Prof. Campos:

Today my girlfriend received the email below from Rutgers. By way of background, she has never even thought seriously about going to law school, let alone registered or taken the LSAT, or even registered or taken an LSAT prep course. She has taken the GMAT, and scored moderately well. Apparently that is enough to get you into Rutgers Law School. Notice that the requirement is that you've scored in the 70th percentile on any single section of the GMAT, and a UGPA of 3.3. You can almost smell the desperation for new applicants… waiving the application fee and the deposit fee makes this even more clear. Their completely nonsense employment data regarding their class of 2011 is a far cry from their Law School Transparency profile, based on 2010's data, which boasted a $56k mean salary with fully 19% unemployed. Somehow their average law firm salary jumped $28k in one year, in the middle of the worst time for young lawyers in a generation. Anyway, just thought you'd like to see one additional facet of law school admissions offices' despicable conduct. You've got to keep getting the word out on this insanity; the ABA has completely abdicated its responsibility for keeping our profession credible.

From: admissions@camlaw.rutgers.edu
Date: May 17, 2012 5:40:21 PM CDT
To:
Subject: Rutgers School of Law - Camden
Rutgers School of Law
Dear __________,
In the ever-volatile job market, you may be considering graduate school. Consider this - Rutgers School of Law - Camden is giving high-achieving students, such as you, the opportunity to enroll in the Fall 2012 class. The traditional law school program is a three-year program, which is extremely attractive to most graduate students given the difficult economy. The program is open to all students who have completed their undergraduate education with a 3.3 GPA or higher and scored in the 70th percentile or higher on any one core section of the GMAT. If accepted at Rutgers law School at Camden, you will join other bright, talented students who are pursuing their legal education at our law school. To encourage you to participate in the program, the Law School is waiving the application fee, and if accepted, the $300 deposit fee. Joint JD/MBA degrees with the Graduate School of Business are also possible. Scholarship awards and in-state tuition are available.
The School is proud to carry on the tradition of excellence at Rutgers University, which is one of the oldest and largest public institutions of higher learning in the nation. As a direct result of the quality of legal education at Rutgers, of those employed nine months after graduation, 90% were employed in the legal field and 90% were in full time positions. Our average starting salary for a 2011 graduate who enters private practice is in excess of $74,000, with many top students accepting positions with firms paying in excess of $130,000. In a recent Forbes publication, Rutgers School of Law-Camden was ranked 18th nationally as one of the "Best Law Schools for Getting Rich". Rutgers is also ranked high in the nation at placing its students in prestigious federal and state clerkships.
I hope that you will consider this opportunity and join this class. Please apply on-line at our web site at http://camlaw.rutgers.edu. We are a direct student loan institution so financial aid is easily processed. We also have newly constructed on-campus law school apartments available, adjacent to the Law School and the Federal Courthouse, and guaranteed for our law students.
Sincerely,
Camille Andrews
Associate Dean of Enrollment

I received an email from Savannah Law School (non-accredited) two weeks ago basically saying the same thing.

"Dear _________, So school is finally winding down. You are about to graduate and your whole life is ahead of you. The question is, what to do with your life? Why not Savannah Law School? ...."

Then the letter went on to describe the environment as charming and laid back, etc. Pretty much said nothing about the law school itself, only the city of Savannah.

It's a sad, sad world we live in... I'm torn between feeling sad for the suckers this tripe induces and hating them for being so stupid. Obviously, schools like Savannah make me incredibly upset. I never heard of them, so I looked them up. They are a brand new law school, like we need more, and they are not accredited and, according to a blurb on their website, they won't be accredited by the time their first classes graduate either. Sickening.

But you get to say you go to SLS, and you get a full tuition scholarship because of your AMAZING LSAT and GPA (3.0/153) LOLOLOL


LSAT GPA Award

153+ 3.0+ 100 percent

153+ 2.5+ 75 percent

150+ 3.0+ 75 percent

150+ 2.5+ 50 percent

148+ 3.0+ 50 percent

....Only cost? 3 years of one's life. Where do I sign up!?

Pretty pathetic.

Here's an example of what law schools are trying to pull off in an environment of declining enrollments and increasing criticism of their reporting practices.


Email:



A few notes:

(1) This school is trying to get someone who knows absolutely nothing about law school, let alone the legal profession, to start law school three months from now, essentially on what would have to be a whim. How responsible is this when there's one legal job available (at best) for every two law grads?

(2) The quoted employment statistics are deeply misleading to the point of fraud. The line about "our average starting salary for a 2011 graduate who enters private practice is in excess of $74,000" omits to mention that only 29% of the class went into private practice, and less than half of that group had their salaries reported. An accurate statement would be "7% of the class (14 of 199 graduates) reported a median salary in private practice of $60,000 or higher." The "many top students" making a salary of more than $130,000 consists of a total of at most six students in the 2011 class. (Statistics here: http://camlaw.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/2011%20charts%20%26%20sample%20list%20of%20employers.pdf)

(3) I guess the new trend is to publish horrible employment statistics and then characterize them as reasons to go to law school -- which is a strategy that might work when you're hitting up people who have literally never looked at a law school employment chart in their lives, because they never even thought about going to law school until they were asked to apply by one.

I don't understand why people on TLS are surprised about this, they're running the law school like a business. In order to sell the product, you advertise. If people are stupid enough to fork over $200K and 3 years of their life because they were convinced to go to law school due to superficial research, then I say good luck to them and god bless America.

As far as the numbers are concerned, I'm an 0L, so I don't know whether it's illegal or not, but it looks like they're massaging the numbers in their favor. I'm sure law schools aren't the only institution doing this.

I don't understand why people on TLS are surprised about this, they're running the law school like a business. In order to sell the product, you advertise. If people are stupid enough to fork over $200K and 3 years of their life because they were convinced to go to law school due to superficial research, then I say good luck to them and god bless America.

As far as the numbers are concerned, I'm an 0L, so I don't know whether it's illegal or not, but it looks like they're massaging the numbers in their favor. I'm sure law schools aren't the only institution doing this.

I don't understand why people on TLS are surprised about this, they're running the law school like a business. In order to sell the product, you advertise. If people are stupid enough to fork over $200K and 3 years of their life because they were convinced to go to law school due to superficial research, then I say good luck to them and god bless America.

As far as the numbers are concerned, I'm an 0L, so I don't know whether it's illegal or not, but it looks like they're massaging the numbers in their favor. I'm sure law schools aren't the only institution doing this.

It is one thing to advertise in your favor and I have no problem with that. But to out right lie is quite another thing. I believe they call that fraud in other industries.

The thing is that Rutgers isn't actually lying, which makes it so difficult to change their behavior. They are just selectively sharing their statistics and being very careful with their words.

For example the part about "many top students accepting positions with firms paying in excess of $130,000". Anyone who is familiar with the kind of careful reading required for the LSAT knows that "many" simply refers to more than 1.

The thing is that Rutgers isn't actually lying, which makes it so difficult to change their behavior. They are just selectively sharing their statistics and being very careful with their words.

For example the part about "many top students accepting positions with firms paying in excess of $130,000". Anyone who is familiar with the kind of careful reading required for the LSAT knows that "many" simply refers to more than 1.

"To establish a false advertising claim under the Lanham Act, a plaintiff must prove: 1) that the defendant has made false or misleading statements as to his own product" (emphasis added)

In contrast to claims of literal falsity, "where the advertisements are not literally false, plaintiff bears the burden of proving actual deception by a preponderance of the evidence. Hence, it cannot obtain relief by arguing how consumers could react; it must show how consumers actually do react." Sandoz Pharm. Corp. v. Richardson-Vicks, Inc., 902 F.2d 222, 228-29 (3d Cir. 1990).

Doesn't need to be false.

Quoting from some case law (since Rutgers is in NJ, I'll rely only on the 3rd Circuit)





There are plenty of people on the internet whose blogs and forum posts could be used as evidence of consumers actually being misled.

•55.6% of graduates were known employed in full-time legal jobs. This figure includes an unknown number of temporary jobs and school-funded jobs.
•74.3% graduates were employed in long-term jobs.
•72.2% graduates were employed in full-time jobs.