+1

I agree, I've really enjoyed every last professor I've had and everyone who I've come across that works there has been great. The school does do well in Jersey and some people do manage to trickle over to Philly, it's just a shame to see how poorly things are being run into the ground now. It just seems like there's some new bad press every other week. While the merger did screw up the law school and send it spiraling, it may have been a half-way decent move for the rest of the campus since the Rutgers system is so strangely disjointed.

It's just a shame, even with the merger stopped the school is just reeling and flailing right now. I'm hoping that one day it can recover, but I'm fearful. Even if it does, that'll be a number of years from now.

Please define "fine school for south jersey/Philly" I don't see how they can possibly justify their tuition. It doesn't seem like a "fine" school at all to me. It seems like a desperate school looking to continue getting rich off student loan money. The Dean doesn't even know how much debt students have. He sure has hell doesn't know what the employment outlook is for those kids who are definitely NOT getting a bargain.

I don't know how you can support them except that they are"nice." They might be pleasant on the service but they are not looking to "nice" when it comes to their students and those students' debt and employment.

ETA: I know I sound harsh but I don't mean to be rude to you. I would honestly like to know how you feel this school with its cost and employment rates is a fine school.

Rutgers-Camden is 800x cheaper than most other law schools. It is less than half the cost of SHU. It is $24k/year in-state and EVERYONE gets in-state tuition 1L year (unlike every other law school). Most people have scholarships. I'm sorry, but It's not an expensive school. I know how much it costs because I went there for 1L. My loan debt after 3 years would have been around $60k total if I had stayed including COL (and with my scholarship).

I'll take your word that its a decent school for NJ and it is obviously cheaper than most law schools, but this is some rancid TTT shit, and the dean seems like a snake based on that email alone.

It does have a very strong NJ alumni base, but it's employment prospects suck regardless. It's a species that needs to go extinct.

i'm sorry but no matter how nice the dean is, that "reporting 1 year of debt" shit is completely fucking indefensible

Never been a fan of nice but incompetent. +1

This total number is lower than other's I've seen. I wonder what most people graduate with? Is it ok to graduate with even 60k of debt and no job?

Most people I know did not have heavy debt loads. Additionally, there are twice as many NJ state clerkships as there are in other states, because NJ, unlike most other places, has judges that hire clerks yearly (similarly to the way federal clerkships work) rather than career clerks. From most of the jobs, graduates move on to smaller firms (of which there are again, tons in NJ).

Look, I know a lot about the NJ legal market. It's not all sunshine and roses at all. But if you play your cards right and work with the system, which is actually pretty decent, you are NOT going to be SOL forever.

I'd guess the average debt load coming out is probably a big bigger than mine would've been (maybe $100k), which still is NOT good, but it's a fuckload better than it's neighbor to the north, Seton Hall, which charges close to $50k/year for the same exact outcome.

Honestly -- were it up to me -- I'd merge Rutgers-Camden and Rutgers-Newark, move it to New Brunswick, continue to charge reasonable tuition and nuke Seton Hall Law school into oblivion. But I really don't think Rutgers-Camden is a bad institution, and I will continue to defend it as a law school. I'm glad I went there, and I would do it again, even if I ended up median and/or never transferred.

This is the same sentiment from pretty much every RU-C law student I've talked to. Certainly is reassuring to hear from you, keg. Thanks.

Bit hypocritical don't you think? If you're going to get angry when people mock your school, you should think twice before you mock another person's school.

P.S. I'd go to UCI over Rutgers ANY day.

PSA: Jah'rakal is a troll and can be ignored.

Multiplying the reported one-year figure by 3, you get roughly $82,200 of average debt (which may actually be less than median if a decent number of outliers on parental support or scholarships are skewing the average). Is that the super-insane number you see from some schools? No, but it's still a lot of freaking money, especially if it's difficult to find gainful employment afterwards.



I don't think this is a good thing. I mean, it keeps graduates working and improving their legal skills which I definitely think is a positive, but if there are twice as many state clerks as other states, then presumably the credential is roughly half as valuable. Thus I'm not really sure how RU-C's ability to place students in these abundant clerkships is that important or useful.

Then you know nothing about legal hiring *in NJ*. Are you from there? Do you know lawyers there?

Look, I'm not saying these are OMG!Preftigious clerkships like A3's. I'm saying, that's how you get an attorney job in NJ. That's how small and midsized firms do their hiring -- off of these clerkships. It's been that way in NJ for the last 50+ years.

And yes, I know the debt-load still isn't actually small. I'm saying it's relatively small. And if you're from NJ and you get a scholarship, it's a much better deal then going to say, UIUC at sticker.

So by your marginal utility theory of NJ law clerks: for every additional State Court Clerk in NJ, the likelihood of a firm hiring a NJ clerk decreases? You think firms think that way?

I think firms think, “Oh, a clerkship! That’s a nice credential!” which gives you an edge over people without clerkships. But if half the class gets a clerkship, is it really that much of a differentiating factor?

My apologies, forgot I don’t know anything about NJ legal hiring. Apparently the only way to know something is through personal experiences rather than, gasp, statistics! Or at least that’s what the Cooley trolls tell me about the Michigan legal market.

No one cares about a clerkship at the ULTRA PREFTIGIOUS 4th District Traffic Court

Check you necessary vs. sufficient conditions.

Italicized is actually pretty true. Almost everyone I've worked with this summer got their jobs through clerking with a state appellate judge or something along those lines. They get to know local attorneys personally and then they pick them up after their clerkship has run its course. Every

Despite the truth to that, what does worry me is that while like 30+% of the class goes into these type of clerkships after graduation, we never get a statistic of how many of those people actually land jobs afterwards. When you have a fulltime long term bar required employment rate of 56% and when a vast majority of those are local clerkships you never get a truly accurate picture of what legitimate long-term employment is. That is my real hang up on the employment statistics.

That all said, if you put your back into the work there and follow the success guides found on TLS, you won't be crippled coming out of there. Can you do worse than RU-C? Significantly. Is it the best choice for a lot of people? Not by a long shot. It's just another local school that puts some students in low level legal jobs, fine if you're not shooting for the moon and can keep your debt close to nothing.

People who don't understand NJ hiring: the small/midsized firms don't look at the clerkship as a credential at all. They are used to make connections in the local community. Judges make calls to their former firms. If you work with a criminal law judge, you get to know the local prosecutors/defense attorneys. Same thing on the civil side with firms. It's not a big legal community, and people do *know* each other. This is how you make connections. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with prestige. This is just how hiring works in NJ. But please, go ahead and denigrate a hiring practice that you don't even know anything about minus L4L posts from 2-3 years ago before he was banned .

I'm not saying Rutgers-Camden is the best choice for 99% of law students. However, If you are from NJ (especially from south NJ or the Philadelphia area), want to work in the local markets (not in BigLaw), and keep your debt low, you will be okay. If you want BIG-MARKET, BIGLAW, then don't go to law school outside of the T14.

CUNY can do it with 12K. I don't see why RUC has to be 24K if the hiring is as described ITT.

Perhaps because tuition isn't even loosely correlated with employment in any way?

CUNY is pretty much an exclusively public interest school. That is its niche in the market, and it's really the only thing that it's known for. They also do not have the resources to really support their students during summer internships (a huge majority of which are unpaid) and bar prep. So yes, it's the cheapest option in the five boroughs and surrounding areas, but you'd better be dead set on PI before you even think about attending.

If so then why does tuition need to be so damn high? 24K in-state is a fuckton, maybe not relative to other law schools. But 120K of debt is a lot to take on for a shot at NJ local court clerkships and maybe a small firm job after that. Maybe RUC should look into changing its business model to attract students.



Well it seems as if students expect RUC to give them a shot at local clerkships and small firms/local NJ government. So it is not public interest, but still very low paying.