Anyone get that weird email from Tulsa? Forum

[treeofsmoke]

So I just got a weird email from Tulsa basically telling me not to attend. It acknowledged that only five percent or so of it's graduating class had a shot at a legal job ( ) and suggested that in 2015 it might be competitive in the state of Oklahoma.

At least they aren't blowing smoke up our asses, though.

[D. H2Oman]

So I just got a weird email from Tulsa basically telling me not to attend. It acknowledged that only five percent or so of it's graduating class had a shot at a legal job ( ) and suggested that in 2015 it might be competitive in the state of Oklahoma.

At least they aren't blowing smoke up our asses, though.

lolwtf, please post it.

[dukelawguy144]

Funny man

but a bad flame

[Bildungsroman]

I, too, am skeptical.

[treeofsmoke]

TU Law: A renaissance for local law school

By WAYNE GREENE Editorial Writer
Copyright © 2010, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Published: 4/25/2010 2:23 AM


The University of Tulsa has the 123rd best law school in the nation, which might not sound like much, but it's a damned sight better than being No. 147, and legitimate reason for celebration on 11th Street.

In an amazing bit of incongruity, the stock of our nation's law schools is measured every year by the ratings of a second-level news magazine, U.S. News & World Report, which issued the 2011 edition of its "America's Best Graduate Schools" last week.

"This is a magazine, but it's important in the lives of our students and alumni," said TU College of Law Dean Janet Levit.

The magazine groups law schools in four tiers. A-list law firms use the rankings as a guide to quality when they are making hiring decisions. Usually only the top one or two students from a fourth-tier law school will get job interviews. From the third tier, perhaps the top 10 get a shot. From the second tier, the top 10 to 15 percent have a chance.

The latest rankings mean TU moved from the fourth tier (where it has been firmly for the past decade) to the third. So, eight top-flight students just got a chance at the big game. That's eight bottles of champagne that deserve to be popped with the move from 147 to 123.

Get more champagne on ice. The school isn't through moving.
Legal strategy
When Levit talks about the school's strategic plan, she looks like what she is, a zealous advocate for her clients — the students and faculty of the TU law school.

She ticks off the points systematically: the school's three-pronged strategic plan.

Prong one: The school has improved its student body. TU has systematically increased the average standardized law school test scores of its incoming students by a point a year. This year, the school is moving to emphasize higher grade-point averages, too.

In raising the bar, the school has opted for smaller admission classes — TU has become more selective. The incoming class of 2006 had 183 students. In 2007, by TU's choice, that number went down to 160. With the class of 2008 the school again deliberately cut its admission to only 139 students.

If the school deliberately has fewer students and doesn't raise tuition in a radical way — and TU hasn't — that's got to mean less revenue for the university, and it has. Levit credits TU's top administrators and its board of trustees with accepting the cost of moving for excellence.

Not only has the school intentionally decreased its customer base, it has simultaneously increased its scholarship opportunities (65 percent of TU law students are now getting some scholarship money), further evidence of TU's willingness to invest in excellence.

Prong two: The school has improved its curriculum to more precisely prepare students for the practice of law.

That seems like a given — law schools prepare law students to be lawyers. But the academic world is never as simple as that.

The school has increased the number of required core courses for its students, reintroducing a mandatory evidence course and a requirement for a second semester of civil procedures.

It also has added a requirement for a "skill" class — the law school equivalent of a lab science requirement — to make sure students are proficient in real-world skills such as drafting contracts, mediation or trial practice.

For students whose grades aren't great after two semesters, there are even more bar-tested requirements.

The school also has added pre-bar prep classes for its third-year students and dedicated a staff member to working with students to ensure bar exam success.

TU's bar exam pass rate, once consistently below the state average, has been above that standard for five of the past six exams. In the February exams, 88 percent of the school's graduates sitting for the exam for the first time passed.

The school's placement rate also is on the rise. In 2008, U.S. News & World Report showed 92.3 percent of the school's graduates had landed jobs. Next year, the rate will be up to 95.7 percent.

Prong three: The school has elevated the visibility and national reputation of its faculty.

Levit gets even more animated when she talks about how the school targeted topflight new hires this year and landed its top three prospects.

The vitae of the three new professors are indeed impressive, filled with degrees from first-tier, Ivy League schools and previous experience at places like Oxford and top federal appellate courts.

The school is working to make sure its faculty is getting the attention of the nation's legal leaders (who are polled concerning faculty reputation for the U.S. News & World Report standings).

The school is targeting key opinion shapers in the national law community to make sure they know about the accomplishments of the TU law school and especially its faculty members.

Levit says she wants the world to know TU's faculty has an excellent reputation with a proud publication record and excellent pedigree and the devotion of their students.

"This is a school on the move," Levit says.
On from No. 123
So, how high is up?

How good a law school can TU have? How good a law school does it want to have?

And how fast does it want to get there?

Levit talks about cracking the top 100 list — moving into the second tier and setting the stage for a lot more champagne popping among the school's graduates when they're looking for job interviews — in the next three or four years.

That seems like a realistic goal. The University of Oklahoma law schools stands at No. 72 and it's not unreasonable for the state to support two high-flying law schools.

By 2015, the end of the planned 10-year strategic plan, Levit imagines the school having a regional reputation that will attract the best students and lead to the best placements.

When it gets there, she emphasizes, she won't deserve the credit. Her predecessor as dean, former state Treasurer Robert Butkin, started the school's momentum in the right direction and the school's faculty, staff, students, alumni and TU's senior administration, funders and trustees all have pulled most of the load, she says.

It takes a village to impress a news magazine.

But, she points out, it's not really just about getting the attention of U.S. News & World Report.

The real audience isn't the magazine, but potential students, current students, lawyers, donors, alumni and other law schools. The magazine is just a pervasive way of getting the attention of those targets.

"Our goal is excellence," Levit said. "Our goal is excellence in students. Our goal is excellence in training those students for post-graduate opportunities. Our goal is excellence in scholarship."

This is the body of the email. I'm not very computer literate, so this is the best I could do without trying too hard.

[D. H2Oman]

I don't know you, but I know enough to hate you

[treeofsmoke]

I don't know you, but I know enough to hate you

Okay, so my reading of the email takes some analysis, and I understand that it wasn't written speciifically by the school. They were, however, the ones forwarding it to me and I thought it was strange that their selling point was "Now maybe, like, ten of our graduates every year are going to get good legal jobs..."

Was I wrong for this?