opposition. I think it can handle changing the law school structure and, in fact, it has.
Let's start with a lesson in history and basic theory:
Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.--Talley v. California (1960) (paragraph breaks added)
The obnoxious press licensing law of England, which was also enforced on the Colonies, was due in part to the knowledge that exposure of the names of printers, writers and distributors would lessen the circulation of literature critical of the government. The old seditious libel cases in England show the lengths to which government had to go to find out who was responsible for books that were obnoxious to the rulers.
John Lilburne was whipped, pilloried, and fined for refusing to answer questions designed to get evidence to convict him or someone else for the secret distribution of books in England. Two Puritan Ministers, John Penry and John Udal, were sentenced to death on charges that they were responsible for writing, printing or publishing books.
Before the Revolutionary War colonial patriots frequently had to conceal their authorship or distribution of literature that easily could have brought down on them prosecutions by English-controlled courts. Along about that time, the Letters of Junius were written, and the identity of their author is unknown to this day. Even the Federalist Papers, written in favor of the adoption of our Constitution, were published under fictitious names.
It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes.
"Don't underestimate the common man. People are intelligent enough to evaluate the source of an anonymous writing. They can see it is anonymous. They know it is anonymous. They can evaluate its anonymity along with its message, as long as they are permitted, as they must be, to read that message. And then, once they have done so, it is for them to decide what is `responsible', what is valuable, and what is truth."--McInteyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995), f.11 (quoting New York v. Duryea).
Anonymous speech can be worthless, of course. But it can also move mountains.
The whole point of using anonymous speech is partly for protection against backlash, true, but in a less cynical description, one may describe the purpose as completely removing criticisms unrelated to the content. A true wordsmith, or believer in a worthy political cause, would want the focus to be on the content and not the speaker.
A signature, however, is irrelevant to content unless some type of expertise, inside knowledge, or personal experience is claimed. In the alternative, one may include a signature in order to gain regard for themselves or to try and bolster their credibility by attaching their name to it. In trying to build and use goodwill for his name, an author is ultimately engaging in a business move, but 95% of the time, the attachment of the name is irrelevant to the content therein.
Rather, attaching one's real name is an authorial decision as significant as any of the substantive content. It binds one's own personal characteristics with the speech and invites both ad hominem attacks and for the listener to give more credence to the words by who's speaking them.
In other words, because this choice alters how most people perceive the speech, it's wrong that we expect everyone to give their name to content before completely discrediting it, just as it's wrong to mandate that everyone say "God bless America" at the end of their speech. That reaction - to discredit anonymous speech when all other variables are equal - is driven by the power-elites who always want someone to hold accountable, to prevent whistle-blowers and others who want to speak truth without having their words unduly jeopardized, either by ad hominem or by their own persecution (at which point the speaker becomes the issue and not the content of his words - see, e.g., the HUAC hearings as an example of this).
Of course such a view invites fringe lunatics to write anonymously, but as the judge noted above, readers are not stupid. If someone writes "buy Microsoft stock, will shoot up 200% tomorrow," no one would believe them, but that's not because it was anonymous, but rather because there's no grounds to believe what it says. The quote could be "Joe Hargish says to buy Microsoft stock, will shoot up 200% tomorrow" and the result would be the same. If it's "Joe Hargish, analyst at Goldman Sachs, says to buy Microsoft," now we have a grounds for credibility.
But the point is that a name is not the only grounds for credibility. You can also gain credibility by having incredibly rational arguments or by presenting a volume of verifiable facts. And a name isn't grounds for credibility itself. For example, let's say you read this:
Let me go to hell, that's all I ask, and go on cursing them there, and them look down and hear me, that might take some of the shine off their bliss.And I tell you that Glen Beck said it on last night's show. Most people would discard it as rambling anger. But what if I told you Samuel Beckett actually wrote it. Now most people would probably think it's something literary, give a whole new meaning to "them." Anonymous speech wants to avoid this whole evaluative process.
In so-called "scamblogging," anonymous speech has been central to propagating the message. To my knowledge, only two hardcore "scambloggers" have been front and center with their real identities: Scott Bullock of the now-defunct Big Debt, Small Law and Kimber Russell, who, if I recall correctly, "came out" late summer or early fall of 2010. Nando at TTR neither hides his identity nor expressly posts it to the world, but it can be found fairly easily. Other than that (someone correct me if I'm wrong), the scambloggiest of scambloggers remain more or less unknown. Loyola2L, Esq. Never, JD Underdog, Exposing the Law School Scam, Fluster Clucked, Jobless Juris Doctor, "Angel" and "Hardknocks" at BIDER, Jobless Juris Doctor, and Knut at First Tier Toilet, I'm pretty sure these are all anonymous.
I will posit here that, contrary to what Kimber suggested, the scamblog movement only has had its successes because the latter group chose anonymity as a theme.
Law is notoriously elitist, tiered, and approached with a view that "I am better than that person." When people found out Scott Bullock was a Seton Hall graduate, the response was that he should have gone somewhere nicer. But such allegations can't hit someone like Jobless Juris Doctor without making a series of assumptions, and indeed the assumptions become more difficult when (a) the number of anonymous angry bloggers increases and (b) some of the bloggers, like Knut and Angel, claim to be first-tier graduates.
The anonymity thus gave a solidarity and an ambiguity about what class of people was being affected by the "scam," and because a broad range of personalities had been adversely affected by going to law school enough to make blogs about it, the shared claim - that law school is a losing investment - became more credible. You didn't need names to achieve that effect, which is clearly shown by the number of people who have been deterred from going to law school as a result of reading them. And that, after all, was the point.
This is precisely the type of situation that calls for anonymous speech as a powerful tool for change. And it did bring change.
Law school applications dropped 12%. LSAT takers were down by a similar amount. For both of those, you generally prepare at least two or three months in advance. So anything influencing change needed to be present earlier, in November and December.
The much-ballyhooed New York Times article came out on January 8. But because early admission deadlines are generally December 1/15 or January 1, that can't have affected early admission, and the odds that people read an article and suddenly dropped applying to law school when they'd already done all the work seems remote.
Rather, that precipitous drop from the mid-2010 highs had to come from somewhere, and that "somewhere," seems, to me, to come from saturation of these blogs. Whether they have a name on them or not seems irrelevant, since blogs like TTR regularly link to news articles and connect them together with the common thesis: that law school is a losing investment.
If Kimber wants to believe that her 2-3 months of being "out" prior to the number of LSAT takers dropping had a disproportionate effect compared to her anonymous peers, I suppose she's free to do so even if there's no proof that such is true.
But looking at a simple causal chain, the only reason that administrators and other institutional players are willing to talk about change - including giving Kimber the time of day - is that law school applications and LSAT takers are down. If law schools were still pulling in customers at the click they were a year ago, it would be much easier for the ABA to say nothing was fundamentally wrong or in need of change. But because the "scambloggers" created awareness, which caused a drastic drop in customers, now everyone is all-too-willing to change. Law School Transparency was a decent idea, but it would have accomplished nothing without the angry anonymous crowd corroborating its claim and actually deterring people from applying for that $160k job track.
For Kimber to now claim that anonymous speech can't change things is disingenuous. It already has, and it will continue to do so. For if the law schools won't publish accurate data, the most believable perspective may actually come from the collective knowledge of anonymous bloggers, That, if given enough time, will cause actual law applicants to weigh the risks of going to law school where they would if they had accurate data from the schools themselves. And with that, the number of qualified applicants will continue to drop and law schools will be forced (by capitalism, a force greater than personal identity) to lower tuition, lower class sizes, or close. Likewise, USNWR is not changing anything because they got a pleasant phone call from a real person or because LST made a request; they're changing things because their integrity as a news magazine has been under under assault by their collusion with law schools' "Enron-like accounting standards." You can talk to them until they're blue in the face, but until their goodwill is jeopardized, there's no incentive whatsoever for them to do anything.
Those results can come about entirely from well-written, well-placed anonymous speech and it is simply wrong to claim otherwise. Anonymous speech helped convinced a nation to adopt our Constitution against considerable opposition. I think it can handle changing the law school structure and, in fact, it has.
Labels:
administrators,
anonymous speech,
history,
law school applications,
LSAT,
politics,
Supreme Court
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)