An exisTTTenTTTial threat

I let a lot of potential material slide by because it will be ably commented on elsewhere and I feel no need to add my $0.02; really, I'm lazy. Occasionally, I'll come across something so profoundly idiotic that I blog about it rather than gnash my teeth regretting I didn't.

Philadelphia Business Journal recently wrote up Rutgers-Camden's precipitous drop in admissions this cycle. Frankly, if the school closed I wouldn't give its demise more than one, terse paragraph, but this set me off:

"The applications stopped coming when the merger talk started. We were supposed to become the Rowan law school and no one wanted a Rowan degree."

Of course they didn't, you dipstick. Law is a presTTTigious "profession" comprised of haves and have-nots, the preponderance of your alumni being in the latter. Imagine the carnage if the name changed!

• The facilities and library would remain the same
• The faculty and administration would remain the same
• The substantial tuition benefit of matriculating at a public university would remain the same
• The curriculum would likely improve due to the new association with a medical school

Is a law a shithole or what? Change the signs on the buildings and the name on the diploma and you've consigned your graduates to a life of stifling work and penury. As opposed to the grandeur awaiting Rutgers-Camden alumni.

Here's what really pissed me off. New Jersey is not exactly replete with educational powerhouses, Princeton University excluded. For as long as I remember, it has led the nation in exporting college freshmen — I checked and it still held this title in 2006. The smart and better-off leave the state and the earnest bourgeois stay behind and matriculate at Ramapo, Rowan, and Rutgers. NYU rejects can choose from between two undistinguished public law schools. A Rutgers-Camden dean criticizing Rowan is the pot calling the kettle black.

Rowan University was known as Glassboro State College until industrialist Henry Rowan pledged $100 million, then the largest-ever gift to a public college, at which point it was renamed in his honor. Prior to that it was best known as site of the 1967 Glassboro Summit. Subsequently, it became a public research university and is one of only two institutions in the country that has both an allopathic and osteopathic medical school. I'm sure these future doctors will be proud to be Rowan alumni as they begin practicing. As for future un-and under-employed Rutgers-Camden Law grads, who knows?

A TTT week

Two discouraging events this week. First, Inside the Law School Scam author Paul Campos called it a day with Goodbye is too good a word. I didn't get the Dylan reference, but lyrics and a recording were immediately forthcoming from others. What makes it sad is the reason he abruptly ended his blog: they got to him.

I've never written anything about the professional and personal price I ended up paying for starting to investigate, more than a year before I began this blog, the structure of contemporary American legal education. Perhaps I'll tell that story someday. For now I'll merely note that if people enjoying the extraordinary protections afforded by tenure aren't willing to confront institutional corruption, then academic tenure is an indefensible privilege.

I've had mixed feelings about Campos. I used to consider him an opportunist preaching from his sybaritic law professor gig, but his impact cannot be overstated. Now he'll never have a chance to cover the first modern law school failure, nor the first successful lawsuit against a school, nor, lord willing, the government turning off the loan spigot. At least not as the author of ITLSS.

Pointing out the elephant in the room is bad for business. Let's hope Campos doesn't delete the blog; a foreign entrepreneur will recycle it (see, e.g. ShillingMeSoftly).

In other news, Rutgers is preparing to close merge its two distinct law schools; Nando has a good write-up. Briefly, the stated dual intent is to become a more regionally-prominent school and to achieve the economy of scale and curriculum possible from combining resources.

Imagine if law schools were run like a business. Hell, they are a business, which is why Farmer describes Rutgers as a "brand." Its business plan is to consolidate two middling, horribly-sited law schools into one large school, change the signs, and call it done. This might be an efficient approach if there were opportunities for its graduates.

The legal market is obsessed with presTTTige. It's a fact of life and the most honorable intentions won't change it. Even as much of the academy gamed U.S. News in recent decades, Rutgers-Newark succored its moonbat faculty, opened an Animal Rights Law Clinic, and clung to Newark like its life depended on it. Meanwhile, Rutgers-Camden merited four (that I found) ITLSS posts in 2012 alone, culminating in this. Reorganizations are best left to Dilbert strips. It's a little late to be worrying about establishing a brand. Probably about thirty years late.

At the end of the day, the reason the Rutgers announcement is sad is because it portends business as usual in the legal academy, where reality doesn't intrude until the loan payments start. The market has changed dramatically but the institutions not a wit. Two schools pumping out unneeded graduates at taxpayer expense will become one school pumping out unneeded graduates at taxpayer expense. The school needs to shrink into one, selective campus in New Brunswick. If bigger were better, and a well-known brand a sustainable competitive advantage, then Cooley would truly be the second best school in the country.

RuTTTgers-Newark dean trolls scambloggers

The New York Times must feel badly about continually bashing law schools, for it allowed a local sewer to infest its op-ed page, yesterday. Rutgers-Newark Dean John Farmer published To Practice Law, Apprentice First. Though chock full of ivory tower disconnect, at least he didn't try to sell law school as a sound investment like most of his peers.

Let me get this out of the way: As a New Jersey taxpayer, I believe both Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden should close and the public resources currently expended be diverted to more productive use. I would have had a less visceral reaction if this op-ed issued from Hofstra, but I'm sure less geographically-challenged writers will remain more objective. Actually, I look forward to Campos ripping Farmer a new asshole from Colorado. This link has everything you need to know about lawyer supply and demand in the NJ legal market. Class dismissed.

Farmer has had a charmed life, unlike most Rutgers-Newark alumni. His bio is here. To his credit, he has considerable experience in private practice, so he is not just talking from you-know-where. I also know him as one of the "go-to" guys when the fit hits the shan. On the other hand, he is dean of a perpetual also-ran in the nation's biggest legal market and should tend to his own house rather than venture out to pontificate. After all, rankings come out next month.

The op-ed isn't that long; please read it. Farmer ties the legal market's woes to big firms overpaying for newbie lawyers. Briefly, because Cravath pays $160K, Dorita can't afford to fight her eviction. Further, because Cravath's clients aren't willing to pay to train new lawyers, Cravath hires fewer of them (and the remainder compete with Rutgers-Newark grads).

Farmer's prescription is the lawyer's version of a medical residency. I could write an essay on the difference between law and medicine, starting with one being an actual, well-respected profession and the other being a presTTTigious "profession" and textbook case of regulatory capture. Side note: medical students now face the "jaws of death." Oh, and the public pays to train new doctors, presumably because the investment is worth it. Can you say the same about lawyers? And keep a straight face?

I'm getting lazy, so let me respond to Farmer with some bullet points.

• The reason the middle-class can't afford lawyers is because it has no money. Fix that and some other intractable problems will fix themselves. Education debt, anyone? How about reducing housing prices in the NYC area? A more progressive tax structure coupled with federal, state, and local government pruning?
• Good lawyers are expensive because they are worth it; you get what you pay for. This is the case with everything in life. Farmer implicitly recognizes that low-end legal work can and should be done cheaply, meaning the value isn't there. Big firms realized this years ago, at which point they began hiring staff attorneys; shipping work to India and flyover country; and, employing automation. The problem remains that the academy wants seven years of higher education, a bar exam, bar dues, and CLEs for the chance to do scut work. Farmer's answer to this is to add two years low-paid residency under questionable supervision.
• One way to reduce the cost of legal education, but not legal services, is to make law an undergraduate degree, either four or five years. THEN, you require one or two years working for an admitted lawyer. This is how accountants regulate themselves and we don't hear about a glut of CPAs, though a lot of this is self-selection. Again, it won't reduce prices because the cost of training does not affect the perceived value of the service rendered. This is why my accountant charges a high hourly rate for estate accounting and estate tax preparation and the lawyer who does my estate planning works for a flat fee somewhat higher than LegalZoom's.
• Did I forget to mention the middle-class has no money?

Anyhow, nice try, Dean Farmer. You clearly understand both structural changes facing the legal industry and macroeconomics. If I may quote Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Law School DeaTTTh LisTTT

A couple of scambloggers are speculating on the next school to follow Texas Wesleyan into the abyss. The criteria are the school either has to fold outright or be acquired by another educational institution. I'd like to add my own criterion that no one will miss it when it's gone.

If you guess right, you win a Kindle.

BIDER has a number of good guesses. Rutgers-Camden is in a death spiral — hopefully, it will take Rutgers-Newark with it — and Hamline is in a small, crowded market where even the University of Minnesota founders. My own guess is TJSL, based on it being a relatively new, independent law school with an expensive campus. Add bad PR and an abysmal bar passage rate and you have a winner.

PresTTTige you can believe in

The title is the first thing that popped into my head; it may be a dig at Obama, or maybe just frustration.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has updated its industry projections through 2020. Let's cut to the chase and say that the outlook for lawyers sucks.

The table below is from a search I ran. The "Total Employment" is all lawyers and the "Legal Services" is, I believe, law firms. If I find differently then I'll update the post.

There will be an increase of 73,600 lawyer jobs between 2010 and 2020, during which time probably 450,000 people will graduate from law school and perhaps 200,000 will leave the "profession." The report doesn't touch on the quality of the jobs, treating a Cravath partnership-track position the same as doc review in a boiler room; however, I'm ASSuming the BLS took automation into account and its deleterious effect on low-end legal work.

You can see the data for yourself at http://data.bls.gov/oep/nioem/empiohm.jsp. Then, get your seat deposit in at Rutgers-Camden Rowan.

Industry		2010		Projected 2020		Employment change
Title	Code	Employment	%	Employment	%	Total	%
Total employment	TE1000	728,200	100	801,800	100	73,600	10.1
Legal services	541100	368,200	50.6	389,800	48.6	21,600	5.9