Florida Coa$TTTTal comes out swinging

Following the NY Times editorial pillorying his school, the dean issued a retort invoking everything except his dog, Checkers. I'm not linking to it but have included an excerpTTT.

I knew these damn jerks would play the diversity card, keeping the apocryphal "unmet legal need" card up their sleeve for another day. Let me go out on a limb and predict this dean will ultimately testify before Congress with several of his agreeable, highly-motivated charges in tow.

To be honest, I agree with him that for-profit isn't inherently worse than non-profit, seeing how the latter can scam with the best of them.

The Times was right when it said that Florida Coastal is a for-profit law school. But it is wrong when it implies that for-profit is inherently bad. Sometimes it takes a for-profit entity to right a wrong-in this case the lack of diversity in law schools. The student body in not-for-profit law schools is about 29.7% diverse. According to the U.S. Census bureau, the United States is currently about 37.9% diverse. The student body at Florida Coastal is approximately 44.4% diverse.

SepTTTember 2015

Let's get September posted before the October numbers come out. Seriously, I can't motivate myself to spend a couple of minutes copying and pasting off the BLS website any more.

Since I don't post often, dragging my heels allows me to include a timely story. NY Times finally called out the legal academy in The Law School Debt Crisis. About ten years after the pioneering scambloggers noted that law schools hamstrung their graduates with crippling debt and an unusable degree while taking on no risk themselves, the Gray Lady's editorial board joined the party. Nando has a typically trenchant post here.

My overall reaction is meh; this editorial will have the same impact as calls for gun control following a shooting at an elementary school.

First of all, the Times is an elitist rag that has as much concern for law students as Hillary Clinton has for the middle class. Law schools scamming students doesn't bother the editors a whit. Plebeian Southern schools scamming students bothers them greatly. On the other side of the aisle, literally and figuratively, is a Congress that believes in privatizing gains and socializing losses.

Second, they ignore the elephant in the room, the American Bar Association. The loan programs the editors describe are available to all graduate students. While these programs have contributed to tuition far outpacing inflation, graduates of most disciplines will benefit from their degree. Law is unique in being unable to regulate itself, in knowingly accepting unqualified students, its penchant for fraud, and for operating institutions solely for the benefit of faculty, administration, and investors. I used to think turning off the loan spigot was the best way to deal with the legal academy, but it would have to be done without unnecessarily harming other disciplines. Ultimately, the best way to control the ABA is to remove its accreditation authority, but the ABA is another elitist organization that pays lip service to the non-ruling class and the Times has its back.

Finally, one more elephant in the room: the courts. We're at the point where there is no cause of action you could bring against a law school that would survive summary judgment. Law students are ipso facto sophisticated consumers, 140 LSATs and all. Rather than helping matters, the most influential media source in the country has put matriculants on notice, "You gonna get raped." Pretty funny that we've reached the point where nearly the entire country knows that attending a non-elite school is a scam yet there are still enough waterheads trooping off to school to keep the enterprise going. Except maybe at Indiana Tech.

Have a scammy day.

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

Not seasonally adjusted	September	2014	1,111,600
	July	2015	1,131,200
	August	2015	1,123,400
	September	2015	1,119,100	7,500
Seasonally adjusted	September	2014	1,117,800
	July	2015	1,121,300
	August	2015	1,120,400
	September	2015	1,125,100	7,300
Change from Aug-15 to Sep-15				4,700

August 2014

Treading water. August had a decent gain but year-over-year remains meh, as does employment as a whole. NY Times had an article on sluggish job growth and the three million people who've dropped out of the labor force.

Health care has been a bright spot. Ever wonder why there's no Nursing School Lemmings blog?

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

Not seasonally adjusted	August	2013	1,136,500
	June	2014	1,145,400
	July	2014	1,146,000
	August	2014	1,141,500	5,000
Seasonally adjusted	August	2013	1,136,100
	June	2014	1,137,000
	July	2014	1,136,600
	August	2014	1,139,900	3,800
Change from Jul-14 to Aug-14				3,300

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!"

And it's only TTThursday!

Steeeerike One

"Avoiding law school in droves" - National Law Journal - January 28, 2013

Steeeerike Two

"Law Schools’ Applications Fall as Costs Rise and Jobs Are Cut" - NY Times - January 30, 2013

Steeeerike Three

Yer out!

This has been a glorious week for everyone whose business model doesn't depend on scamming law students. Two scambloggers not-easily-dismissed publications pointed out that law school applications have cratered, falling at an increasing rate, with around 54,000 lemmings applying this cycle. It took years, but the general public has finally caught on. To put things in perspective, there are around 45,000 seats at ABA schools, meaning that if you can fog a mirror then you will be accepted at one or more fully-acredited insTTTiTTTuTTTions. I am not kidding in the least.

The ABA must be so proud of itself. Anointed by the Department of Education, it has allowed this "profession" to approach a 1:1 ratio of applicants to seats. Sort of like cosmetology school except cosmetology school is a lot cheaper and state regulators more vigilant. The biggest percentage drop comes from the highest LSAT scores as the best and brightest flee and free up seats for mouthbreathers.

Some of the talking heads interviewed expect some law schools to close and most of the rest to shrink. My opinion is the academy can't bail water fast enough to save itself. It will take exactly one marginal school failing to make applicants and current students realize they need to take financial viability into account in deciding where, or even if, to matriculate. That will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where schools perceived as weak in fact become weak and wither and die. The push to lower cost of attendance, likely by eliminating the third year of school, will only magnify the damage. Besides students, some other interested parties will be auditors and creditors. It's hard to borrow money if you're not considered a going concern. Oh, and just like karma, those cross-default clauses are a bitch.

Knowledge is power.

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.

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.