OcTTTober 2016

One benefit to being dilatory a lazy POS is that I can watch events unfold and write about them at my leisure. Sometimes I'll have a theme for a post, start a draft, and it will be immediately obviated by the news.

Three things have happened of late.

• Donald Trump was elected president running on a populist theme
• Indiana Tech announced it was closing its stillborn law school
• "Let's see — I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops." Oh yeah: California's July bar passage hit a 32-year-low, mirroring other jurisdictions

Just so we're clear, Indiana Tech is the harbinger of nothing. The university already absorbed the substantial sunk cost of starting the school and could have limped along, augmented by offering undergraduate courses, distance learning, and luring foreign students. I've previously opined that as long as law schools keep their expenses in line with revenue — scamsizing™ as it were — they are viable indefinitely. Uncle Sam has made the academy immune to market forces and using business terms and concepts to discuss it is obfuscation. I truly believe that the State of Indiana told the university board to shitcan the school, with this as the last straw. Basically, one well-connected individual contacted one well-connected board member, maybe even in person(!), and that was all it took.

I'm not speculating; I've seen this done. The government has enough harassment tools to obtain cooperation from anyone.

When I was in law skool a long time ago I had a course on business entities. The professor, who was a partner at a large firm, described states falling over themselves to emulate Delaware law as a race-to-the-bottom. He predicted that what the legislatures gave, the courts would take back.

Fast forward to about 2013 and the inception of another race to the bottom, this time with academic credentials of admitted students. As my professor could have predicted, the state bars are digging in. Even doing nothing — leaving the exam and passing score static — is a rational option. The end result is was Indiana Tech.

That brings me to Trump. If you'd asked me last month about the 75% bar-passage requirement to be voted on February 2017 by the ABA's House of Delegates (is that presTTTigious or what?), I'd have speculated a watered-down version would be enacted. Given the overwrought reaction to Trump's election — recounts pending as I type this — I now think no effin' way. Diversity, you know?

Seriously, no sooner had the votes been counted then TTTexas legislators began pushing for yet another school! If I may quote, "[E]verybody has a law school." Does that sound like someone who's worried about the school ultimately being accredited?

Oh, and don't look for debt relief, either. Ever.

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

Not seasonally adjusted	October	2015	1,125,400
	August	2016	1,128,000
	September	2016	1,121,800
	October	2016	1,127,500	2,100
Seasonally adjusted	October	2015	1,123,800
	August	2016	1,125,100
	September	2016	1,125,400
	October	2016	1,125,300	1,500
Change from Sep-16 to Oct-16				-100

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.