November 2011

Legal hiring grew by 100 jobs in November. Sure, the industry lost 3,100 jobs year over year, but look at the bright side: Without the burst of hiring, it would have lost 3,200 jobs. Get your seat deposit in! Woot!

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	November	2010	1,116,400
	September	2011	1,108,800
	October	2011	1,113,700
	November	2011	1,114,500	-1,900
Seasonally adjusted	November	2010	1,116,100
	September	2011	1,112,500
	October	2011	1,112,900
	November	2011	1,113,000	-3,100
Change from October 11-November 11				100

OcTTTober 2011

Cripe! How hard is it to write a lousy blog post every so often, especially when it's mostly reformatted data?

Followers of the legal "profession" will be delighted to learn that hiring grew in October, as hundreds of newly-barred TLS posters launched their career in sports and entertainment law. The ABA plans to commemorate this recession turning point by accrediting another two dozen law schools.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	October	2010	1,116,300
	August	2011	1,118,200
	September	2011	1,109,100
	October	2011	1,113,800	-2,500
Seasonally adjusted	October	2010	1,115,900
	August	2011	1,113,700
	September	2011	1,112,500
	October	2011	1,112,900	-3,000
Change from September 11-October 11				400

Be on Tee Vee

From a JDU post:

---

Volunteer needed for CBS Evening News segment

I'm working with a producer at the CBS Evening News to put together a segment on the employment and debt crisis among recent law school grads. We need someone who:

1. Is a recent law school grad
2. Has a large amount of law school debt (at least six figures)
3. Is either unemployed or seriously underemployed
4. Is struggling economically as a result
5. Is articulate, and comfortable with the idea of being on camera

Ideally, this person will have gone to law school for reasons that would resonate sympathetically with a general audience, i.e., not because he or she was confident a law degree was going to make them rich. Also, this person should have relied on misleading employment statistics when deciding to go to law school and to incur large amounts of debt in order to do so. Having a family (spouse, and or child/children) is also a plus. It would be helpful if the person was either fairly close to the New York City area, or in the Denver metro area.

If you would like to participate, please email me ASAP at paul.campos@colorado.edu. Thanks in advance.

SepTTTember

The legal industry lost about 0.3% year over year. This compares mostly unfavorably with other "professional and business services," particularly since it's the only one that shed jobs in September. Anecdotally, I hear that the number of jobs in Space Law remained unchanged.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	September	2010	1,112,700
	July	2011	1,125,000
	August	2011	1,118,300
	September	2011	1,109,500	(3,200)
Seasonally adjusted	September	2010	1,115,700
	July	2011	1,113,800
	August	2011	1,113,500
	September	2011	1,112,200	(3,500)
Change from August 11-September 11				(1,300)

RenTTTals

I don't normally focus on debt, other than I'm averse to it. Paid cash for my last couple of cars (late model pre-owned, tyvm) and my apartment. I do have a HELOC, at a quarter-point below Prime, that I use as a rainy day fund; I'm gradually paying off a storm a couple years back.

Many other bloggers have written knowledgeably and articulately about student loan debt, particularly law school debt. Sometimes apocalyptically. Sometimes bemoaning their own lot. Sometimes cursing the ABA and law schools. I didn't think I had anything to add, so I've stayed clear of it.

I recently saw this cheery article on real estate rentals. For the TL;DR folks, the author believes the real estate market is going to be in the crapper for 20 years, based on demographics, and that the likely solution will be rehabbing property to be rented. Admittedly, not much new insight, but here's the part that makes the student debt issue hit home.

"The group that's 25 to 29 ... they're deciding not to buy, or they're not as ready to buy or are less able to buy than previous cohorts were in that age group," she said.

The 30-34 age group is the most worrisome to her because those in this group are prime homebuying age -- and are the most likely to be underwater, Russell said. From 2004-10 the homeownership rate of householders in this group fell more than any other -- and it's still falling. In the second quarter, it slipped below 50 percent for only the second time since the (federal) data series began in the early 1990s, Russell said.

The big bogeyman for both of these prime homebuying groups, she said, is student debt.

"About 35 percent of people under 35 have student debt -- that's huge," she said. "I think the average debt load is about $23,000 among debtors. If you have student loans and a car loan, it's going to be hard to take on mortgage debt.

"And it's a number that's going up," she said. "You'd think there would be a turnaround" with people unable to afford to go to school in this economy.

"But people seem so frantic to get a college degree that it hasn't turned around yet," she said.

Rather than think about the people I know who are underwater, it's easier to enumerate the people who aren't underwater. The lucky souls who aren't are still stuck with their homes because there are either no qualified buyers or a surfeit of adjacent homes for sale. Sometimes, both. I know people ranging from roughly 30 to 82 who wish they could sell, but can't. In my own vicinity, the NYC metropolitan area, I believe foreigners will eventually take up the slack. Unfortunately, this won't do much for people in Indiana.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing; however, I don't think that when the gummint began handing out education loans like candy, that it also understood Johnny won't be able to buy Darla's starter home, and Darla in turn won't be able to able to buy Grandma's house to raise her growing family. As of September 2011, it's looking like a lost couple of decades for every age group.

August 2011 legal employmenTTT

Having published this table, there isn't much else that needs to be said. There is no growth in the U.S. legal industry. If anything, I'd guess that even if headcount remains static, the payroll is shrinking as associates are replaced with staff attorneys and temps. From the Wall Street Journal:

Meanwhile, unemployed lawyers now find themselves in the country's most cutthroat race for a job, with less than one opening for every 100 working attorneys.

The only good news of late is that the message is sinking in and law school applications are down considerably.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	August	2010	1,117,800
	June	2011	1,121,600
	July	2011	1,124,700
	August	2011	1,118,700	900
Seasonally adjusted	August	2010	1,113,800
	June	2011	1,109,700
	July	2011	1,113,800
	August	2011	1,113,900	100
Change from July 11-August 11				100

Cooley heading for #1!!!!!!

Hearts throughout this great nation were set aflutter today by the news that Thomas M. Cooley Law School received ABA approval to open a new campus in the Tampa Bay area. While some had questioned whether the satellite campus could surmount the ABA's rigorous, grueling accreditation protocols, happily it did, and will begin offering evening classes to its well-qualified student body May 2012.

Presently home to just one law school, Stetson, the booming area legal market has been clamoring for more graduates. Until now, the deficit had been partly satisfied by importing Cooley graduates from the school's home base in Michigan, often by G5. Indeed Cooley, whose motto is "The spirit of the law is in the human heart (Lex Corde)," would be doing a public disservice had it not reached out.

Those who follow law school rankings have been astonished by Cooley's unbroken rise in Judging the Law Schools, the industry bible. By most criteria, Cooley is the #1 school in the country. In overall rank, until now it has come in #2, a hair behind a well-known Massachusetts institution. Eschewing meaningless statistics, which many law schools intentionally misreport, anyway, the Cooley rankings focus on items intrinsic to the law school experience, such as Part Time Faculty and Library Total Square Footage. With its new facilities and additional faculty, Cooley is destined for #1.

---

http://www.cooley.edu/newsevents/2011/080811_cooley_opens_tampa_campus.html

August 8, 2011

Thomas M. Cooley Law School to Open New Campus in Tampa Bay

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School announced today that the American Bar Association's (ABA) Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar accepted the recommendation of the Accreditation Committee to acquiesce in the Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s application to open a Tampa Bay-area campus in Riverview, Florida. The Tampa Bay campus has also been approved by the Higher Learning Commission and the Florida Department of Education, Commission for Independent Education.

The Tampa Bay campus will begin offering evening classes in May 2012, followed by morning classes in September 2012, and afternoon classes in January 2013. The implementation will follow the same pattern as at the School's other campuses, rolling out the standard curriculum over a three-year period. All Cooley students will be eligible to attend classes at the Tampa Bay campus.

Tampa Bay comprises a little over 4,000,000 residents, but is home to only one law school. Florida represents Cooley's largest alumni location outside Michigan, and Florida provides about 6% of our applicants and 5% of our incoming students each year. The School also has an active externship program in the state.

In addition to its large alumni base of 886 graduates throughout Florida, Cooley has had a growing presence in the Tampa Bay area through its Service to Soldiers: Legal Assistance Referral Program, which recently expanded to Florida in January. The ABA's Military Pro Bono Project and the Hillsborough County Bar Association joined together with Cooley to offer a complimentary training program aimed at preparing local attorneys to represent members of the military in legal issues ranging from child custody concerns to housing rental disputes.

Cooley, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) Michigan educational corporation, has acquired a 130,000 square-foot facility in Riverview, comparable in size to its current campus in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Renovations and staffing details are expected to be finalized in the coming weeks. The facility will accommodate the approximately 700 students who are expected to attend.

Professor Jeffrey L. Martlew, a former Michigan circuit court judge, has been designated as the Associate Dean for the Tampa Bay campus. Associate Dean Martlew explained that the new campus in Tampa Bay will cater to an underserved sector of law students, particularly part-time students and minority populations, but will provide Cooley’s full-time program as well.

Cooley Law School is the largest law school in the nation. Founded in 1972, the private, non-profit law school operates J.D. programs across Michigan in Lansing, Auburn Hills, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor. Today, Cooley Law School has more than 15,000 graduates across the nation and worldwide and also offers joint degree and master of laws programs. Cooley offers enrollment three times a year; in January, May and September. Additional information about Cooley can be found at cooley.edu.

The legal "profession," now with 0.36 percent more presTTTige!

I'm still around, though not as active as I'd like to be. In a related matter, so is the legal "profession." BLS released statistics yesterday showing a gain of 4,000 legal jobs in the month of July. There was a year-over-year gain of 3,400 legal jobs (in the U.S.).

In and of itself, this isn't a bad showing compared to other industries. The problem is, what happened to the roughly 50,000 people who graduated from ABA and CBA schools in the interim? Did they merely replace lawyers who upped and died? Are they all clerking for the 2nd, 9th, and D.C. Circuits? Getting LLMs in Space Law? Rooting for Scott Bullock's permaban from TLS (more on that in another post one day)?

Seriously, I've previously asked where are all the lemmings going? There is no room for them in the "profession." With a net gain of essentially zero jobs, the only way in is if someone else leaves and is replaced. Realistically, what you're going to see is both graduates of non-elite schools fighting over scraps and a compensation race-to-the-bottom. You can't network your way into jobs that don't exist, and can't hang out a shingle to serve an unmet need that doesn't exist.

I've said it before, 0Ls and 1Ls: Get out now. Pride is good, but the legal "profession" is fucked and you will be, too.


http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	July	2010	1,123,700
	May	2011	1,109,500
	June	2011	1,121,800
	July	2011	1,124,900	1,200
Seasonally adjusted	July	2010	1,111,200
	May	2011	1,113,500
	June	2011	1,110,600
	July	2011	1,114,600	3,400
Change from June 11-July 11				4,000

Couple of anecdotes

I was going to post these links separately, but read the articles' comments and figured they tied together.

First, imagine a world where prestige (note spelling) counted for little and Podunk schools no one ever heard of had among the highest pass rates on licensing exams. That would be the accounting profession (note lack of quote marks).

There is a brief article in Going Concern about Austin Community College. This school, which has no ABA analogue, punches above its weight on the CPA exam. The comments describe accounting as a vocation and the exam something that can be passed simply by studying hard enough. Once you pass, no one cares where you went to school. Sounds something like law -- and there were several comments comparing them -- except everyone cares where you went to law school. Very deeply.

That brings me to my next article. Wall Street Journal, which is further ahead of the curve in legal matters than any other widely-read publication, just wrote about schools' belated effort to revamp their programs to make them more relevant. Project management, problem solving, negotiation skills, etc. are "in." The Socratic method is "out." But, as I've repeatedly written, Yale or fail. That's the difference between Austin Community College and Chapman. At the end of the day, each will probably prepare you to pass an exam, except one will launch you into your career and the other will launch you into doc review, if you're lucky. It doesn't matter whether the Socratic method, space law, and international law are "in" or "out." Only where you went to school.

The Journal hits the nail squarely on the head.

But many remain skeptical that new approaches to education will have a meaningful impact on the ability of lawyers to land jobs. "It could enhance the reputation of the law school...as places that will produce new lawyers who have practical skills," says Timothy Lloyd, a partner at Hogan Lovells and chair of its recruiting committee. "As to the particular student when I'm interviewing them? It doesn't make much of a difference."

Other recruiters say schools that have overhauled programs need to do a better job of promoting the changes to employers in order to see an impact. Until then, law school prestige will remain a big factor, says Bruce MacEwen, a law firm consultant and blogger who tracks the legal industry.

"Firms are very obsessed with prestige," he says. "That's just a fact of life."

The Journal neglected to mention the surfeit of experienced lawyers available for a pittance. You're not only not getting into BigLaw, but also not going to impress anyone in shitlaw with your clinic experience. Unless, of course, you're willing to work for free.

Not sure what accounting's future holds, but as for law, the irony is clear: The more prestige obsessed firms become, the less prestigious the profession becomes.

The votes are in

I put a survey up two weeks ago after reading Knut's post on First Tier Toilet! lamenting going to law school as the "stupidest thing I have ever done." Frankly, I didn't get enough responses to be statistically valid, but I'll note that five out of six TPLP readers agree.

All I can personally say is that I graduated going on two decades ago, from a school that had a decent regional reputation, and am still mad. The feeling subsided maybe five years out as I moved on with my life, but returned with a vengeance in recent years and grates on me every day. I hope every reader for whom law school didn't work out is eventually able to leave it behind with no ill effect.

To the four people who voted "No," what is worse than law school? Going on the sex offender list? The PhD in Korean pottery? Guessing wildly wrong on the world ending last month?

Also, there are no doubt people for whom law school was a roaring success, but they're too busy #Winning to be reading this blog.

10 gallons of lawyers in a 5-gallon haTTT

This is from the Economic Modeling Specialists Inc.. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but would be remiss if I didn't post it.

The short story is that a firm calculated the number of bar exam passers versus the estimated number of annual lawyer job openings. New York produces about 7,700 lawyers more per year than the state needs. Nationwide, the total is over 27,000, which includes non-ABA schools. To this, New Jersey and Massachusetts add the unhappy combination of low compensation and high COL.

The stats are actually wrong because Wisconsin doesn't require bar passage if you graduate from a Wisconsin school, and you can waive into DC. Nebraska is hopelessly insular, and in any event I sincerely doubt there's a lawyer shortage there.

So, lemmings, head for Brooklyn Law, Chapman, and Rutgers now! And, ABA, keep up the good work!

	2010-15 Est. Annual Openings	2009 Bar Exam Passers	2009 Completers (IPEDS)	Surplus/ Shortage	Median Wages
New York	2,100	9,787	4,771	7,687	$56.57
California	3,307	6,258	5,042	2,951	$50.61
New Jersey	844	3,037	787	2,193	$43.84
Illinois	1,394	3,073	2,166	1,679	$51.54
Massachusetts	715	2,165	2,520	1,450	$43.89
Pennsylvania	869	1,943	1,697	1,074	$46.05
Texas	2,155	3,052	2,402	897	$41.55
Florida	2,027	2,782	2,781	755	$36.39
Maryland	560	1,277	548	717	$41.46
Missouri	362	943	908	581	$39.96
Connecticut	316	880	510	564	$43.69
North Carolina	503	1,032	279	529	$37.79
Minnesota	378	888	948	510	$43.69
Ohio	686	1,194	1,513	508	$34.69
Georgia	779	1,217	894	438	$46.11
Colorado	547	967	509	420	$40.83
Virginia	956	1,375	1,435	419	$49.34
Louisiana	357	731	810	374	$33.35
Tennessee	389	735	446	346	$37.34
Washington	619	935	678	316	$37.37
Oregon	291	594	519	303	$34.51
Indiana	339	602	825	263	$32.48
South Carolina	262	506	410	244	$33.03
Kentucky	261	478	389	217	$34.39
Nevada	219	392	143	173	$40.32
Arizona	440	607	378	167	$37.51
New Mexico	134	298	114	164	$29.78
Michigan	862	1,024	1,993	162	$35.22
Kansas	190	351	296	161	$31.16
Alabama	295	455	406	160	$37.98
Iowa	155	290	556	135	$32.16
Rhode Island	102	209	184	107	$39.65
Hawaii	76	179	88	103	$33.70
Mississippi	173	268	335	95	$28.86
Utah	308	401	283	93	$37.04
W. Virginia	100	191	152	91	$32.51
Montana	81	163	83	82	$24.96
Maine	75	153	91	78	$29.70
Arkansas	152	227	243	75	$30.83
Wyoming	40	113	80	73	$29.86
New Hampshire	92	154	146	62	$30.84
Oklahoma	326	387	489	61	$29.56
South Dakota	38	83	73	45	$29.19
North Dakota	33	63	80	30	$28.78
Idaho	128	157	97	29	$30.77
Alaska	41	66	0	25	$37.80
Delaware	116	141	235	25	$60.67
Vermont	51	55	191	4	$30.48
Nebraska	112	109	279	-3	$32.47
Wisconsin	262	248	691	-14	$36.43
D.C.	618	273	2,109	-345	$70.96
Nation	26,239	53,508	44,159	27,269	$44.22

Still here

Have had overwhelming work and personal obligations of late. Matter of fact, I'm typing this from work. 9:09 p.m. Friday evening. Life is good.

Wall Street Journal article on lawyer TTTemp jobs

The WSJ just did an article on the rise of Contract/Temp attorneys (I initially put attorney in quotes and then removed them). It's behind a paywall but accessible if you come in through Google News. Interestingly, the WSJ put contract in quotes. Whatever.

There's nothing new here to anyone who reads scamblogs, particularly Tom the Temp. In fact, the WSJ was itself probably the first mainstream publication to call attention to the scam, with its landmark Hard Case: Job Market Wanes for U.S. Lawyers in September 2007. That article immortalized Scott Bullock of Big Debt, Small Law and should have been sufficient to knock sense into anyone considering law school. Should have been.

The piece features a 37-year-old American U grad and describes his life as a coder. Dickensian working conditions, $50K annual compensation, lengthy unemployment, and assignments that end abruptly. The WSJ quotes NALP in saying that 10% of private practice jobs graduates accepted last year were temporary. Paul Campos, who I commented on here, would beg to differ on the 10%. Further, he notes that NALP itself collects data on but does not publish distinctions between permanent and temporary work.

The change to temporary attorneys is driven by cost-conscious clients of marquee law firms who probably resented paying for green associates in the first place. The Journal is a bit behind the times in not mentioning offshoring, onshoring to U.S. backwaters, or technology that will dispense with law grads altogether, but on the whole it's a respectable effort that accurately portrays a segment of the presTTTigious legal "profession" circa 2011.

Speaking of Bullock, I'm about 99% certain that he is the poster areyouinsane in the TLS thread http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=157855 no doubt inspired by the WSJ article. Writing style and anecdotes are identical; not many people begin their sentences with "You see,". He's apparently moving to Turkey. Naturally, the TLS rocket scientists suspect he's a flame, even as they content themselves in the knowledge that this temporary attorney nastiness only happens to "other" people.

La Verne denied. Shirley inconsolable

Hat tip to Nando of Third Tier Reality for the news that the ABA denied this toilet's full accreditation and withdrew provisional accreditation. J-Dog of Restoring Dignity to the Law has also written about the school several times.

My understanding is this used to be a serviceable CBA-approved school that sought ABA approval and the massive tuition that comes with it.

---

http://law.laverne.edu/press-releases/aba-denies-la-verne-law-application-for-full-approval

Media Advisory

Jun 13, 2011
Contact:
Deniene Husted
deniene_husted@andrewwilkinllc.com
(714) 423-9753

ABA Denies La Verne Law Application for Full Approval

Law school remains committed to ensuring the best opportunities for its students.

ONTARIO, Calif., June 13, 2011 – The American Bar Association has denied the University of La Verne College of Law’s application for full approval and withdrawn its provisional status, officials announced on Monday.

The announcement came shortly after law school officials received the news in a telephone call from the ABA. While detailed findings are not yet available, the ABA Council’s overall opinion was that the law school’s first-time bar pass rate, which jumped from 34 percent in 2009 to 53 percent in 2010, had not sufficiently improved.

“We are deeply disappointed, but not defeated,” said La Verne Law Dean Allen Easley. “Once we receive the council’s formal announcement, we will review the findings and take action accordingly. It remains our ultimate mission to provide the very best law school education and experience possible to our students.”

Law school officials plan this week to seek an expedited timeline to regain provisional approval from the ABA, and will proceed immediately with the steps necessary to gain California Bar approval.

La Verne Law was the only ABA-approved law school (provisional or otherwise) in inland Southern California, having received provisional approval from the association in February, 2006. The law school remains accredited through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges under the University of La Verne.

“The University will continue in its commitment to achieve ABA approval for the College of Law,” said University of La Verne President Steve Morgan, who retires this month. “It is our belief that our region needs an ABA-accredited school to best serve the long-term needs of the Inland Valley region. It is our desire that the University of La Verne College of Law will be that school. Our resolve is as strong as ever and we will focus on the ABA concerns and move forward with our quest. President-Select Devorah Lieberman shares that commitment and I know she will carry forth these efforts with the same level of passion and determination.”

Lieberman, who assumes the leadership role of the University of La Verne on July 1, shared Morgan’s resolve.

“The College of Law’s mandate to provide our students with the highest quality legal education aligned with the mission of the University of La Verne is laudable, and we will continue in that pursuit,” Lieberman said. “I look forward to maintaining our strong commitment to these goals and helping to design strategic initiatives that result in full American Bar Association approval.”

The ABA announcement comes at a time when the region remains significantly underrepresented by legal professionals compared to neighboring metropolitan areas. Currently, inland Southern California’s attorney-to-resident ratio is one for every 840 people, compared to Los Angeles County at one to every 217; Orange County at one to every 223; and San Diego County at one to every 232. San Bernardino and Riverside county courts continue to report a severe shortage of judicial officers to serve the region’s growing population.

# #

About the University of La Verne College of Law

The University of La Verne College of Law serves a region of more than 3.8 million people in inland Southern California. It is part of the University of La Verne, which is fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Established in 1970, La Verne Law has produced generations of law professionals educated on standards of ethics and service to the community. For more information, visit law.laverne.edu.

About the University of La Verne: The University of La Verne, a regionally accredited, non-profit institution, holds the distinction of being annually rated as One of America’s Best Colleges by U.S. News & World Report and Forbes Magazine. U.S. News also recently named La Verne as one of the most popular Tier 1 universities in the nation, measured by percentage of accepted versus enrolled students. Further, In April 2011, La Verne ranked No. 1 among all national universities in achieving the highest actual versus predicted graduation rate (Postsecondary Education Opportunity).

# # #

A thing of beauty

http://subprimejd.blogspot.com/2011/06/message-to-those-who-read-these.html

Even Uncle Sam thinks the ABA sucks

I cribbed the following from TaxProf.

---

The ABA drew intense scrutiny on Thursday from a federal panel that reviews accrediting agencies. The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the U.S. education secretary on accreditation issues, used a meeting here to review the applications of 10 accrediting agencies to be recognized by the federal government. ...

Of the 10 agencies being reviewed on Wednesday and Thursday, all were recommended for continued recognition. ... But several members of the committee expressed reservations about approving that status for the ABA, which was found to be out of compliance with 17 regulations, including the need to consider student-loan default rates in assessing programs; to solicit and consider public comments; and to set a standard for job placement by its member institutions.

Arthur E. Keiser, chancellor of the Keiser Collegiate System, said that an accrediting agency would not accredit an institution with 17 outstanding issues. "There is a real concern that this agency doesn't get it," he said. Anne D. Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, was one of three committee members who opposed the motion to continue the bar association's recognition, saying that she had no confidence it would be in compliance within a year.

Representatives of the association assured the committee that the changes recommended by the department were already in the process of being carried out and would be completed in time.

The bar association also got a negative review from a group of legal faculty members, the Clinical Legal Education Association, which accused the ABA of considering changes in its standards that would "strip important protections of academic freedom and faculty-governance rights ... by eliminating tenure and security of position for deans and faculty members," according to written comments submitted by the faculty group.

Faculty members at 65 law schools as well as a half-dozen faculty associations have voiced opposition to the proposed changes, said Jennifer M. Roberts, an associate professor of law at American University and a board member of the legal-education association. ...

In the end, a majority on the federal advisory committee voted to continue the bar association's recognition, but expressed frustration that they could not take stronger actions or at least state their concerns with stronger language.

Dear Bloggers, Blawgers, and Scambloggers

Within the last month, the authors of both The Jobless Juris Doctor and Shilling Me Softly ended their blogs. SMS removed the blog altogether; it no longer resolves. JJD deleted all but a farewell post.

Do me everyone a favor: If you put it out there, leave it out there. It costs you nothing while benefiting legions now and in the future. I was a long-time reader of the blogs mentioned and thought enough of them to have them in my blog roll. I also now have posts with broken links to those blogs' posts.

Scott Bullock set an unfortunate example with his untimely, unnecessary, dramatic demise of Big Debt, Small Law. If your blog is worth reading and has been around long enough, people have it cached somewhere. You'll never get rid of it. Meanwhile, you'll deny a dose of reality to newbies sorely in need of one.

Every time a blogger publicly calls it quits, the Valvoline Dean and his counterparts exchange metaphorical high fives. Unless you need to take your blog down for financial reasons — all babies must eat — leave it up and just walk away.

All those lemmings have to be going somewhere

BLS just released employment statistics. The legal services industry shrank by 2,700 jobs between May 2010 and 2011. Meanwhile, another 44,000 lemmings graduated.

AmLaw Daily speculates some will find jobs ... with onshoring firms. I'm posting about two recent NY Times articles one of these days, but the gist is that most openings require experience.

You 0Ls and 1Ls ought to cut your losses and bail. As for upperclassmen, you're going to have a latte competition. Enjoy IBR.

P.S.: The BLS has previously revised law employment downward after reviewing figures, and there's no guarantee May 2011 won't end up even worse than reported.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm

Not seasonally adjusted	May	2010	1,109,500
	Mar	2011	1,108,000
	Apr	2011	1,106,700
	May	2011	1,106,600	-2,900
Seasonally adjusted	May	2010	1,113,100
	Mar	2011	1,112,100
	Apr	2011	1,111,400
	May	2011	1,110,400	-2,700
	Change from:	Apr 2011-May 2011	-1,000

Be Handsome. Be Attractive II

Thanks, Anna Alaburda! All I did was stick a cropped law school photo on the blog and traffic went through the roof. Half the surfeit originates from a comment on ATL about her appearance and the balance from people Googling some variant of "Anna Alaburda pic." I'm resisting the urge to salt this post with salacious keywords so I can retire early ... my resolve is failing.

Let me be frank: I find Ms. Alaburda attractive. One of my first thoughts was back to Allison Cantor and how she effortlessly got biglaw while Alaburda is doing doc review. I conceived a hypothetical conversation between Alaburda and Cantor but decided that the contrasts in background, alma maters, and geography rendered the different outcomes inevitable despite the superficial personal similarities.

Basically, the premium for being attractive in sunny San Diego is either small or nil, and not enough to offset a degree from a toilet in a small market. I suspect the penalty for being unaTTTractive is high. The converse is likely true in the Nutmeg State.

Cantor obviously had a good rapport with a Day Pitney partner. I don't know how Alaburda comes across, but a partner in a mid-size firm is betting she will make a good plaintiff; i.e., someone who should have succeeded but for her school.

There's no such thing as bad publicity. Alaburda will do fine. If she wins, she'll do better than fine, and become a hero to toileteers, everywhere.

Yale or Fail II

A while back I told readers that they needed to go to an elite school. This point gets hammered in everywhere, every day.

Today's example is from the NY Times. Briefly, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is hiring lawyers with civil rights backgrounds instead of conservative lawyers with different experience. The paper made it a point to note the new hires come from better higher-ranked schools.

The documents showed that the Obama-era hires were more likely to have had experience in civil rights, and they graduated from more selective law schools, than those hired over the final six years of the Bush administration. ...

Moreover, the Obama-era hires graduated from law schools that had an average ranking of 28, according to U.S. News & World Report. The Bush group had a lower average ranking, 42.

Granted, a favorite Bush recruiting stop was Regent, but the Times is putting its imprimatur on the notion that graduates of #28 are notably better lawyers than graduates of #42.

This is the sort of argument I'd expect to read over at TLS. Essentially, the paper is saying that given two lawyers with the same background, the one from the higher-ranked school has more credibility. Note that civil rights lawyers hired by definition are experienced; their school should matter less as their career developed.

For my part, I'm surprised that the Justice Department goes slumming outside T14, let alone #28.

Do yourself a favor and don't go to law school at all. If you do go, make sure it's to an elite school. Again, no one gives a shit about moot court or the top-ranked inTTTernational law program. The main thing that counts is the USNWR rank. The other thing, if you have a specialty in mind, is to gain street cred by working in that specialty, even if you have to volunteer.

Thanks, Vets

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. I would be remiss if I didn't take time from my bitching to recognize those who made the supreme sacrifice, as well as those who have either served or are serving.

Dean PresTTTige?

I've climbed every mountain, swam every river, crossed every ocean, and reached the pinnacle of my career. Not only do I have an ABA law degree, but also a Costco membership. What challenge remains? I know, law school dean!

From http://www.businessbroker.net/business-for-sale/small-private-university-los-angeles-county-california/256471.aspx (click to embiggen)

University with multiple accreditation and licenses is seeking to merge or sell to a private owner. The University was established in 1999 primarily as a legal education school. The University offers a Juris Doctor degree in Law, Associate degrees in legal education, courses meeting requirements for the State of CA Certified Paralegal Accreditation and Immigration Legal Assistant Certificate. The University is not limited as to the type of curriculum developed. The current owner focused on Legal Education. The school's license does not restrict content. The University is also able to issue Visa's to International Students seeking to study at the school. The student body is diverse. School purchase includes asset sale of legal library, course curriculum and leasehold improvements. The course curriculum is custom developed by the current owner, a licensed attorney. This business has the ability to grow in multiple ways. The courses are not yet online, however most competitive schools offer courses online. There is an opportunity to develop online classes as well as develop additional courses. To continue to operate the law school, the new owner must hire an Administrator/Dean who holds a license by the California Bar Association or have this credential themselves.
For more information regarding this listing please contact us by completing the "Contact the Seller" form to the left. We look forward to hearing from you.

What an inspiration I would be to my disciples, strolling the rooms of my leased 2,500 ft² facility in my elegant attire, arriving in my leased Altima, and departing with my leased companion.

Ninety-five grand cash flow = models & bottles, and the sky is truly the limit! That reminds me: Space Law LLM.

Best thing is the hard lifting is already done; the school's extant and licensed. Get the dumbass seller to finance it and it will self-amortize.

Spend the morning on TLS with my sock puppets telling idiots how awesome the school is, work with my online learning subcontractor in the afternoon, and do random sobriety checks on my instructors in the evening. Throw in occasional $1K political contributions to keep the gravy train flowing and I can keep it going until I retire.

There's some pesky rules, but nothing a good lawyer can't handle. Here's my favorite:

---

Rule 4.107 Student complaints

The Committee does not intervene in disputes between a student and a law school. It retains complaints about a law school submitted by students and considers those complaints in assessing the law school’s compliance with these rules.

Rule 4.107 adopted effective January 1, 2009.

---

Enshrined in law above is the Prime Directive of schools everywhere: Faculty and administrators count. Students don't.

If any readers would like to lend me the down payment, I'll gladly repay you when the tuition checks start rolling in.

The shiTTT finally hits the fan

Thomas Jefferson School of Law, exemplar of fourth-tier shitholes, has been hit with a 50-million-dollar class action lawsuit by an alumna alleging intentional fraud. Reaction from the damned has been vindication over what most of them saw as inevitable.

Anna Alaburda, pictured, graduated with honors from TJ, owes $150K, and has never found full-time legal work. Her undergrad degree is from NYU.

She is suing on behalf of herself and other individuals who were students at TJSL. There are potentially more than 2,300 members in the Class.

The Complaint itself reads like a contemporary, well-researched, articulated, and documented scamblog post, replete with citations to unfavorable news coverage. Indeed, in some places it's a little too breezy. Some choice excerpts:

"For more than 15 years, TJSL has churned out law school graduates (my emphasis)"

"In order to attract students despite these dismal figures, TJSL has adopted a practice of misrepresenting its post-graduation employment statistics."

"At the end of the day, TJSL is more concerned with raking in millions of dollars in tuition and fees than educating and training its students."

"In order to attract larger numbers of prospective students, law schools nationwide have adopted the practice of inflating statistics and presenting misleading figures to U.S. News & World Report, as well as the American Bar Association ("ABA"). Students are unaware that these statistics are false and misleading, and they frequently rely on the false statistics in deciding which law school to attend."

"Law schools are also believed to be manipulating post-graduation employment statistics, as well as median salary information for their graduates."

"This method has been described as a "bait and swtich [sic]" as to prospective law students."

"What should students expect in exchange for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt they incur in student loans in order to receive a diploma from TJSL? In 2007, TJSL's bar passage was 35.6 percent, among the lowest in the country; and the most recent figures reveal that TJSL's passage rate remains under 50 percent, well below the state average."

"TJSL's average student indebtedness in 2010-2011 was $137,352, which is among the highest in the nation...."

"On information and belief, TJSL provides false and inaccurate information directly to U.S. News & World Report with the understanding that the false and inaccurate information will be disseminated to the public."

"In other words, if graduates accept part time employment working as a waiter or a clerk at a convenience store, they are considered to be "employed nine months after graduation."

There are five counts.

1. Violation of Business & Professions Code §17200 et seq. - Unfair Competition Law ("UCL") for unfair and fraudulent business practices
2. Violation of Business & Professions Code §17500 et seq. - False Advertising Act
3. Fraud - engag(ing) in a pattern and practice of knowingly and intentionally making numerous false representations of material fact, and material omissions, with the intent to deceive and/or induce reliance
4. Violation of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act - misrepresentation of post-graduation employment rates
5. Negligent misrepresentation - making material representations and omissions with no reasonable grounds for believing them to be true

I'm not familiar with California law. My layman's opinion is that unless they find something damning during discovery -- and they well might -- this suit isn't going anywhere. A school's usual defense is that it took tuition money in exchange for a legal education, which the plaintiff received; it made no guarantees; and, it's complying with ABA requirements. Further, much of the Complaint refers to US Snooze despite the school having no control over its editorial content.

One aspect of the Complaint I found fascinating is the reference to the faculty and staff being members of the California bar and implying they breached their ethical responsibilities. I think this would be a fertile second front to open up in California and other states: File ethics complaints against law school administrators.

Senator Boxer again goes after ABA

Press Release of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
For Immediate Release:

May 20, 2011
Contact: Washington D.C. Office (202) 224-3553

Boxer Continues to Urge American Bar Association to Improve Accuracy and Transparency of Data Reporting by Law Schools

Senator Recognizes Initial Steps by ABA, But Calls For Stronger Oversight of Reporting by Law Schools and Better Access to Information For Students

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today wrote a letter to the American Bar Association (ABA) acknowledging the group’s initial steps to address the accuracy and transparency of information for prospective law school students, but also urging the ABA to strengthen its oversight of admissions and post-graduation information reported by law schools and improve access to information for law students across the country.

Boxer’s letter follows an earlier letter on this subject, which was a response to recent news reports that have highlighted several law schools allegedly using misleading post-graduation employment and salary information to enhance a school’s position in the competitive and influential U.S. News and World Report annual rankings. Such inaccurate data can mislead prospective law students into believing they will easily be able to find work as an attorney and pay off their loans despite a sharp decline in full-time employment for law school graduates.

The full text of the Senator’s letter is below:

May 20, 2011
Stephen N. Zack
President
American Bar Association
321 North Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60654-7598

Dear Mr. Zack:

Thank you for your response to my letter regarding the transparency and accuracy of post-graduation employment and salary information reported by law schools.

I was encouraged to learn that in June the Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar will be considering recommendations on how the ABA can improve access to accurate and transparent information for prospective law school students. I view this as a positive step toward improved standards, but before completing its work on these important recommendations, I urge the Section to address some other important issues.

1. Independent Oversight

It is troubling that the recommendations do not address the need for independent oversight of the data law school deans submit to the ABA and publications like U.S. News and World Report. The Section’s recommendations would allow law schools to continue to submit unaudited data, despite the fact that a lack of oversight has been identified by many observers as a major problem.

The editor of U.S. News and World Report wrote a letter to all law school deans, noting a “crisis of confidence in the law school sector” and asked deans to be more vigilant in their data reporting. This letter and the recent news that a well-known law school admitted to knowingly reporting inaccurate data to the ABA for years indicates that independent oversight must surely be a part of any reform proposal.

2. Easy Access for Students to Information

The ABA should undertake efforts to ensure that students have easy access to post-graduation employment and salary information. Prospective students should not have to search far and wide for information so critical to determining their futures. To achieve this goal the ABA should make it standard practice for law schools to post links to this information on website homepages, and to include these documents in acceptance notices.

I would be remiss not to mention a very troubling New York Times article on law school merit scholarships. The article detailed the recent increase in the number of merit scholarships offered by law schools and demonstrated how scholarships are being used to convince students with high LSAT scores to attend lower-ranked law schools.

While the opportunity to earn a very expensive law degree at a fraction of the cost can be an attractive option for many students, the Times exposed a major problem with scholarship transparency. Many law schools not only fail to make it clear that prospective students must meet minimum GPA requirements, they also do not disclose how the law school’s grading curve can prohibit all students offered scholarships from maintaining the benefit every year.

It was reported that at one school, 57 percent of first-year students in one class year received a merit scholarship, but only one-third of the students in that entire class received a GPA high enough to maintain a scholarship. In the Times article, an ABA official admitted he was unaware of any problems with merit scholarships, and noted that the ABA does not ask schools to report how many students lose their scholarships each year and does not publish any information for prospective students on this subject.

I look forward to reviewing the results of the Section’s June meeting, as well as your response to the merit scholarship issue.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

JDU pwns ATL

↓

JDU wags collaborated on a fanciful Craigslist shitlaw job listing that one of the regulars then posted in the Chicago market. It soon found its way to both shitlawjobs and ATL. Unfortunately, she pulled it shortly afterward.

The sad thing is that a truly wretched law job description received real responses and didn't seem contrived enough to arouse suspicion at ATL.

Hoosier Daddy

This is my latest post based on an aged draft. My style is to collect a bunch of ideas at once, save them as drafts, and work on them as time permits. Amazingly, they can become obsolete in one week.

I was going to comment on TaxProf blog's May 10th law school status update. As if on cue, Indiana Tech announced plans May 16th to open the state's fifth law school.

Both Restoring Dignity to the Law and the Indianapolis Star have good articles on it so I needn't waste much breath. Let's just say that Indiana Tech is unabashedly poaching Cooley's market. Meanwhile, University of Indiana, currently ranked #23 by US Snooze, is having trouble placing its graduates.

If Indiana Tech were a public institution then I would have had put in an FOIA request or its state equivalent for the studies supporting this school. Apparently, the only thing it considered is whether there's a market for a law school, not its graduates. The title of this post is what alumni are going to hear from creditors.

Mooooooooooooooooooo

So, here's the roundup

Now accepting lemmings

Lincoln Memorial University (Knoxville, TN)
UC-Irvine (Irvine, CA)

Accepting lemmings 2011

Belmont University (Nashville, TN)

Accepting lemmings 2012

Concordia University (Boise, ID)
Louisiana College Judge Paul Pressler School of Law (Shreveport, LA)

Accepting lemmings 2013

Indiana TTTech, (Fort Wayne, IN)
University of North Texas (Dallas, TX)

Accepting lemmings 2017

SUNY-Binghamton (Binghamton, NY)

Bitch slapped by Maine Supreme Court

Husson University (Bangor, ME)

Shelved in display of decency atypical of legal education

University of Delaware (Newark, DE)
Wilkes University (Wilkes-Barre, PA)

ABA outsourcing its annual meeting

America's phoniest "professional" organization is holding its 2011 annual meeting in Toronto. Canada. Thought you'd like to know that.

http://www2.americanbar.org/annual/pages/default.aspx

U R Screwed

Graduation time! The combination of stumbling across an article about Ave Maria's graduation and being in a pissy mood led to this post. Domino's Pizza School of Law is a Florida Tier 4 Catholic institution with a 150-median LSAT. But, doesn't everyone look excited to begin their new life? Click on the link for more pix.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20110515/NEWS0104/110515048/Ave-Maria-law-students-graduate

The Economist magazine agrees with me?

I see the Economist and I are on the same page. Granted I'm mosiach, Warren Buffet, and the Delphic Oracle combined, but it's gratifying to have my convicTTTions validated by such an august entity.

"Ultimately, lawyering is becoming more of a business than a profession."

Well, hit me with a 2x4. Ever wonder why my blog has Profession in quotation marks? Funny, this article is dated May 2011; it's about 30 years late.

There is nothing new, here, to anyone who follows the legal industry even casually. The main import is that it appeared in a widely-read and respected publication. The only reason I'm blogging about it is I started a draft a while ago and didn't want to let it languish. Which is a piss poor reason. Whatever.

The article leads off with Howrey LLP's dissolution. The firm's circling the drain led to much breathless (and witless) writing on ATL. The ultimate cause of death was partners defecting because profits weren't at their accustomed >$1MM/partner/yr. Pundits, including The Economist, can wax all they want on structural changes in the industry, but the firm was killed by old-fashioned greed and mismanagement, same as from time immemorial. Unlike a typical business failure, Howrey was never insolvent, and its investors (equity partners) landed on their feet elsewhere, each presumably with his or her book of business intact.

There's a much better article in the Washington Post that traces the firm's rise and fall. It also discusses structural changes, but the main one is the demise of the general partnership structure that bound partners to the firm and limited risk taking. Seems quaint, but around the time I was in school, associates who had been offered a partnership were advised to check the firm's financial condition, especially unfunded pension obligations. Also see Finley, Crumble.

I note Howrey set up "a back office in Pune, India, to provide low-cost legal research." Snort.

The interesting aspect of the Economist article is its predictions on what firms are likely to thrive in today's economy.

• Elite New York-based firms such as Sullivan & Cromwell that restrict their locations to business centers
• Smaller, highly-specialized firms such as Wachtell that can command a price premium, or, as one of our salesdroids used to call it, a "sustainable competitive advantage"
• Certain global firms such as Baker & McKenzie that have a viable business model and management that can execute it (my emphasis)

TLS members should make it a point to work only for firms positioned as described above lest their careers be derailed, though BigGov is also acceptable.

My favorite part of the Economist article was the discussion on protectionism. Other countries severely or completely prohibit foreigners from practicing local law. Meanwhile, over at the ABA, they're not only exporting legal work as fast as they can — until it blows up in their faces — but also subjecting the locals to CLE, mandatory pro bono, bar dues, etc.

How I wish this were the real profession I thought I was entering.

Be handsome. Be attractive. And, don't be unaTTTractive

Hartford Business Journal, which normally doesn't attract much attention outside its locale, recently got plenty with an article about lawyer debt reaching an all-time high.

From 2001 to 2010, the average amount borrowed annually by law students for their three-year degrees increased 50 percent, according to the American Bar Association. This past academic year, law students borrowed an average of $68,827 for public educations and $106,249 for private educations.

That would be on top of any undergrad debt.

Law school debt increases the cost of legal services. As lawyers repay loans, firms must compensate to meet their loan and cost-of-living demands. Law school debt essentially means a lawyer must make $200,000 or more above what the holder of a bachelor’s degree will make over a lifetime, to have the investment break even.

Other than the numbers themselves, there is little new, here. The piece shills for T2 UConn as a cost-effective public law school whose in-state tuition is half the price of the private Connecticut schools. My guess is most of its students didn't cross-shop Yale. I'm also guessing that Connecticut taxpayers don't mind subsidizing a law school in the supersaturated New England market.

The $200,000 number was pulled out of someone's ass; it omits both opportunity cost and the time value of money. It's possible to lose that much in salary alone during the three years of school. Speaking of salary,

“You end up being a little less selective,” said Jonathan Shapiro, partner at Middletown’s Shapiro Law Offices LLC and vice-chairman of the CBA Young Lawyers Section. “You end up going down a path that you might not have wanted to.”

Hellooooooooooo, shitlaw! Turns out Shapiro is a UConn grad who made biglaw and then landed on both feet at mommy and daddy's firm.

As the media is wont to do, it takes a solid story then throws a curveball by including an atypical subject who overshadows it. The NY Times did this with the groundbreaking Is Law School a Losing Game? by profiling a clueless Thomas Jefferson School of Law graduate. Here, HBJ featured a photogenic blonde UConn alumnus who got a job with Day Pitney the same way we all do, by inviting a partner to lunch. I was dumbfounded when I read this and I suspect that the article wouldn't have received much attention at all but for her.

One of Day Pitney's predecessors was Pitney Hardin, an NJ biglaw that might as well have been Cravath in being a reach for me. And, most other applicants.

Here's the takeaway. Want a soft-IP biglaw job? Just send an e-mail. Oh, and make sure you're attractive. And, very important, don't be unattractive. The clip below is tongue-in-cheek and set in a different context, but also 100% accurate.

---

Blogger had a system error and deleted my original post. J-Dog had left the comment below by then. I'm wondering what the scale is, myself. Also, you younger guys should invite Ms. Cantor to lunch.

The whole "invite a partner out to lunch" and get a job offer a week later cracked me up.

Maybe there's a scale based on how attractive you are, competence factors being equal, for what you have to buy a partner to get a job offer:

Attractive ur minority: soda
Attractive female: lunch
Attractive male: dinner
Average ur minority: pro sports tickets
Average female: round of golf, elite course
Average male: furniture
Ugly ur minority: high-class electronic gadgets
Ugly female: nice car (> Honda)
Ugly male: vacation home

Off with his head!

'No, no!' said the Queen. 'Sentence first - verdict afterwards.'

The NY Times has just (I started this post a week ago and have been preoccupied) widely publicized how both the ABA and US Snooze are asleep at the switch. Again. Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win is just what the doctor ordered for the legal eduction carTTTel. The article managed to hit print the same weekend as two of the biggest stories of the era but the message will get out; it is was the second most-emailed business story on the Times's site.

The article features a victim of Golden Gate University, a toilet that rubs shoulders with unranked superluminaries such as Florida Coastal, Cooley, and Regent. Like other administrations that aspire to keep their jobs, it games its ranking by baiting well-qualified applicants with merit scholarships and then revoking them after 1L. The students themselves refer to it as "bait and switch."

There were few merit scholarships when I went to school. US Snooze changed everything.

Schools are ranked heavily on the LSAT scores and GPAs of their incoming students. The scholarships allow them to buy a better class and higher ranking. The gotcha is that the scholarships carry grade stipulations. The combination of a vicious grading curve and stacking the scholarship recipients in the same section ensures that many will lose them.

Basically, scholarship recipients compete against each other, though most don't realize that when they sign. Reminds me of the two hikers being chased by a bear. One pauses to take his boots off so he can run faster. The other yells, "Why are you stopping? You'll never outrun him!" The guy replies, "I don't have to outrun him, just you."

A side effect whose significance depends on your leanings is that money for need-based scholarships is diverted to merit scholarships.

Naturally, neither the ABA nor US Snooze track how many students retain their scholarships. Why should they? They're supreme beings; however, USNWR's Robert Morse's comments were so appalling that only Nando could do them justice.

Why is merit scholarship retention not part of the U.S. News data haul? “The main reason is that we haven’t thought about it,” said Robert Morse, who oversees the rankings. “It’s not a great answer, but it’s an honest answer.”

Then Mr. Morse thought about it.

“This isn’t meant to be sarcastic,” he said, “but these students are going to law school and they need to learn to read the fine print.”

Got that? They need to learn to read the fine print AFTER THEY'VE ALREADY SIGNED IT. The asshole is channeling Lewis Carroll.

Bob Morse also has investment advice: "Don't gamble. Buy some good stock. Hold it until it goes up and then sell it. If it doesn't go up, don't buy it!" Oh, that was Will Rogers. Never mind.

Restoring Dignity to the Law has pointed out there is no fine print to read at GGU. Naturally, the article has attracted plenty of attention elsewhere. Morse himself came down from the dark tower to issue exculpatory comments and point a finger at the schools.

Served

I actually spend time trying to devise cutesy titles for my posTTTs. It comes from a desire for something attention grabbing and years of submitting headlines to Fark, mostly unsuccessfully.

Headlines are an art. I know a former NY Daily News headline writer and they come to him naturally. His terse e-mail responses often require a second (or third) look lest they sail over my head.

Sometimes an article's headline is so good that it needs no embellishment; it's perfect as is. Paul Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, handed me the title for this post. His article, Served How law schools completely misrepresent their job numbers, is one more nail in the law school carTTTel's coffin.

"Served," "owned," and "pwned" all mean the same thing to me: To be obliterated in a contest, usually publically. It's a succinct description of the fate awaiting lemmings heading off to law school. Campos probably used "served" because of its legal connotation. I prefer pwned, myself.

Follwing the incendiary subtitle, Campos trods familiar ground, noting that schools claim almost all their graduates get jobs as lawyers and that US Snooze has revised its employment rate calculations to make them "somewhat less inaccurate."

He hits his stride when he begins analyzing National Association for Law Placement (NALP) data. NALP reports that 63% of graduates of ABA schools have full-time legal positions within 9 months of graduating. Campos points out that NALP does not distinguish between permanent and temporary jobs. While the latter are typically low-status, low-paid clerical and document review, he also includes state trial-level clerkships as temporary positions.

Based on a T50 he analyzed, the true 9-month employment rate is 45%; lower-ranked schools fare worse.

In other news that will surprise only Ric Romero, he notes that employment figures are self-reported and that neither the schools nor NALP audit them. Unemployed and underemployed graduates tend not to report back to the school. Campos further "found several instances of people describing themselves as employed permanently or full-time, when in fact they had temporary or part-time jobs (I found no instances of inaccuracies running in the other direction)." Even T14s game their ranking by hiring alumni temporarily.

So, life after T50 is mostly for losers? What happens to the winners? They "often accept jobs that make them miserable, featuring insane hours and unfulfilling work, but which these graduates conclude they must take in order to pay their often astronomical educational debt."

Served. Indeed.

Mail Bombing

An enterprising Carbozo 3L has started a mail bombing service, Resumé Launchpad, for law students. It's a glorified contact database that allows users to do targeted e-mailings to legal employers and customize the cover letter for each recipient. Having done mail merges since the DOS-era, I believe they require more expertise than many people either have or are willing to spend the time to develop. The product eliminates drudgework and fits a need.

Its Achilles heel will be the price. The site wants 25 cents per e-mail, an unsound business model, IMHO. For starters, it targets large law firms that are unobtainable. You can resumé bomb shitlaw but will run out of money before you can realize your dream to litigate bogbites. There are numerous other vendors that provide the same service, generally at a comparatively low flat cost per month.

The entrepreneur received a cold welcome on JDU. Some sample comments.

"Coming onto a message board filled with people who have been sending their CVs into the ether for months, some times years, on end and asking them to PAY for you to do it for them? That doesn't just take balls....that takes MEDICINE BALLS!"

"I like that the website features the largest firms in the country on the main page. Nice touch."

"While I applaud your initiative, resume bombing is simply not a productive strategy anymore."

"So, you're asking people to pay *you* their money for *you* to make the already deafening signal noise in legal recruitment even worse?"

"Die in a fire"

"The idea, in this economy, of sending resumes by email, unsolicited to law firms is beyond pathetic."

I don't think Resumé Launchpad is going to fly.

MandaTTTory Pro Bono

Shilling Me Softly has guest post by David Mandell today on mandatory pro bono, a subject near and dear to my heart. When I was a newly-admitted, frequently un- and under-employed member of the NJ bar (note, member of the bar, not practicing attorney), there was NOTHING more grating.

Imagine being a temporary file clerk and having to miss two days or more of work to defend a low-life with "big problems and empty pockets," in the words of the esteemed Scott Bullock. This isn't helping them fill out forms. Instead, it's full-blown representation from start to finish, with potentially multiple court appearances. These individuals can benefit from effective assistance of counsel, particularly in family law matters, but you personally get no resources or assistance, whatsoever. Need to get an interview translated from Spanish? Good luck. This is truly shitlaw on steroids.

I have little to add to Mandell's excellent post. He already noted the various exemptions under New Jersey law, but didn't explain how many lawyers they cover. This is a state with 566 municipalities in 21 counties. The vast majority have a municipal judge, prosecutor(s), and defender(s). These typically part-time positions go to lawyers from politically-connected firms like everything else in this venal state. Want to help your associates shirk pro bono? Get them an assignment somewhere.

I'm told that volunteering with a legal aid society can get you out of mandatory pro bono. This might be a good way to go if you want to help people with tenant issues and avoid the gamier cases you'd otherwise be assigned.

Pro tip: As NJ solos are painfully aware, the state Supreme Court enthusiastically enforces the bona fide office rule. If you don't have a bona fide office, you can't practice law and ... drum roll ... can't represent pro bono clients. Capiche? Doesn't hurt to ask to be excused, though note the tendency to "not receive" your request.

When I finally threw in the towel and formally retired from the practice of law (note: I never had a paying engagement for which a JD was required), it was to avoid mandatory pro bono. Pro bono is truly a feel-good measure for our pious judiciary and bar. It allows them to tell the public what swell folks they are, even as they kick their struggling brethren in the teeth.

Food stamps

There's a rumor on JDU that a T20, likely University of Minnesota, is counseling 3Ls on how to apply for food stamps. Yes, it's a rumor, but we're dealing with a "profession" that expects people to take on six-figure debt to work for minimum wage.

Tune in at 11:00

Pictured is Ric Romero a KABC-TV reporter and Fark cliché who "[r]eports the obvious, usually long after everyone else knows it's obvious." Ric made a name for himself reporting on the blogging phenomenon; his photo alone normally suffices as a response in a thread, though some will add "water is wet" to drive the point home.

Ric's protégé, Nikita Lalwani over at Yale Daily News, has a promising career ahead of her. She recently reported that law firms prefer to hire from elite law schools. Further, the law schools themselves draw from elite colleges; half the Yale class comes from either the Ivy League or Stanford and the balance comes from from selective schools like Wesleyan.

"The exclusivity of the legal profession is reinforced at top law firms, according to a study by Lauren Rivera ’00 published this year, an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Rivera interviewed roughly 40 professionals involved in law firm recruitment and hiring, and found that these people give particular preference to candidates from Harvard, Yale or Stanford law schools when reviewing job applications.

Although many recruiters actually believed that graduates of non-elite law schools were more prepared for the practical aspects of being a lawyer, they still preferred to hire from super-elite schools because of the prestige associated with them."

So, 0Ls, what can we learn from Nikita? Simply, Yale or fail. Unless your goal is to work in shitlaw, you need to go to an elite school. What part of that do you not understand? Any employer worth working for cares deeply what school you attended. Your T50 law review or moot court is nice, and it's helpful that your school revamped its curriculum so you could hit the ground running, but you're still going to be an also-ran and always will be. Don't blame me; I don't make the rules. Decades after a Harvard graduates, his degree will impress people. Seton Hall, not so much.

The legal industry is comprised of prestige whores from top to bottom. That's how this blog got its name.

When you fork over $200K, you're buying a brand, not just an education. Everyone learns the same irrelevant law, generally from professors who are graduates of the same go-to schools.

Your first inkling something is amiss may come at OCI. You may also try looking on a firm's site for graduates, and find there is but one ... who graduated in 1977. You try to volunteer, but those organizations are selective, too. Like I said, I don't make the rules.

You don't want to work in biglaw, anyway? That's fine, but nowadays you're going to be rubbing shoulders with T14 grads all the way down to doc review. When push comes to shove, who do you think is going to get the job?

Don't take my word for it. Ask Nikita.

You will respect my authoriTTTah!

Pictured is Kenneth Nunn, a presTTTigious "Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Race Relations and the Law, Police Brutality, Race and the Criminal Process, and Law and Cultural Studies" professor at the University of Florida, whose faculty he joined in 1990. The former "Professor of the Year" has also taught unspecified courses at Makerere University Faculty of Law in Kampala, Uganda. I'm trying to leave race out of this, but the guy is a walking cliché. Keepin' it real.

Professor Nunn's greatest didactic accomplishment and legacy happened outside his own classroom, recently. It teaches us how the legal academy REALLY works.

From the Gainesville Sun:

The incident happened Dec. 10 when Nunn's class of about 100 students was scheduled to take an exam in the Holland Law Center.

Nunn mistakenly thought the class was assigned to three rooms, including a room where about six other students were taking a tax exam, according to the investigation. Nunn's students interrupted the other class until one of the tax students placed a trash can in front of the classroom with a sign that read "exam."

The tax student, who was not identified in the report, later told Nunn "it was atrocious how you handled that." The student told an investigator Nunn then got in his face and pushed him full force using both hands, before saying, "I'm a law professor and deserve respect." A witness confirmed Nunn pushed the student.

He received a one week suspension. With pay. Another blog noted that the March 7-13 suspension corresponded with Spring Break.

UF warned him that a second incident might result in his termination. Salma Hayek just warned me that she might come over unannounced and ... sorry, Nando.

To summarize, a faculty member with a chip on his shoulder committed criminal battery against a student, which was witnessed, and received a one-week paid vacation. To quote Robin Williams, the school effectively told him, "Stop! Or, I'll say, 'Stop!' again."

Let's read between the lines. University of Florida has a top-ranked tax program. There were six tax students taking an exam. I'm guessing the shovee was a nerdy, white LLM. I'll give the school the benefit of a doubt and trust that it would have handled the incident the same no matter what the student's and professor's races (or gender, religion, color, creed, origin, and sexual orientation) were.

Professor Nunn's lesson for us is that law schools look out for their own, never for the students.

Society's lesson, which has eluded Nunn, is that respect must be earned.